Homestead Highlight on Backyard Farming Connection

Interested in learning a little more about me, how I got started with backyard farming, and why I think it’s so important to live this way? Continue reading

Slippery Elm Balls for Digestive Distress

Medicine doesn’t have to taste gross or be filled with ingredients that a normal human cannot pronounce (let alone comprehend where they came from!).  In fact, one of our first lines of medical help can be in the form of healing, all-natural products from plants we can identify outdoors that are made in our own kitchens with ingredients we trust.  This is herbal medicine. It is people’s medicine.

The following recipe is for a fun, easy to make, and even easier to eat herbal ball that helps to calm digestive issues.  Eat too much? Have heartburn? Feeling a general sense of malaise in your digestive region?  Give a slippery elm ball a try! Continue reading

Herbal Ice Cubes

Hurry! Before the killing frosts come (if it’s not already too late)!  Try these herbal ice cubes as a way to preserve the last of your culinary herbs.   Continue reading

The Fall Garden and Her Vegetable Soup

The peak of gardening has passed, but there are still plenty of things to be seen, done, and harvested this time of year.

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Straw Bale House in the City

Humans have been creating homes out of the Earth for as long as we’ve existed.  It’s only recently that we’ve been building structures out of synthetic materials that may emit hazardous chemicals into our living spaces, and have consistently increased the size of the homes that we live in so that we must import materials from other regions and use massive amounts of fossil fuels in their construction. Continue reading

Lemon Verbena All-Purpose Cleaner

It’s the time of year for harvesting herbs — to dry, freeze, make into medicine, and for use in recipes.

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Mabon. The Start of Fall.

Saturday was Mabon, the beginning of fall, and I can feel the change in many ways.  It’s amazing how abruptly it becomes obvious that the days are shortening, shadows are longer, the humidity of summer has broken, and that nights now require blankets. Continue reading

Healing Plantain Salve

Awhile back, I posted about the medicinal benefits of the common “weed” plantain (Plantago spp.) and described the process of infusing it in olive oil.  (Read about it here!)  Continue reading