Join NestWatch to Learn About Birds and Help Science

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Are you interested in learning more about birds in your area, getting outside, and maybe even benefiting bird conservation and research in the process?  Consider joining NestWatch, a free program of Cornell’s department of Ornithology that allows you to become a Citizen Scientist and monitor nesting birds anywhere in the United States. Continue reading

Farm to Table Through the Year – Free Ebook!

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Today I’m happy to announce the debut of a new ebook, Farm to Table Through the Year: 12 Months of Fresh Food From the Garden.  This helpful book is a collection of growing tips, recipes, and inspiration for each of the 12 months of the year.  Continue reading

What is Balance?

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As we move closer to the Spring Equinox and many struggle to feel content and whole in the last days of winter’s grasp, I would like to share a guest post by De’Anna L’am. Continue reading

Adventures in Natural Building: Strawbale Studio

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Walking into Deanne Bednar’s Strawbale Studio in Oxford, Michigan is like walking into the future…or maybe the past.  Either way, it is at the same time homelike as it is ethereal and dreamy.  It is a wonderful, welcoming space in which to find oneself.

Here, you are immediately immersed in a more nature-based state of living: jars of herbs, kombucha, and kefir line the counters, whittling projects lie about the room, and natural trinkets like spiraling wood, herb bundles, and dried flowers can be found in every corner and adorning the walls.

What is more unique to those unfamiliar with natural building techniques are the wonderful Earthen plasters that soften edges, relax the eyes, and bring the outdoors into the home.  Continue reading

An Avian Visitor + Wormville Update

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Nearly every day for the past week, I will suddenly hear raucous alarm calls coming from the flock of sparrows that hang out in the backyard.

It appears that we have attracted a regular visitor who showed up on two separate occasions today. An adorable, killing machine – a Cooper’s hawk. Continue reading

We Must Be the Change

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As I observe people around me, I’ve been noticing a trend –most everybody, in theory, wants to save the Earth.   The problem, however, is that far too few people are willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to ensure a livable future.  The appeal of constant financial progress, of fast food and perfectly temperature-controlled rooms is too great.  The ease of processed foods, disposable diapers, and commuting by car to work is too alluring.  The abundance of cheap clothes, out-of-season foods, electronics, and toxic beauty products is too pervasive to pass by.  We have become perpetual children – looking to others to easily assuage our hunger, temperature, and state of mood.  We expect governmental regulations or some technological breakthrough to fix global warming and the ecosystem issues we fear.  We are unwilling to take the risk that moving toward a new way of living requires.  Continue reading

The First Days of this New Year

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On New Year’s Eve we went cross-country skiing (on snow that clumped a little too easily…). Continue reading