My recent favorites:

• I always like looking at new ways to make natural and herbal cleaning products
• Not just sometimes, I want it real and imperfect all the time, thank you very much
• Touchscreen
• The Great Grapefruit Scouring Scrub – I know grapefruit is supposed to have some antibacterial properties but I’m thinking you could do this scrub with any dried citrus peels

Please feel free to share your favorites in the comments, I always love checking them out.

Print this entry

January life seems to be made up of small, quiet moments for me.  Nothing is moving too fast and everything has this sleepy quality.  Everything seems to be in a holding pattern waiting for spring.

I enjoying watching the snow fall and land in fluffy piles.  We’ve been strangely without the white stuff until recently.

The cats like Jeff and I seek out the sun rays whenever they appear and bask in them our faces absorbing as much warmth and Vitamin D as we can.

There are plenty of quiet moments with the sewing machine and knitting needles too – photos of those projects coming soon.

How about you, what moments are you enjoying?

Print this entry

I meet once a month with a group of women, a group of friends who I call my simplicity circle.  It’s always a great time, a time of great rejuvenation for me.  Generally we hang out for about 2 hours, we eat an incredible pot luck meal and then tackle some kind of project together.  We visit, we share trials, tribulations, successes, dreams, and plans, we get and share advice and most of all we have a good time.

This past weekend we got together for our monthly gathering and we made lip balm together.  It was a ton of fun and three different and absolutley delicious flavors of balm were created – chocolate mint, honey lemon, and a mint healing & cooling.

These women are amazing on so many different levels and while we don’t hang out much in between gatherings, I consider them my closest friends.  They inspire me to just try whatever crazy idea I come up with next.  Nothing is too outlandish or silly to them, do-it-yourselfers each and every one of them.

It seems cliche to say that I have found my tribe, but that is exactly how I feel.  This group of women who give of themselves, share skills, offer good advice, trade garden produce and more, have helped me create a community for which I am continually blessed.

 My wish for you, dear reader, on this Monday is that you find a community that blesses you in some way.

Print this entry

My recent favorites:

• 5 Tips for Food Photography
• Susy’s new blog: Eat Outside the Bag
• No Maple Syrup by 2100?
• Allergy Free Brownies, I seriously can’t stop thinking about those.  I have a potluck this weekend and might have to make and take those to avoid too much temptation
• Somebody That I Used to Know by Walk Off the Earth

How about you, care to share your favorites?  If so, share away in the comments.

Print this entry

My kitchen and cooking habits are more seasonal than even I realize sometimes.  It’s not always about what’s being prepared, though there is that too, I’m not cooking any asparagus this time of year for example.  My routines are seasonal too.   We eat more soups in fall and winter, salads in spring and summer.  More things are coming out of glass jars during this season whereas in late summer tons of goodness is being put into jars and shelved for these days right now.

There are some fresh meals but not as many as in the garden flush days of summer.  Still most everything is slow cooked over a period of a day and again lots of soups made with homemade bone broths.

In fact homemade bone broths are the only thing going into jars and canners these days.  They don’t stick around for long, jars seem to empty almost as quickly as they were filled.  Still, it’s all so very satisfying – the cooking of the broth, the watching of the pressure gauge, the ping of jars sealing, the whoosh of air as the jar comes unsealed, and of course the devouring of rich, healthy broth is never a bad thing.

What’s happening in your kitchen these days?

Print this entry

There isn’t much snow here in northwest Montana.  It’s been unusually sunny and bright too, this winter.  I’m not complaining about the sunshine but the lack of snow is a little disconcerting.  Still instead of worrying to much about something I can’t control, I choose to enjoy it.  We take walks around the yard, investigating the remaining bits of apples the birds are picking apart.  The cats follow, although Meggy doesn’t really care for walking in the snow much, she stops often to lift and shake her paws.

The snow we do get seems to melt and run from the roof in the matter of minutes, though it’s more like hours.

I can’t complain really, we spend so much of our time inside the home this time of year that it is always nice to get outside and see what’s happening on the grounds too.

How are you enjoying home today, whether indoors or out?

Print this entry

Ever since I read Coming Home to Eatby Gary Paul Nabhan about 6 years ago, I’ve wanted to create a network of local food and folks involved in harvesting, growing, and creating that local food.  It’s been a very gradual and slow process but when I look at my pantry and see the meals gracing our table, I see just how very far we’ve come in making this dream of a local food network a reality.

One of the biggest things for me has been finding a steady source of local, raw goat milk.  I started out with one truly wonderful goat farmer, who had some issues with her supply (breeding issues) and turned me onto another equally wonderful goat farmer, so I now have two sources and get a regular supply delivered to me every single Wednesday.  Yes, delivered.

On Wednesday mornings, my goat farmer brings me a half gallon of fresh milk.  Sometimes it’s so fresh it’s still warm from the morning milking.  I give her back the empty jars from the previous week, pay her and go about my business.  Oh we talk too about things like GMOs, gardening, canning, cooking, and more.  It’s a wonderful connection and I feel so blessed by both of my goat farmers in their kindness, dedication to their product and animals, and their all around amazingness.

I met my goat farmer through my massage therapist who also happens to own an orchard.  It starts small, this food community.  You make one connection that leads to another that leads to another and so on.  I talk about local food to everyone who will listen and in doing so I meet other kindred souls and grow my local food network even more.  It’s a never-ending spiral of simplicity and local food.  Something I’m honestly so very honored to be a part of and something I truly hope I contribute to as much as take.  There are many fringe benefits to being a part of the community, things like getting the juiciest, sweetest peaches God ever created, elk summer sausage, and yes fresh chevre.

I share all this not to brag but rather to encourage.  It can be a slow process, this building of a local food community, but it is well worth it.  Stick with it today and in a few years you’ll be amazed at how much local food graces your pantry.

What kind of food community have you been building or looking for in your corner of the world?

Print this entry

Recent Favorites:

• Grow an Immunity Garden
• I have a love for portrait photography and hippies, so combining the two just makes me smile.
• The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods
• A Free, Printable Birthday Calendar
• Reading the thoughts of other home-canners, always inspires me

As always please feel free to share your recent favorites in the comments, I love checking them out with my weekend morning coffee.

Print this entry

I’ve been a yogurt eater and lover my entire life.  I remember particularly loving the fruit-on-the-bottm types when I was kid.  As an adult I started making my own and even now that I’m allergic to cow dairy I continue to make yogurt from local, raw goat’s milk.  I go through a quart a week.

I have a Salton Yogurt Maker and I love it.  However, there are numerous ways to make yogurt without a maker including the use of dehydrator or an electric heating pad.  Truly you can leave it sit near the wood-stove to incubate as well, just a consistent temperature for 4 to 7 hours is all you need.

When making yogurt you need to have some yogurt starter on hand.  You can use store-bought yogurt the first time and save a bit from each batch moving forward.  If like me, you’re allerigic to cow’s milk and can’t find a goat yogurt in your local store, you can use a store-bought starter.  I use and have had great success with Yogourmet Freeze Dried Yogurt Starter(you can use it for cow’s milk yogurt too).

Once you have your homemade yogurt you can dress it up in a number of ways.  Currently, I like mine with sliced almonds and homemade brandied cranberry sauce.  Fresh berries in the spring and summer is another favorite.  When the garden is producing ample cucumbers a salad of yogurt, cukes, and mint is refreshing and filling.  And don’t forget about making yogurt cheese – it’s mighty yummy in sweet and savory applications.

Print this entry

“Winter is on my head, but eternal Spring is in my heart.” – Victor Hugo

It really hasn’t felt much like winter here in northwest Montana so far, but still I know it’s far to early to be thinking about spring and gardening.  To avoid getting too excited about gardening, I’ve been trying to focus on some projects inside the house, like making laundry soap.

It doesn’t give me quite the satisfaction that digging in the dirt or harvesting a ripe tomato does, but it’s not too shabby either.  There’s something just so satisfying about getting my hands involved in a little manual labor even if it is just grating a bar of soap.  Something so very magical about doing it myself and knowing that I’m working on taking care of our home and our lives in my own unique way.  It might never make the pages of Vanity Fair but it will without doubt grace the pages of my journal, both public and private, and bless this wonderful home and life.  Ordinary magic perhaps but magic none-the-less.

What kind of magic are you creating at home these days?

Print this entry