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Today was National Corgi day!
We love our silly little potato logs. They bring us so much joy and love and frustration 😂

We wouldn’t trade them for anything. They’re just the most ridiculously stubborn, selectively deaf awesome good boys.

What a treat to get to share some of our years with Butter and Bo Bear

#everythingisbetterwithbutter #twocorgisarebetterthanone #nationalcorgiday

Today was National Corgi day!
We love our silly little potato logs. They bring us so much joy and love and frustration 😂

We wouldn’t trade them for anything. They’re just the most ridiculously stubborn, selectively deaf awesome good boys.

What a treat to get to share some of our years with Butter and Bo Bear

#everythingisbetterwithbutter #twocorgisarebetterthanone #nationalcorgiday

This sunshine has us all feeling real good.

Thank ewe for grabbing sheepskins, Balm and Prints from our shop today! We’re so grateful ☺️

This sunshine has us all feeling real good.

Thank ewe for grabbing sheepskins, Balm and Prints from our shop today! We’re so grateful ☺️

I don’t remember when I first started making cottonwood bud balm, or balm of Gilead, aka Poplar salve and other such names.
It may have been when a cottonwood tree came down in my sheep pen many years ago destroying the fence. I knew the wood wasn’t great for firewood, but I wanted to make the most of the destruction. I noticed my sheep eating up the leaves and then read about poplar being a good food source and possibly an anti-parasitic. I recall fondly smelling the first hints of spring- a scent intoxicatingly like beeswax and honey and realizing it was the cottonwood buds.
Whenever it was that I found out about and begin making this balm it proved to be a favorite. Not just because it smells like the first warm spring day, but because my joints love it. The resin in the cottonwood buds is a soothing balm for aching joints and inflammation. My hands get so beat up and this is truly like natures Ben-Gay (anyone used to use that stuff?) but better. Chris and I often sit in bed at night reading our books and one of us will put a hand out with a pleading look which translates to ‘please rub my aching hands with the balm’

It keeps for a long time. I *just* finished using up a tin of it that I made 3 years ago.

The ingredients are cottonwood buds picked when the resin can be squeezed from them in a sticky amber goo, and a high quality pure olive oil. Then we let them soak for a long time near the stove. The warmth slowly releases the resin into the oil. After many weeks, the buds are separated out and the remaining pungent oil is warmed and mixed with beeswax. This wax came from a little apiary in Montana. Chris and I stopped there in September and picked out a chunk of wax from a box of thick slabs of newly poured and cooled golden wax. Bees buzzed around the store and the whole place smelled intoxicating. The wax has been used in part for some of @christiansorensen_art encaustic paintings, candles and now this balm.

I only have 15 tins of it. The beautiful result of natures best work.
We hope it offers your hard working hands and sore spots the same relief it has for us.

*available Wednesday in our shop

I don’t remember when I first started making cottonwood bud balm, or balm of Gilead, aka Poplar salve and other such names.
It may have been when a cottonwood tree came down in my sheep pen many years ago destroying the fence. I knew the wood wasn’t great for firewood, but I wanted to make the most of the destruction. I noticed my sheep eating up the leaves and then read about poplar being a good food source and possibly an anti-parasitic. I recall fondly smelling the first hints of spring- a scent intoxicatingly like beeswax and honey and realizing it was the cottonwood buds.
Whenever it was that I found out about and begin making this balm it proved to be a favorite. Not just because it smells like the first warm spring day, but because my joints love it. The resin in the cottonwood buds is a soothing balm for aching joints and inflammation. My hands get so beat up and this is truly like natures Ben-Gay (anyone used to use that stuff?) but better. Chris and I often sit in bed at night reading our books and one of us will put a hand out with a pleading look which translates to ‘please rub my aching hands with the balm’

It keeps for a long time. I *just* finished using up a tin of it that I made 3 years ago.

The ingredients are cottonwood buds picked when the resin can be squeezed from them in a sticky amber goo, and a high quality pure olive oil. Then we let them soak for a long time near the stove. The warmth slowly releases the resin into the oil. After many weeks, the buds are separated out and the remaining pungent oil is warmed and mixed with beeswax. This wax came from a little apiary in Montana. Chris and I stopped there in September and picked out a chunk of wax from a box of thick slabs of newly poured and cooled golden wax. Bees buzzed around the store and the whole place smelled intoxicating. The wax has been used in part for some of @christiansorensen_art encaustic paintings, candles and now this balm.

I only have 15 tins of it. The beautiful result of natures best work.
We hope it offers your hard working hands and sore spots the same relief it has for us.

*available Wednesday in our shop

We are reading thru Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I first read this book in 2010 when it first came out along with 100 mile diet, Plenty, and Michael Pollan’s books. It launched me into a full frenzy of gardening, raising chickens and rabbits, kombucha and saurkraut. I had already found myself deep in the Weston Price, nourishing traditions and herbal medicine world by that time and my kitchen became my front line in a battle against big Ag. But it was just that- a battle. My mission was to be against something that felt evil. And for a time I religiously stuck to my guns. But like many things in life- if you are running *AWAY* from something, you end up running out of steam and I got tired of the constant war fueled kitchen regime. Blogs and food clubs became a place of judgement and platforms to make your case for why you decided it was ok to drink coffee instead of chicory or have a pastry because you supported your local farmers at the expense of not going to the hair salon.

I decided that running towards something felt better and I got rid of the shame mentality. I leaned into joy and gratitude. I stopped explaining my choices. I no longer felt the need to try to convince anyone else to eat or not eat something to help me validate my own restraint.

I liked eating again. And I liked eating with others without silently justifying the store bought lasagna they served or trying to explain to someone why I only ate sprouted grains.

Re reading this book feels different this time because I’m reading it with excitement rather than resolve. Remembering how wonderful it is to eat seasonally. That simple meals are a celebration of what tastes best right now- not restriction to make myself feel worthy of my choices.

Perusing the market today while sleet fell from the sky- I found myself feeling immense gratitude for the folks that brought their offerings to share with the community. I’m so grateful for parsnips and fresh sourdough bread.

Joy and gratitude are much better reasons to eat than guilt and fear.

We are reading thru Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I first read this book in 2010 when it first came out along with 100 mile diet, Plenty, and Michael Pollan’s books. It launched me into a full frenzy of gardening, raising chickens and rabbits, kombucha and saurkraut. I had already found myself deep in the Weston Price, nourishing traditions and herbal medicine world by that time and my kitchen became my front line in a battle against big Ag. But it was just that- a battle. My mission was to be against something that felt evil. And for a time I religiously stuck to my guns. But like many things in life- if you are running *AWAY* from something, you end up running out of steam and I got tired of the constant war fueled kitchen regime. Blogs and food clubs became a place of judgement and platforms to make your case for why you decided it was ok to drink coffee instead of chicory or have a pastry because you supported your local farmers at the expense of not going to the hair salon.

I decided that running towards something felt better and I got rid of the shame mentality. I leaned into joy and gratitude. I stopped explaining my choices. I no longer felt the need to try to convince anyone else to eat or not eat something to help me validate my own restraint.

I liked eating again. And I liked eating with others without silently justifying the store bought lasagna they served or trying to explain to someone why I only ate sprouted grains.

Re reading this book feels different this time because I’m reading it with excitement rather than resolve. Remembering how wonderful it is to eat seasonally. That simple meals are a celebration of what tastes best right now- not restriction to make myself feel worthy of my choices.

Perusing the market today while sleet fell from the sky- I found myself feeling immense gratitude for the folks that brought their offerings to share with the community. I’m so grateful for parsnips and fresh sourdough bread.

Joy and gratitude are much better reasons to eat than guilt and fear.

I hope you like bones
And skins

We’ll have our next round available for you Wednesday the 25th at 10 AM Pacific time

Can’t wait to show you.
It’s a surprise (sort of)

I hope you like bones
And skins

We’ll have our next round available for you Wednesday the 25th at 10 AM Pacific time

Can’t wait to show you.
It’s a surprise (sort of)

Shearing up at @mpranches on a bluebird February day

Shearers are my heros

Shearing up at @mpranches on a bluebird February day

Shearers are my heros

Craving all the healing things.
Craving faces with wrinkles and bodies that tell stories without saying a word.
Starving for an existence that is centered around loons and cottonwood buds, rosehips and compost.

Hungry to my core for more of whatever can’t be bought.

Create, make, hold, save, foster, fend, delight, behold.

Words that remind me what I can do.

*crafting cotton bud salve to heal and to soothe

Craving all the healing things.
Craving faces with wrinkles and bodies that tell stories without saying a word.
Starving for an existence that is centered around loons and cottonwood buds, rosehips and compost.

Hungry to my core for more of whatever can’t be bought.

Create, make, hold, save, foster, fend, delight, behold.

Words that remind me what I can do.

*crafting cotton bud salve to heal and to soothe

We laid Chris’s mother to rest this past week.
A woman who loved birds and wildflowers. Wool sweaters. Being outside more than being inside.

A woman who spent countless hours collecting sticks and rocks and bones and feathers.

A woman who loved travel and dogs and wished she could have sheep.

A woman I only got to meet in physical form but not mental form as her memory had deteriorated, but she told me I was beautiful and she sang silly songs with me in the times I did visit her.

I shed tears for a woman I wished I could have spent time traipsing about the coulees and hills and riverside of their Montana property with. I wished I could have talked to her about sheep and all things wool and weaving, Wendell berry, poetry, knitting and other crafts.

I am grateful she raised the man that she did. I’m grateful to get to continue finding rocks and feathers and skulls in her memory.

Fly Free

We laid Chris’s mother to rest this past week.
A woman who loved birds and wildflowers. Wool sweaters. Being outside more than being inside.

A woman who spent countless hours collecting sticks and rocks and bones and feathers.

A woman who loved travel and dogs and wished she could have sheep.

A woman I only got to meet in physical form but not mental form as her memory had deteriorated, but she told me I was beautiful and she sang silly songs with me in the times I did visit her.

I shed tears for a woman I wished I could have spent time traipsing about the coulees and hills and riverside of their Montana property with. I wished I could have talked to her about sheep and all things wool and weaving, Wendell berry, poetry, knitting and other crafts.

I am grateful she raised the man that she did. I’m grateful to get to continue finding rocks and feathers and skulls in her memory.

Fly Free

We will be out of town for a week for a family related matter. If you grab anything from our online shop it will ship out in the first week of February

I hope you have something in your life that brings you joy like this pup has brought to ours. It’s good to find joy where and when you can.

Because the horrors persist, but so must we.

We will be out of town for a week for a family related matter. If you grab anything from our online shop it will ship out in the first week of February

I hope you have something in your life that brings you joy like this pup has brought to ours. It’s good to find joy where and when you can.

Because the horrors persist, but so must we.

There’s a lot of ranting and rightfully so. And when I start to write my own rant I feel hopelessness seeping in and so instead I am putting my energy into removing myself little by little from a system designed to farm us like industrial swine, dependent and numb and passive.

In as many as ways as possible I will produce what we need. I will fix what is broken. I will learn how to make the most and do without. I will support my neighbor and in as many ways as possible I will try to trade and barter. I will find joy in ‘enough’ because greed- as it has always been for all of humanity- is the root of destruction. Greed and power.
Hungry ghosts roaming like rabid dogs. Nothing is enough until they are undone. A snake eating its own tail.

History tells us everything we need to know about humans. And here we are. Experiencing our own flavor of the same cyclical path.
Today I will use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.
Let enough be enough.

There’s a lot of ranting and rightfully so. And when I start to write my own rant I feel hopelessness seeping in and so instead I am putting my energy into removing myself little by little from a system designed to farm us like industrial swine, dependent and numb and passive.

In as many as ways as possible I will produce what we need. I will fix what is broken. I will learn how to make the most and do without. I will support my neighbor and in as many ways as possible I will try to trade and barter. I will find joy in ‘enough’ because greed- as it has always been for all of humanity- is the root of destruction. Greed and power.
Hungry ghosts roaming like rabid dogs. Nothing is enough until they are undone. A snake eating its own tail.

History tells us everything we need to know about humans. And here we are. Experiencing our own flavor of the same cyclical path.
Today I will use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.
Let enough be enough.

It was always my plan to get another corgi when Butter was around 4-5. Someone to help keep him young. Another dog that fits in our small home and our crazy life.

I hoped Butter would eventually warm up to a new pup, but I didn’t think it would happen so fast. He shows him around, plays gentle and is already protecting Bo- Bear from the cat when she’s fed up with puppy antics.

It’s so sweet knowing that Brother Bo is going to help keep Butter young, and maybe help him trim up!

It was always my plan to get another corgi when Butter was around 4-5. Someone to help keep him young. Another dog that fits in our small home and our crazy life.

I hoped Butter would eventually warm up to a new pup, but I didn’t think it would happen so fast. He shows him around, plays gentle and is already protecting Bo- Bear from the cat when she’s fed up with puppy antics.

It’s so sweet knowing that Brother Bo is going to help keep Butter young, and maybe help him trim up!

Butter has a lil brother. Welcome to the fam Bo-Bear.

Butter has a lil brother. Welcome to the fam Bo-Bear.

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