Skijoring with the huskies

Here is a picture of the dogs taking a break while skijoring at Hyatt Lake yesterday. Hyatt Lake is located outside of Ashland Oregon in the beautiful Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. It is one of our favorite places to play year round. We love to ski around it in the winter, take the canoe on it, bike around it, swim across it, dog sled, hike and run around it. We are sometimes rewarded with a view of ospreys and eagles soaring high above.

Cabin Fever

I have had a serious case of cabin fever since the beginning of January.
We moved to the mountains 20 years ago because we love the snow but hadn't had any snow since Christmas Eve. While the East was getting dumped on, here in the Green Springs all we were getting is rain. Because of Global Warming we have really noticed a difference in our weather. In the past snow would stay on the ground for weeks at a time, but in the last few years it's only a few days. So I have been keeping busy doing things like taking inventory, organizing, ordering supplies, and getting ready for taxes and filling orders. Friday it finally happened! We had a nice snowstorm followed by a sunny Saturday. Hurray for sun! We headed up to Hyatt Lake (pictured above) to ski around it. The views are breathtaking with Mt. McLaughlin visible most of the way. It was an easy 10 mile ski around the lake, and then it was the dogs turn. We love to skijor with them so we hook them up to our waists and they pull us until they are tired. Today we will do it again but this time we will go to Buck Prairie and bring the dogsled. I am off to make blueberry pancakes and coffee, pack a lunch and head up the mountain. Life it good!

Safeteam Gift Guide and Weekend Sale

This weekend some members of the SAFETEAM are having a weekend sale. http://etsysafeteam.blogspot.com/ Just in time for the holidays I am having a 20 % off sale ending November 15 at midnight PST. So hurry over to my shop and check it out. Also check out the Safeteam mens gift guide, my Vanilla Mocha Soap is featured. Look for Whipped Shea Butter, Essential Oil Perfumes, Shampoo Bars and more to be listed soon. So check back often or click on the Etsy link on the right.

St John's Wort for the body, mind and spirit

Above is the soap I made using oil infused with St. John's Wort (hypericium perforatum). Herbal folklore name is flower of the fairies and wolf medicine. This is one of my favorite herbs and grows abundantly in the surrounding mountains. I filled a glass gallon jar full of flowers and added organic olive oil. I then set the jar in the sun to infuse for at least 6 weeks making sure to turn and shake once a day. I use the oil in many of my lotions and potions.
Last week I burned my fingers with the steam from the canner. I quickly rubbed St. John's Wort oil on the burn and the pain stopped immediately! St. John's Wort oil has the ability to penetrate nerve endings thus relieving pain. I also use this oil for painful joints.
If I am feeling blue, I like to take a few drops of tinctured St. John's to lift my spirits.
The soap pictured is called Citrus Sweet Goat's Milk Soap
I used the following 5 fold essential oils: lemon, lime, blood orange, tangerine and grapefruit. I also added a touch of patchouli which gives it its sweetness and anchors the scent. Lastly I add a bit of Litsea Cubeba essential oil.

The natural colorant is fresh St. John's Wort infused in organic oils to give the soap a nice reddish color. It never ceases to amaze me that the gold St. John's Wort flowers turn the oil to a beautiful red.

Bath Time

Fall is the time I get back to taking long luxurious soaks in my claw foot tub. When we were building our log cabin, one my first priorities was finding a big old claw foot tub. This weekend I made up a batch of vanilla and lavender scented bath salts. The following recipe makes enough for many baths: I use 1 cup of dead sea salt, 1 cup of epsom salt, and 1/2 cup powdered organic milk. I place everything in a large zip lock bag and mix well. Then I add a small whole vanilla bean scraped and cut into little pieces and lavender essential oil, I use a teaspoonful but you may want to ad more or less. I shake the bag daily for a few weeks then it's ready to use. Once I draw the bath I add a tablespoon or two of the bath salts and soak my cares away.
Sometimes I will ad dried rose petals or hollyhocks for a spa-like experience. Now is the perfect time to treat yourself to Clean and Glow, my oil based cleansing method and don't forget Green Springs skin softening goat's milk soap scented only with essential oils and or herbs. Goat's Milk exfoliates naturally. Treat your feet to a rub down with our Shower and Glow made with dead sea salt and herbal infused organic oils. Relax and let the salts and essential oil do its work. Sweet dreams!

The Three R's

This mama bear visited our campsite in the Sierras after our dogs scared her up the tree. After a few hours she came down and was on her way. We were lucky to see three other bears during our trip and a mother deer nursing her fawn. Camping and being out of cell and computer range for two whole weeks is just what I needed.

Days were spent hiking, biking, swimming, reconnecting with my husband and just plain relaxing. Our tent has a mesh top and we watched the stars in the comfort of our sleeping bags.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my business and the direction I want it to go. I tend to try to do to much and get burned out. I'm an Aries so that may explain it! If someone asks why I don't have a certain scent of soap or lotion, I always need to make it and list it in my store, even tho that person sometimes never comes back to buy it. More often than not it sits in the store a long time before someone does buy it.

This is how I came up with the Three R's. You have always heard of reduce, reuse, recycle, my three R's are relax, reconnect and reinvent. Relax: is something I do not do as often as I should, but on vacation it felt so good to just do nothing. Reconnect: I am painfully aware how short life is and my goal is to reconnect with family, friends, and neighbors regardless of how busy we all are. So friends and family be forewarned, I will be bugging you to get together more! It's really easy to become isolated in our busy lives, but what's life about without, family, friends and neighbors. Reinvent: realizing that "less is more" I have decided to cut back on offering so many different types of products and only focus on the ones that I and my customers love the most. This will free up quite a bit of time so I can relax, reconnect and reinvent my shop and product line.

So if you don't hear from me or see as much in my store online, know that I am living my life to the fullest and enjoying it as much as I can which will make me refreshed and focused so that I can continue to make amazing organic eco friendly products. Also now I can spend more time trying to save the planet for my grandkids. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!

P.S. Don't worry I will still be making FACE FOOD.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVIN FUN

Can you believe Suka is 6 months old already? He is almost as big as Tenaya pictured with the beautiful blue eyes. He loves to chase her around their fenced in yard. Sometimes he grabs a hold of her tail while they are racing around! They have worn a racetrack into our yard and Tenaya is so fast the only way Suka can catch her is if he takes a short cut.

I am almost done wild crafting Arnica, St. John's wort, and Elderflowers. I made a beautiful soap using St. John's Wort Flowers that I will post in a few days. I also made a nice salt bar that is a goat's milk soap bar with dead sea salt and French green clay. It smells amazing.
I still have many soaps, potions and lotions to make for my markets and shows. Visit me in Jacksonville Oregon Labor Day weekend for the Arts Festival. Then it's time to gear up cause Christmas is right around the corner. Time sure flies!