Author: Valley
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Holiday Mandarin/ Cinnamon Kombucha
You will need: One quart finished 1st ferment kombucha starter tea. (Our favorite kombucha ferment is made from 2 Organically Hip Hibiscus tea bags and 2 Paul Newman’s Organic Black tea bags to ½ cup sugar and ½ cup starter and ½ gallon filtered, de-chlorinated water, and one SCOBY.) If you don’t have starter tea…
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Jim’s Favorite Fermented Dill Pickles.
Ingredients: ½ gallon spring-top canning jar or quart sized jars and metal lids 1 pkg cocktail cucumbers from Costco or one package pickling cucumbers from Fry’s ( or as many fresh cucumbers as will fit into your jar) 2 tsp mustard seeds 2 tsp dill ( I use dried dill) 2 garlic cloves 1 Tablespoon mineral…
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Jim’s Gluten-Free Pastrami Melt Sandwich
This is one of our favorite meals after a long, cold day. (in ten simple steps) Ingredients: Shaved Pastrami Swiss Cheese Sauerkraut (cultured) Gluten-Free Bread Mustard Butter Butter one side of each slice of bread (2 for each sandwich). We use Three Baker’s, Gluten Free Ancient Grain bread and we butter it frozen so it doesn’t…
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Meyer Lemon Ginger Tea
On this first day of January, I decided to use one of our ripe Meyer lemons to make a pot of soothing, infection-fighting tea. The health benefits of lemon are many, ranging from balancing the body’s ph to improving digestion, to helping to cure the common cold. I was after the cold-curing benefit this morning. We…
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A Letter to Our Neighbors
Dear neighbors, Last July I allowed our broody hen to sit on (and hatch) two fertile eggs. I knew that it was 50/50 that one would be a boy. Can you guess which one? I sure couldn’t. Broody Momma taught them everything about living in our…
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I’m Dying to Get Started!
I’ll never look at a colorful plant, seed, flower, leaf, or garment in the same way again! A Garden to Dye For is a delight from beginning to end. As with all of this author’s works, it is honest, fun, inspiring, witty, and thorough. She has considered every angle and answered every question in a…
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Catching Up ; Our Little Veggie Garden
Sometimes you get so behind on a project, you just don’t know where to begin. That’s what happened here. I’ve been waiting for the time to write about our new garden and chicken pen extension. Time for detailed posts never came. Change of plan. That’s what gardeners do best, we change things. Right? Below is the long-story-short, told…
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I’M GROUNDED
It isn’t every day that a girl wins a free pair of leather shoes, and not just any leather shoes. My new saffron yellow flats are “like no other shoes on earth.” They are grounded. Yes, a healing technology – older than dirt – has been rediscovered. According to the grounding discovery, when we walk barefoot on…
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Garden Planter Combination ~Joy, Gladness, & Spendor
Our entire garden space is visible from our kitchen, office, and family room. It is a living, moving, breathing, singing addition to our daily lives. As such, we keep it groomed, fed, and full of color. This planter has spent over a dozen years on our patio. It contains my favorite combination of flowers: geranium,…
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Compost: An Old Secret for New Life
Is there anything you want?”… “Do you want toys, books, dolls?” “Might I Have a Bit of Earth?” In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled. “Earth!” he repeated. “What do you…