Nance Klemn is in Los Angeles and She’s Teaching Classes!

...ce Klemn’s upcoming classes. Not to be missed! February 19: An Herbal Mead Making Salon. More info here. February 21: Herbal Tinctures with Wild Plants The workshop will be from 1 – 4 p.m. and will be held at Bailey Canyon in Sierra Madre, a lovely, lush, narrow canyon that extends way up into the San Gabriel Mountains. We will take a walk in the lower canyon, visiting and collecting some of the early spring growth (and possibly roots), then gathe...

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Everything Must Go: Tidying Up at the Root Simple Compound

...oint we remembered a book one of our readers mentioned, and which has been making the publicity rounds of late, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by the tidying consultant Marie Kondo (aka KonMari–her method is called the KonMari Method). She’s from Japan, where people have the same hearty consumerist impulses as we do here in the U.S., but considerably less space for storage. When I first read about the book, I understood the gist of it, but...

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When it’s time to remove a tree

...the time comes to make changes in your garden. There’s nothing wrong with making changes–the trick is in how they’re made, and why. When you remove a plant and it’s the right thing to do, and it’s done properly, it feels good. Really good. Not just on an aesthetic or practical level, but on a gut level. You don’t miss the plant once its gone. The empty space is hardly noticeable. The garden feels more lively or, conversely, more peaceful. It’s as...

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Easy Scandinavian-Style Bread

...ough starter, take on the mantle (or apron?) of Household Baker, and start making these loaves myself, but I’m already taking on extra chores with him off his feet, so I’m not inclined to take up this one as well. Yet we can’t live two months without good bread. What to do? Fortunately, I’ve found a solution to our bread crisis: a perfectly good yeasted recipe which makes a dense whole grain loaf with minimal effort. No starter. No kneading. No ri...

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Moon Gazing

...ings, we could make some other kind of celebratory food–I’m thinking about making some little round crepes with red berry sauce to celebrate the blood moon. Or perhaps our new traditions won’t involve food, but crafts, or songs, or copious toasting–or maybe we can just all stand outside and howl at the moon. It would do us some good, I think. What is a blood moon anyway, you ask? It’s a moon stained red by the Earth’s shadow. What’s a super moon?...

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