Here at Kettle Care, we go through about six cords of wood every winter.  It heats most of our house, offices and lab. 

Coming in to a warm fire after digging roots in the fall, warming your hands over the stove, drying your boots, gloves and jacket on the rack near the fire, just sitting next to the stove to warm up, watching the flames flickering through the glass window in the door.  What comfort a fire is, a direct connection to where our heat comes from.  All of the wood we use for firewood comes from forest within 20 miles of where we live, and is dead when we cut it.  We work hard to cut it, tuning up the chainsaws, sharpening the chains, hooking up the trailer, scouting out the woods.   Bob cuts the wood, my job is to get it down to the road and make sure he has gas, oil and water on hand wherever he is on the hill.  We both load it onto the trailer, and unload it when we get home.  Then comes the splitting and stacking in the woodshed to protect it from rain and snow.

The best part is starting the fire.  We use newspapers and the cardboard that is packaging for the ingredients for Kettle Care and the food we buy.  It is great to be able to start our fire with garbage we could have taken to the dump.  It is our form of recycling.  We stack the kindling on top of the papers, light it with a wooden match, and instantly, a blast of heat greets us while we build the fire with more kindling, then finally logs to hold the fire for hours.  I love how direct it is, wood + fire = heat.  No converting it into pellets for a pellet stove, or using sawdust to generate electricity for heat.

The bark from the wood is gathered and used for mulch in our gardens.  Strawberries, roses and trees use the fertilizer it produces as it slowly decomposes.  The ashes provide lime and potash to feed the garden.

Gathering wood in the fall is another part of the circle of life at our eco farm, Kettle Care.  Thank you for supporting our simple lifestyle!

Good day to all who read these thoughts on gardening and how gifts from nature can heal our bodies.  It is in the upper 90s this week, and I am enjoying the weather immensely.  It only happens a couple of weeks a year in Whitefish, MT, so hot weather is a pleasant reminder of what the southern states get much of the year. 

Hot weather does alert me to the amount of humus in the soil and general fertility.  It is a test for the plants to survive and keep producing above 90 degrees, and organic matter in the soil holds moisture for uptake by the roots of the plants.  The reaction of the plants to these hot days (such as wilting) tells me which areas need more organic matter. 

Of course, a good watering in the morning and evening helps plants cope with hot weather.  In our area, the water is alkaline, so heavy watering makes the soil more alkaline.  I use Yellowstone Sulfur pellets (which are organically approved) liberally in my soil to offset the alkalinity of both soil and water.

The Calendulas are still coming on strong.  This year I planted a variety from Richter’s Herb Nursery in Goodwood, Ontario.  It is Calypso Orange Calendula.  It grows shorter than the Pacific Beauty I usually plant, and the flowers are consistently a deep orange, which provides more beta carotene for the extracts used in so many of our products.  Calendula also carry a lot of resins at the base of the flowers that is medicinal, and my hands become sticky when harvesting them.

Here is some information about Calendula.  They are very easy to grow, and reseed readily.

LOCAL HERBS AND HOW TO USE THEM  -  by Lynn Wallingford of Kettle Care ~ Pure Herbal Body Care

Also known as Pot Marigold, Calendula officinalis bears no resemblance to those golden annuals used for edging.  It is available as an annual in local greenhouses and nurseries and is commonly used just because it is so pretty. Reaching up to 2 feet high, it is also an excellent cosmetic herb.  It blooms from late May through September and is somewhat frost hardy.  It reseeds readily, so let some of the flowers go to seed and look for the seedlings the next Spring.  I like to use the Pacific Beauty variety.  The seed is available as a flower seed, and as an herb seed.

Calendula (Calendula officinalis) in the daisy family (Asteraceae) is a small, cool weather annual with yellow or orange flowers. It is native to the Mediterranean countries and is also known as pot marigold. The name calendula comes from the Latin word for “first day of the month” and may refer to the fact that the plant can be found blooming at the beginning of most months of the year in the Mediterranean.

The German Commission E has approved calendula flower for both internal and topical use in treating inflammation of the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat. It is also approved externally for the healing of wounds; herbal infusions, tinctures, and ointments are used for skin and mucous membrane inflammations, such as leg ulcers, bruises, boils, and rashes. Antiviral and immunostimulating effects of calendula have also been reported. It reduces muscle spasms and tension, regulates menstration, is wound healing, styptic (stops bleeding through astringent action) antiseptic.  Calendula has been shown to be effective for the prevention of acute dermatitis, especially during radiation therapy for breast cancer.  Calendula is so gentle, it is suitable for people with sensitive skin, such as newborns and the elderly.

We grown hundreds of Calendulas in our cosmetic gardens at Kettle Care to use in a variety of products, including a Baby Creme (3C’s), Muscle Rub, Herbal Aid Creme, and Firefighters Creme. 

Harvest Calendula flowers on a sunny day after the dew has dried (about 10 am to noon).  This is when the essential oils are strongest in the flowers.  The flowers easily pop off of the stems.  Choose flowers that have recently opened.  You will notice a resin on your hands after harvest.

Preparations: 

Oil Infusion - Put Calendula flowers in a glass jar. Soak the flowers in enough vegetable or nut oil (olive is best) to cover.  Seal it tightly.  Set in a warm place for a week.

Alcohol Tincture - pour 1 cup of Everclear alcohol, 1 cup of distilled water over two ounces of freshly picked flowers.  Seal it tightly in a clear glass container and let it stand for at least a week in the sun or in a warm place.

Water Infusion (Tea) – Boil one quart of water.  Take off the heat; add ¼ oz. dried Calendula flowers.  Let steep for 15 minutes; strain.  Store excess in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Filter and it is ready for use.  A cone coffee filter and filter paper work well for Tincture.  Use a piece of flannel cloth for oil infusions.  To store it, put the tincture or infusion in a sealed glass container and keep it out of direct sunlight.   A dark glass container works best.

You can make a tea with Calendula flowers for menopausal problems, period pain, gastritis and throat inflammation.  To use as a compress on slow healing wounds and varicose veins, apply a pad soaked in the tea, oil infusion or tincture.  You can use your tincture or tea for mouth ulcers and gum disease.

You can also add various Essential Oils to the oil infusion, depending on your desired application.  For sore muscles, joints and swellings, good Essential Oils are Rosemary, Lavender, Tea Tree, Cajeput and Thyme.  Use 10 drops of Essential Oil to one ounce (two tablespoons) of oil infusion.  In our products, look to muscle rub to provide you with relief using these herbs.

Bibliography:

The Complete Medicinal Herbal, Penelope Ody, DK Books, 1993

American Botanical Council, www.herbalgram.org, 2005

Harvest is underway here, these are our lovely peonies.  I am pulling the petals from the centers here, then spreading them on the screens to dry quickly.  I hang the screens from ropes in the barn, catching the warm breezes that pass through.  It has been so windy, I have not had to open the doors at all.

The peony flowers are used for potpourri, and the roots are used in Chinese medicine.  Look for the root in our Herbal Aid Crème in our new catalog this fall.

We are busy drying, weighing and recording our harvest in our Organic certification records.  From these records, we can tell by the lot number on your products when each herb was harvested on the farm.

In the background is our new chicken coop.  We have lost a few to skunks (we have trapped 7 now).  We have a raven that circles daily.  All of the chicks run back into the coop when he is overhead.  I hope he does not pick a few off.  We have no doubt lost a few by now, but it is difficult to count 75 chicks when they move so quickly.

This is the pen we built onto our existing pen for the laying chickens.  Only four weeks old, they have lost most of their fluff and are sporting real feathers.  As soon as the door opens in the morning, at least 50 of them flood through looking for tidbits in the grass.

Last night, we discovered a momma skunk and two to three babies.

The garden fared well while I was gone to Utah at Summerfest.  We had a very good fair and I thank all of the people who worked so hard to create the fair, and all of the customers who supported us in Logan.

The weather seems to have settled down, so today I am planting those beans I heeled in before I left, along with zucchini, yellow, delicata and acorn squash.  I will cover them with remay row covers to protects them from the wind and possible hail, and will post a photo tomorrow.  Today we are harvesting Calendula, peony, and chamomile.

Today we are preparing to leave for Summerfest, to be held Thursday, June 12, Friday June 13 and Saturday June 14 in Logan, UT at the LDS Tabernacle on Main and Center Streets.  We will have a booth at the Art Fair, brimming with delicious body care products made from our organic cosmetic garden.  Our booth number is 143.

And today it is snowing!  My plans to transplant my 100 sun loving bean plants has be thwarted.  The poor little babies are overgrown in their pots, and waiting to dig into some nice warm soil in the sunshine.  Not in Montana today!  What to do?  I hate to leave them for a week bound up like they are.  So I decided to “Heel them” into the greenhouse soil with the tomatoes and basil.  In the back of the planting bed in the greenhouse, I dug a furrow for them, popped them out of their little cell packs (they are a foot high now).  Then I carefully pulled the bottom roots out of their circle to encourage new root growth.  They are now settling into some real soil, though temporarily.

When I return from Summerfest and the sun is shining, the air and the soil are warm, we will nestle those bean plants into their new beds along with the squash.

Back with more on June 18^th!

After living in two cardboard boxes for two weeks in our living room, our 75 chicks have been liberated into

their new chicken coop!  In their exuberance, they spread their wings and tried out flying for the first time.  We have 25 fancy layers and 50 roasters.   Heated with two heat lamps and an electric heater, they survived their first night with a temperature of 68 degrees this morning.

Chickens are an integral part of our eco farm here at Kettle Care.  As we weed our cosmetic garden, we throw the weeds into the chicken yard (currently with four Rhode Island hens) to sort through, looking for worms, eating greens and eventually, decomposing into manure to go back into the garden.  This provides our organic garden with fertilizer made right here on our organically certified five acres!

This is a photo taken last evening of our cosmetic garden, with transplants newly planted from our green house.  Tomorrow – a discussion on transplanting.

Have a great day!