Thank you for joining me "at home" learning to be more independent and sustainable. This website launches at a critical time in history with the Covid-19 pandemic. Take a pause from the noise of the world and use this time of self-isolation as an opportunity for you and your family to share quality time mastering new life skills. Cook together. Create together. Below are listed the various categories from this website, and a description of each. Click on the drop-down menus at the top of the page to access the various articles. I look forward to hearing of your efforts as you transform crisis into self reliance.
Join me in field and garden. Forage nature's free superfoods & healthful plants from your own backyard and region. Learn to use the natural pharmacy in your own backyard. Grow wild plants, herbs, and vegetables and deepen your connection with the green world. In the current world environment of pandemics and food shortages, it's more vital than ever to develop self-reliance and to share this knowledge with others. There are over fifty thousand edible plants in the world yet commerce focuses on a mere handful. This overuse of limited foods (for examples, wheat, corn, soy) contributes to food allergies as well as global food insecurity. Paradoxically, the 'invasive plants' as well as everyday weeds that humans have been diligently fighting to suppress may provide answers to some food shortages and health issues.
Join me 'at home' in the kitchen. As a home economics teacher, my specialty was food and nutrition. After experimenting with countless ways of eating, I've evolved a 'flexitarian' kitchen that adapts to the season, place, and current health needs. In this section we'll explore diverse recipes from many traditions and ways to adapt them to your current needs. As this section grows, we'll explore green drinks, antiviral syrups, vegetable fermentation, sprouting, tinctures, and even herbal beer. I'll also share my annual ten day vegan detox, a practice that has stabilized my weight and improved my health.
Your creative life contributes immensely to happiness. Join me 'at home' in the Creation Station. As the blog develops, I'll share ways to expand skills with arts and crafts--like making your own wooden garden signs. Felt design notecards. Photography and art challenges. Also explore how to expand the power of your mind, ease stress and use your time more deliberately. In the first post, The Power of Ten, I'll reveal a technique to help keep yourself on track, so that your dreams become reality.
Building a 'hobbit' house from earth, clay and straw is one of the greatest challenges I've ever tackled. And one that even a great grandmother like me can DO! Follow the process from idea to finish as Barry and I and a team of international volunteers make it happen. My first post, The Vision, explores my fifty year dream of creating an earthen home, and the steps in doing so. Future posts will cover the entire hobbit house build. We'll also 'visit' tiny homes I've lived in- from log cabins to houseboat as well as tiny houses on wheels built by friends.
A laugh a day keeps the emotional gremlins away. Join me 'at home' on this funny farm. Animals add warmth and joy to our lives, and can stir many a belly laugh. The first video is footage of me playing with my haflinger Alfie and what happens as photographer Elsa Kholdi gives him a prompt. Stayed tuned for more funny clips, as well as instructional posts on learning with horses.
Blogging is where I share what's on my mind and heart. This section contains time-dated content and writings not fitting the category structure for articles. As this website is launched, we're in the 2020 global pandemic of the Covid-19 virus. New Zealand is in a state of emergency and we are 'at home' hunkering in. I'm thankful for my lifetime 'of training'--from childhood Yankee frugality to teaching home economics to living in the Alaskan bush in self-isolation, creating a pantry, foraging the wild, eco-building, and developing herbal knowledge. May the tips and insights help you become healthier, happier and more self sufficient.
Newly released! A must have for those wanting to deepen relations with plants and be more self reliant.
Learn MoreThe classic guide to the wild plants of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Lavishly illustrated with both photographs of plants in various stages of growth, plus detailed line drawings.
Learn MoreAn autobiographical journey of moving from New Hampshire to Alaska and discovering a life of plants and deep ecology.
Learn MoreKids will delight in this read aloud bedtime tale filled with catchy rhymes and eye-popping illustrations. Join Henry as he heads out into the world to find a home. How Henry handles his problems is a life lesson for kids of all ages.
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