How is your garden (or garden prep) coming along?  Pop on in to update us! 

Pixie and I will start our fairy garden this next week, preparing the space, creating a layout, moving herbs and flowers accordingly and buying a few much needed herb and flower seed for the space.  Follow the progress in Themed Gardens starting next week.

If you are gardening by the Moon, now until Sunday is a great time to get top growers into the garden.  For Earth Day the waning Moon in Capricorn is a great time to get your root veggies in.

sorry for the Xposting if you are on one of my other groups...

The Wise Woman's (or Man's!) Kitchen

So many find the wisewoman/man or witch of long ago to be inspirational, 
fully skilled in herbal medicine and the language of the flora and fauna, living simply yet fully.
Many in the Neo-Pagan movement find this "image" unrealistic and an unattainable fantasy. Why? 
I think a path such as this is fully attainable if the person truly wants it. 
It is certainly a different time now, we are far more educated in certain ways and yet so woefully undereducated in others.
It's that lack of balance that keeps us in a world of chaos. 
We need to slow our lives down a bit, shut off the televisions, radios, computers, ipods, video games, all those electrical pacifiers that keep us from really listening to the natural hum of life around us.
Now I am not suggesting that we all move to rural America and live in powerless cabins complete with an outhouse, though many may find the long sought after inner peace if they did!
Shut off all the extraneous noisemakers.  Sit and listen to the wind, your heartbeat, and if you are so fortunate the birds singing and squirrels or chipmunks chattering. Breathe deeply and just be.

Take the time to learn a new, yet old, skill or craft.  We can live in the present yet learn from the past and bring something positive to the future.
I have been very blessed to have finally begun to realize my dream.  I live in a rural area where I (usually!) here nothing but the sounds of Nature.
I find my body is adapting to the earth cycles, moon phases and seasons and my diet adapts as well.  Seasonal eating is probably the best gift we can give out bodies.
Eating what is local and in season.  whole, natural, unprocessed foods that truly nourish our bodies.

Cooking and baking are a favorite past time of mine, I find it empowering and relaxing as the kitchen is my favorite room in the house. 
It's a part of the main room, all open concept so it is very family oriented.  Beyond this large room is my gardens, another favorite past time, this area is still a work in progress but it is my goal to
create a half acre kitchen garden or potager where I can grow the majority of my family's food.
Now I know we have many who complain of having black thumbs, to this I say find the local farmer's markets and give them your business.  It is as fresh as you can get and you support local businesses and farms.

These farmer's markets, or your gardens offer the best of seasonal eating.  Many gardeners can work around cold winter weather with greenhouses or coldframes, growing vegetables that will produce despite the freezing temperatures.
Seasonal eating is, if you pay close attention to your body's signals, something that comes naturally.  Our bodies follow the cycles of the seasons as do the wild animals outside our homes. 

Summer we eat fresh, sun energized fruits and vegetables with abandon along with the eggs, milk, maybe some chicken that are all plentiful.
Autumn brings us more abundance but we begin to see the days growing shorter and we turn to somewhat heavier fare, starchier vegetables, nuts, grains, late fruits, meats.
Winter we find warming, nourishing comfort foods.  Rich soups, casseroles, sweets made of preserved or stewed dried fruits, meats, starchy root vegetables.  It is our bodies' natural inclination to ensure it's survival through the harshness of winter by eating these filling, calorie-rich foods.
Spring, here a fresh start and new beginnings, our bodies are ready to cleanse and purify so we begin to eat fresh baby greens of the season once again which accompany other cold loving veggies, egg production returns again. 
Light omelets laced with young spring onions or chives, maybe some baby spinach, kale with a salad of fresh greens.

It may be one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and your body, to eat by the seasons and to eat locally. 
I'm pro-garden, it's a skill I find will becoming increasingly essential to know and everyone should learn the most basic garden skills. 
In these uncertain times it would nice to know that you could grow your own food.