Learn the importance of honey bees in our lives and local environment in this recorded presentation. Even in our largely urban world honey bees connect us with the flowers and life around us. Bees can fly five miles from the hive, collecting nectar, pollen, and propolis from the floral environment we live in, caring for … More The Magic of Honeybees
Our yard is natural and also very small so when branches come down we tend to pile them up. This takes up valuable room and I had been watching a particular pile for almost a year. Upon re-reading parts of Gaia’s Garden by Tony Hemenway I came again across the Hugelkultur section and finally made the connection – … More Hugelkultur Garden
I’ve finally gotten good at making ice cream that I like and can eat!!! As some of you know I’m on the GAPS eating method to restore my inner ecology (for a longer explanation click here) which doesn’t permit cane sugar or lactose (so no unfermented milk) so ice cream has been something I’ve been doing without for 9 months. … More Ice Cream!
The common method of separating cream out of whole milk hasn’t changed in a century or so. It’s basically centrifuging the mixture, the heavier milk gets flung out to the edge and the lighter cream stays in the center. If you get unhomogenized milk you can just leave it in the fridge and the cream will … More Cream Separator and Milk Break
These are probably my favorite “wild” fruit because they are everywhere!!! In Florida Mulberry trees fruit around tax time and our well-loved tree at home gives us enough berries (with diligent picking) for many jars of canned berries, a freezer full, weeks of smoothies, and 15 gallons of wine. Now I’m in Illinois for the … More Mulberries again!!!
One of the neatest things about working at a farm from the 1930’s is the wood stove. In most museums there is a velvet rope and the room set up beyond where no one can go. Not so here. This is living history and when we want to boil some water or bake biscuits we … More Wood Stove
I am spending the summer working at a 1930’s living history farm in St. Charles, Illinois. This is my third week at the farm and while my intentions were to write more often my tired body and ideas of perfect posts stopped that. So, in order to get the ball rolling here is my start, … More Clover Hay
I got a call from St. Pete Beach about a swarm that had moved into a wall and the owners didn’t want to kill the bees so they asked me to take them out. Since the colony is in a location where I can silicon caulk up all the holes except one I was able … More New home for the bees
This is one of my favorite times of year in Florida. The weather now is beautiful and everything is growing with the vigor of springtime. It is the perfect time to think about putting in new food plants and getting your yard growing the most local food possible. What is your yard going to feed you … More Spring is in Full Swing
