Soaps & Herbals!

Many new bars of soap are curing - I cure them in our strawbale addition to the house (also our living room/bedroom one-room-cabin space).  The woodstove heat helps to slowly dry the soaps, and they sit lined up on top of a series of wooden shelves.  The space smells wonderful - a mix of our favourites: pure calendula, peppermint poppyseed, patchouli cedar, lavender oatmeal goatmilk...We are also in the process of some new designing for our soap & herbal packaging and hope to have our etsy shop back up and running in the next little while... 

Yesterday was also the first soap class for this season - I am now in the sixth year of teaching soap making classes here in the community, and continue to enjoy meeting all the lovely participants who take part in our sessions.  By now there must be at least 100 people I have taught soap making to - hard to believe!  I am excited to say that the new Practical Herbalist series for 2012 is also full.  This is one herbal workshop series I have been planning for some time, and am looking forward to hosting here over the summer months.

This Moment

{This moment} - This moment - an end of week ritual, no words, just a special photo to remember, savour, enjoy. 

Eco-crafting! A hot water bottle cozy for a cold winter day

Cold days have come!  Today the snow was blowing, we had a fire going in the woodstove all day, made a big pot of chili and got into some crafting....a new quilt is in progress, my friend Michelle's beautiful handspun hand-dyed wool is slowly turning into a knitted hat, I've been sewing play food for Maya's kitchen, and a stack of old woolen sweaters have been felted and are ready to sew into warm things - like this hot water bottle cozy.  I sewed this cozy without a pattern because it really is so simple, but then came across a great blog called "Resweater" that is all about reusing wool sweaters and offers a great step-by-step tutorial on making a hot water bottle cozy.  The projects on this blog remind me of our local friend over at Sew Oiseau, who is well-known around these parts for her creative use of old wool sweaters - reconstructed into gorgeous shawls, wraps, skirts, kids longies, wool diaper covers, dolls, rugs, baskets, hats, arm warmers, leg warmers - you get the idea - 100% wool sweaters are indispensable!

Herbal crafting with kids

I have a budding herbalist in my household!  Children thrive when given the opportunity for us to trust them with real, hands-on learning projects that they can do at their own speed and with their own style.  On a recent evening my 3.5 year old and I made lipbalms together, upon her request (to my delight).  She stirred and measured carefully, melted the ingredients on the stove (with supervision), tested the finished product for proper consistency, smelled numerous essential oils (settled on grapefruit), and designed her own custom labels.  Then she promptly asked for some paper, and what letters were needed to make a sign for "her store".  Follow our simple lipbalm recipe here.

Wintery walks

We've been exploring the fields, woods and parks in our city, trying to be outdoors a few hours each day to enjoy what comes our way with this unpredictable January weather.  I am fascinated by discovering all that is still growing and alive during these winter months...gorgeous golden lichen on tree bark, beautiful red sumac...

January gardening

It hardly feels like January with the mild temperatures and melting snow...but we know there are still plenty of cold days and nights ahead.  The start of the new year, and the slower pace around here, always gets us thinking about our garden.  What will it hold this year - which new design ideas can we include, what new (and old favourite) varities will be grown, how can we better reorganize the herb gardens, and most importantly what seeds do we need to order?  January is the time for browsing through seed catalogues and getting new ones in the mail (we are anticipating catalogues from Hope Seeds, West Coast Seeds, and High Mowing Seeds as recommended by our organic farming friend Angie from local CSA Fertile Ground) - as well as attending the annual Guelph Organic Conference at the end of this month. As this is the "international year of co-operatives" the conference theme is "seeds of co-operation".  We would like to keep this theme in mind for our year as well, as we plan our community involvement and projects here at the homestead.

While we are talking about co-operation, I have plenty of it from my 3 year old helper who was eager to start our winter garden.  She mapped out what she wants to grow in her own garden on a large sheet of paper by cutting out photos from an old seed catalogue and pasting them on the garden sketch.  It includes vegetables like rainbow carrots, ruby red swiss chard, several kinds of peas and beans, baby watermelon, and corn grown for popcorn!  She even drew a stone walkway leading upto a little stump for sitting on, and (to my delight) a herb section with echinacea, basil, calendula and sunflowers in one corner of her little garden outline.  This week we did in fact start some herb seeds - the tiny slow germinating ones like rosemary, echinacea and lavender seeds (saved from our own plants!) that grow so slowly.  We also have a nice edible "sprout garden" going, with pea shoots and sunflower greens in soil trays, plus micro greens in jars, just to give us that boost of  fresh homegrown greens during these sparse months.

Practical Herbalist Series - 4 sessions at Little City Farm this summer

An exciting unique 4-part series held at Little City Farm this summer, that includes 12 hours of instruction and hands-on learning, plus some "home" assignments between sessions. Workshops will be held on 4 Saturday mornings, from June to September. This series is led by Karin Kliewer, Master Herbalist.

AT THE END OF THIS SERIES YOU WILL HAVE GAINED:
~ confidence and knowledge of growing and using basic medicinal herbs
~ a well-stocked pantry of simple effective herbal home remedies you have made
~ knowledge on where to source quality herbal product-making supplies
~ a collection of herbal recipes, lesson notes, hand-outs and other useful resources
~ a network of other community members interested in natural herbal healing
~ please see below for more details on specific topics we will cover in each session

Limited space to 10 participants. As one goal of this series is to create a continuous small-group shared learning environment, priority will be given to participants who can commit to taking all 4 sessions.

 
HERBALIST SESSION DATES & DETAILS:

Session 1: Spring Edibles - Sat, June 9 from 9-12 noon
In this session you will learn: herbs for digestive system; wild crafting; basic herb gardening; medicinal herb teas to grow at home; and making herbal infusions.

Session 2: Summer Flowers - Sat, July 14 from 9-12 noon
In this session you will learn: herbs for stress and women's health; drying and storing herbs; making herbal medicinal oils, salves and liniments.

Session 3: Fall Bounty - Sat, Aug 11 from 9-12 noon
In this session you will learn: herbs for respiratory system; seed saving; harvesting and drying medicinal roots; making herbal decoctions; making herbal tinctures; basic herbal first aid.

Session 4: Winter Roots - Sat, Sept 8 from 9-12 noon
In this session you will learn: herbs for the immune system; herbal remedies for children’s health; making herbal medicinal syrups and winter tonics.

Details for registration are posted on our website here.  

Sustainability Workshops for 2012 - Now Posted

Happy new year!  We like to start the new year off by finalizing our list of Sustainability Workshops that will be held here at Little City Farm.  This year we have topics like permaculture, organic gardening, seed starting, beekeeping, preserving, lacto-fermention, cheesemaking, soap making, as well as a very special "practical herbalism 4 part series".  This list has just been posted on the website here, so please check in there for full list of topics and registration details.  It's our 6th year of leading workshops, and we've hosted more than 75 workshops and hundreds of participants, and this is continuously both astounding to us and encouraging to see such interest from our local community members in sharing and learning skills, and creating resiliant, vibrant, sustainable neighbourhoods.

This Moment

{This moment} - This moment - an end of week ritual, no words, just a special photo to remember, savour, enjoy. 

Holiday preparations

We are getting ready to celebrate the longest night of the year - solstice.  We've made some favourite foods (cookies of course, but also these hearty wintery crackers cut into stars, acorns and hearts), dipped lots of candles to light up the house, and in time for Dec 22 are attempting to create our first ever chocolate yule log (Buche de Noel) with this delicious flourless recipe!  

Instead of a tree we've brought in pine and cedar branches, rosehip branches, yellow and red osier dogwood branches, and pinecones - all from the yard - to decorate the doors and tables.  The wild rosehips have started to sprout leaves after about a week in a jar of water, which is a lovely reminder of the spring to come. We also have our gratitude tree, a large collection of yellow dogwood branches in a vase where we've hung felted acorns and bird oranments.  We added our thoughts of gratitude written on slips of leaf-shaped paper, remembering all we are thankful for at this time of year and hopes we have for the new year ahead.   Wishing you all well for the holidays and new year!

Hearty Wintery Crackers
2 cups flour (organic whole spelt)
3/4 cup pumpkin seeds, ground finely
1/4 cup each hemp seeds, sesame seeds
1-2 Tbsp millet
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water

Mix ingredients well, and form into a ball.  Roll out dough on lightly floured surface.  Cut into shapes.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes on ungreased baking sheets, in 350 F oven.  Serve with cheese, apple butter, jams, or soups!  Or package into containers to give as holiday gifts.

Pinecone projects

On our walks we invariably will collect all manner of objects - dried leaves, special sticks, rocks, acorns, and pinecones.  We have baskets full of pinecones - so we've been crafting with them.  We made a good selection of pinecone firestarters as holiday gifts by dipping the pinecones into melted beeswax.  They can be used to help get a fire started in a woodstove or fireplace and work extremely well.  Simple, yet effective!  Then there are the pinecone bird feeders. 

How to make Pinecone Bird Feeders
Gather half a dozen or more full size pinecones.  Fill the crevices of pinecones with peanut butter (use a butter knife or chopsticks), then roll them in millet (or other bird friendly seeds).  Let dry on waxed paper, and then hang outdoors on a long string in a place where birds can access them, but out of reach of squirrels!   We first tied them to our pea trellis, but this was a bad idea!  Hung from the branches of a young pear tree the squirrels could also reach.  So, finally we hung them off our long clothes line where there are no overhanging tree branches.  Success!

Both these pinecone projects were fun and easy for young kids to accomplish with only a little help from an adult. 

Animal tracking with kids

We've recently been told that a fox has been seen in a nearby wooded area - and so we have been going on regular adventures to see if we can spot it's home.  With new snow on the ground it's much easier to track animals here in the city, and when we look closely we can find a surprising amound of tracks (the usual birds, rabbits, mice).  It's a good exercise in slowing down and honing skills of observation, even better when done with kids who get excited about discovering the smallest details.  We did find several nice hollows, logs and burrows, and at each place Maya left a small handful of dried blueberries as a gift (because you never know if the fox might be hungry). 

These fox searching walks led to us doing more research at the local library, and delving into other interesting links like this one for making your own fieldguide of your own backyard with kids or this one eco field guide for younger kids and then reading more about the very inspiring Forest Schools that are evolving all around the world, including this one that is organized by people we know who live near Thunder Bay. 

Even though we are an unschooling family that lives in the city (on a tiny farm, but still yes, it's in the city) we have a strong leaning toward outdoor nature-based education and hope to be able to tap into something like this with a group of other families locally in the future.

December garden

December has been a busy month.  We've had our craft sale, been preparing for the holidays, watching the days grow shorter (and nights longer), and just winding down.  We've taken many wintery walks, and I took a few photos the other day when we were out enjoying the snow in our garden (which has all melted again by today - funny southern Ontario weather!)  I think the seeds heads are so beautiful when they are covered by a thin layer of fresh snow.  We leave most of our dried plants standing in the garden as birds enjoy these seeds over the winter months.  In our cold frame we still have kale, arugula, dandelion, tatsoi, and parsley going strong!

This weekend's craft sale!

We had our annual "A Little Bird Told Me" craft sale yesterday - it was a great day, with lots of catching up with friends and neighbours who dropped by, and so many beautiful handmade items on display.   Unfortunately the photos below don't do justice to how nice everything looked, and once the crowds showed up I didn't have the time to keep taking photos.  We had turned out dining room into a small cafe area, with a few tables and chairs where people could nibble baked treats or have a chance to take a break, and it was nice to have this social hub in the centre of the house.  Thanks to everyone who came out to support our local vendors!  And a huge thank you to all our talented vendors for participating in this year's event.

For the rest of the month we will take a little break from being busy, and wish you all well for the holidays.  In the next few weeks we will be posting new workshops and events for 2012 on our website and here on this blog - stay tuned!