Here’s a short 🙂 list of the plants I have identified out on the land so far. I’m sure I will be adding lots more as the days go on.
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Monthly Archives: June 2006
Newest pics
OK, so here are the most recent pictures of our little cabin. If you walk in the front door you will look into our living room:
If you walk across the room to the futon and turn around, you will see our kitchen:
If you turn your head just slightly to the left, you can see the dining area:
If you climb up the stairs and look you see our bedroom (the bed is up on a platform so that we have lots of storage underneath):
Turn your head slightly to the left and you will be in Kaia’s room (her bed is on a platform too. The rooms are seperated by a large bookshelf):
If you walk into Kaia’s room and turn around, you will see the closet and my office space, as well as the stairs (behind the bureau).
This is a picture of the outhouse we are building… Still not done yet, but our first party is tomorrow night, so it has to be done by then! Kaia wants to paint it purple with sparkles… anyone know if a good source of purple, sparkly paint?? 🙂
We had been keeping track of all our expenses on a spreadsheet to figure out how much this house has cost us, but a magnet go dropped on our computer and erased the hard drive… SO, my best guesstimate is that this hosue has cost us somewhere between $2K – 3,500 to build (depending on if you include the lost wages for Toby going to collect wood from arkansas and all that jazz.) Of course there is also the cost of the land and the road being built, but that will also be repaid to us as we sell off spots for the ‘community’ we build. Not too bad, eh?
Yes, I’m still here!
Hey there!! Long time no blog! I know, I know… I need to post more pictures! So, if any of you dedicated readers out there are are really that excited to see our progress, I invite you to come on out and set up some solar panels and a satellite system so that we can get internet out here! Otherwise… you’ll have to wait for the big installment. 🙂
Things are chugging right along here at Dandelion Homstead! We are finally starting to feel like we are home. We have a week of parties this week, so we have to get things in order… at least a little. Wed. night some friends are coming over for a little Summer Solstice celebration. Thursday night, I am having a bunch of herbies up there, including Matthew Wood (who is teaching a weekend class in Asheville this weekend! woohoo!) for a Solstice celebration. Then, Saturday, Kaia will be 3 and we are having our 3rd Annual Mid-Summer’s Day KaiaFest! The cool thing is that everyone knows we have no power, no water (our well pump died last Saturday), and just a bucket to poop in. So, I don’t feel like I have to host this huge shindig. All the parties will be laid back and go-with-the-flow.
We have put in a little kitchen and found a two-burner gas stove top that will fit perfectly in our small space. The closet has been built up stairs. We have decided to go with “pallet” shingles for the exterior siding. We’ve found lots of pallets (free) and are cutting up the wood to make shingles. Then we dip them in stain and put them up. It’s going to be SOOO CUTE!! I will post pictures once we get that started. We have also started (and will finish tomorrow) the ‘out house’ It is close to the compost pile so you don’t have to carry the buckets too far. (Yes, I will put a crescent moon on the door!)
The day old chicks are set to arrive on the 26th! I can’t wait to get them set up! I haven’t seen the coop we are getting yet (toby’s brother is giving us one) but I hear it is pretty swank 🙂 I got Juliete di Bairacli Levy’s book on herbal care of farm animals and it is fantastic! It has a section on Bee care and chickens (like how to use elder branches to splint a broken chicken leg!)
The bees are ok. One hive, the one with the laying worker, died. Toby added a new package of bees to the hive and they seem to be doing well. The other hive is without a queen (the one that hatched a queen with a missing wing). So, we got some brood from Toby’s Bro. and put it in the hive to give them a chance to grow another queen. So far, no dice… so we may need to buy a new queen for that hive.
Shesh, what else has been going on??? OH, we were out for a walk the other day and noticed all these squashed, red berries on the ground. They looked like cherries but I didn’t see a tree anywhere, until I looked up… way up!!! This cherry tree has to be at least 50 feet tall, and full of cherries!! Unfortunately, we can’t reach any of them! I may go throw some bed sheets out there and see if I can catch any! Oh, and we just began getting our first black raspberries from a little vine by the pond.
The garden is doing really well considering I have put absolutely no effort into it since I planted the seedlings. Our tomatos have blooms, the squash is growing, we are eating kale, chard, pea sprouts, lambs quarters, plantain, and other yummies almost daily. The strawberries are done for this season, but we got a ton out of them for their first year in the ground!
School is going great! Only 6 weeks left until I can officially call myself a “clinical herbalist”. I have started seeing clients at school and it feels really good. I am going to try to have my paper (on proving myself as an herbalist) published about the same time I graduate to see if I can drum up some new clients that way. I have also decided to use my tattoo design as my logo (tree of life with a moon behind it and a spirit in the tree). I think that goes well with the name “Sacred Forest Herbals”.
Update
Things at the house are going pretty well. We had planned on being fully moved by now, but, well we all know about the best-laid plans… We do have the little house mostly set up, and we are living there now. We still have some stuff at the apartment but hope to finish the move tomorrow. K got really sick this past week and spent 6 days with a high fever. Even with Tylenol, her fever would come right back up. It’s scary how helpless Toby and I felt! I know the stress of the move didn’t help any of us either! Kaia is doing better now and we are all settling into the new place. We have so many projects ahead of us, we aren’t sure what to do next, but it will be one of the following: set up some water system for the house, set up a bathroom, set up a solar system, clean out that big tub I got so we can take baths (outdoors:-)), clean up the extra lumber from the front yard, begin finalizing the ‘big’ house plans, build a deck, move the chicken coop to the land…and more. Wow, living a simply life is complicated!
I spent yesterday at the Medicines from the Earth conference put on every year by Gaia Herbs. It was awesome! The conference lasts for 4 days, but I only went today (too much to do at home). I went to talks about Herb/Nutrient Combinations by Bill Mitchell, Medicinal/Invasive Herbs to use for Energy Production by James Duke, and one on the mind/body connection in relation to illness and stress by Omar Cruz. All amazing talks!
“Eat Shit and Die”
I heard a statement in the news the other day that makes me want to scream!! Generation Y, the young kids today (which includes my baby) are predicted to be the first generation to die before their parents! You know why? Because of all the shit we feed them! Kids under 20 are already starting to have problems with obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, and other illnesses that we aren’t supposed to see until old age (if we see them at all). So here’s what I know… in the 1920’s people were eating fresh, whole foods; foods that were produced by the farmer next door. In the 1940’s all the men went to war, all the women went to work in the factories for the war. New chemicals were developed in these factories… chemicals that include pesticides and preservatives. It was an effort to produce more food and make it last longer. A good thought… unfortunately, they couldn’t have predicted the repercussions! In the past 3 generations, we have seen the invention of processed foods, preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, chemical hormones, food colorings and other additives. Not to mention the invention of the TV that we veg out in front of to eat these processed chemical foods! In the past 3 generations, we have also seen an increase of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive issues, and inflammatory diseases. I wholeheartedly believe that it is directly related to what we are eating. As a society we are over fed but under nourished! No, I cannot sit here and tell you that I cook every meal from my garden, or that I don’t get that box of Mac and Cheese on occasion. But, as of this moment, I am making it my duty to be damn sure that my daughter doesn’t die before I do because of what I fed her! I challenge all the parents out there to do the same! Let’s start eating more whole foods, unprocessed foods, foods that haven’t been chemically altered! Let’s start buying foods locally, that aren’t adulterated with preservatives, or hormones. I know it takes more effort to eat this way. Believe me… I know! I guilt myself every time I pour my daughter that bowl of processed, high sugar cereal. But, what could be more worth the effort of healthy, whole food eating than the life of your children?? If you need a good place to start, I would recommend Sally Fallon’s book “Nourishing Traditions”, or any other whole foods cook book (any other recommendations?)