Nurturing the Wild Heart

Gladiolas from the kids' garden Today was a beautiful solstice day! I love to roll with the seasons so I like to celebrate each of them in some way. So today we all started in the gardens! It has been unusually hot here for the month of June but some nice thunderstorms in the evenings lately have been helping to keep the plants happy! My youngest talking to the bees this morning on the Bee Balm  We had so much fun relaxing together! My husband and I drinking coffee, while laughing at one of our dogs, watching the birds, and doing a little pruning and harvesting. Harvest from the herb garden   The best part of the day was a short hike at Medoc Mountain. One of our favorite places to hike around here. It is always gorgeous out there! A brilliant blue dragonfly who wanted his picture taken!   My oldest, that was recently diagnosed with Crohn's disease, loves to hike but since her flare up she has been very fearful to attempt it. She did...

Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album) Lamb's Quarters was one of the first wild weeds I ever tried. I was attending Appalachia School of Holistic Herbalism in the lovely mountains of NC. We had all met for class at the home of our school's director that she lovingly named Soulflower Botanical Sanctuary. As we were harvesting herbs in her garden she pointed out that we should gather a good basket of the young tops of the Lamb's Quarters. She had the regular kind and the most beautiful magenta colored  ones too! It is super fairy fun to take the magenta or light green powder from the young leaves and rub it on your cheeks. Instant natural glitter!! They tasted like Spinach and Sweet Peas all rolled together. Needless to say, it was the trigger for a love affair with weeds I never knew I could have.  The light color on the top leaves is the powdery "fairy dust" Lamb's Quarters is also called Pigweed and is in the Goosefoot family. That is a who...

So much has been happening lately that I haven't found time to post. So I will give you a run down of all the excitement and hopefully be able to get back to a nice schedule from here on out! Florida Herbal Conference 2015   My Favorite Class Room The center of it all! At the end of February I was lucky to attend the  Florida Herbal Conference  thanks to some dear friends. I helped them run their booth, Earthen Moon , and they helped me get my ticket. It was a blast and a well needed break from the daily mom stuff. There were so many amazing classes it was hard to pick exactly which ones I wanted to attend. My favorites were To Hold Quiet with Kate Taluga, Iris Evaluation with Joanna Helms, Breaking Addictions with Leslie Williams, Inter-species Telepathic Communication with Ellen Kamhi, Planting Sacred Relationships with Willow LaMonte, and Scientific Validation of Botanical Medicine with Ellen Kamhi. Ok well that was all the classes I took and ...

We have been getting some pretty gnarly winter weather here in NC lately. Last week it was an icy mess. You couldn't even walk across your grassy areas because you might slip and fall. My kids however thought this was the best because they could "ice skate" on grass! It was bitter cold and our heaters never stopped to rest which had me a little nervous with our wallet getting a little too light shelling out money for fuel. Today it isn't as cold but it is snowing. Everyone around here isn't used to this weather and EVERYTHING shuts down. So most people are not happy with this newest development Mother Nature is throwing our way. It is hard because some people, like my husband, dad, and brothers, have to get to work even on the snow covered roads and the county is just not equipped to deal with snow or ice very quickly. This morning when I woke, even though I love snow, I found I was also less than excited to see the white stuff. So as I made a mad dash to the...

***1*** St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) Lovely Sunshine St. John's Wort It's medicinal properties are sedative, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, astringent, antidepressant, aromatic, nervine, diuretic, vulnerary, expectorant, and hepatic. Dosage: 1-2 teaspoons of dried herb per cup of water. Steep, covered, 10-15 minutes. Drink up to 3x a day. Or if using tincture 1/4 to 1 teaspoon up to 3x a day. I have been in love with this plant since I first met it. It was amazing to see how if you rubbed St. J's green leaves or crushed it's yellow flowers it would bleed red! It was also amazing to see the color change when you put it in oil. It goes from green olive oil to ruby red infused oil in a matter of days sitting in the sun! I have used this oil to treat nerve damage in the back, on a broken foot for pain and inflammation, for ear infections, and turned it into salve for wound healing, burns, pain, insect bites and stings, and ra...

Misty's Fiery Cider This is one of my most favorite recipes for staying warm in the winter time. It can boost your immune system  too, as well as it tastes kinda like Heaven. I call my version fiery cider at least for now. It has been a recipe herbalist have been tweaking for a very long time. Everyone has their own spin on it. I have seen some of the most interesting fiery ciders recipes! This is definitely a recipe to make your own and have fun with.  I first learned about this delicious recipe from Rosemary Gladstar. I am currently attending her home study course, Art and Science of Herbalism . Her book, Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health , was my very first medicinal herb book and it is a sight to see now. With all of its dog eared pages and worn edges you can tell it has been my favorite for a long time. There are recipes in the book called Fire Cider Zest and Hair Raising Cider. I made the Fire Cider Zest and fell in love! There are also tons of recipes onli...

Winter Solstice Sun Yesterday was the Winter Solstice. The darkest day of the year. The day for me started out like any ordinary day. Coffee, breakfast, and a brief check of what is going on in the world.  I will say I do not watch a lot of news or keep up on things. Maybe this is naive of me, but when I personally watch too much I feel overwhelmed and fearful. After all, most of the things on the news these days is scary and negative. Not to mention most of it is opinion driven so you can't trust it to be completely true anymore anyway. So I was scrolling through Facebook and headlines and I saw so much negativity. Even from people who are normally pretty positive. So I closed my computer and the family and I went into the woods. My oldest and I with a beautiful Cedar This day is the darkest, but that doesn't mean the bleakest. That big, bright Sun was shining so brightly as we stopped for a rest that I couldn't help but think that even though the worl...