Nothing warms body and soul in January more than a simmering pot of soup. No wonder it has been dubbed National Soup Month. Making a pot of soup involves more than haphazardly throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot of water and hoping for the best. I carefully choose each ingredient. Texture and color [...]
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Arsenic in apple juice—the breaking news of the past week. Started by Dr. Mehmet Oz, on his popular television program, this controversy has either raised fear and doubt in the minds of parents that regularly give apple juice to their children, or fueled the fire of scoffers who do not really care. When I was [...]
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I haven’t always eaten a healthy, organic, fanatically local diet. In fact, I don’t now. I do what I can, when I can; and I try not to feel guilty about the rest. But the one obstacle I hear regularly when I counsel someone to make dietary changes is that they cannot afford it. I [...]
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I know Food, Inc. has been out for a while. However, our family is so slow at getting to movies that I just watched Food, Inc. while we were on Staycation. This movie made such an impact on our thinking that I wanted to share it with you here. Prior to viewing, I did already [...]
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This summer I wrote about the safe use of pesticides in the yard and garden. But with Fall here, I though I’d share my tips for natural pest control inside your home! House Flies Living in a rural area, we have more than our share of house flies. Since they usually fail to wipe their [...]
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If I could grow only one thing in my garden, I’d have to choose greens. Now, if I had to narrow that down to a specific variety, I’d be in trouble. But if I could grow just greens, I would have an endless variety—spinach, kale, collards, Swiss chard, beet tops, cabbage, lettuce, and more. And [...]
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So, you purchased your hens and they are starting to lay. But the eggs are a little messy when you bring them in. Should you scrub them with antibacterial soap? What about the eggs that you found in a pile behind the hen house—how do you know they are okay to eat? You cracked an [...]
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Beeswax is a natural ingredient that has several therapeutic properties. You can find it in skincare products such as lip balms, butters and lotions; centuries ago, before the development of paraffin candles, beeswax candles were commonplace too. Today, churches still use beeswax candles. If you are making your own natural skincare products, you might want [...]
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I rarely buy meat at the grocery store. For years now our family has raised our own chickens or pigs for butchering, or hunted deer in the forest. There are many benefits to raising your own meat, for your health and otherwise. But I’d like to share just five of them with you here. 1. [...]
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You may dream of growing all of your own food, but your personal reality might not be as romantic as a rural retreat with an acre of ground in the south of France (my as yet unfulfilled vision for living my good life). You may be an urban eco-warrior, or like me a suburban greenie. [...]
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The return of warm sunshine here in the northern hemisphere and your thoughts may be turning to vacations but in this day and age, especially for us natural folks, travel comes loaded with all types of responsibilities. As an almost everyday family with organic tendencies, here are just some of the questions we ask each [...]
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Safe sun exposure in the modern age is generally accepted to include the application of sun screens or blocks with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15+. As our awareness of the potentially harmful nature of some cosmetic ingredients grows, so does an ever increasing amount of natural and organic labelled sun screen products become [...]
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