Year: 2021

Foraging has recently become a hobby of mine, and if you ask anyone in my family you’ll hear various humorous stories about me mucking about in the woods this spring or eating parts of a tree on a walk. Doubtless I look less the wood nymph and more of a nutcase but I love it.
The interest in plants as medicine really started a long time ago, when my eldest daughter had chronic ear infections and I was skeptical about the amount of antibiotics her doctors kept prescribing. I felt that there must be another avenue to look into and that round after round of antibiotics couldn’t be good for her. After digging around on my own, I found that homeopaths suggested that garlic oil in the ears can help. I mentioned this to the doctor and was severely chastised and told “never to do that!”
Fast forward six years when my second daughter got an ear ache, guess what I was told; “Garlic oil in the ears is the first thing you should do. Antibiotics are really a last resort.” What a different tune! I’ve had a several other similar interactions involving my health and my husband’s which has really reshaped my thinking on the medicine we take. I now reach for herbal and holistic remedies before I try OTC or ask for prescriptions.

This past year I’ve taken a bigger leap into alternative medicine by creating more of my own. I especially enjoy making tinctures because they are so easy, yet potent. I’ve been making nettle tea and tinctures for a couple years for Husbands allergies, but this spring I expanded my horizons. On our last camping trip to Fort Flagler I came prepared and had a whole list of things I hoped to find, including yarrow, nettle, St. John’s Wort, plantain, and pineapple weed.

Armed with my gloves and bags I got a good amount of fresh nettle, which I intend to use for dye, since I already have plenty of tinctures. Yarrow was growing EVERYWHERe on the coast so I got a whole bag of that too. While there was a great deal on plantain as well, I couldn’t find it far enough from a road, so I’ll look for it another time. Right up on the fort I found St. John’s Wort growing too and I scored big on that. Pineapple weed, otherwise known as wild chamomile, loves to grow all over the sidewalks in our city, but I could not for the life of me find it in the woods or in a less toxic environment. Such a bummer! I grow chamomile but I was looking forward to boosting my supply since those tiny flowers last long.

However, I was able to get enough yarrow and St. John’s Wort to make several tinctures, one of which is a combo of the two with some of my own lavender thrown in. A powerful anti anxiety brew!

In addition to medicines I’ve been foraging for spruce tips in order to make beer. That has been a really fun experiment and several of the batches turned out super well. One batch did exploded once it was opened and one was grossly sweet, but most of them taste like a lager, like Blue Moon. I started making non grain beer since both Husband and I don’t do gluten and usually don’t eat wheat. Spruce tips are the new growth that emerge on spruces in the spring. They are very fun to pick and can be eaten right off the tree, resulting in a citrusy taste and a great boost of vitamin C.

I might have gotten a little spruce tip crazy, so now C and A can identify a spruce from a fir, and they point out spruce tips all the time, haha! I’m sure they will thank me later, right? Haha!

Spruce tips also make a great remedy for sore throats and coughs, so I’ve made a tincture of those too.

Looking forward to summer and fall foraging I’m compiling a list of things I’d like to add to my medicine cabinet or use in various projects, such as naturally dyeing clothes. So far my list has elderberries, sumac, conifer (not just the tips this time), and acorns. Rosemary, thyme, chamomile, oregano, and lavender are all doing well in my herb garden. I have plans to preserve those for cooking, medicine, and tinctures to last us till next blooming season.
Let me know if you have any herbs or plants you need “pruned” I’ll come help ya out! 😉

Every year the kids and I make individual summer bucket lists on the last day of school. I love seeing what they come up with! This year C kept it short and sweet:

Get water guns.

Get a new sprinkler or pool.

Get more chickens.

Get candy and eat it in the sunshine.

We’ve successfully accomplished all but one of those (sorry buddy, Official Pet Ban and such…)

Azelie had a longer list with more specific requirements.

Go to the cabin.

Go swimming.

Help Cosima try out a new little pool.

Get popsicles.

Go camping.

Go on a picnic.

Sounds like the perfect summer to me! We’ve done most of these already and it’s only July, but we do have a few more camping trips planned and we have to go an what Azelie deems a proper picnic. One cannot simply eat food outside, oh no. The picnic blanket must be on the checkered side, and we have to have packed a lunch, “not just snacks on the deck, mom.” The girl has picnic protocol down.

My list involves a lot of what the kids would probably classify as “work”. Berry picking, jamming, walks and bike rides, organizing for the new school year, BBQing, brewing, foraging, etc. I’ve already got strawberry jam in the books and blueberry season is eminent!

Our bucket lists give us some good goals for the summer but we always have other activities to fill our time as well. Caidoc is doing baseball again this year (yay for sports being back!) and his developmental leap has been amazing! Azelie will be taking tennis lessons in July and she is so excited. Both of the “bigs”, as well call them, take piano lessons through the summer. This year we are doing two two week sessions of summer school- much to C and A’s chagrin. It pays off to not have any of the “summer slide” though. I’ve been really cashing in the summer time vibe and we’ve been watching movies, eating ice cream, and having lots of fun adventures.

Pickle maintains the title of Adventure Baby. She loves to get out and do things. Her life goal is to be a big kid and she’s always asking to be included with whatever C and A are doing; she always “practices” piano after them and patiently waits her turn each day- so sweet!

The chickens and kitties are really keeping us busy. C and A have morning chores with the animals, “doing these animals chores makes me feel like we have a farm, mom!” We are all learning a lot, especially from the chickens. We recently had to clip the wings on our cross beak who likes to scale the six foot fence. She better be a good layer because between the beak and the flying she is giving us a run for our money. Those birds are so much smarter than anyone gives them credit for. The other night I went out to lock them up and Sorcha was still out. She’s taken over being the guard chicken since Lucas has been re-homed (that was hard!😢). I talked to her saying, “now lady, you can go to sleep it’s okay, it’s just me”, to which she promptly came over for a pet, then flew up into the coop. Such good girls.

Our summer has been a blast so far! We are blessed. I can’t wait for the rest of it! I look forward to more gardening ( it’s been a great year for the garden!), more foraging, camping trips, and getting myself psyched for the school year to come. I can’t wait to show you what we have planned for field trips for year- just wait! In the mean time, if you’re bored and in Washington, feel free to stop by anytime. We are always good for a popsicle or a cold brew and our willow tree has the best shade around. Come on over!

Well, 2020-2021 has been weird for a lot of people in a lot of ways. For me, it became The Year Of The Pet. Meet Freya and Isla!

This is a good story, let me fill you in.

My original plan was to have the chickens be a financial lesson for the kids; they would gather eggs and sell them, using the egg money to buy a kitten sometime around Christmas. Well. On a walk one day the kids and I saw a “free kittens” sign in the neighborhood. We all were very excited thinking maybe we could rationalize expediting our plan if the kitten was free. I told them not to get their hopes up as it might be that they were all gone, or not a good fit for our family, etc. I texted the number thinking, “meh, doesn’t hurt to check.” Next thing I knew I was texting this guy down the street about an 8 week old litter one of his tabby cat’s just had- and asking to take two. Apparently, a Siamese male is making the rounds in the neighborhood because his other tabby has a litter now too! Anyways, he tells me he will hold a pair for me, and sends me kinda blurry pictures. I didn’t tell the kids because I wanted to make sure this was really happening. Husband went to check them out and talk to the guy- he was so nice! We picked up the kittens three days later.

Having the kittens been such an awesome experience! They came litter box trained and eating kitten food so they adapted really quickly. We named them Freya and Isla. Here is where the story gets a little more…interesting. The guy told us they were both girls. Well, after a few days I’m looking at these little kitten bums and thinking, “I’m no vet but uh…” we took them to their first vet checkup and yep, both boys. The kids had been bickering back and forth for a week wanting to know if they were boys or girls, and quite a bit of consternation was raised. Bear in mind we’ve been calling them Freya and Isla for about a week and a half at this point- basically 10 years in kid time. So, will all the bickering and having already established names… I decided not to tell them, stating that it didn’t matter and they were nice kitties and healthy and that’s all that mattered. That settled that. Yep. I took the easy way out.

(Kids, if you’re reading this one day, I was sick of the bickering so yeah, our boy cats stayed Freya and Isla. Plus, I didn’t want to get into with you, but we are going to have them fixed so..in the end, it really won’t matter.)

Freya and Isla are the most easy going, beautiful, and fun kittens ever! We really lucked out. Online it says a mix of a tabby and Siamese are called a Lynx point Siamese..? It doesn’t really matter to us, but that’s what the all knowing internet says. They are very affectionate which is a very good thing with three littles who want to cuddle all day. Their bond is sweet and entertains us to no end.

They are sure growing fast and love spending time outdoors. Freya is our warrior kitty, who frequently stalks the squirrels in the backyard. Isla is a chunky love who needs to make sure everyone is tucked in at night. They love to wrestle each other and chase a laser. Cosima is loving having little animals to boss around. You can see how this past year was been The Year Of The Pet for us. I’m officially on a self instated pet ban now. I think we’ve maxed out our space and time commitments. That is, until the kids get older and more capable of helping out..and we get more space…maybe a few more chickens would be nice…as a learning experience of course.

There are a lot of things about my life that are different than I imagined they would be. From about, oh, ten years old to twenty-one, I had different ideas ranging from being a lawyer in New York or an actress in LA, to maybe starting an orphanage or teaching high school literature. Obviously none of those happened, haha! Sometimes it feels like I’ve lost my identity, but most of the times, I think that my identity is coming to find me, all the time. My life might look nothing like I planned, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s actually quite fantastic. I couldn’t, *didn’t*, dream up anything better.

Why the philosophical tangent? Well, even up until last year one of the things I thought I’d NEVER do was raise chickens. Never say never folks… ask me how I know..

Say hello to our Golden Laced Wyandotte ladies! Sorcha, Dagmara, Petra, Zita, Luna, and Rose Ray Tico. I’ll let you guess who named who.

Each of the kids are having a blast with the chicks so far. We did not originally plan on getting this breed, we had our eye on the Sapphire Gems, but long story short, there is a bit of a chicken craze going on now, and chicks are in short supply. We were lucky to get these ones after a hectic two weeks calling around, and one very disappointing trip to pick some up that turned out to be a dead end.

I grew up with chickens but that did not prepare me for all the initial stress of bringing them home! We’ve made it through the first week and I’m feeling more confident now. I owe many thanks to my bestie Brittany for all the chick equipment and listening to my stressed rants and my mom for answering all my chick questions. I know I’ll have many more…sorry B, sorry Ma.. heh.

The kids and I have big plans for the chicks that we discuss daily whilst cleaning the brooder. We’ve enrolled in 4H and hope to eventually be able to participate in a show. Luckily, the Golden Laced Wyandotte breed is great for showing as they are quite stunning fully feathered. They also hope to sell their eggs which will also be a great learning experience. I’m already impressed with C and A and even Pickle, working hard to take care of these little bitties. They aren’t the friendliest breed, but we are hoping to get them very comfortable with people. We have a three times a day ritual right now of all trooping out to clean out the brooder, hold them, or change out water and food. I have to admit I was checking on them in the middle of the night obsessively for the first few nights.

I’m already greatly anticipating that first egg! That whole “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” saying must have a twin that goes something like, “don’t make elaborate plans about buying a cat with egg money you don’t have because you don’t even have eggs yet”, but who cares, right?

These days my dreams look more like a homestead in the mountains where we have a self sustaining farm off the grid, , teaching barre at a local studio, getting a degree in nutrition or holistic medicine, and having daily adventures with my family. I’m trying to live a more intentional life by taking the necessary steps to achieve those dreams, even if it means doing something I never thought I’d end up doing. I may never get there, but I might as well try. Plus, raising chickens with my kids is turning out to be a daily adventure itself so, check one dream off the list!

I think my lesson here is two fold: 1. Maybe I shouldn’t write off that New York lawyer career just yet.. 2. It’s okay to change your mind.