Perma-Blitz in Chardon, OH! We need your help!

Light Footsteps and Resilient Health cordially invite you to a PERMA-BLITZ!

We’re having people over this weekend Saturday, May 9 and the following weekend Sunday, May 17.  Come any time after 11 AM and stay as long as you’d like!  If you’d like to plan around mealtimes, we’ll be having pizza at 6:00 on Saturday and a potluck at 6:00 on Sunday. We even have plenty of space for camping in our field or the woods.  Bring your friends and come have some fun!

What the heck is a perma-blitz?! It’s a convergence of people who get together for a short time to make a BIG project come together.  It’s also about meeting and networking with like-minded individuals, learning about permaculture, sharing what you know, and having fun outdoors.

Here at our homestead we have some BIG ideas for the future, and we’re trying to make a lot of headway this spring.

Some of the projects we’d like help on are our:

  • 2500 sq ft Keyhole garden
  • Kitchen garden
  • Herb spiral
  • Orchard swales
  • Medicine wheel garden
  • Sun garden

IMG_1662IMG_1657

We’ve done a lot of the design and prep work:

  • We sheet mulched a space for the medicine wheel garden in the fall, added more mulch this spring, and it is ready to be planted.
  • In order to turn our lawn into garden beds and orchards, we cut paths by hand with shovels, and rented a sod-cutter to establish the keyhole beds and to prep the swales and sun garden
  • We’ve stockpiled cardboard to be applied to some of the keyhole garden beds that will be covered with soil and planted with nitrogen fixing plants until next season
  • We’ve imported a couple tons of soil and mulch, which need to be applied to the beds

IMG_1632IMG_1631

We need your help, and there are a number of things you might do:

  • Move soil and mulch
  • Plant fruit/nut trees, herbs, vegetables
  • Help to design a forthcoming sun trap, pond, and food forest
  • Occupy our 18 month old

If nothing else, stop by to meet our chickens and new bees!

bees

Please CLICK HERE to find our address and telephone number to call for more info/help finding us (I prefer not to place them here so I can avoid spam calls and the like!).  Email us at christine (at) lightfootsteps (dot) com.  Please bring shovels and rakes if you can!

Can’t attend, but still interested in helping?  You can donate to our fiscally-sponsored non-profit HERE (it is tax-deductible). Please, also feel free to contact us about volunteering at another time.

The Bee Bus Arrived!

Mr. LF and I have planned to add bees to our homestead for quite some time.  In our permaculture design, bees are an important part of how our plants will be pollinated, and we use a lot of raw honey in our herbal medicines.  Bees have always been a must-have!

We are happy to announce that they recently arrived and we are now beekeepers!

Mr. LF went to a local garden store where he previously took a beekeeping class and picked up the Bee Bus.

IMG_1590

Continue reading →

The Best Way to Create Harmony in Your Home & Life – Dawn Gettig’s #1 Tip

Today we have a guest post by the talented and inspirational Dawn Gettig.  She will share her #1 tip for creating harmony and balance in your home and life. 

I have been assisting clients with Medicine Wheel, Yoga and creating Sacred Space for years now, and I want to share with you my favorite tip on how to create harmony and balance in one’s environment and life.  This tip is the reason Feng Shui (creating Sacred Space) and Medicine Wheel were created as an art, science and philosophy thousands of years ago.  Therefore, my favorite tip is to bring a lot of nature into your home and life.   Nature is the purest model for creating harmony and balance. Nature inspires great music, design, art, food and so much more.

Artwork by Dawn Gettig

Artwork by Dawn Gettig

Here are a few quick and easy ways to bring nature into your spaces and senses:

The scent of nature

  • Regularly use lavender and other fragrant herbs or essential oils in your home for a naturally fragrant smelling home.
  • Weekly create simple flower arrangements and place them in key areas of your home to uplift the energy.
  • Be sure to have houseplants in your rooms year round to keep the air fresh and reduce indoor toxins.
  • Open your windows and bring in fresh air.   People often don’t open their windows — in the winter it is too cold, in the summer too hot! I have neighbors who never ever open their windows, creating very stagnant energy in the home.

The sounds of nature

  • Listen to a CD of soothing nature sounds and absorb the lovely music made by animals, birds and the ocean. Remember sound has power and can create an atmosphere of sanctuary!
  • Again, open the windows and you will hear so many wonderful sounds. At my home at night we often hear an owl in the backyard and it brings us much joy and connection to nature.

The colors of nature

  • When choosing colors in your home, be sure to choose the natural colors of nature.   Scientific studies show color can evoke feelings. For example; lovely natural blue tones will bring more flow and peace, yellows and orange more joy and sociability, and add green for harmony and healing.

The feel and texture of nature

  • Purchase bamboo or cotton (preferably organic) sheets and you will either consciously or subconsciously feel greater relaxation when sleeping on natural fabric.
  • Use natural rugs and flooring materials instead of synthetic items. Synthetics release toxins in your living areas which can cause health issues in children and adults (and pets).

The taste of nature

  • Bring the natural flavors of nature into your spaces and you will enjoy greater health. Unnatural flavorings and other processed ingredients are in many food products on the market today and these can create health issues.

The unseen quality of nature

  • In your home and body there is vital life force energy (also called Chi) that moves in and all around us. If you keep your home free of clutter and do most suggestions above then you will have good Chi flowing in your home, in turn you will breathe freer and enjoy greater health and peace of mind.

Bringing nature into your home and senses will make you feel better mentally, emotionally and physically.

Dawn's photoDawn Gettig lives in her nature-filled home in Kirtland, Ohio with her husband and two daughters. She is an advanced certified Medicine Wheel, Feng Shui and Space Clearing practitioner. She also teaches yoga and is a mixed media artist. Follow Dawn on Facebook , Pinterest or visit her website at dawngettig.com.

Three Ways to Feel More Connected with Nature

Today you can find a guest post about my three favorite ways to feel more connected with nature on Dawn Gettig’s blog.  She’s an amazing and inspirational yogini, artist, and feng shui practitioner who will be sharing some of her favorite feng shui tips with us here in a few days.

Please hop on over to my article on her blog: Three Ways to Feel More Connected with Nature.

We also love to connect with nature by visiting some of our favorite natural places.  Holden Arboretum had its annual Arbor Day Festivities over the weekend and we had a wonderful time searching for wildflowers (I found some gorgeous bloodroot and twin leaf!) and playing in Buckeye Bud’s adventure area for kids.  Continue reading →

The most wonderful time of year….(spring!)

Each season has its highlights, but I don’t think there’s anything quite so wonderful as Spring.
IMG_1369

Everything has me speaking in exclamation points.

“Did you HEAR the spring peepers?!?!” I bound through the house asking Mr. Light Footsteps while doing a few twirls.

“You wouldn’t BELIEVE the plants we saw on our walk today!” I exclaim as I fail to contain my enthusiasm and speak through jumps.

I doubt everyone gets quite so excited about such spring-things, but these are the finer points in life that I believe in celebrating.  Continue reading →

Scenes from (Early) Spring

It’s starting to feel more and more like Spring on the farm!

…And it’s starting to feel more and more like we actually live on a farm!

IMG_0930 IMG_1110

Maple production has continued.  We finished our 3rd batch this past weekend and it was the best one yet.  This week we’re in the midst of the fastest rushing sap we’ve seen so there will be at least a 4th (and probably a 5th) installment of our syrup!

We’ve tried boiling the sap down a number of ways – a grill, a rocket stove, and this last time we used a portable electric cooktop that we placed outside.

I think the rocket stove was the most fun, but we had a hard time keeping the sap boiling and it took a lot longer than it should have (like, 10 hours!).  We finished the last bit of sap on the kitchen stove and ended up with a decent amount of syrup.

The electric cooktop definitely won the contest for the most efficient way to boil down the amount of sap we collected. Continue reading →

Spring is on the Way {So is the New Herbal Wellness Basket!}

You know we’re getting closer to Spring in Ohio when it’s 45 degrees outside and I’m pulling out the lawn chair to soak up the sun.

Yes, there may still be snow on the ground, but these spring rays are just begging for someone to soak them up.  I will. IMG_0811

In the past week, the bird song has increased steadily each morning.  In addition to the usual chorus of black capped chickadees and cardinals, I’ve even begun hearing the red-winged blackbirds outside.  This is surely a sign that Winter’s fingers are unfurling their grasp around Northeast Ohio.

With the warming days we’ve been out playing in the yard, and joyfully been exploring the process of tapping our maple trees.  We do, after all, live in the heart of Ohio’s maple syrup kingdom.

IMG_0801 Continue reading →

Walking Mindfully

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” —John Muir

IMG_0679Today I was reminded of how important it is for me to do walking meditation.

There are many ways one can train and focus the mind, but walking meditation is by far my favorite, and I think it’s also an important part of feeling more connected with the natural world. Continue reading →

Upcoming Class & the February Newsletter

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day weekend.  We had a very snowy Valentine’s Day, but we made the best of it with pancakes, a warm fire, and lots of good family time.

In case you missed it, we sent out the February newsletter for Light Footsteps last Thursday.  You can read it HERE.  Also, consider subscribing so that you’re always in the know with what’s happening at the Light Footsteps Farm!

In the newsletter this month, I talked a little about turmeric and how to use this awesome anti-inflammatory herb in eggs. Yum!

I also mentioned that I’ll be leading an upcoming class where we’ll discuss preventative health and home remedies that are available in most everyone’s kitchen.  It’s called Kitchen Cabinet Remedies and it is happening at Balance & Thrive on Monday, February 23 from 6:30 – 7:30.

We’ll talk more about turmeric and a variety of other herbs and common foods that you’re likely to already have at home.   View this flyer to learn a little more or sign up HERE.

I hope to see you there!