Winter Medicine Making

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Every Fall, I try to prepare for the cold and flu season by making some herbal remedies to help get me through the winter. I always make some Elderberry syrup and maybe a garlic tonic…things to nip a cold in the bud. This year, I thought I would invite some people over to share in the fun of making medicines. So, I had a small group of people at my house today for a winter herbal medicine making class. It was a blast! We made a huge batch of Elderberry syrup, some nutritional vinegars, and some herbal cough drops. They all turned out very yummy! Here are the recipes we used if you are interested in trying them out.

Smelling the Elderberries cookingLaura smelling the cooking Elderberries.Straining the elderberriesRachel straining the Elderberries.Stirring the cough drop teaAndrea stirring the cough drop tea and supporting her back (She’s due anyday! :-))nutritional vinegarsThe nutritional vinegars with Astragalus, Ginseng, Shitake mushrooms, and Umboshi plums.

Fall fun

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Aside from the mental tribulations of how to best lead satisfying lives, we had a wonderful weekend!! On Sat. we went to a friends house for pumpkin bread, lentil soup and apple cider, followed by pumpkin carving! It was great to be out and social! Sometimes I feel like we are stuck in our house doing chores all the time (if max would just learn to poop out side, we could get rid of that stupid litterbox!!).

Then on Sunday, we drove out to Silk Hope for the Shakori Hills Music Festival. Toby was helping at the Biodiesel table, while K and I roamed. She loved the music. Especially the woman singing in spanish…she was mesmerized. There were also lots of people doing face painting and henna. So, of course, K needed to get a painting…

Dazed and Confused

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Well, Toby and I have been talking at length (my mouth is dry!!) about our goals and priorities for our family and life. On our way to Raleigh today we wrote down our priorities. Here is my list, in no particular order:

    Have time to spend with my family and my friends(what’s the point in having a family if you never get time to spend with them)
    Raise my family (meaning I don’t want to have to put K in daycare or have someone else be the mother figure to her so that I can spend more time at work)
    Creating a healthy family (I want the time to make cook healthy meals for the family and make herbal medicines for them, etc.)
    Work toward self-sufficiency and a sustainable home (homesteading) this one is a biggie!

When I read over my list I realized that no where in there did I mention anything about being a librarian or getting my MLS degree. And any jobs that I think I would enjoy doing after graduating probably wouldn’t even require an MLS degree. So, I am really trying to hash out why I am in this program and if it is beneficial to my goals or just a side step. I am really enjoying it. The intellectual stimulation and the people are wonderful. But that’s no reason to pay thousands of dollars. If what Toby and I want is to live more simply, more sustainably, to work the land and to get the word out to other people about living more gently on the earth, then what will an MLS get me? Contacts, yes, knowledge, yes, but I could also be taking classes at the CCCC that are directly related to sustainability while still developing contacts and gaining knowledge. I just don’t know. I know I will ultimately be happier if I get out of this rat race, but I grew up in this society and it’s hard to get rid of that little voice that keeps saying “make more money”. “buy more things”, “you need recognition from your job”. Being a mother and living simple and healthy lives gets no recognition in the society. Plus, I know that there are many things that I could learn from this program and I feel like a failure when I think about quitting, but, like I said, I feel like I am taking side steps instead of walking a straight line. Usually there is some over riding factor that makes it easier to make a hard decision like this, but there is nothing here. I just don’t know which decision would be more beneficial for everyone involved. I’d love to hear your thoughts… (if it’s too much to put in the comment section, please email me directly

Rainbow dinners and vegetable cars

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Lately, many of the blogs that I read have been posting about food, especially fall harvest foods. So, today I was inspired to head to the Farmer’s Market and get some of the local goodies. Then, I went out into the back yard and picked some herbs to add to the mix. For dinner we had eggplant, sweet peppers, tomato, and shitake mushrooms stir-fried up with some garlic, ginger, lady’s thumbs, lemon verbena, rosemary, brown rice vinegar, tamari, sesame oil, and a splash of orange juice. MMmmmmm, tasty!

On another exciting note, I just found out that our car is going to be ‘featured’ at the Shakori Grass Roots Festival this Sunday, to show people how to convert their cars to run off of vegetable oil.

Cooler Weather

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Wow, what a beautiful day! The sky was blue, the air was crisp…

I took K out to run some errands and she fell asleep in the car seat before we got to the store. So, I took her out of the seat (we were in Carrboro, by a nice, green patch of grass) and we laid down under a willow tree while she slept for a while. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have her sleep on my chest. I love to kiss her head while she sleeps…

With the cooler weather, it is time to move some of my plants indoors. This usually makes the house feel a little more crowded. But, also, more like a little tropical paradise! Here’s the bedroom:
plants
Check out the banana. It’s only one year old! I’m hoping it will fruit this next year.

Weekend accomplishments

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Accomplishments this weekend:
Saturday – diddly-squat!
Sunday – Planted 7 mums, 3 echinacea, 2 horehound, 2 rosemary, 2 catnip, 2 st. john’s wort, 1 bay laurel, 1 mugwart, 1 stevia, 1 ginkgo, repotted some aloe, started setting up my cold-frame for fall plantings, mowed the lawn, took out the recycling, cleaned the house A/C filter, and blogged. I’m tired! I’m going to bed!

My car is a vegetarian

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We did it!! This weekend, we finished the engine conversion and we are now running our Jetta on straight vegetable oil!! Well, we actually start the car on biodiesel, and once the engine is warm enough, we flip a switch that changes fuel tanks and it runs on vegetable oil. We are talking with some area restaurants to see where we can get some waste oil from. Then, we just filter it and put it in the car. Toby is working on a website detailing the experience. I’ll let you know when it is up.

Autumn Equinox

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I hope everyone is enjoying the first day of Fall!! In celebration, I made some apple cider, with fresh apples, cinnamon and ginger. Mmmm, Mmmm, good!!

Here is a picture of K from last fall. It’s one of my favorite pictures, so I thought I would decorate my blog with it today. Have a good one!!

Solar Dehydrator

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So, after a rainy summer, overcast weather, and two hurricanes I have finally had a chance to try my home-made solar dehydrator, and it worked great!! Our yard gets very little sun right now…lots of trees. But, the dehydrator was out in the sun from 11 AM until 3:30 PM. I tried drying apples and bananas and in only 4 1/2 hours the dehydrator heated up really well. The fruit was about half dried by 3:30 (when the sun went behind the trees). So, if the dehydrator could gotten more sun-hours, I think it would have been quicker to dry the fruit in the sun than with my electric dehydrator!! (The rack of fruit sat inside the upper box while drying.)


Hooping anyone??

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OK, who out there wants to hoop?? I have all the stuff it takes to make them (the big adult hoops, not the little flimsy kid ones), cool colored tapes and everything, and I will make you one, FREE. Here’s the deal…You have to come and hoop with me!! Yes, I am lonely and desparate and I want a hoop friend! Here are a couple more sites to get you interested!! I’m serious…Free hoop, just be my hoop friend!

Corruption of the child

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I’ve been reading this book, Born To Buy by Juliet B. Schor, and it is making me furious. Schor talks about the commercialization of todays children and the changes that have happened in the last few years. Because of todays marketers directly targeting infants, toddlers, children and teens she states:

“at age one, [the average american child] is watching Teletubbies and eating the food of its ‘promo partners’ Burger King and McDonald’s. Kids can recognize logos by eighteen months, and before reaching their second birthday, they’re asking for products by brand name. By three or three and a half, experts say, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, for example, that they’re cool, or strong, or smart. Even before starting school, the likelihood of having a television in their bedrooms is 25 percent, and their viewing time is just over two hours a day.”

Or what about the fact that elementary and middle school kids are now asking for (and getting) cosmetic surgery, including aesthetic enhancements for eyes, lips, chins and ears!!! That’s insane!!! What happend to just being a child, playing in the woods and making forts out of cardboard boxes, or just playing with your moms old make-up if you wanted ‘aesthetic enhancements’??? This makes me so angry I could scream!! Who gave these marketing companies the right to tell my child that she isn’t pretty enough if she doesn’t wear Donna Karen, or that she isn’t cool enough if she doesn’t have the latest Happy Meal toy crap, or the newest cell phone, TV or car??? And why are parents letting this happen?? Yes, I know parents are working more so that they can provide a better life for themselves and their kids? But, maybe we all need to step back and re-evaluate whether the money is worth the real cost to our kids lives! If we don’t have the time or energy to monitor all this junk that is entering and influencing our childrens lives, who will? And if we don’t step up soon and fight for our childrens right to have an uncorrupted childhood, what is going to happen in the next ten years???

First Steps

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K took her first steps (on her own will) today. We had been standing her up and trying to get her to “walk to mommy”. But this time she was standing by the couch and just turned around and walked to me!! It was awesome! What a great feeling! (K got really excited and you could tell she was proud. But, man, I’ve been smiling all night long!) We caught some walking (a few minutes later) on video (it’s really grainy, but cute all the same).

K’s first videoed steps

Miracles

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Well, we’ve perfomed a miracle! Just call me Saint Maria 🙂 My precious, frequent-patron-of-Mama’s-All-Night-Dairy-Bar daughter slept through the night the past two nights!! From 7:30pm until 6:30am, K slept without nursing!!! For those of you that don’t know K, this is an amazing feat! We have been co-sleeping since she was born and if mama, let me rephrase that, if the boobs are in bed with her, then it means she needs to be on them!! Especially in the wee hours, when she would nurse continuously! So, I bought a twin mattress and put it in K’s room. My plan was to get up from the family bed when she started getting boobie needy, leave her in there with Toby, and go sleep on the bed in her room. If the boobs aren’t in bed with her, she sleeps fine. Well, Toby was taking a nap in our room the other night when it was time to put K to sleep. So, I nursed her to sleep on the bed in her room and planned on just bringing her to our bed when she woke up. But, she didn’t wake up until the next morning!! So, we tried this again last night and it worked again! We are floored! Yeah, we miss snuggling next to our sweet baby, but hey, I don’t even notice she’s gone, ’cause I am actually asleep!! Novel concept, eh?? Sleeping in a bed!!

Sand Play

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We headed down to the beach this past weekend and had a blast!! It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve really played in the sand. (I think we should all have a mandatory week of playing in the sand every year!) K was scared of the waves and doesn’t like the feeling of sand. So, I just sat down with her on my lap and let the waves run over our legs. After a few minutes and was playing in the sand, too! She even started her own shell collection.

It was a wonderful break from our structured lives.

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I had some time yesterday, while I waited for the bus, to do a little random sampling statistical analysis (sound fun??). I had noticed this lingering fad among the younger college generation of wearing flip-flops; plain-ol’, beach-bum, flimsy flip-flops
I know flip flops have always been around, but I never remember seeing them so frequently. So, I decided to see what the ratio was of floppers to non-floppers. I took a look at the shoes of the next 50 people to walk by and discovered that 33 were non-floppers…that mean that 17 were floppers! That’s 34% of the total!! I find that totally wierd!! What’s the deal with flip flops?? Is it just that this generation is so laid-back that they wear their summer beach attire year round? Plus, how useful is it to wear such flimsy shoes on a college campus, where you walk or ride your bike (yes, there were some flopping bikers) everywhere, AND where the the pathways are made of brick, uneven brick! I mean, gesh, I trip with my hiking boots on!! Maybe I’m just too shoe practical. I should get myself a pair and see what it’s all about. I’ll get back to you with this 🙂

A Student Again

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Well, I am just about to wrap up my second week as a Master’s student. So far, I am really enjoying it. It has been nice to get out of the house and be in a more mentally stimulaing environment. Not that being a mom isn’t mentally stimulating, but you know what I mean. Plus, I am only taking two courses this semester, so I am not away from the little pooper for too long. However, K and Toby are having a rough time with me being away. K doesn’t seem to mind when I leave, but she is a bit more demanding on Toby when I am gone. And when it comes to nap time…forget it!! Yesterday, it took 45 minutes of her crying before she would finally go to sleep (even though he was laying right there with her and reading to her). Poor thing!! I feel so guilty! Plus, Toby is getting very little work done during the day, especially since she isn’t taking her naps. So, we are thinking about hiring a nanny to help out part-time. I never thought I would be someone to have a nanny, and definitely not one who could afford one! But, if Toby could actually work instead of watching K when I go to class, that would be 15 more hours of pay! I know this won’t solve the nap problem, I think only time will do that. But, atleast a nanny could devote her time totally to K…she could take her to play dates and on outings and do stuff that would help her work off some energy during the days. I think this would be a benefit to her. It’s so hard trying to raise a child in this society that supports such seperateness. What I mean is, and I don’t want to sound like Hillary Clinton, but, I should take a community to raise a child. It benefits everyone to have the help of family and friends in caring for the next generation and teaching them right and wrong. So, I guess, we will start our own little contorted community and hire a nanny. We’ll see…

Homemade Butter

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I made my own butter last night and it was really pretty simple. So, here’s the recipe:

– Start with ~1 pint of fresh cream. Pour the cream into a quart jar and close the jar, securing well. SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE and keep shaking it until it thickens. The butter milk will then separate from the butter…you will be able to see it through the glass when this happens. Shake just a little more. Pour the butter milk into a container and save for future use. I actually poured it all through a strainer and let it drain for a little while. Then, put the butter in a container and, if you want, add a little salt (it will help the butter last longer) to taste. And, Voila, you’re done! Next time, I may add some honey to the final butter, mmmmm.

You know, I’ve never seen goat butter, have you?? I don’t see why it couldn’t be done with fresh goats milk either.

Walkin’ Crawley

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Just a quick note for all of you K fans out there: K took her first steps today…3 of them. I still don’t think she will really be walking around well until 15 or 16 months, though. She’s such a mellow child and is very content taking it slow.

Mr. Fusion

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Do you remember in Back to the Future III, when the flux capacitor was powered by Mr. Fusion (a blender that ground up garbage) instead of plutonium??? Well, I am happy to say that our car will soon be running, once again, on garbage!! We have a Diesel VW Jetta and were actually making ‘Biodiesel’ for the car until we moved to Chapel Hill and had to take apart our processor. It’s been hard to have to put nasty diesel into the car after running it on biodiesel, not to mention the cost of diesel!! Well, today we ordered a ‘Grease car’ kit! We hope to have our car up and running on straight vegetable oil very shortly! Basically, we will get waste oil from a local restaurant, filter it, and put it in a seperate tank in the car. The car will be started on regular diesel and once the engine has warmed up (and the vegetable oil is fluid enough), we flip a switch and change the engine over to run on the vegetable oil!! The car actually runs smoother and produces less pollution. The only downside is smelling like french fries 🙂 (Although, I kind of like that smell, but I will probably be hungry all the time.)

Hooping Mama!!

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I went to a hoop workshop today put on by Spiral Hoop Dance and had the best time!! It was so much fun to get out there and hoop with everyone. There was an informal question/answer session going on while we all hooped. There was also some drumming going on, which made for great hoooping music. I think I hooped for about a hour straight!

some hoopers

Vivian, aka Spiral of Spiral Hoop Dance

Grow Your Own Sprouts

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I remember when I was really young, my mom use to make alfalfa sprouts from scratch. I think she had a kit and you just add seeds and water and wait for them to grow. I’ve always loved the fresh flavor of sprouts and the great nutrition you get from them. So, I’ve been experimenting with making my own. (It’s so much more satisfying to eat something freshly grown!) Basically, this is all I did:
1. Put ~ 1/2 cup of beans (I used green lentils but you can use almost any kind of bean or seed) into a 32 oz empty yogurt container.
2. Cover the container with a cheese cloth and secure the cloth with a rubber band
3. Covered beans with cool water and let soak 2 hours.
4. Carefully drain off the water and place the container upside-down on a plate.
5. Rinse beans with cool water twice a day and return to upside-down position on the plate.
6. Your sprouts will be ready to eat in just a few days!!! Keep in the fridge and use within a week.

kufe

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The title was supposed to me ‘Life’…but I am trying to learn to type on a new keyboard and I keep hitting the wrong keys…so, instead of life, we have ‘kufe’. I like it.

Well, it looks like our plans to build an addition are being put on hold. We finally got an estimate from our contractor and he thinks it will cost twice what we were prepared to pay!! I don’t understand why a big hallway and empty room should cost soooo much!! Plus, our original plan was to use recycled materials and build as much of it as we could ourselves. But, getting building permits for alternative building structures is hard to do and our contractor kept pushing for doing it the ‘normal’ way. And with me starting school next week and both Toby and I already feeling stretched thin, I really doubt we could put in much sweat equity. We don’t plan on staying here for more than 3-5 years, so investing a big chunk of money to make this house passive solar wouldn’t pay off in that amount of time. If we know where we were going once I get out of school we could buy some land to build on. But, we’re not sure…any ideas on where we should invest in the meantime? As for heating the house passively, we will probably put some water barrels in the south facing windows to hold the suns heat and make some heavy duty shades to keep the warmth in during the winter nights. I’m not sure what we will do about growing food indoors. Our original plan was to have the solar hallway full of planting beds to grow food all year long…maybe we will build some planter beds on top of the water barrels??? We’ll see….

Asheville

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We’ve spent the last 4 days in Asheville visiting family and friends. It’s always nice to go home. I know we have only been gone for a few months, but I really love the place! I’ve never been anywhere else where just driving into the mountains makes you feel more safe and secure. The flora and fauna are amazing, and the people are so laid back and accepting (well, most are). When we moved to Chapel Hill, our plan was to go back to Asheville after school. But, we are really unsure now. We’ve always known that the air in Asheville is getting pretty bad. But, since we have left, it has become even more apparent that you can see the air pollution sitting over the mountains as you drive into the city! I have heard that a lot of the pollution comes from areas west of Asheville, like Chicago, and settles in Asheville because of the way the mountains are situated (Asheville is in a basin). But, I know that Ashevillians produce a lot of pollution on their own. And recently, the asthma rate among children has been skyrocketing…all over NC! Something like 25-30% of the children in NC have significant asthma symptoms! No wonder I started having lung problems when I moved here.

So, now what?? I’m torn between living in a place I have know and love and that has amazing memories, and having to fight for my childs right to clean air (while risking her little lungs)!! Or passing the burden on to others and moving somewhere that has better established environmental regulations and cleaner air to breath.

Chaos!

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Yesterday was a wild day at our house. I’m not sure what is going on with us.

I was in a horribly foul mood and snapped at everyone (even the dog). Everything made me irritable.

K decided she didn’t want to nap. (This is a child who usually pushes you away from her bed while saying “bye-bye”). I tried to put her down for her morning nap and she screamed and fussed! She would crawl out of the bed and sit by the door. So, Toby finally came in and lay down with her until she fell asleep. (She slept for 1 1/2 hours, so you know she was tired). Then for her afternoon nap, she did the same thing. By the time she actually seemed like she was going to settle down, it was time for her to get up anyway…so, no nap.

And, Toby, well he probably spent about 5 hours on the phone yesterday with customers, family, co-workers, etc. Everyone wanted to talk. (For those of you who don’t know, Toby is a computer programmer, which should take very little phone time!!) He was a little peaved, ’cause he felt like he accomplished nothing! Plus, there was a fussy child at his door.

To end the day, we were expecting furniture to be delivered two days ago. Yesterday, at about 4:55pm, we got a call that they would be at our place in 20 minutes. But, they had an 18 wheeler. So, they wouldn’t be able to fit on our road. We would have to meet them at the end of our gravel drive, put the furniture on the top of our car and drive it back to our house (and I am paying them for delivery why??) So, in 20 minutes we went to the end of the road to meet them (5:15). At 6pm they showed up!! I really did want to spend my evening sitting in the car!

Anyhoo, things seem to have returned to normal today. Mercury must have been in retrograde…I’m not really sure what that means, but I’m sure that’s what it was 🙂

Hooping

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OK, I think I may have figured out an exercise I can do.

Twice a week, the local co-op has music and food on their front lawn, and every week the Spiral Hoop Dancers bring lots of hoops and dance to the music. They bring extras for everyone else to try. So, remembering how I won that pre-school hula hoop competition and seeing what a great abdominal work out it is, I decided to get one. It’s a little embarassing to relearn the hoop infront of a hundred people. So, we went home and hooped in the rain last night (that sounds a little obscene, doesn’t it?). I still may start swimming again. But, this way, I can work out (and have fun) at home with out having to drive somewhere or pay a membership fee! Plus, in a couple of years, K and I can hoop together!!

Lammas

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Happy Lammas Everyone! Today is the midpoint between the Summer Solstice and the Fall Equinox and has been traditionally celebrated as the first of the three fall festivals (Lammas, Fall Equinox, and Halloween). I was brought up without being a part of any set religion. So, I celebrated the major US Holidays and those of my religious friends. Now that I am a mom, I am trying hard to incorporate traditions and festivals into our lives. I really like the idea of festivals and holidays that help us remember the turning of the seasons and get us a little closer to the earth. So, yesterday, in celebration of Lammas, we made bread from scratch, and today we canned some tomatoes. (Bread was traditionally made on Lammas because the first harvest of grain was usually done around this time; and canning was getting into full swing.) Here’s a picture of the beautiful tomatoes and some pesto that we made from left over basil. Mmmmmm, Mmmmm, good!

Reading

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Sorry for the silence lately. I just haven’t felt like sitting in front of a computer. I have been having too much fun reading The Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. It was a little slow to start, but once I got into it I couldn’t put the books down!

Still trying to get a good working picture of my solar deydrator, but it’s been raining everyday here!

Daily Happenings

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Hello! I am Sir Maximus Butthead. But, you can call me Max the family cat! I thought it was about time I introduced myself!

Ok, Maria here…
This is too funny not to post! K has decided to start practicing yoga while she nurses! We like to call this one “down dog eating”.