Earth Gazer

I spend far too much time on the internet. It has pretty much replaced watching the TV (which actually, I never did much of) to the extent that if you took my TV away, it would probably take me a week to notice! I know I need to curb some of my online time, but occasionally I come across something wonderful which makes it worthwhile. Not sure how I found this, I think it was via a Twitter 'tweet' from someone I follow. It's a wonderful audio interview and gorgeous slideshow with writer and bushcraft enthusiast Karen Wilde. She talks in such a compelling way about about the essentials of bushcraft, nature deficit disorder, sustainability, and listening to our inner child when it tells us to play outdoors more. Image from  www.wildscape.co.uk I think it's worth 30 minutes of your time. Point and click to  http://www.wildscape.co.uk/essenceofwild/wildelycreative

I love nettles! I guess some of the attraction is that most people hate them because all they can think of them is that they sting and they're a pesky weed. Image from Wikipedia But they can do so much more. They are a sign that the ground is fertile, they can add fertility back to the soil, you can compost them, you can make a fabric from them (not tried that yet), you can eat them, you can drink nettle tea, you can make a nettle tonic and so on. I've blogged about nettles here , but I also came across this blog post today which has some nice pictures and information that might get you interested in nettles too! http://naturalpathways.wordpress.com/

Are you dispondant? Give up too easily?  Maybe Gentian flower remedy will help!  Nice little video...

Last Saturday I spent a fantastic day  Springfield Sanctuary where I made, amongst other things, Agrimony Flower Essence (Flower Remedy). I'll write up more about that shortly, but this evening I came across this short YouTube video about Agrimony and it's qualities which I thought I'd share.

Back in May, I was at a friends place just outside Warwick and noticed the profusion of Dandelions. Being a good year for Dandelions, they were clearly calling out for me to do something with them, so after a bit of research, I decided to make some 'double-infused' Dandelion flower oil. As with a lot of internet-based research, you can often end up with more questions than answers! Looking up Dandelion flower oil, there were the people who made it using the 'cold' sun-infused method and those who said heat or warm-infused was better! I asked my herbal mentor, Sarah Head for advice and she said try both - well that was the decisive answer I wanted! There was more than one site that suggested that unless the flowers were dry, there was a strong chance of the oil going rancid before the flowers had infused properly if you used the sun method, so I took the cautious approach and just did the regular 'warm' double-infused method that I have previo

Here's a nice YouTube video filmed by one of the participants at a Susan Weed herb workshop. Specifically, she talks about harvesting, drying and storing herbs. I didn't realise that complete plants, when dry and stored in brown paper bags, would keep so long! The interesting stuff starts around 1:35.