Monthly Archives: April 2006

The most wonderful day!

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I woke up early yesterday, knowing we had a long day of building ahead of us, and went out to take a walk. I decided to walk around the land to places I hadn’t gone before. So, down the hill I go into the rhododendron area thinking, “what am I going to find here? Nothing grows around the rhododendron.” But then, the flora changed and the forest opened up and I saw her… Pink Lady Slipper! Then… I saw another! And another! (I have never found more than 9 lady slippers at one site. She was severely over harvested in the 1900′s for medicine, and has never recovered. She has a symbiotic relationship with the microbes in the soil and only grows in specific areas and is extremely hard to transplant.) So, I began bawling when my count got to over 160 lady slippers, and I decided to stop counting and just enjoy!! There were so many that I had to watch where I stepped so as not to step on them! I can’t begin to explain the feeling I had yesterday morning walking on this amazing, sacred land! I am pretty dure that I am going to change my herb consultations name from “Dandelion Forest Herbals” to Sacred Forest Botanicals”. Good thing I haven’t gotten business cards yet :-)


Anyone know what this one is??? I have heard that there are still wild, but rare, cannabis species around… and I think I have one growing in my new garden!! It sure looks and smells like it… or so I’m told :-)

Weekend progress

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We had a very productive weekend, despite the rain! We stayed up on the land in Toby’s mom’s camper, which was awesome! This was the first time we have actually been able to sleep out on the land! The night was cool and moist, the peeper frogs were singing their songs, and on Sat. night the stars were vibrant! Each morning we would wake up to a misty fog, and the rain has made everything so lush and green! It’s like living in a rainforest.

Here are some pics of this weekends progress: Continue reading →

Long days!

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Ooooh, the last few days have been long! We are spending every spare moment up at the land… What do you think about “Dandelion Homestead”? Is that what we should call the new place?

Anyway, yesterday I got those strawberries that I bartered some herbs for… there were supposed to be ~100 of them, right?? Well, the woman who dropped them off showed up with a 55 gallon bag full of them and there had to be ~600!!! I planted 150 yesterday morning and couldn’t find any more space! I hope they take!! Yum!! (Am I using enough exclamation points for you?) T has also layed out the site for the temporary house and dug the post holes.

Anyhoo, I taught my first class at the school yesterday; Male Anatomy & Physiology for the herbalist. I think it went really well. Sometimes I felt like I was just rambling on, but everyone seemed to be paying attention and asking questions. I also brought the extra strawberries and gave them to whoever would take them!

Right after I taught my class, I sat in on an organic gardening class. We are going to get to take home seedlings from this class, so I really need to get my raised beds going. I wasn’t planning on starting a garden this year since we have so much going on with building the house, but it looks like life has other gardening plans for me :-)

Oh, and you know that class I am taking with Aviva Romm? Well, she has asked if she can use a personal story of mine in her next book. It may not happen, ’cause the book is alreay 1200 pages long, but still, isn’t that cool!

So many other things have happened in the last week, but my brain is fried, so I will go sleep first and write more later.

Sleep tight!

Full Circle Herbs, for sale?

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I have been thinking of selling Full Circle Herbs for a while now. I started the business in 1999 as a way to be able to keep my hands in the herbs while I got up the guts to become a clinical herbalist. I kept it really small because I never wanted to be a business woman. But, now I am getting more into teaching and clinical herbalism and I think it may be time to let go of the business. Instead of being happy when orders come in, I dread it. My time is so busy right now that the last thing I want to be doing in my spare moment is pack up another order. I’ve actually been trying really hard to keep it very small, but it keeps growing. Last year I made $1300. I know that doesn’t seem like much, but that was without any sort of advertising. I have a website, but that’s it. I think that this business could grow very well in the right hands, I just don’t have the desire to do it. So, how do I put a price on this??
I have an established business, established clients, logo and known business name (at least locally), a kick-ass website (thanks T!), a 1-800 #, already made products, and hundreds of herbs! Any thoughts? What would you pay for something like this if you really wanted to own an herb business?

Life in the Hollar

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We spent the morning on the land… I have to think of a better name for our new place… any suggestions? I was thinking about Dandelion Farm (since our address is Dandelion Drive) but that website is already taken :-)

Anyway, we picked up more trash, built two raised beds for the strawberries, and took a great hike. I found some yarrow and mint (I think it is spearmint) where they might have been a garden before, along with some strawberries! Then, as we got into the woods, I started seeing some Blood Root… and then more Blood Root, and then I realized that I couldn’t step anywhere without having to dodge the Blood Root! There is so much of it it is insane! I think I may have also spotted some lady’s slipper starting to come up, some edible berries (raspberry maybe), possibly some Elder, Rue Anemone, and this little dainty plant that looked like a marijuana leaf… maybe a cutleaf toothwort?

We also met one of the neighbors who lives down the street. He came slowly walking up the hill to check us out. Odell is probably about 75, but who knows. He told us that he has had 6 bypass surgeries, so he may only be 50 and in bad shape. Seemed like a nice guy though. We talked for a while and he offered any help he could give. Then, as he turned to go, I noticed the Mother of Pearl six shooter sticking out of his pocket! I guess he takes it with him when he goes out for his walks!! Yikes.

Beautiful day in the neighborhood

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Well, we closed without a hitch! We are now caretakers of 25 beautiful acres! We went up there today for a trash pick up… we go two large boxes full of beer cans and bottles, two 55 gallon bags of trash, and 260 pounds of scrap metal! And we didn’t get it all!! Tomorrow, we will try to finish with the trash and throw down some seed on the banks where the trucks have torn up the grass. Things are looking so lush up there. I found a weeping cherry, some blood root (Sanguinaria canadensis), lots of bulbs, and the dogwoods are blooming white and pink! Kaia decided that today she should have her first ‘nuddie in the creek’ experience. She ended up head-to-toe covered in mud!

On the bee front, both hives are doing well. One is going so strong that we had to split it ’cause they were about to swarm. I can’t wait to get the bees (and all of us for that matter) up to the land. Our lease ends at the end of May. So, we have 2 months to make ourselves comfortable up there and get started on the main house.
(And Kaia keeps saying she wants a baby sister!! Umm, I think we have enough on our hands:-)
FUN, FUN, FUN.

Fun in the sun!

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Can you believe the weather today?!? It got up to 80 degrees here!

Well, I spent last night frantically cleaning the house getting ready for my hoop class. I invited 19 people and had 10 confirmed “Yes”. I spent this morning setting up the front porch, cleaning the dog poop out of the front yard and making this great home-made salsa for the pot luck. Everything was ready to go for the class at 4. Then I waited… and waited… and 4 o’clock rolled on to 5 o’clock. One friend came at 5 (and I already knew she was going to be late). So, now I have to ask… what happened to the rest of them?? I knew there was a possibility that some might not be able to make it, but I have to say that I was a bit perturbed when only one person showed! I was only giving this class because I was asked to, repeatedly, by many of these friends. I spent a freaking $160 on supplies to get all the stuff I was going to need for a class of ~10 people! Now I am stuck with all this stuff that I didn’t want in the first place. I plan on making all these hoops myself and selling them at the next festival I go to, or something like that, so I can make some of this money back.

At ~6:00, my neighbor and his family came over and hooped for a while. It was his 30th birthday, so it was nice to be a part of his celebration. That lightened my mood a good bit. And, I did make a few really cool hoops. I even made K. a sparkly, purple one for her to hoop with.

And what did K. and I have for dinner? Good guess… chips and salsa!