Springtime is just around the corner. The cold weather has me yearning for warmer days and time spent in the garden. I also can't wait to forage my own herbal medicine. One of my favorite spring flowers/herbs is violets. They grow everywhere and have so many amazing health benefits internally and externally. Try this Violet Springtime Fairy Vinegar:A Mineral-Rich Spring Tonic (chestnutherbs.com). It combines other springtime herbs you can easily find in your backyard. Just ma

Last week, we learned how to cook buffalo tongue - a fun experiment with a tasty conclusion. Keep an eye out for more whole animal cooking/usage tips in the future! Who knows - maybe a Viking-style cup made of buffalo horn?? We know that using the whole animal is respectful and economical. But what does that look like in reality? There are really only so many tongues and hearts to go around - one per animal, to be exact, so organs and offal may not feed the masses if you only

With buffalo we often use the saying, half the heat, half the time. With the Instant Pot it's 10x the speed and 1/10th the time! Cooking has never been high on the list of things I like to do. I'm not bad at it (thanks to my sister who is a fabulous cook!), but I have no interest and no desire to take my time doing it. Enter the Instant Pot! I heard about this from friends and it sounded right up my alley. No fuss, no mess and amazing food done in so little time, well, it's l

Kombucha is one of the healthiest drinks you can consume. It's a great replacement for soda as it has a yummy carbonation without all those bad ingredients and sugars. Kombucha is a fermented tea packed with probiotics. It does contain some caffeine but as someone who is sensitive to caffeine like myself I find this very mild. I does give me a bit of an energy boost. You can also add fruits for a second fermentation to add a little flavor and more carbonation. Save money by m

I love "nose to tail" cooking because it means no part of the animal is wasted. To me, it means respecting the animal's life and the resources that went into raising it and processing it. When you are a farmer or work adjacent to agriculture or food, it is easy to see how much work goes into that process, so it becomes difficult to waste food. Working with livestock makes me very aware of the undefinable element of "life" that goes into our meat and animal products, and I wan

The Oura Ring is one of my favorite biohacking tools! A valuable device for tracking and monitoring several health factors, the Oura Ring is top notch. After over 3 years of wearing the ring I'm still hooked. It has 24/7 heart rate monitoring, temperature sensors, guided sessions, sleep analysis of all your sleep stages and timing, HRV monitoring and adapts and responds to you based on the data. It's connected via bluetooth, charges for a few days at a time, water proof and a

Baby Chick season is almost here! I ordered my 16 Lavender Orpington's yesterday! This breed is friendly and very cold hardy. I am so excited to start keeping chickens as they are going to help us cultivate our gardens, give us eggs, compost, and occasionally meat if needed! I encourage everyone to think about having chickens. They have so many benefits to any homestead. This is a great article on keeping chickens so they cost you next to nothing to have! They are really the

It is usually about this time of year that gardening comes to mind - dreaming of greens, growing things, and ripe tomatoes amid the winter lull. Seed-purchasing time was my favorite time of the year as a vegetable farmer. Now that I have a home garden, I'm just as excited to start my own seeds and grow plants. See below for my favorite local seed companies: Johnny's Selected Seeds (Maine) - Johnny's offers excellent customer service, and their website is a treasure trove of i

We are thrilled to be partnering with Renewal Garden & Compost to offer home delivery to Manchester, Concord, Hooksett, Bedford, Goffstown, Amherst, Merrimack, Derry, Londonderry, Windham! Renewal Garden & Compost offers compost pickup in the Manchester and Concord areas, as well as garden design and build services. We are happy to partner with this great organization because we believe in taking care of the Earth as best we can. Locally and sustainably raised meat partnered

Mini Trampoline (Rebounder) Rebounding give you an increased G-force (gravitational load), which benefits your whole body by strengthening the musculoskeletal systems. The benefits of rebounding include, providing lots of feel good hormones, stimulating your metabolism, the lymphatic system, strengthens the cardiovascular system, circulates oxygen to tissues, triggers blood flow. It also improves so many other internal systems including your immune, endocrine, cardiova