Author Archives: Maria

Toby’s Birthday Cake

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Here ya go, Gina!

Applesauce-Raisin Spice Cake with Maple Cream Frosting
CAKE
3/4 c butter
1 c Honey
2 eggs
2 c unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 c unbleaced white flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 Tbsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
3/4 c raisins

GLAZE
1 c maple syrup
1/2 c heavy cream
2 Tbsp. unbleached while flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flower two 9- or 10- inch cake pans.
For the cake, in a medium-size bowl, cream the butter with the honey until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, applesauce, and vanilla.
In another bowl, stir together the flours, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and cloves.
Beat the dry ingredients into the wet and stir in the raisins.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the cakes on cooling racks for 10 minutes, and then turn them out onto the racks.
To prepare the glaze, heat the maple syrup, cream, and flour in a saucepam over low heat, whisking until it begins to simmer and thickens slightly, about 5 mintues. Cool the glaze in the fridge until the cake is cool.
Place on of the cake layers on a serving plate and spread half the glaze on top. Add the second layer and spread the remaining glaze on top. Cut and serve.

Birthdays, celebrations and house crap

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Toby’s birthday is today, so K and I got up and made him some breakfast, and brought it to him in bed. Then, tonight we got some Thai food (one of his favorites) and I made an “applesauce raisin spice cake with maple cream icing” MMmmmmm.

We are also preparing for our equinox celebration. We made our indian corn necklaces today, and then wore them to the grocery store where we got lots of compliments. We also planned out our menu… I am making spiced apple bread, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, swiss chard casserole and maybe some turkey. We are going to a friends house tomorrow for dinner (we are having our big celebration tomorrow ’cause Toby won’t be here on the equinox), and then to a huge bonfire on Sat. I am really enjoying having celebrations with the seasons! It just makes so much more sense to me.

OK, so the house crap. We sent a letter to the x-buyers letting them know that they had broken the lease and did owe us earnest money, since their reasons for breaking the lease weren’t legal as far as the contract goes. We just got a letter this morning from the x-buyers with the general tone of ‘you guys are idiots and will never win in court with your frivolous claims. We told you we can’t get financing and won’t be able to buy the house. we are right, you are wrong, Suck it!’ Well, had they actually told us that they couldn’t get financing, that would have been a whole different story! My feeling is that they went out and asked someone to deny them credit so that they could send the letter to us. Who knows. ‘Cause otherwise, why would you say “well, we just don’t want to have two mortgages and we may not get approval from the builder” and other crap like that. A simple “we can’t get a loan” would have ended it right there, no questions asked. Oh well, we are totally over it and don’t feel like pushing anything. If it was a missunderstanding, whatever… If they did get someone to give them a ‘no credit’ note after we sent them the letter asking for earnest money… well, Karma baby.

Lata!

SE

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I just spent the past three days at the first annual South East Women’s Herbal Conference and I had a blast!! There were classes Friday, Saturday and Sunday about anything you can think of related to herbs! It was held at Camp Merri-mac, which is a beautiful camp set in woods ~15 minutes from Asheville. Susun Weed was the Keynote speaker, but I wasn’t as impressed with her as I was some of the other herbalist/speakers. I mean, she is very vibrant and fun to watch, but I could see all these people just drinking in what she was saying without even questioning it, just because she is Susun Weed, Goddess Herbalist. Like, ok, she talked about being a Wise Woman herbalist, and claims to have ‘discovered’ this tradition. Um, no, there have been shaman and granny herbalists for thousands of years! I am truly happy that she is helping to give herbalists a name and all, but she is not the founder of the wise-woman tradition. She says that being a wise woman is all about being flexible, being able to adapt to the situation, use your intuition and that there is no set of hard and fast rules. Yet, then she totally contradicted herself by saying that flower essences and essential oils are crap and should never be used by a good herbalist. (wait… isn’t that a rule??) Anyway, her talk was enjoyable for the most part. She is known for being a very wise herbalist but also a hard ass, and I could see both of those as she spoke. But, I did enjoy the talk.

I also went to talks by a local herbalist friend of mine, Lauren Connell, about Flower Essences, and a local midwife who discussed homeopathics. Then I heard talks on Menopause, the Endocrine System, and Winter Immune Strenthening given by Kathleen Maier, who is a very knowledgable herbalist and fantastic speaker! The highlight of the weekend, though, had to be the talks given by Sheri Winston, a reknowned “Certified Pussy Professional” and “Pelvic Priestess”. I took the class on Vaginal Ecology and the one called “Maps of the Clitoris” and I have to say they were awesome! Not only is she a very vibrant speaker, but it was just in-your-face stuff that we all should have been taught about ourselves when we got our first periods!

The food was fabulous (I think I gained a few pounds!). Friday night, there was a girls band called the Buckarettes, and Sat. night was Baraka Mundi a belly dancing troupe. I camped out and spent the whole weekend there, which was wonderful! It was also very hard, cause I missed K a lot! But, she and Toby did just fine and had some good bonding time!

Our Trip to the Post Office

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while standing in line at the post office
“Mama, do they have a potty here”
“No K, there is no potty at the post office, do you have to go?”
“I have to go potty, mama”
“K, didn’t you just go potty at daddy’s office?”
loudly and emphatically“Mama, I have to go Poopy!”
move up to the counter, hear snickers from the people behind us and the postal workers
“Can you wait until we get home? We are going home after this”
“Mama, I just stand like this”crosses legs “and hold da poopy in so it doesn’t come out!”
more giggles

“Hey Mama! der’s a cock on de wall! A big round cock!”
strange looks from the audience!
“Yes, K, there is a clock on the wall! It is almost one o’clock”
I turn to the other customers and say “you didn’t know the post office had such wonderful things to look at did you?” and one of the customers replies “I have never had such entertainment at the post office!”

“Mama I’m still holdin’ in de poopy, kay?”
“Good job K, let’s get home so you can go potty”
“Mama, I already went. I run like dis to de car” jumping, skipping and waving her hands “and all the poopy goes boing boing boing on my butt!”
“Thank you K for the visual”
“welcome mama”

For those concerned citizens, K did not go in her ‘big girl panties” She waited until we got home!

Addendum: Oh, and I almost forgot about the part where K told me “mama, I don’t want to eat my poopy! It’s stinky! SHOOOWEEEE!” Ahh, my little girl!

Wild ride!

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I have to say, I am kind of glad that this weekend is almost over and maybe we can start fresh tomorrow. Aside from the house coming out of contract (they just decided they didn’t want it anymore!!) Toby started having trouble breathing and had to go to the ER. Turns out he has costochondritis, inflammation of the joints in between the ribs and the sternum. It’s usually caused by stressing that area too much. (We think this may have happened in the move). It’s like throwing out your back, except it’s your front. I’ve got him on all kinds of herbs for inflammation and pain, and he is taking prescriptions if needed. Poor thing! In the middle of it all, K and I are full of snot with a nice cool weather change cold. But, on the bright side of it all, K has decided (at barely 27 months of age) that she will no longer wear diapers. She has been in her “big girl panties” for the past week, including at night, and hasn’t had an accident! I am floored! I thought she would be at least 3 before this happened!! She’s so awesome! Today, when I was putting her to sleep she said “mama, K has a little butt, and mommy and daddy have big butts”. How true!

OK, I’m off to bed to recuperate!

Oh, here are a few pictures of our evening play. We are taking all the kernels off of the indian corn and are going to make them into necklaces in celebration of the equinox next week. You just soak them in water for a few hours and then thread a string through them. Then, when you have the right length necklace, you lay them out to dry. and Voila!



passwords!

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OK, I have now become one of those bloggers who needs to hide their posts from certain readers. If you are interested in reading my rantings, please email me (maria@fullcircleherbs.com) and I will send you the password. And don’t worry, if you know you have done nothing to incur my wrath, then it’s not you I’m ranting about 🙂

mama’s play time!

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Well, I just dropped K off at her first day of play school! I am still struggling with the “I can do everything and still get a nice dinner on the table” mama attitude, and have realized that in order to keep (or get back) my sanity, I need a break! So, I found this great place just down the street (literally 5 houses down) that has a Tuesday/Thursday play school from 8-11:30!! So, K gets some time to play with friends and learn more than just my 5 song repertoire, and I get time to work on Full Circle Herbs. I am still planning on home schooling, but I think this will be very good for both of us.

So, I am hoping to use some of this free time to start doing an “Herb of the Week” write up. I figure it will be a good way to refresh myself! I will post it on this site.

What else… Oh, we have a contract on the house in Chapel Hill!!! We never did have to put it on the market! And we should close by the end of this month!! So, we went to Chapel Hill again this weekend and did all the final touch ups and trash removal. We were also able to pack up the bees and bring them to Asheville. (At night, when they have gone into their hives, you put a piece of screen over the entrance and strap the hives together so nothing moves. Then put them on the truck and away you go) They are hanging out on my brother-in-laws property where he has a little more space than we do. I hope to get over there at least every other week to do a mite count. That is about all I do now for the bees. Toby does everything else. I am kind of freaked out about getting stung again. After the last sting (which I think was a yellow jacket, but still), my leg swelled up so big you could bounce a dime off of it. And it took a few weeks to resolve. SO, I figure, I should probably stay away from the bees just in case the stings keep getting worse.

Helping hurricane victims

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I am trying to pile together some things to take to the local shelter collecting items for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Aside from canned goods, I am also putting together some herbal first aid kits (I hope they take them). I have some herbal betadine, herbal styptic and lots of soap. If you are trying to find a place to take donations just google your city’s name and ‘katrina’ and ‘donations’ and you will find something. I know that Red Cross, food banks, and many grocery stores are accepting donations. If you are feeling too poor, or don’t think just one person can make a difference, then just imagine you are a new mom sitting in a shelter with 45,ooo other people around you… you have no food for you or your child, no fresh clothes, no clean diapers, no medicine, basically none of the three necessities for life: food clothing and shelter, nothing, and it might be months before you can reliably count on any of these things to be there. Now, go donate!

Addendum: OK, so I just called the local donation place to ask about bringing my stuff and they said they don’t want it! I don’t have my soaps wrapped in any way, and I can totally understand that they may not want those right now, since they don’t know what they are getting, but with the styptics and betadine and other herbal medicines, they don’t want them because they feel people will be unfarmiliar with the items and not know what to do with them (they do have labels with directions!) and would rather me go out a buy things at the store to donate. Kind of frustrating…

Out for a drive

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I took a drive this morning to go look at some land that a friend has for sale. I puttered along in my biodiesel/vegetable oil car thinking how I have been paying $3-3.50/gallon of biodiesel for a year now (when we can’t make our own) and gas has finally reached the same price. I think everyone has felt that this was coming, no matter what the cause of price increase might be. I realize that most people in this country are totally dependant on gasoline to help run their daily lives (myself included), but I can’t say that I am not glad that the prices of gas are so high. Maybe it is just what this country needs to make a change for the better. We have traded in our souls for the ‘convenience’ of a system of travel that cannot go on indefinitely. And Biodiesel isn’t the answer either. We would just be putting a bandaid on the wound and not really dealing with the problem. I realize that I am preaching to the choir here, but I feel it must be said again… we have got to start supporting our communities!!! If we bought locally produced food and clothing, if we rode our bikes, walked, or car pooled, if we lived more sustainable lifestyles in harmony with earth and her cycles, if we were all a little more present, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Change must happen! So, here is the challenge:
1- grow just one plant your house that produced some food (think tomato, lemon, potato, herbs, banana, whatever!) and then share that food with your neighbors!
2 – If you are going to eat out, eat at the local mom and pop restaurants instead of the chains, and hound them to buy their food from local farmers (then, no trucks needing gas to haul our food from California).
3 – buy recycled clothing or make your own (there is nothing wrong with a thrift store special!)
4 – get out and walk or ride your bikes as much as possible. If this just can’t be done, than extend a hand to a neighbor and offer to carpool (to work, for errands…). Or try to get all your erands done in one outing instead of multiple trips.
I know there is so much more that can be listed here, but I think this is a good start!

Check this out!

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Check out this email I got yesterday! I love it!!

“Just wanted to write and say how much I love your soaps. After 31 years as a dedicated Ivory user, I’m totally hooked!
Please encourage Weaver Street Market in Carrboro to expand their selection so I can try everything. I would like to share an image of a recent painting I did, called “Really Nice Soap” that, while not literal, is strongly informed by my enjoyment of your products. Thanks, pfs”

So there is this mama friend of mine that I have known for ~2 years. Our girls are the same age and have been in play groups together. Well, yesterday we were talking about having time to ourselves to get work done and just be alone and I realized that I didn’t know what she did in her spare time. Boy was I in for a shocker! Turns out she is an erotic romance novel writer!! Her pen name is Silvia Violet (a perfect name for a romance writer, I think). Be forewarned, her stuff is very spicey!! Through her site, I found Selina Fenech’s site. She is only 24 years old but has amazing art skill! Really cool artwork!

yup!

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So, anyway…

We are getting settled in. It’s hard to feel too settled though, when we still own a house in Chapel Hill. We have two seperate couples that are still interested in it and have to let us know by 5 pm tomorrow if they will buy it. Otherwise it will go on the market. I hope one of them wants it. It has been a great place, but it will be nice to just be done and over with it.

We haven’t really begun our land search here in Asheville cause we have been too overwhelmed with moving. But, soon. This weekend is the South Eastern Energy Expo (or as toby likes to call it “The SEXPO!”). It’s actually a huge expo on alternative energy. So, there are classes all day Fri. Sat., and Sun… cordwood building, biodiesel, mortgage free, wind power, passive and active solar classes… all kinds of stuff. We are going to try to get to as many as possible.

The worms are doing fine. We were able to put the composter back together without a problem. And, my shitake logs look like they might have their first bloom soon! They are starting to turn white on the ends. We haven’t moved the bees over yet. We tried when we were in Chapel Hill last weekend, but it was so hot the bees got really aggitated and ended up stinging Toby 4 times! Good thing I wasn’t helping out or I may have had to go to the hospital (I got stung by a yellow jacket a few weeks ago and my whole thigh swelled up so huge that the skin was tight!) We will be heading back to Chapel Hill one more time to finish up with house stuff and hopefully bring the bees back with us then.

OK, K is up… gotta run!

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Well, we’ve made it back to Asheville, pretty much in one piece. The bottom fell out of the worm composter during the move and little wormies (and maggots, bleck!) were all over the floor of the truck. We were able to get the composter back together and salvage most of the stuff that was inside. Our VCR didn’t survive the move either. K is not happy! We get no TV reception here, so she is now without muppets and Sesame Street videos too. You’d think, living in basically downtown Asheville, that we would have reception. We don’t even get Cable or DSL here either! I’m dialing in right now! I haven’t had to do that for years!! Speaking of, I should probably log out, I have no idea how much this is costing me!

House news

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I don’t know what I have done to deserve such wonderful Karma, but we have 2 separate friends who may be interested in buying our house. And we haven’t even put it on the market yet!! This happened last year too with our last house, but that house was this adorable little doll house in a very desirable historic neighborhood in downtown Asheville. We just assumed with this house we would need to use a realtor. Since it is out in the country and in no particular neighborhood, we figured no one would see a “for sale by owner” sign. But, through word of mouth, two couples have come out to see the house and have expressed interest. Isn’t that wild!! It would be wonderful to be able to sell this house to a friend that we knew would take good care of it!

Packing, packing, and more packing!

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We are getting there as far as the packing is concerned. The dust got to me so badly yesterday that I had to have sneezed over 300 times! Seriously!! I ended up exhausted in bed and feeling like crap, so I didn’t get to go see the WAS show. K has been interested in all the boxes and packing tape and all the other things that are getting moved around. So, it hasn’t been as hard to pack as I thought it was going to be. Here is K, helping us organize Toby’s childhood baseball card collection. (yes, she was running around “nudey bottom” so I painted on a skirt 🙂

And here she is packing up herself! (Check out the awesome giraffe hat!)

And this is what we look forward to having when we move closer to Grammy’s house! She got this at a yard sale!!! K loves it!

We Are Scientists

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Sorry I have been absent! I am frantically trying to pack up! We don’t have a whole lot of stuff, but still… Shesh!
We’ve found a little apartment/house to rent for a few months while we look for land in Asheville. It is downtown, so Toby can bike to work and K and I can walk around and not have to drive so much. The guy we are renting from is even ok with us keeping our bees at the apartment! I hope the neighbors don’t mind.

I just found out that one of my childhood friends, C, has a brother in a band (We Are Scientists), and the band looks like they might be going big time. They were just signed by virgin records. This is their site. I like the music and their site is hysterical. Read some of their ‘movie reviews’. They just happening to be coming to town in 2 days for a show. So, off I go for one last hurrah in Chapel Hill before moving.

Now… I’m off to take a nap!

A decision has been made… we think…

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Well, after much pondering, we think we have finally made the decision to move back to Asheville. We weighed the pros and cons of Chapel Hill vs. Asheville and Asheville won out. In the end, having family close by is really important for us. So, now we start the process of moving. We are all heading to the mountains this weekend to look for some land, and maybe look for a place to rent while we look for land. We hope to have some land within 6 months, so we can break ground on our off-the-grid home as soon as the ground thaws. So, we have a lot of research and self-educating to do before we start building. Toby is heading to Arkansas in September to help some family tear down part of their house. What is salvagable, he will bring home to use for building materials on our house, which will be a wonderful money saver.

Anyway, I better go pack…

Yummy summer fruit

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These past few days have been filled with yumminess! When my mom was here, we went blueberry picking… $1/pound for organic blueberries!! I only got ~4 pounds and they went into the freezer. But, I will go back! Then, I noticed that some of my wineberries were ready to pick. This is my first year having berries at this house. I planted ~15 raspberries last fall, but they probably won’t produce anything this year. I also put in 4 wineberries. They taste like a mix of a raspberry and a blackberry. Here’s my first mini-harvest:

Then, this weekend, I went to a friend’s house to can some tomatoes. They have just started a garden this year and are taking their produce to the local farmers markets. But, there were so many extra tomatoes that we ended up canning 26 quarts of tomato sauce!! Here are some picks from the canning party.


Then, I went out to a different blueberry farm this morning to do some more picking. Another place with organic blueberries for only $1/pound!! I only ended up getting ~1# before my friend, B, got stung by a yellow jacket and we realized that there was a nest ~10 feet from where we had put our blanket for the kids. B was a bit shaken by the whole thing (she hates insects, especially stinging ones), so we decided to just head home. When we were turning into her neighborhood, we saw a little baby holding onto a nurf ball, walking in the middle of the street with just a diaper on. He couldn’t have been much over a year old. I slowed down and waited for his parent to grab him out of the street, but no one came. He looked really scared. So, B jumped out of the car and picked him up and we started knocking on doors trying to find his parents. Soon, I saw a man coming out a house down the street and I said “are you looking for a baby??” He didn’t respond, but just started running towards me. Then he started making the sign for baby and I realized that he was deaf and never heard his little boy open the front door and leave the house. He was so shaken! I felt like crying when I thought of what might have happened if some one had come plowing around the corner and not seen the baby! And imagine if you could never hear your child’s cries, or laughter? I’m feeling very blessed for all of my senses right now, and that the little baby is safe at home now!

Three Generations of Feet

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As I was wrote this title, I remembered a friend of mine in college who couldn’t stand feet. She had the opportunity to usher (and attend for free) a Grateful Dead concert and almost turned it down because she had heard about “all those hippies that don’t wear shoes”. But she was determined to see what all the hype was about the Dead and got herself a postcard with a picture of a foot on it, placed it by her bed, and forced herself to look at it every day to get over her foot ‘issue’. Well, I hope it worked, cause Kathy, where ever you are, this post is for you!

My mom came down for a visit this past week and we all got our nails done!

Clarifying

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For some time now, I have been trying to figure out what avenue I want to travel down with this herbalist thing. With my website and the stores that offer my products, it seems like I am heading towards being a business woman herbalist. But, I know that’s not how I want it. I have been hemming and hawing over whether or not to put my stuff in Earthfare. And at first, I thought it was the money commitment (buying liability insurance and UPC codes would cost $2000 just for this year). But, I think, the more I clarify my desires, the more I realize that I don’t want to be that type of herbalist. I don’t want to be spending more time in my office and on my computer than I do in my garden. I don’t want this business to grow so big that I have to hire other people to play with the plants while I do administrative stuff. I have felt out of touch with the plants and I think that’s why… not enough plant time and too much computer. Right now, a lot of my income (which is really not an income, more like pocket change) comes from the internet sales. But, even that gives me reservations. Though I love to think about my products touching people in California and even France, when I think about the pollution it took to truck/fly my box of goodies out to that person, I feel bad. If every community had and supported their local herbalists, we would all be healthy and well taken care of and no one would need to mass produce and ship their stuff. So, I think I am getting a little clearer about my vision. I like the feeling I get when I think about being a community herbalist. Someone that people can come to when they are ill, or healthy and want to stay that way. I want to talk to people about slowing down their fast paced lives, eating healthy foods and treating each other and the earth with kindness. I want to have a garden full of herbs that I hand harvest and make into medicines myself. I want my relationship with the plants to go deeper than it is now. Be more spiritual. That makes me feel good! I can maybe even see a small herbal apothecary carrying the products of the local herbalists, along with some local herbs. I don’t know…

So, for now, I will hold off on growing this business. If my products are in any stores, they will be local and definitely not chains. I will hold off on printing the T-Shirts. I fill focus on opening up to my neighbors and friends, and listening to the plants.

Demo

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Today I set up a table at the local food co-op to show off the products of mine that they are now carrying. When I got there to set up at 9:30 no one knew I was coming. Apparently the manager wrote it on the big calender behind the desk but forgot to tell everyone else. It didn’t end up being a big deal at all, but initially we were all like “Oh NO! Now what??” Along with my products, I also brought handouts about who I am and how Full Circle Herbs was started along with a list of the other products that I carry. I also brought copies of an article on salve making that I wrote a few years ago. I made a batch of my Rooibos Daily Tea Blend, too. I love that tea! The only containers that they had to hold the tea in were old coffee urns. So, we sent them through the wash and I was good to go.

Initially, I felt pretty intimidating… sitting at the front entrance, staring at people when they walked it. I tried to look elsewhere, but then it seemed obvious that I was trying to avoid looking at people. Then there came the questions of “Do I sit?”, “Do I stand?”, “Do I keep busy?”, “Do I look like I am waiting to talk?” Then, after about 2 hours of sitting there, I got the idea to pour the tea into little cups to entice people to come up and take some. Nobody can resist a freebie staring you in the face! And it worked. Everyong wanted to come up and try the free tea.

I talked with lots of people. Met a woman who makes goat milk soap who wants to get together. Met another woman who I had talked with on the phone before but never met in person. I had made her a remedy for hemorrhoids that she had never paid for. Turns out she’d lost my information and didn’t know how to find me. She introduced herself by saying “HEY! It’s YOU! I owe you some money!!” That’s always nice to hear.

When it was time to close down, I only had one little cup of tea left, so I gulped it down only to be shocked by the taste! The tea that had steeped in the urn the longest tasted like coffee flavored herb tea!! It wasn’t bad tasting, but it certainly wasn’t the flavor of my tea blend! I was pretty disappointed, but being that there wasn’t a thing I could do about it, I just chalked it up to another lesson learned: always bring your own tea urn!

All in all, it went well. Now, I can concentrate on getting my labels to the printer, deciding on whether or not to make the t-shirt, deciding about getting liability insurance and UPC codes so that I can put my stuff in Earthfare, and making more stock. Beezy, Beezy, Beeezy!

Argh!!

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I’m not sure what that title is about… I think I am tired of thinking and that is what came out.

So, how come, the more I just want a simple, relaxed life the busier it gets. I feel like there are so many things happening right now. So many details to keep track of in my head and crap, that I can’t turn my brain off for a second to relax! I can’t remember the last time I sat down and read a book for pure enjoyment and not for the sake of learning something new. (That will all change on the 16th when the next Harry Potter book comes out!!!)

Anyway, enough bitching…

Here’s what K and I did this morning:

First we made a sling for her little bear that she has been carrying all around lately. She loves the sling. She only took it off to sleep!

We also made playdough this morning. Here are K and her bear (still in the sling) learning how to “mash da paydow”:

Here’s the recipe for the playdough. It was really simple. We made blue and pink. (It takes lots of food coloring to make a vibrant color)
1 cup water
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 c salt
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
food coloring
mix all of this in a sauce pan and heat until warm (and most of the salt is dissolved). Take off the heat and add 1 cup of flour. Stir, then knead until smooth. Keep in an airtight container.

Full Circle Herbs T-Shirts

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So, I am working on getting some t-shirts printed up and I think they are going to be really cool. The front pocket will have my logo:

And the back will have the “History of Medicine” on it:

I am working with TS Designs, an environmentally friendly printer. They use a process called Rehance, that uses water based chemistry to dye the shirts instead of plastisols and phthalates. They will also print the shirts on organic cotton (natural color probably). The left sleeve will also have this logo on it to show that there was no sweatshop labor, plastics, pesticides or resins used in making the shirt, and that they are made with organic cotton. Cool, eh??

So, who wants one?? I’m not sure on the final price, ’cause I haven’t gotten final pricing from them yet. But, they will definitely be no more that $20. So, if you are interested, let me know what size you want so I can make sure to get enough printed. I will probably just start with the basic short sleeved t-shirt style, but I am going to have to get a few for kids and infants too!!

Oh, and the design isn’t set in stone. So, if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Class and Bees

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Well, I gave my 20 minute herb talk for 26 eight to ten year olds today and it went fantastic! (I painted a big flower on my face and put glitter on the flower and on my eyes and cheeks.) These kids were so much more interested than the little kids. I think it made a big difference that they are of reading age! I also changed the format so we talked about Harry Potter and Mandrake (although the plant we actually looked at was the American Mandrake, which is a totally different species, but talking about Harry Potter got their attention), we also talked about plantain for beestings, horsetail, chamomile, using plants to make paper and soaps (with lots of examples to touch and smell). Before I knew it, our time was up. Kids these days are so into buying things that they all brought money so that they could buy stuff from the “farm gift shop” 🙂 !!! Do you know of any working farms with gift shops?? Well, maybe next time I will cut up some soap for them to take home.

As far as the bees, I have been doing mite counts every week to make sure that my hive is carrying along ok. Their last treatment of Sucrocide was in April and since then, the only other thing I have been doing is adding “Honey B Healthy” and Bergamot Essential oil to their sugar syrup (and their last feeding was 2 weeks ago). The mite count has remained stable at ~20-25 mites falling off the bees in a 24 hour period. This is still fairly high. But this morning, the mite count was 7!! YAY!! Looks like the little ladies are doing well!

Bumper Stickers

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As Toby and I were headed to lunch at the local health food store we saw the following bumper stickers on the truck in front of us:

  • “Dead yankees tell no lies” (with three rebel flags underneath)
  • “Keep honking! I’m reloading!”

    • and lastly:

  • “When all the trees are gone, you can wipe your ass with the spotted owl”

    • I have a feeling we weren’t going to the same place for lunch!

    Oh! And when all the trees are gone ’cause of this ignorant idiot, those feathers up his ass aren’t going to protect him from the ass whooping I’m gonna give him!!! Or maybe I will tie him up, cover him with owl food and let the spotted owls have their way with him!

    Kids herb class

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    So, I am going to be helping my farm friend with another kids class on herbs. This one will be for 8 to 10 year olds. As many of them have probably read Harry Potter, I am going to mention Mandrake/American Mayapple (and Professor Sprout and stuff) to try to get them excited about herbs. I will also talk about Chamomile and how Peter Rabbit drinks some Chamomile tea to calm down after being chased around the garden. Any other thoughts on ways to relate herbs to pre-teens??