Ladies, meet your new best friend...

Ok, so this post is for the ladies. Seriously... guys, this is your fair warning. This post contains frank discussion about women's monthly cycle and an awesome product that I want to share with all my sustainability loving ladies. If you don't want to read about this kind of thing, I encourage you to stop reading now and perhaps check out one of our other blog posts... perhaps one of our Everyday Herbal posts. :)

You still reading?

Ok... last chance... the real post starts after the break...

Everyday Herbalist

Starting the first week in February, I will be doing a monthly post about herbs that can be grown or found in our gardens or yards (or neighbor’s yards) and that can be easily used in our everyday lives.This blog series will look at how to correctly identify the plant, how to collect it for use, how to grow it in your own garden, how to prepare it for use, and what it can be used for.

I will be introducing a new herb the first week of every month and will continue to post about it throughout the month. If you have questions about the herb we are talking about please feel free to post a comment and I will provide an answer and further discussion. If there are any herbs that you want to know more about please comment on those as well so that I can either provide what I know about it or find out that info for you.

As a little bonus, here is a sneak-peek about preparation and uses of some of the herbs we will be talking about! This past holiday season, we made an herbal salve that we put into lip balm tubes to give out with our Yule presents. The herbal salve was made from dried herbs that were heated in olive oil and then combined with melted beeswax. The herbs used in our salve were Chickweed, Plantain, and Comfrey root. Chickweed will help with cuts, burns (minor), rashes, and eczema. Plantain will help with sunburns, stings, insect bites, snakebites, poison ivy breakouts, rashes, burns, blisters, and cuts. Finally, Comfrey root, because of it's high allantoin content, makes cells grow faster and speeds the whole healing process along. The three plants individually would work well enough (especially the Comfrey) but together they make a well rounded salve for most cuts, burns, bug bites, and stings all in an easy to carry tube. I have already heard a few success stories from the friends that we have given them to who were quite surprised at how quickly their cuts have healed up after using our salve! (Most have reported a huge success using the salve for the dry winter cracks around fingernails and knuckles).

So, keep a lookout for the new blog series that will be coming out in the beginning of February! I hope that you will all find this information useful and engaging, and I hope that it will inspire you to get out in your yard and garden to see what you can do to help yourself in making a healthier you.

If it quacks like a duck...

As some of you might know, a few weeks ago one of our chicky girls, Kiwi, was attacked by one of the neighborhood dogs. She has made a full recovery, but since she was out and away from the other girls for so long they are being kinda rough on her and she is getting bumped down on the pecking order. So, the other day I grabbed her out of the chicken coop and took her over to the duck pen just so she could get outside and away from the rest of the girls for a bit.  Well, that created a monster. Every morning now when I let the girls out, Kiwi is the last one out and promptly jumps the fence, follows me back over toward the house, and hops into the duck pen. Kiwi now thinks she is one of the ducks, but Nibs is not so sure about that.

Duck is standing on the edge of the pool, Houdini and Victoria are to the left,
Kiwi's bum on the right, and Nibs is in the doorway of the little house.

First Hive Inspection

Yahoo! After several days of fighting with my video rendering programs, the first hive inspection video is finally ready! We were delighted to find that the bees have quite a bit of comb built and have settled in quite nicely. We will be opening the hive again soon to check their feeder and make sure they are continuing to make progress. I promise the next video will be posted much sooner as I finally worked out the rendering program kinks. :-)

Without further ado, I give you, the bees:

Bee happy! 

~Sarah

Hiving the Honeybees: The Movie!!

Ok, so I'm sure you all wish you'd been here to watch us get the bees hived as we take our first big steps into the world of beekeeping. Well... good news! Now you can feel just like you were here, except with no danger of being stung (unless you happen to have a bee in your house). I did do a little creative editing to remove some bloopers (such as the point where I got stung and yelped loudly right into the microphone and then filmed several minutes worth of lovely footage of the grass and my shoes). We do hope you enjoy and continue to join us in our journey towards sustainable living.

Thanks for Beelieving in us! (Yeah... the puns are going to be awful for awhile.)  ;)
Sarah