SimmonsNaturals View

And Now it Begins...

2012-01-03T18:57:00.001-08:00

2012, A New Year, an election year and, some would believe, the last year.

Grist for the Mill...

2011-11-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

Bale's Mill

We were recently down in the Napa - Sonoma area of California, and driving from Calistoga to St. Helena spotted this enormous wooden waterwheel through the trees. I've driven this route many time and never seen this before! We just HAD to investigate.

It turned out to be the Old Bale Mill, a grain mill powered by a 36 foot tall overshot water wheel, newly restored and functioning. Amazing and beautiful to a fan of old technology, such as myself.

I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but I find incredible visual beauty in old machinery. Rugged and utilitarian, but always with a great deal of craftsmanship, the peak of the technology of its time.

Here is a short pictorial of that visit.

Built in the 1840's, when these lush valleys were full of wheat fields, the mill is now the centerpiece of a small State Historic Park. Restoration began in the 1980's and was only finished this year. They run the mill on weekends, and you can purchase milled grains at the gift shop after watching how they were ground at the site. You can read the about the history of Bale's Mill here.

Belt driven power

One can appreciate the incredible engineering to develop this machinery. Belt driven grain elevators and wonderful, wonderful gears.

In the day when the mill ran full time, the air would be full of flammable grain dust - so no light other than what came through the windows was permissible, being as electric light did not exist here then, and a lantern flame would prove disastrous. The same would be true of any sparks, therefore metal to metal gears were too dangerous. The solution? The cogs on one set of any two meeting gears had to be made of wood.

Water power - the source for much pre-industrial revolution machinery. The simple energy of moving, or falling, water amplified by gears to do large jobs.

At its peak this mill could turn out 100's of pounds of flour an hour!

Gears, metal to wood

gears turning

This separates dirt from the grain

The little cups on the belt are to carry grain up

within the vat are the mill stones, delicately balanced

How does a grist mill work?
Here is an animation of the technique.

grain hopper

If you want to visit, information & directions can be found here.

Some of the old millstones. The grooves funneled the flour out to the edges

The wheel. The power comes from falling water turning this massive wheel

Farmers brought grain to the mill where it was placed into the boot of an elevator to be mechanically transported upstairs where it was cleaned by various types of equipment. The slow turning of the old grind stones and the dampness of the mill's site gave the meal a special quality for making cornbread, yellowbread, shortening bread and spoon bread.
As old timers put it, "When meal comes to you that way, like the heated underside of a settin' hen, it bakes bread that makes city bread taste like cardboard."

I believe it. If you are ever in the Calistoga area, be sure to check it out.

Solar Power - it's simple!

2011-10-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

You may have seen our previous posts describing how our business and home are powered by on site, self-generated and renewable energy sources (see: Power in the Storm and Earth Day Every Day ).
Wind & water power are pretty obvious: the wind spins a propeller which turns a rotor inside an alternator which creates electricity; water turns a water wheel which does the same thing.

Solar power comes from Photovoltaic panels which work in mysterious ways.
Be mystified no more - here is a simple explanation of how they work:

Living on the River

2011-09-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

Van Duzen River

We live on the Van Duzen river. Literally. It runs through the middle of our property.
A small stream in this dry end of summer, it becomes a fast moving torrent during the winter rains. Wild & free, it is but a small tributary into the larger Eel River. Part of the Eel River Watershed.

Van Duzen River

Our fresh water is one of the most important resources. Not only to sustain life, but these rivers are the nursery for several species of ocean-going fish, notably Salmon and Steelhead. For many years these fisheries have been dwindling. This year, after stricter rules and moratoriums on Salmon fishing the numbers have rebounded.

The Eel River by Fortuna, Ca

An amazing local artist, Michael Guerriero, has been working with elementary school children to educate them about these fisheries as well as doing art. He has a project going to Celebrate the 2010 Eel River Salmon Run that needs funding.

It is being funded through Kickstarter and the time to donate runs out on Sept 30. Please join us in supporting this wonderful project!

Making our Soaps...

2011-09-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

mixing the oils in the kettle

We've been making a lot of soap lately. It is, after all, our business. And while it keeps us indoors on lovely summer days, it is still a labor of love.
We have been making soap since 1979, when we began as a way to provide natural & nontoxic soap for our own special needs. Sensitive to synthetic fragrances and colors, we could not find commercial soap locally that worked for us. And since that time we have never tired of creating the best soap we possibly can.

Soap is the result of a chemical reaction called Saponification. Briefly, Saponification is the chemical reaction between fatty acids (oils & fats) & caustic ("lye", caustic soda, sodium hydroxide, etc.) that results in 98% soap and 2% glycerin. Different oils/fats and different caustic solutions can be used for different types of soap. Potassium Hydroxide, for instance, is used for liquid or soft soaps.

Dennis cutting the Orange Spice soap

We start by mixing organic oils of olive, palm, and coconut together. We choose these oils for their individual benefits. Olive oil is the best for the skin. Palm creates a harder, longer lasting bar. Coconut oil is the source of rich, copious lather, without it bubbles are small and thin. These oils are heated and then we add the sodium hydroxide that starts the chemical reaction. This process requires a lot of stirring. At the point when the mixture has thickened the proper amount we add the various botanical elements that give the individual varieties their characteristics.

Wrapping Lemon Shea Butter soap

Our soaps are made in rectangular columns. Once the liquid soap is ready, we pump it into these molds, cover it with an insulating layer and let it sit up to 48 hours before it is ready to cut into bars. Our soap cutter is a machine of our own devising, custom made by us for our soaps. Once cut we place the soaps on trays, then on ventilated shelves, where it cures for at least 3 weeks before we wrap it to sell.
We wrap the soap by hand. Each bar is wrapped in ecologically sustainable Thai mulberry paper, then labeled with a recycled paper band. You've probably noticed we color code our soaps: each variety has its own specific color paper.

Our soap shop has evolved a lot over the years. Starting by making soap in our kitchen, our original shop was built from trees we fell and milled ourselves (5 big buggy Douglas fir that were dying).
We outgrew that in a few years and expanded it into the shop we have today.

Here is a quicky version of the photo tour we have on our website:

Our kettles, lye station & manufacturing area

Where we wrap & label the soaps, etc.

The curing room with our renewable energy power wall

With over 30 years of soap making experience, it is our pleasure to provide you with the finest natural organic soaps. It makes us even happier to be able to do it in the most environmentally conscious way we know how. To learn more about our business and philosophy, please see 'About Us'.
And... if you like what you learn, please vote for us as the 'Greenest' Home-Based Business in Start-up Nation's competition!!

Summer Daze...

2011-07-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

The hot days have set in.
One just feels lazy in the middle of the afternoon, the world just too bright to look at. So we go to the river or hide in the shade, relaxing, or do indoor work where it's cooler.

Mornings are when we get the real work done. Today we cleaned the hencoop ( see our Taj Mahal for chickens here: Coopus Optimus ). A simple pleasure, if aromatic & dusty. I love that it is easy with our new coop. And it is always such a feeling of accomplishment to see the clean coop with sweet smelling wood shavings on the floor and a trailer load of manure to compost for the garden.

Garden work gets done early, too. Harvesting, hand watering, tying up tomatoes and such. I know when the shade leaves each part of the garden, and work along that schedule.

On a weekend like this it is our pleasure to take some of the day to read in the shade or hike down to the river. Such a rare luxury most of the year due to weather or our busy agenda. There is usually a breeze to temper the heat.

Tempering the heat in our off-grid home uses some old-style techniques. Air conditioners are energy hogs, and just not something we own. It starts with having a well insulated house. Opening all the (screened) windows and doors overnight cools the house. As soon as the outdoor temperature starts to rise we shut it all down. We close the curtains on the sunny side of the house. The house stays at least 20 degrees cooler than outside most of the day. We supplement this with a ceiling fan or other fan to move the air when it is exceptionally warm out, and an oscillating fan in the room where we are if it is really, really, hot indoors (only a few days a year). Our solar attic fan keeps air moving as well and cools the ceiling. It also draws air up through the vent in our pantry.

Old houses always had small or large vented pantries, and we use this method as well. A vent from under the house lets in cool air and a vent, often chimney-like, exhausts warmer air up out of the insulated room (or cupboard). It will be 10 degrees or so cooler in there than in the rest of the house.
While not as cool as a refrigerator, we are able to store many things besides canned goods, including fruit, dry goods, and eggs! We never refrigerate eggs. If you do not wash them when you bring them in from the hencoop, they will keep just fine. If it gets really, really hot for an extended period of time we will take the eggs down into our root cellar.

Just as they are named, root cellars are traditionally used to store root crops such as potatoes. In the fall we fill the cellar with apples (that haven't been pressed into cider), potatoes & lugs of peppers. Amazingly the peppers last well into the new year, fresh, in the cellar. We only lose a few to mold or drying up. We also keep sealed jars of dried fruit and vegetables, canned goods that won't fit in the pantry, and wine, down in the cellar. It stays around 54 degrees F. all year round.

Well, enough of this. It's Saturday and I promised myself a break with my book and a glass of ice tea. Its 91 outside and rising, but there's a nice breeze and I can hear that hammock calling...

Time out of place...

2011-07-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

partly sunny

17th of July, half the United States is baking under the sun and suffering from drought, and we are still waiting for something like real summer weather. Our winter lasted well into June and weather conditions stay off-kilter from what we used to consider the norm.

Not like the TV weather ever mentions the words "climate change" during these months of extreme weather events here and around the globe, but something in the weather has definitely been changing over the past few years. Living close to the land makes that more obvious.

Plants and animals are getting thrown off their timing so we have had stuff blooming early and other things coming on late. Mostly late. Currently I am noticing that all my alliums (onions, garlic, shallots) are going to flower. The onions & shallots are early, the garlic is late. The garlic should have been ready to harvest last month, but isn't ready yet. Beets and radishes are flowering before making, well, beets and radishes. Lavender usually blooms in June here, and we should have been picking Tayberries then, too, but they are both now just starting to come on. Our Yellow May-blooming waterlilies waited until the end of June, but they may have been delayed by the deeper water level in our pond. The garden sits, suspended, and when the rare warm day comes everything grows like mad only to stop as it cools back down.

Fruit trees that try to bloom at the normal time have not been well pollinated the past few years not, as ordinarily sometimes happened, by late rains, but by freezing snow! At least it appears we will have some fruit this year.

The insect population has been effected - honeybees (who have a lot of environmental burdens these days) are relatively scarce, but so are Yellowjackets, oddly. A nice thing in some ways, but I know there is a corner of the ecological balance that they fill, too. The higher humidity, of course, leads to plenty of mosquitoes. But for mid-July, many other insects seem to be in smaller numbers - and also the birds that feed on them.

I'm curious - what have you noticed?

Honoring Those who Serve...

2011-05-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

Like Veteran's Day (See earlier post: War and Peace ), Memorial Day is set aside to recognize and honor those who serve in the Armed Forces, but it's origin is much older, beginning just after the Civil War, and it specifically commemorates those have given their lives in service to the Nation.

Officially proclaimed by General John Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868, by placing flowers on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.
After World War I the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war. Starting in 1971 it is celebrated across the country on the last Monday in May.

Many answer the call to serve their community and Country in various ways, but few demand the sacrifice of enlisting in the military and reserves. While no one wants to go to war and be killed, and while we all wish for a world at peace, for many reasons conflict continues and lives are lost. Those who put themselves in harm's way and pay that price deserve our recognition and respect.

I hope you all take a moment today to pause and remember these men and women.

Adult Delinquent

2011-05-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

Despite my promise to myself to post at least once monthly I have not managed anything longer than FaceBook addendums the past 2 months as life spirals wildly around me!

Since last post we have had a sprained ankle, more snow, more rain, started the garden (barely), gotten chicks (layers & meat birds both), had 3 of our Granddaughters move in until the school year ends - in addition to the normal work & homestead life.

Not only that, there have been earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis & nuclear meltdowns. Floods, tornadoes, protests, rebellion, assassinations, and the end of the world (not).

My intentions are good. Stay tuned.

Why Organic?

2011-03-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Our soaps are made with 100% Certified Organic base oils. How could this possibly make a bit of difference in a bar of soap? Good question, and the benefit for your skin over natural soaps made with conventional oils is probably negligible after they are saponified. But you will have the satisfaction of knowing that no oils from genetically modified crops or pesticide residues can possibly be in them.

On the other hand, the difference for farm workers and the farms and plantations where the oil plants are grown, and inherently the Earth as a whole, is immense.

The habitat that makes human life possible on our humble planet is a community of organisms and non-living components (like rocks and water) that work together to create a fertile and healthy environment. While some of these are viewed negatively as they interfere with our goals (weeds, diseases, gophers!) they are still part of the overall picture, helping to create the delicate balance that makes it all possible.

Many things can through this system askew, such as drought, or a hurricane, volcanic eruption. But generally, given time, the environment heals itself. Some events can effect the environment over a long period of time, such as excessive amounts of nuclear radiation. This is one reason why people are so alarmed over the possibility of Nuclear Reactor failure. Yet when we take some of the artificial chemicals we have created and use them to control our agricultural environment, they can cause damage to the soil that is irreversible for decades as well. Not to mention having ill effects on the farmers who use them and, potentially, the consumers who come in contact with it over time.

Sometimes I think it's like taking a broad spectrum antibiotic when you are sick. It kills all the bacteria, good and bad, that live in our bodies, usually throwing one system or another off kilter until we replace the good microorganisms, through diet or another pill. What makes the Earth's habitat friendly for humans and the life forms that sustain us is balance, not chemical warfare.

There are many personal reasons, as humans, that we should support organic practices. Many have written about them in length. See the Top 10 Reasons to Support Organic here, and enjoy this video from Stonyfield Farm:

Eat organic food, better for you and your family and the planet. And when you use products made from agricultural ingredients, try to make sure those, too, come from organic sources. Until we refuse to purchase anything else, toxins will continue to be used.

And know that Simmons Special Soaps are made with 100% Certified Organic base oils, with people, the planet, and a healthy and sustainable future in mind.

Waiting to Garden...

2011-03-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

Spring is in the air, the Vernal Equinox is in only 2 weeks (March 20, 2011) but the weather is still very winter-y. I have been itching to get out in the garden.

A confirmed Plant-a-holic, I have houseplants to keep me occupied in the winter months, but there is nothing like getting out and digging in the dirt. We have had a large organic vegetable garden for the past 42 years and expect to have one until I die. But I have to admit, gardening our sloping mountain terrain was getting to be more work every year.

So we have been working on making our garden easier to work so we can be happy playing in the dirt as long into our future as is possible. This is a multi year project, of which 2011 is year 3.

Our garden is about 1/8 of an acre. In 2009 we built a retaining wall and leveled out the top 2/3 of our garden area. This had a downhill slope of 6' from top to bottom, not to mention the differences side to side. We built a 4' tall wall and dug down 3' at the top. This required moving a LOT of dirt!

The Skid Steer moving dirt!

Moving this much dirt is more than a shovel job, luckily we were able to get a Skid Steer to use. We carefully pushed all the top garden dirt with years of mulch & amendments to one side as we dug down into the thick clay that makes up most of the land here.

The area where the wall went needed to be level, with a big enough area to put in drainage behind the wall. Then we could begin to assemble the retaining wall block by block. The wall is of landscaping blocks that lock together, and requires no mortar.
Once the wall was built up we backfilled it with the dirt we had set aside and some topsoil we had trucked in from elsewhere. We left a wide sloping path up one side to run wheelbarrows up to the top of the garden.

Garden steps and beds with mulch

There was still some steep slope beyond what we had planned on with the wall, so we put large rocks and made stairs for access to this part of the garden.

By now we were itching to get our plants in the soil, and the first part of our plan was actually accomplished! I cannot tell you how much easier it is to work level ground than the free form terraces with the endless raking they needed.

Finished wall with garden & dedicated flower row

In 2010 we did phase two of our plan. This required making three broad terraced areas out of the remaining bottom third of the garden and starting to install raised beds. We purchased raised bed kits from Naturalyards, as we wanted to take advantage of those who had a lot of experience. This was far too important a project for us to reinvent the wheel, and we learned a lot. We really wanted to make these beds gopher proof (see our earlier blog on Gophers - not for the faint of heart...), and try to keep out the noxious bindweed that plagues us here, as well.

Attaching hardware cloth to the bottom of the bed.

Our plan was to attach weedcloth, and then 1/2" galvanized hardware cloth, to the bottom of the beds before installing and filling them. This won't last forever, but it will last a long, long, time. We have a hardware cloth lined bed in our greenhouse that we installed in the 1990's and is still intact.

Assembled bed showing the cross braces

One of the important things we learned about raised beds is, if they are longer than 6 feet, you need to have cross bracing to keep them from bowing out when they are filled with dirt. These beds are assembled with aluminum rods (aluminum won't rust) that are driven down through pre-drilled boards. Where there is a joint between two boards of a long bed you insert a metal strap and run the rod through that as well, to hold it in place.

Another thing we discovered is how much better it is to have a top trim on the bed so you have a place to sit or place tools or harvest baskets.

We use drip irrigation (from DripWorks) in the beds and T-tape, another form of drip irrigation, to the beds in the terrace for ease of irrigation and conservation of water.

These changes have been a complete success. We raised onions, greens, cabbages, beets, broccoli, and the most perfect gopher-free carrots we have ever grown, in these beds last year. Currently we have fall-planted garlic and cabbage, as well as this years onions and beets in the ground. The terrace behind the retaining wall has proved easy to work and had a fabulous harvest of corn, tomatoes, squash, beans and other larger crops. On top of that, it was easier than it has ever been to keep our garden going

If all goes as planned, we hope to build 2 to 4 more beds this year. In every way these changes have met or exceeded our expectations, and I see wonderful fresh vegetables and flowers in our future.

Snow Day - Power in the Storm

2011-02-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Weather report: 2/17/11

While much of the country has been inundated in snow this winter we have managed to avoid it. Until now. It has been snowing for two days and is forecast to continue for a week. Must be our turn.

Big storms of all sorts wreak havoc in our rural mountains just as they do in towns. The roads can be closed, flooded, or dangerously icy. The wind will blow away what's not secured. And wind, snow, trees, auto accidents, wildfires and other incidents can interrupt electric power. That's the case in this storm. I found out via a phone call from someone, otherwise we would have never known.
This is when the power independence of our self-sufficient lifestyle really stands out.

Hydro-system, Pelton wheel inside barrel

Right now we are running on micro-hydro power. Not as lucky as those with a year round creek, our system relies on rain and other precipitation.
The rain and runoff that started before it got so cold got our hydro running, and the snow is now building up a reserve on the mountain above us that will last long after the storm is over. Generally our main winter season power source, running steadily 24 hours a day, hydro-power is almost decadent in its abundance.

The wind turbine from up the hill

Every time a storm blows in the power of the wind makes electricity with our small scale wind turbine.
Located on a point above a river canyon, it gets wind morning and evening most of the year, but it really kicks into gear in stormy weather.

Looking up at our wind turbine

This is the most fickle source of power in our locale, where wind is neither steady nor reliable every day. Yet it still fills in the gaps to keep the batteries charged that run our home and soap business.

But the real workhorses of our system, despite being the only ones with no moving parts, are our solar Photo Voltaic (PV) panels.

Patched together over the years (there are 3 slightly different styles in our array), if there is any light, they are producing some power. And, since there is far more sun here than other weather overall, I think I can safely say most of our annual electricity comes from these panels.
On top of that we have 2 smaller PV panels that pump water from our spring up to a holding tank, another small panel that runs the pump on our solar hot water system as well as an attic fan, and a tiny panel that runs a fan in our garden's greenhouse.

Our solar PV electric array

In fact, it is solar energy that runs all these systems, as it is the sun's influence on our planet that creates the weather and controls the water cycle that makes the other methods work.
Even on a dark blizzard of a day like this one.

I think I will go have a hot cup of tea and warm up!

Love Story

2011-02-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Continuing this Valentine theme, I have been in the same relationship for 39 years.
Somehow this is considered a really long time... It also feels like a long time. It is wonderful right now, right here, and I see us remaining deeply in love and with the special, comfortable, and familiar friendship being together over the years can bring.

Like all things in life, it will always have its ups and downs: long term relationships require a lot of cultivation. Patience, compassion, sharing, surrender, frustration, acceptance, independence and a good sense of humor. It is ever a work in progress.

The history of our personal relationship is reflected in music - as are so many things. From our earliest days in the blossom of youth and romance Joni Mitchell gave us: "My Old Man"

And later the trials and tribulations of raising a family and keeping home & hearth together and those frustrations can resonate with "Give A Little" by Nicolette Larson

From the deepest dark times - we turned to one of the classic songs of all time, Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me"

But these were always followed by reunion - not always easy as shown by David Lindley's "Starting All over Again", here done by Hall & Oates (Lindley's version is better, but I can't find a video).

While this doesn't really describe us, the playfulness and silliness of the love that binds us - in spite of everything - is mirrored in this all time favorite done by John Prine & Iris Dement
In Spite of Ourselves

Overall, however, throughout this relationship and particularly at this end of it looking back - I have always felt that the Beatles said it beautifully: "In My Life"

Happy Valentine's Day. May your life be enriched with love.

Love is in the air

2011-02-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

It's the spring thing...

As winter wanes birds, bugs and animals start to think in terms of romance - or at least procreation. Humans, unwilling to wait for the sun's warmth, have their romantic holiday mid-winter in February. Perhaps to warm the heart when the world is locked in cold (at least in the Northern hemisphere).

Valentine's Day (formerly Saint Valentine's Day) has mysterious origins. It could have started from any of 3 martyred men of God, each named Valentine.
The most likely story speaks of Valentine, a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II.

Caught marrying Christian couples and aiding any Christians who were being persecuted under Emperor Claudius in Rome his imprisonment ultimately resulted in his demise. In 496 C.E. Pope Gelasius officially marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

We hope you will share a little of your Valentine's day spirit with us!

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Vote for Simmons Natural Bodycare of Bridgeville, CA at:
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We hope to aid the economy in our community by providing more jobs in our rural area. Help us reach that goal!

Hello New Year!

2011-01-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

One week down, 52 to go...

As I get older time seems to speed up. I am not in such a hurry.

It has been a while since I have managed to add a post: busy with life; busy with business; busy with family. Busy with staying warm in this very winter-y winter!
One of my resolutions is to make sure I post to the BLOG at least once each month.

Meanwhile, I have still been writing.
After completing a full year of Haiku poems, a Japanese form with 3 lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables respectively, I have embarked on a new project of writing a Tanka poem every day, thereby upping the difficulty a bit. A Tanka is an older Japanese form with 5 lines, 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, syllables.

Here is some of my favorite Haiku, 1 from each month in 2010:

1/25 - As we walk we flush/ Jays and Flickers, Varied Thrush/ Birds of winter woods

2/5- Earth shakes herself now/ A reminder of power/ Beyond human dreams

3/26 - Snow on peach blossoms/ Can only happen in spring /White kiss on petal

4/11 - As the years pass by/ The treasure of friendship grows/ Ever more precious

5/2 – The plaintive sweet cry/ Coyote on the mountain/ Singing to the sky

6/11 - Murder in the night/ The wail of some poor creature/ Laughter of the fox.

7/10 - Children of dreamers/ Perceive life abundant/ With possibility

8/14 - Crucible of dreams/ The infinite mystery/ Of night's vast display

9/1 – Earth’s mighty power/ Lies just beneath the surface/ A tempest below

10/4 - Slow to illumine/ These dark days cloud my senses/And prolong my dreams

11/13 - How the chest contains/ A heart swelled with emotion/ Is a mystery

12/21- Clouds parted briefly/ As Autumn became Winter/ Revealing the moon

And here a couple of my brand new Tanka:

1/2 - Brilliant winter night/ Star fire piercing the darkness/ Yet bringing no warmth/ Down to this ice cold mountain/ From the universe beyond

1/7 - Deep, cold, and silent/ Rain swollen river runs strong/ Carrying the tale/ Hidden in muddy waters/ How raging storms tamed the earth

Let's see if I am up to the challenge!

Manual Production

2010-11-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

Living off the grid, as we do, gives you a fine sense of power use. When you can use people power effectively you tend to forgo modern machinery with motors.
Once in a while you can be lucky enough to find a perfect piece of equipment from the past that was developed to do the job you need. That is the case with our paper cutter.

This is our guillotine. 100 years old when we bought it, an antique print shop manual paper cutter. That's one big chunk of cast iron!

You probably already know we use environmentally friendly Thai Unryu paper made from Mulberry trees to wrap our soaps.
These fine handcrafted art papers come in large sheets that need to be cut into smaller size to wrap the individual bars of soap.

Cutting the sheets individually is not an option, a print shop style paper cutter, or guillotine, cuts a large stack of paper all at one time. Most modern guillotines are powered by hydraulic motors. This is one of the original manual ones.
You can still buy manual bulk paper cutters, but they are not as beautiful a piece of machinery as this!

You put a stack of paper on the table after adjusting a stop to the proper length, using the wheel you see in front, then turn the wheel on top to clamp it down.
The blade (reflecting the paper) comes down by pulling/pushing a long handle activating a lever. Then it is held back by a counterweight. Primitive machinery, but very effective.

After cutting into strips the proper width, you readjust the stop and cut into rectangles.
Below you can see the stop on the back of the cutter.

Here you can see the size of the original sheets of Unryu mulberry paper, a cut strip, and the finished size.

On the right is the cut paper for our bath bars, with smaller paper for mini soaps in front.

Below is paper, and soap waiting to be wrapped.
We wrap all the soaps by hand as well.
Just a peek into how we do things here at Simmons Natural Bodycare.

Sweet Herbs

2010-09-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

'Tis harvest time and we have been busy filling the pantry with all manner of food. We do a lot of food preserving here, from drying to freezing, canning to cellaring. A habit developed long ago that we see no reason to abandon. We like to eat, we like to garden, filling up the pantry is the obvious fnext step.

From fruit to green beans and tuna (OK, not from our garden), Italian style tomato sauce to Mexican style salsa we fill jars with the food from orchard and garden that will feed us through the winter and beyond.

We have always felt that anyone can grow a little fresh food for themselves. Even apartment dwellers can have a windowbox with greens or other vegetables. But of the things you can grow and save for year-round use, I would wager that herbs are the easiest.

From Basil to Oregano, Chives to Thyme, I can't imagine cooking without using herbs, fresh or dried. Many are hardy perennials and very simple to grow and save.

We recently added new raised beds to our garden. With 1/2" hardware cloth underneath, they are a gopher proof planting area. Previously we had planted gopher delectables such as carrots and garlic in cut off oil drums that are from the food grade oils we use in our soapmaking (see our business site). With the new beds, some of these barrels were now free and I saw the chance to make a new herb garden. I've planted a variety of types of Thyme, Rosemary, Oregano, Dill, Chives and Sage in these barrels, as well as a couple of Lavender plants so far.

This has worked out even better than we expected. In only two months these herbs have grown so vigorously that we are already able to harvest plenty for drying. This is fabulous - as I make herb blends for seasoning when I cook (see earlier BLOG "I'm All Mixed Up"). We also grow a variety of Basils, Tarragon, and Marjoram elsewhere.

There is absolutely nothing complicated about drying herbs, all you need is a well ventilated place to hang them. I pick bunches of herbs late in the morning after the dew has dried off of the leaves. I will pick them at pretty much any stage, but preferably before they flower (if you want Dill Seed, you must wait until after they flower and then form seeds). Bunch the cut ends of the stems together in a bundle that is not so big and tight that the center may have trouble drying and wrap securely with a rubber band. This is a hot tip! The rubber band will contract with the stems as they dry and keep your bundle from falling apart. You can tie a string or wire to the rubber band to hand the bunch from or just hook the bunch over a nail without. I save those twistie ties from store vegetables and use those. They stay rigid enough I can put a loop in them and hook them on the rafters without a ladder (or handy tall person, which I am not).

If it is a place that gets direct sunlight you can tie the bunch inside a paper bag and hang it all together. This helps preserve the color of the herbs. This also confines the fine leaves of the herbs, should they break off when dry.
Once dry, I strip the leaves off of the stems and store in airtight containers in a dry, dark place. I don't crush or crumble them until I am ready to use them or make one of my blends. They retain flavor and aroma longer when stored as whole leaves.

And then, in the dead of winter I can relive the flavors and aromas of summer by adding these herbs to my cooking. It's as easy as that!

In Gratitude...

2010-09-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

There are not many days that go by that, even if only for a fleet moment, I don't realize how fortunate I am.
Despite all the things that go wrong most days: the things that don't go as planned; the things I cannot afford; the minor pains and glitches; overall I do know I have much to be thankful for.

Thank you
Mahalo (Hawaiian)
Bedankt (Dutch)
Akun (Khymer)

Some time back I started writing thank you notes on a broad scale. From individuals to the state highway department, I want to let it be known that I appreciate the work that is done that has helped make my life easier.
Everyone voices it when they have something to complain about. We all want to point out when there's something that needs done or changed or that we disagree with. But when those changes happen we are often already on to the next issue that needs fixing rather than ready to acknowledge the things that have occurred to improve our lives or fix some problem.

Spasibo (Russian)
Bayarlalaa (Mongolian)
Arigato (Japanese)
Grazie (Italian)

Letting it be known that we appreciate the work done by our family, friends, and neighbors, community or government organizations and representatives goes a long way in reinforcing the energy and spirit of those who do what they can to make things happen.
Show your gratitude. It will be appreciated.

Ngiyabonga (Zulu)
Mamnoon (Arabic)
Tack (Swedish)
Asante (Swahili)

The Future... A Matter of Balance

2010-08-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

I now know I am definitely solar powered. This year's unbelievably long, dreary, wet and chill spring had me sluggish and depressed. I thought "Gee, I AM getting old and decrepit". Well, turns out that as soon as we had a sunny day my energy came back just fine, although I confess I do seem to keep getting older.

Seriously, sun and warmth provide the energy that drives the most important aspects of our life. Just watch the acceleration in the growth of the garden (or lawn) as soon as the weather warms. And it is our great fortune that Earth's distance from our Sun is just right, not too hot nor too cold. Wow! Are we lucky! We really depend on this delicate balance between our planetary home and it's star to create the amazing conditions that sustains life here on Earth. With all the changes it goes through, this is still an imminently habitable planet (See post: "Habitat for One and All"). Yet, that it's 'not nice to fool with Mother Nature' may turn out to be an understatement in relatively short order.

But still, it is this fortuitous geometry that permits the habitable planet that we have, despite the extreme weather conditions we've been having and that could intensify. Weather is determined by the balance between hot and cold air, which then creates conditions from flood to drought, searing heat to frigid chill. All this affects the living situation on the earth and in the sea in ways we are really only beginning to understand. But life is resilient and humans are determined and, hopefully, we will be able to adapt to what we must and, through our actions, modify the degree of change that could happen.

Interestingly, despite some fears, working toward a sustainable future may not mean total deprivation. There are many changes that will not only streamline your life, but make it more affordable in this time of economic stress, AND lighten the burden we are placing on the natural system's delicate balance. There are so many people on the planet that if we all adjust our habits some the end result will add up quickly. If you haven't started to change your lifestyle to make it more "Earth - Friendly", there's no better time to start than now!

Right away it will help save money and help the environment to not buy so much stuff! OK, the economy is awful, so we are already not buying as much stuff, but pay attention to which stuff you do buy. Right away, if it is a disposable, single use, item that can be replaced with something more durable, go for the durable. The initial cost may be a bit more, but the overall cost ( and we are talking $$ here) is much less. You generally do get what you pay for, and cheap junk is still junk and shortly ends up in the landfill to be replaced by??? See "the Story of Stuff" to get an idea of how this impacts our lives.
I don't advocate discarding what you have now that works, but replacing stuff with a better alternative (if replacement is even necessary) when it gets discarded.

One area which is easy to improve is electrical appliances. Some of them are real energy hogs, and when you replace them with efficient Energy Star rated appliances you save money on your bill and less electricity needs to be produced. If, instead of ever increasing energy needs we could keep the demand even or reduce it, the possibility of a future of Green, renewable energy alternatives becomes brighter. Here are some energy calculators to help you evaluate your energy use and whether energy efficient products or renewable energy are right for you.

"Nature can provide for the needs of people; [she] can't provide for the greed of people."

- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

I really believe change is in the air, but that it doesn't have to be disastrous. I don't believe anyone could be maliciously out to destroy the habitability of Earth's future in order to have a more convenient, wealthy life now. But I do believe we do some unfortunate things out of ignorance and blundering, coupled with the desire to always have more than fills our needs. More money, more convenience, more stuff... No one has ever shown this to create contentment or happiness. Only to feed an endless desire. And in the long run, we could lose it all.

Garden Delights - Don't that Beet all!

2010-07-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Business life has been intense lately, mostly because of unexpected computer death, unexpected new computer glitches and all the accompanying headaches. Truly a love/hate relationship. So, to detox from this desk bound electronic entanglement, I wander out to work in the garden.

Our endless late cold and rainy weather finally ended in June, and we were able to get the rest of the garden planted. Greens & root crops were planted earlier in the raised beds we were able to put up on Mother's Day. As a result, while our first summer squash are just coming on, we have been rich with lettuce, chard, and beets for some time (also radishes, other greens, onions, etc...). We love salads, greens, and sweet, colorful beets. Brilliant gems of the garden, beets are incredibly nutritious. Not only are the roots full of vitamins and minerals, but the greens are rich in nutrients as well. Did we mention they are delicious?

So it was no surprise when my sister e mailed us a link to a New York Times article touting beets as a superfood with a plethora of wonderful recipes.

Well, I can always use more recipes, especially now when the dinner menu question is: "What would you like with your Beets?" (earlier it was Asparagus, then Artichokes.. whatever needs eaten before it gets past it's prime). On top of that, I am always looking for recipes that are compatible with cooking in our solar oven (see earlier post: Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind ).
We easily roast beet roots in the Solar Oven. Wash the beets and cut the leaves off, leaving about 1" of stem. Place in lidded casserole, add about 1/2 cup of water, cover, and cook in solar oven until tender when pierced with a fork. The time varies depending on the size of the beets, but all should be done in an hour. When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the covered baking dish. At this point the ends and skins should slip right off.
Roasted beets are wonderful sliced plain or in a salad, dressed with a vinegarette. They are fabulous heated and served with a dollop of sour cream. They're the basis for borscht, a more wintery favorite around here. They will keep several days in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.

But back to the NY Times article. There was one idea I had never had that looked like a Solar Oven winner. I am sure the original recipe is marvelous, the one I modified and made, substituting what I had on hand, sure was:

Beet & Beet Green Gratin Variation

6 to 8 beets with greens
Salt to taste
3 eggs
3/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup grated Swiss or other cheese
dash Cayenne pepper
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1. Roast the beets as noted above. Cool, slip off the skins and slice.
2. Wash and sort the beet greens, discard the stems and chop the leaves coarsely.
3. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet, and add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in the greens. Stir together for a minute, season the greens with salt, cayenne and black pepper, cover with a lid and turn off the heat. The greens will wilt as they steam slightly.
4. Preheat the Solar Oven (regular oven to 375 degrees). Oil a 2-quart lidded baking dish with olive oil. Beat together eggs, salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), pepper, milk, green onions and cheese. Gently stir in the greens and beets. Scrape into the gratin dish. Bake until puffy and lightly browned on the top (35 to 40 minutes in conventional oven). Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.
This should serve six.
Enjoy!

It's All the Buzzz...

2010-06-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

MOSQUITOS AND THEIR NATURAL CONTROL

Mosquitoes, those annoying, whining, biting insects, are high on the list of important pests due to their ability to transmit diseases such as malaria and encephalitis.
While human malaria is not an issue in most of the United States, there are occasional out breaks of encephalitis. West Nile Virus is a mosquito transmitted encephalitis, primarily a virus of birds, but other animals and people are occasional hosts. You can find the most recent information on West Nile Virus at the Center for Disease Control website .
Adult mosquitoes feed on flower nectar. Soon after mating male mosquitoes die and the females require a blood meal for protein for their developing eggs. Some feed during daylight hours, others at dusk and dawn.
They will be found near water, as moisture is essential for their reproduction. Mosquito eggs and larvae grow in water while the adults are terrestrial. Eggs can be laid on land, but cannot hatch or mature until flooded.
The most effective, long term mosquito control is to prevent reproduction by altering their habitat.

HABITAT CONTROL CHECKLIST:

•Drain puddles of standing water, or fill with dirt.
•Empty containers that collect water and store them upside down.
•Check faucets and irrigation for leaks or seepage.
•Remove debris from gutters.
•Change water in birdbaths at least weekly.
•Drain water from plastic pools when not in use.
•Check pool and spa covers, as well as sheets of discarded plastic film. These catch water easily, shield against evaporation and even help moisture condense, providing superb breeding sites.
•Stock watering troughs and ornamental pools with fish and encourage natural predators such as frogs.
•Regularly remove floating debris from ponds and reservoirs to reduce egg-laying sites.
•Fill tree holes with sand or mortar.
•Promote drainage of old tires by drilling holes.
•Avoid overwatering of lawns and gardens and drain standing water.
•Manage weeds around bodies of water where adult mosquitoes congregate.
•Encourage natural predators such as birds, bats, and yellowjackets(!).
•Treat standing water which cannot be drained with Bacillus thuringiensis israeliensis (Bti), often sold as 'Mosquito Dunks'.

PROTECTION FROM BITING MOSQUITOES:
•Limit outdoor activities during mosquito active dawn and dusk. Learn the activity patterns in your area.
•Use window and door screens.
•Put mosquito netting over infant carriages or strollers.
•Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants.
•Use repellents on exposed areas of skin.

NATURAL REPELLENTS:
Duration of Safe Protection: It appears that protection is about two hours for mosquito repellents that contain 10% essential oils. Catnip oil may be more effective than DEET, although not as long lasting, and citronella, catnip, lavender, tea tree, eucalyptus, lemon eucalyptus, bay, some of the mints, and others are also effective. Note that if you make your own, essential oils should never be applied to the skin full strength. Add them to a base, or carrier, oil such as soy, olive, canola or other vegetable oil.
From: Joel R Coats, Entomology, Iowa St. U.,: "The essential oils may not provide as long of a residual protection, but they can repel for two hours - so there would be trade-offs for people preferring the natural oil, or that don't plan to stay out for 6 hours, or don't mind reapplying it every couple of hours, or prefer using it on kids."
Citronella candles and incense work best if there is relatively little air movement, but are otherwise useless. Research shows many products, such as wrist bands and pins with repellent, ultrasonic & electronic repellers, brewer's yeast, vitamin B1, and mosquito plant, to be of little or no value, although some people swear by them.

Tip for natural oil based repellents - it only takes a little. If you get all oily it doesn't work any better. Put on a little and spread it around evenly, the residue left on your hands should be enough for your face and neck. While we used to make a natural insect repellent, it is not legal for us to sell it from our location in California. The ingredients: Lavender; Eucalyptus; and Catnip essential oils are not on the Minimum Risk Pesticide List, and there are restrictions for Citronella essential oil as well.

Your county Agriculture agent will have more information and tips that are specific to your local. Contact them for further assistance.

Sharing Opportunity...

2010-06-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

We are fortunate. No way to deny it.
While far from monetarily rich, our life is full: we have food and shelter; clean abundant water; work; access to school for our children; and a certain amount of access to health care (see earlier posts "A Hungry Man" & "Health care Blues" ). Our life is full of opportunity.
While taken for granted by a large segment of the world's population, this is not a given for an even larger population. Much of the time opportunity is limited in one way or another for people who are ready to work and embrace the responsibility it takes to achieve their goals.

One opportunity we have is to pay it forward. Take some of our good fortune to enhance opportunities for others. We do that in a number of different ways.
As parents, we help our children have the best life possible. From providing nutrition to teaching them to be responsible, conscientious, humans, we do our best to try to raise them ready to face adulthood.
As family we try to be there when there is a time of need.
As community members we volunteer to help fulfill the needs and services within our community both as individuals and in our business.
As Americans we vote and work for the greater good of our nation.
As humans we contribute to organizations that work for the good of all mankind around the planet.

As I have mentioned before, we at Simmons Natural Bodycare have some favorite organizations that we contribute to regularly. These include Heifer International, Trees for the Future, CarbonFund and Kiva.

We have just started a Lending Team, SimmonsNaturals Sharing Opportunity, at Kiva.
Sometimes it only takes a helping hand to give someone the opportunity to improve their situation. We have benefited from the opportunities available to us and want to share, so we started a team to encourage individuals and small businesses who wish to give a lending hand to other entrepreneurs around the world.

Personally, while there are many areas of humanitarian and environmental work to be done, we have chosen to support organizations who facilitate the long term work that aids individuals in achieving a secure standard of living in keeping with their culture and community. These organizations provide the tools and education, a small loan that must be repaid, livestock, or other building blocks that people can utilize to improve their lives over the long haul. While our contribution may be small, it joins with the donations of others to help make a real difference in people's lives.

A percentage from every 4 ounce bar of Simmons special Soap sold goes to help Heifer International in their mission to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.
By giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out, they empower them to turn lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope. For every 12 bars ot the soap we sell we plant a tree through Trees for the Future.

Now we are asking you to join us in giving small loans to enable entrepreneurs around the world grow their small businesses and improve their lives by joining our Kiva Lending Team. It only takes as little as $25 to invest in someone's future. And, when your loan is repaid you can loan it again to help others. The perfect "pay it forward"! Learn More about KIVA.

Balance...

2010-05-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

My haiku for 2/8 - Tai chi mirrors life/ Expanding and contracting/ Around our center.

It has been a wild year so far. On the one hand, it has been the warmest year to date ever recorded worldwide, yet here it has been snowing on and off on the 21st & 22 of May! By now most of our garden is usually planted. Not this year.

From volcanoes to floods, earthquakes to tornadoes and other windstorms, nature has been wild much of the time. Our man made events, especially the massive oil rig collapse and resulting leak and slick in the Gulf of Mexico, are just as dramatic.
On top of that we focus on other less dramatic, but still incredibly important on other scales, affairs of politics, community, personal life. It's a wonder that any of us is able to maintain any cheerfulness at all. But it is the nature of living things to move toward the future with hopefulness and to seek balance and joy in their lives.

I have some favorite quotes to share:

"To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic." -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

How can you work for change and to better your life without optimism?

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

How can we move forward if we are ever buried under the baggage of the fear of what we did wrong in the past?

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. and behold, service was joy." -Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

How can you live life with joy until you recognize the acts you perform in life are joyous?

What is in the world, good and bad, is what is. With this knowledge you can go forth and do the best you can. It should not impede you from doing good for yourself, your family, your community and the world. Rather it should empower you to know that anything you can achieve counts. Everything counts. And every positive accomplishment, no matter how small, is an important move forward. It is our response to life that balances what happens.

Today is not the day I can plant my garden. It is freezing and too wet. The garden will go in very late, the fruit trees will bear little. But the soil is refreshed and the water table is restored after many dry years. The garden will catch up the way it does when the conditions warm to its liking.
And I am learning to be patient.

Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind

2010-04-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

Patience... must have patience. It is April 16 and it's cloudy again after only 1 day of sun (yesterday) in what seems like forever! It snowed on Easter and several times since, when it wasn't raining instead. I appreciate the good this is doing for the water table, but I WANT SUN!

I shouldn't complain too much. Despite a full work day, we took full advantage of the sunny day we were given, and I hear there is hope for the near future.
I had been hoarding large laundry items such as towels and the dog blanket for the car, and we were able to get these washed and dried outside on the line. In wet weather we have a retractable clothesline and a wooden drying rack upstairs that works great for most stuff.

We also got the solar oven set up and managed to get the two most common (for us) solar dishes cooked before the sky became covered with the high clouds of today's dreariness. First was rice.
By far the easiest way to get perfect brown rice is to bake it, and the solar oven is perfect. We try to use covered glass casseroles for most of our solar cooking, and this is no exception. In a 2 1/2 Qt. casserole place 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of water. Cover and place in preheated solar oven and cook until all the water has disappeared. Voila` Perfect rice! See the wonderful Spanish Rice recipe from Morning Hill Cookbook on an earlier blog post (in the comments section).

Once the rice was done, we immediately replaced it with Banana Cake. Our family has never been big fans of banana bread (which would also bake fabulously in the solar oven), we prefer a cake to use up those bananas that have gotten softer than we like to eat fresh. We bake it in an 8" square pan and serve it without frosting, although you could fancy it up that way if you like.

Simmonsville Solar Banana Cake:
Mix together and set aside:
2 1/2 cups flour (we use whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In mixing bowl,
cream 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Add 1-1/2 cups brown sugar (you can use 3/4 cup honey instead) and beat until light.
Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time
Stir in 1/2 tsp cinnamon
(Optional - add 1/4 tsp cardamom)

In a 2 cup measure mash 1 cup bananas (3 bananas is perfect)
Add 1 tsp vanilla and 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in about 3 parts, alternating with the banana mixture, blending until smooth after each addition.
Stir in:
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) and/or dried cranberries, dried blueberries or whatever inspires you!
Bake in greasecd 8x8 inch or 9x13 inch pan (thinner, but just as good) in preheated solar oven until done . It will be brown on top and, when tested with a toothpick or broomstraw - should come out dry.
In conventional oven, bake at 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour.

Enjoy!
P.S. I am happy to finally get to post this on a SUNNY day 9 days later...

Just say no...

2010-04-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

I recently was at the doctor with an injured heel. During the "first-time-visit paperwork/interview" they asked what drugs I was taking.I answered "Ibuprophen, occasionally". They asked "what else?", and I said "nothing" and they were visibly surprised.

OK, I'm no spring chicken. I'm a lot closer to 60 than 50, but does that mean I'm supposed to be a walking pharmacy? I do take calcium daily and a baby aspirin. In winter I might take vitamins C & D, in summer more vitamin E. I drink echinacea tea when I think it's necessary and drink a glass of water with 1 teaspoon each raw apple cider vinegar and maple syrup twice a day (yum!), but otherwise don't take or eat anything specifically for my health. I believe if you eat good food (for definition of "Food", see anything Michael Pollan writes!) and don't eat too much of it, you will be getting the nutrients you need.

I am in fairly good health and somewhat amazed to think that, at my age (or any age), taking a lot of drugs is the norm. NORM - as in normal thing to do!

What is really different about our life here is all the stuff we don't do. I do not wear make-up. Did once, for my junior high school prom, and that was a bad experience. I reacted allergically and my eyes swelled up and that was that. I do not drink soda ( :^P ), do not dye my hair, do not eat at fast food places. We do not buy prepared foods, use air freshener or scented candles. We do not take sleeping pills, cold medicine except the rare antihistamine when too clogged to sleep.
It really is a case of "less is more". Could it be we just overload our systems and the result is they get out of balance?

If something is an imitation of something else I stay away from it, including imitation sweeteners, vegetarian phony meat, butter "flavored" anything. Give me real butter, steak, cheese and sugar (or honey). This also goes for artificially colored or scented foods, shampoos, soaps... you name it. Laundry detergent or dryer sheets that make your clothes smell "fresh" - I just dry the clothes outdoors and they DO smell fresh.

People have become crucibles for chemical mixtures that no one has tested in combination, let alone testing them within the living chemical stew that is a human being. I am happy not to be a guinea pig in the race for "new and improved" and, as far as I can tell, healthier for it.
You have probably seen the posters showing how quickly a Meth addict ages - looking ancient when only in their 30's, or how a smoker ages quickly as well - not to mention the other health issues. I'm not convinced that the many chemicals we are exposed to daily don't have a similar effect at one level or another.

This is one reason we started making soaps and body care products back in 1979 for our own personal use, so we weren't forced to use the artificially colored and scented commercial soaps that were available to us. And, since 1982, we've made them available to you, too, at Simmons Natural Bodycare.

Earth Day 40!

2010-04-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

This April marks the 40th Earth Day. It's hard to believe it's been that long since Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) founded Earth Day as an environmental teach-in. First celebrated on April 22, 1970, Earth Day marked the very beginning of the modern environmental movement.

While recognizing these things are important in our life today, knowing the history is inspirational as well. It shows the power we have to make change.

In a time when pollution was so bad rivers were literally burning, lakes were dying, air in cities was becoming toxic with no regulation, and bird species were declining rapidly as a result of widespread use of DDT, this particular day was set aside to make people aware of, and appreciate, the limitations of our planetary habitat.
It brought together many groups, each fighting for a single environmental issue, to realize they were all involved in one larger, common cause.

To quote founder, Senator Gaylord Nelson,

"It was on that day that Americans made it clear that they understood and were deeply concerned over the deterioration of our environment and the mindless dissipation of our resources. That day left a permanent impact on the politics of America. It forcibly thrust the issue of environmental quality and resources conservation into the political dialogue of the Nation. That was the important objective and achievement of Earth Day. It showed the political and opinion leadership of the country that the people cared, that they were ready for political action, that the politicians had better get ready, too."

Sometimes in our individual efforts working to allay the effects of climate change, to protect and preserve the habitat which sustains us, it may seem we do not have much of a chance to accomplish what needs to be done. Yet since that first Earth Day much has changed.

In just the first 10 years the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Water Pollution and Control Act Amendments, the Resource Recovery Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) were enacted. Also in 1970, the EPA was founded to protect human health and the environment on which it depends – all as a result of the concern of the American people.
Just think: We did not HAVE an Environmental Protection Agency before 1970. Not because we didn't need one, but because it hadn't occurred to us that we needed to monitor and protect what was happening to our environment in a nationally cohesive way!

Much is yet to be done and it IS in our power to do it. We must do it, for our future.

We know these concerns are global concerns and we must think of that bigger picture as we act on personal, local, national, and world levels. From governments to businesses to individuals we all have a role to play, even if it is only being conscious of the waste and ways of our daily life and modifying them to have less impact on our habitat. The power and the responsibility is in all of our hands.

During April we give extra recognition to the need for living with awareness of the effects of our actions on the environment around us. Use this time to create new habits, teach others, and remind your government representatives that we can have a sustainable, healthy environment for the future. And then continue this year-round, because in reality there is no "Earth Day", it is "Earth Everyday".

Olive Love

2010-03-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

So what's the big deal? Why do we persist in using organic olive oil for our soap when it is the most expensive of our base ingredients and soap can be made without it? In a word - Quality.
Historically the finest soaps were olive oil, or 'castille' soaps, mild and nourishing to the skin. In our own 28 years of soapmaking experience we have made soap from a variety of recipes, and those including olive oil were consistently the best quality, more gentle and less drying.

Olives: a gift from the Gods

The ancient Greeks made a wager with their Gods, pledging to name their capital city after the deity who gave them the most valuable tribute. Poseidon, God of the Sea, caused a fountain to spring from the earth flowing water to the city. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, presented an olive tree. This tree's fruit could feed the masses, light up the night, bring good health, and anoint the heroes. The capital was declared 'Athens' (besides, a salt water spring is almost a nuisance!).
The value of the olive has not been forgotten over time. As a fruit, people usually love it or hate it, but only about 1% to 2% or the world's crop is eaten as fruit. It's the oil that is the delight of the gourmet, the choice of the health-conscious, and the anointment of the discerning.
The olive tree, an evergreen native to Asia Minor, spread to the rest of the Mediterranean Basin and has been cultivated there for over 6000 years. This ancient fruit is still one of the main oil crops in cultivation there and is now widely grown in warm climates around the world.
Olives are one of the few oil crops where the source of the oil is in the pulp, rather than the seed. In the latter case, the purpose of the oil is to provide condensed energy for the emerging seedling. In the case of the olive, any animal which eats the fruit receives the benefits.

Olive Oil for a Healthy Diet

Oils are an important dietary component. They provide essential fatty acids needed for hormone production and the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, & K. They also add an appetizing flavor, aroma, and texture to food.
Fats & oils actually activate the pleasure sensors in our brain, an addicting connection that stems from the needs of early humans and can cause health problems today. However, as we now know, using unsaturated vegetable oils helps avoid these problems. Olive oil has even been shown to help reverse them.

Olive Oil for Healthy Skin

For healthy body care, olive oil is rich in proteins, minerals, and vitamins. It is used as a base in high-quality soaps and cosmetics due to its excellence as a moisturizer and high availability. A natural humectant, olive oil attracts and holds moisture close to the skin and forms a breathable film that helps prevent the loss of internal moisture. Unlike many substances used for this purpose, olive oil does not block the natural functions of the skin and it absorbs readily, carrying the benefits of its nourishing components. Jojoba oil, shea butter, kukui nut oil and a few others are also good, but are far less plentiful than olive.
All in all, the olive fruit nourishes the body within and without, benefiting humankind for thousands of years - - truly a gift from the Gods.

• Simmons special Soaps •

Quality without Compromise since 1982
Get fine castille soaps made with organic olive oil from Simmons Natural Bodycare

SOURCES:
Naturally Healthy Skin, S. Tourles,1999
The Natural Soap Book, S. Miller Cavitch, 1995
Food That Harm, Foods That Heal, Reader's Digest, 1997
Economic Botany: Plants in our World. 2nd Ed. S. Weiss (Ed.)
Creating your own Cosmetics, Naturally, N.J. Smeh, M.S.,1995
Natural Body Care Products, Glossary of Terms & Ingredients 1995

Gophers - not for the faint of heart...

2010-03-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

Gophers (@$%#!@#)!
The bane of the vegetable garden. Not to be confused with moles (see below) who eat earthworms, leave mounds of dirt in the lawn, but do not harm your plants, gophers kill vegetables and fruit trees, rose bushes and other landscaping by eating their roots.
I have played tug of war in the garden with these voracious rodents and they are high on the list of foes to any dedicated vegetable gardener. Nothing is more aggravating than to go out and find a previously vigorous plant suddenly short and wilted, slumped into the hole where its roots used to be.

Gopher damage and prevention depends on the numbers you are dealing with. These little critters propagate like the prey animal that they are, are not deterred by noisemakers or most repellents, and send in new troops to replace the fallen. Thus our most effective method here is trapping and good cats. A friend also had success with a good dog (rat terrier) but the holes he left were larger than the gophers made. If you poison them and a cat or dog gets them afterwards, they can be affected by the poison as well, so we don't recommend that.

If you are not keen on actually killing them off, there are some moderately effective repellents, such as Castor bean/oil – but the truth is barricading them from the plants or reducing their numbers is the only real method if you have a lot of them. In a really wet winter some of them seem to drown (ditto yellowjackets). Simple cages around the roots of plants rarely work. Even raised beds are ineffective unless they are both tall enough gophers cannot climb over the top and have a gopher proof barrier underneath. We know folks who put a 2 inch deep layer of broken glass under a bed and the gophers came through, and they easily scaled the 10 inch sides of our strawberry bed.

We are about to add some new raised beds to our garden. More than 16 inches tall and lined with 1/2 inch hardware cloth they will be a safe haven for gopher delectables such as potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic, cole crops and parsley. Sometimes peppers. And peas. Sigh.
---
Gopher story: I had heard several times that gophers would eat Juicyfruit gum and it would clog up their insides & kill them. Many years back I saw this mentioned yet another time in Herb Caen’s column in the SF Chronicle (long time back ) and that pushed me to try it. In certain times of the year they leave their tunnels open to the surface. During that time I placed an unwrapped stick of gum in the holes. Several hours later I would check and Lo! The gum was gone.

I repeated the procedure... A case of Juicyfruit later they were happily consuming all the gum I could give them with no end in sight. I had no idea if constipated gophers were piling up underground or if it just wasn’t working. So we decided to put the gum in the tunnel behind a standard Macabee Gopher Trap. A nasty piece of work that pierces the rodent to death, these traps can be very effective if you find their main tunnel, up to 15 inches deep, and place 2 of these traps, one going each direction. Cover the hole with sod or a board and some dirt to keep the light out, etc.. But for the gum experiment that wasn’t an option, there is really no way to “bait” these traps. So we set them in the feeder surface tunnels near where we placed the gum, but the gophers generally just set off the traps by pushing dirt into them, took the gum and left.

So I had the idea of getting a couple of rat traps (gophers are considerably larger than mice), as they can be effectively baited. Bait in place, I set the traps on the surface of the ground outside the open tunnel. This is 100% opposite everything you have ever heard about dealing with gophers, but I couldn’t figure a way to get the broad traps into the tunnel without the whole thing collapsing as I dug it out to make it fit.

It worked! Against all odds the gophers were coming out of the ground in broad daylight and throwing themselves into the rat traps to get at the gum!!! In 2 weeks we caught 13 gophers. One day we caught 2 gophers in the same trap in about 1 hour. I saw there was a gopher in one of the rat traps and asked my husband to remove it. He went to the store and when he came back I had noticed there was still a gopher in the trap and asked him why he had left it there, but he had already removed one and this was a new gopher!

We must have made a dent in the population, as we saw only a few new tunnels after that. The technique was also limited by the short time in spring during which the tunnels are open. Since then our cats have been able to keep them from getting quite as out of hand as they were that year.
---

Resources:
We have friends who swear by "Black Hole" and "Black Box" gopher traps as well. Here is information on a variety of Gopher traps and how to choose.
For beautiful, durable and easy to assemble raised bed kits,(illustrated above) see: naturalyards.com
For natural outdoor yard and garden pests: Bird&Home.com
Natural Home and garden pest solutions: www.NaturalPestProductsStore.com
Source for traps for Gophers, moles and voles is www.traplineproducts.com. They also have instructional videos.

Seasonal Renewal of the Floral Sort...

2010-03-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

We've been discussing the arrival of spring and how it has such a different schedule at different locations in our county (see our March 2009 post: Time Travel into Spring ). It's hard not to be jealous of those with a longer season, but I can't say I don't appreciate the longer rest before all the garden work begins in earnest. Sort of like sleeping in on a Saturday morning!

At any rate, it got me looking for those first floral indicators of the season's change and, it seemed, overnight they were everywhere.
I had just commented that our first daffodils, against a south facing wall with it's sheltered advantage, had just bloomed and then, in the next few days, I started to see wildflowers everywhere.

First I noticed the little pink flowers that are often, with dandelions, the earliest wildflower here. I have always called them Spring Beauty, but cannot find them in any book, by that name or any other. In the family Onagraceae (as far as I can tell), they closest resemble some of the smaller Clarkia. But they bloom a month or so too soon! Do any of you know what this charming, little pink flower might be?

Looking around I realized that Dandelions had also been blooming a while. I could tell because some had already gone to seed puffs. Globes of wish-fairies waiting to be blown into the air.
The common Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, spread throughout the world from Eurasia to become one of the most familiar wildflowers studding lawns throughout North America. Despite being generally considered a weed, Young Dandelion greens are nutritious and delicious in salads or soups, the roots have been used as a coffee substitute, and wine is made from the flowers. A versatile weed, indeed!

Along with the dandelions were one of our favorites, Bell's, or English, Daisy (Bellis perennis ). Close to the ground in a rosette of leaves, these little daisies have aster-like flowers often tinged with pink. These are the flowers with which our daughters and granddaughters make daisy chains to adorn their hair. Another immigrant, it originally came from Europe.

Other extremely early wildflowers here include the tiny, blue Veronica arvensis, also known as Common Speedwell, and pagoda-like Red Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum ). Both tend to appear in areas where the soil has been disturbed, which is why they blanket our vegetable garden now, before we have begun to work the soil. They cover any area the cover crops we plant have missed. Both of these also traveled to the America's from their native Europe and Asia.
The Deadnettle, despite it's name and appearance, is not related to other nettles and does not sting. It does provide a nectar source for bees before other flowers have opened.

Interestingly, of the flowers now blooming, only the one we are not sure of may be a native to our Northern California mountains - maybe. I am always amazed how many common wild plants here are non-natives. Especially as no one built or lived on this acreage before we moved here and began to build up our farm and business back in the 1970's.
Other than these, I see no flowering plants just yet, but it is soon to be. Shoots and stems are popping up all over meadow and forest.

While it is too wet and muddy to work our vegetable garden just yet, that doesn't mean things are entirely in hibernation.There is overwintered parsley, kale, chard, and carrots. Our very late planted cabbage are ready to pick and the "All-the-year-round" cauliflower is just starting to make heads. We even still get a few side shoots from our late broccoli now and then.

And, looking ahead, in snug little trays the seeds for this years cole crops, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and such, are sprouting and getting ready for this 2010 garden.

Only 2 weeks before the Equinox and Spring's official beginning - We can't wait!

Shipping Quandary...

2010-02-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

There are decisions to make in every aspect of life and business, and it is all too easy to make them lightly... But it can also be a never ending abyss once you delve in. One problem we have pondered on and off has to do with the best way to package our products for shipping.
There are many things to consider here: cost for the customer; protection of the products; cost to the environment; ease of use... As always, we believe we should reduce, re-use, and recycle as much as possible.

Shipping adds a lot to the cost of a product, especially small and inexpensive, but relatively heavy, item like bars of soap. You can raise the price of the soap to absorb some of this, but that requires price changes at least annually to match the variable cost of shipping.
We want the package to arrive in good shape, with nothing damaged, smeared, or otherwise different than when we packed it. This means it has to be well padded, fairly snug so it doesn't shift around in transit, and that the packing materials are clean.
To keep the packaging costs down we want the packing material to be light in weight. The lightest packing materials are those styrofoam packing peanuts, bubble wrap and bags of air. However, these are all products that will end up in a landfill, slowly, if ever, breaking down. Not to mention plastic is a petroleum derivative. Not the most environmentally friendly stuff.
OK, so there is crumpled or shredded paper. Crumpled paper compresses, so there is limited use for it. If there is much gap between the soap and the box the weight of the paper it takes to secure the soap can raise the shipping cost considerably. It doesn't help that for all the shippers one ounce over a pound equals 2 pounds, as far as postage goes.

And then there is the problem of acquiring (and disposing of) the packing materials. The price we pay is part of the price the customer must pay in the end. Clean shredded plain paper is hard to come by here, it's tough to find inexpensive rolls of newsprint anymore, and used newspaper has a problem with ink coming off onto the labels of the soap.

This also has to take into consideration the cost on the environment. We certainly don't want to encourage the production of more plastic or styrofoam, neither do we want it to end up in a landfill. When we have plain, recycled paper, and in orders where it's weight doesn't add appreciably to the postage, we know it can be re-used, recycled, or will break down into organic matter when tossed in the landfill.

We have looked at different specific eco-friendly packaging materials but, with the small spaces we have to fill and other requirements, they often didn't work for our particular purpose. That doesn't mean they won't work for you - for examples, see: PrairieEcopak™ , EnviroPAK custom molded packaging, and GlobeGuard™ (who also have wonderful recycled cardboard boxes). We use the kraft paper Sizzle Pak shown as fill in gift baskets.

Lightweight, effective, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly. It seems like it should be simple...
But is it better to get new paper with the energy cost of its manufacturing process, or re-use packing peanuts that almost never break down and can be used over and over, keeping them in circulation and out of the landfill - at least for now?
And many people hate the packing peanuts, yet already feel that shipping costs are high and don't want to pay more for the weight incurred by using paper or cardboard. As I said - its a quandary.

We have toiled with these issues for years, always done the best we can, and are please we may have finally come up with the best possible solution for us. Introducing Geami packaging! This lightweight, expanded kraft paper and tissue packing material amazingly doesn't seem to compress and fits in the small spaces we need to fill.

So here is what we are doing:
1) Reused or Recycled cardboard boxes, including the US Postal Service's "Cradle to Grave"*certified boxes. All re-usable or recyclable & biodegradable.
2) 100% Post consumer waste (PCW) invoices, labels and shipping labels. All recyclable & biodegradable.
3) Re-used poly-styrene packing peanuts/bubble wrap, etc (rather than throwing in the landfill what comes to us in other packages).
4) Environmentally friendly Geami packaging. All re-usable, recyclable, or biodegradable..

All this puts us just one step closer to having a completely sustainable business from start to finish.
* from Wikipedia:

Cradle-to-grave is the full Life Cycle Assessment from manufacture ('cradle') to use phase and disposal phase ('grave'). For example, trees produce paper, which can be recycled into low-energy production cellulose (fiberised paper) insulation, then used as an energy-saving device in the ceiling of a home for 40 years, saving 2,000 times the fossil-fuel energy used in its production. After 40 years the cellulose fibers are replaced and the old fibers are disposed of, possibly incinerated. All inputs and outputs are considered for all the phases of the life cycle.

Get your natural & organic soaps sent to you in eco-friendly packaging from the greenest soapmakers on Earth! Simmons Natural Bodycare.

New Dawn

2010-01-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

Just a morning hello.
Some excitement here!
We had a relatively major earthquake on Saturday (January 2, 2010). No missing this one, a 6.5 26 miles offshore (so about 75 miles or so from us), with a long serious roll. First one since the big trio of 1992 where I was ready to go outside. I chose a doorway, as it was my volunteer dispatch weekend and I needed to stay by my phone and radio especially if this was a potential natural disaster.

The Earth speaks. Nature still has the mightier hand. And the lesson to learn is to be able to accept uncertainty, work with the now, be prepared for anything, and fear not. It is all part of our life and living as humans in the world. And makes for some pretty interesting adventure as well.

Please check out an earlier post: Rolling Along

In my humble opinion, to "be here now", to accept each moment as it is, is not a philosophy of complacency. It is understanding that as things happen you are given the opportunity to work with what is, not with what you want, fear, or otherwise predict may be. It propels you to act in synchronicity with the world around you. And it makes it more fun!

Life's an adventure, rejoice in it.

Working today for Tomorrow...

2010-01-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

In our ongoing effort to provide the highest quality all natural soap that is affordable for everyday use and the very best for the environment, we have long wanted to include organic base oils in our formula. The problem was these oils were so much more costly it would make our soaps a luxury item rather than an everyday one. Over the years when we were able to get organic oil for a competitive price, we used it without any fanfare. However, now that we can assure a steady supply that will not overly increase our price to you we are proud to announce that, in addition to being healthy to use, our soaps are now even healthier for the planet.

Making EveryDay Special

New for 2010 every batch of Simmons special Soap is now made with Organic Olive oil, Organic Coconut oil and Palm oil from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified plantations. (We are not convinced that Organic palm, currently sourced from Brazil, is not implicated in the destruction of Rainforest). This will guarantee that precious agricultural resources are not damaged in the production of the oils that make our soap.

Over the last 6 months we ran an online survey regarding Organic vs Conventional Natural soap. While the results were mixed, having organic ingredients was definitely important to the majority of respondents. While most were not interested in paying a premium price for it, they were divided 50/50 about using organic soap daily if they had to pay more. And 60% of the comments noted the importance of organics for the health of the environment.

Our own desire to support the environment through organic farming and other sustainable agriculture was tempered by our desire to stay in business and serve our customers the best product at the best price. Well, with the new year came the opportunity we were waiting for, organic oils costs are now competitive with the conventional oils we were using. For a minimal cost we can make a maximal change in our commitment to the planet.

Now, from the renewable energy system that powers our home and business to the base oils that make our soap, we can bring you a premium product with the smallest environmental impact.

Take our "Shop Tour" and "learn more about our family business".

A New Decade!

2010-01-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

A new year and a whole new decade! We are happy to start anew this year. Last year was intense and we are glad to move forward.
So we start the year traditionally (for us) with music and our community of friends.
The first day of the year is leisurely clean up from the festivities and we move forward from there to embrace this day, our future, come to the Now.
I have a personal belief that the first week of the year is an indicator - omen, if you will - of how the year will be as a whole. Therefore I try very hard to live those first 7 days as consciously as possible.
This morning I was sent a link that reinforced the idea of approaching each moment open to the possibilities and beauty contained within it "Celebrate What's Right with the World" . This is really my philosophy, but as with all things, it is easier said than done. But each year I get closer.
Besides, worry and guilt and angst over what has not happened yet or what is behind us really is only a waste of life. And the difference between joy and despair is often just a matter of perception.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Self-Employment Health Care Blues

2009-12-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it. People are letting the corporations scare them into complacency over changing our health care system.

Follow the money and you can see that the insurance companies and drug companies have a lot to lose. They are lobbying hard, advertising like mad, and spreading the message that a single-payer plan, a public option, expanded Medicare, or any other idea that doesn't increase the profitability of their interests - is a bad idea.
They are taking advantage of the fact that you can easily scare people into believing anything. Well, Roosevelt was right, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". As a tool to manipulate people it has no peer.

Well, here's the deal from my vantage point:
As a self employed person who belongs to no other group I cannot get reasonably priced health insurance with any kind of real coverage. That's if I could. I have been denied because I have a condition that is not life threatening that is common to about 80% of women over 40. Ridiculous.
I believe that deciding to provide basic health care to all Americans is a moral duty of our Government. I would be thrilled it a unified Congress would just issue the statement that they believe Health Care is a right of the American Citizen and that they intend to work to make it a reality. Then they can fight all they want about how to get the job done.

There are lots of working models around the world to choose from. In the book, "The Healing of America", the 4 main models are described, pro and con. Hopefully we can take the good parts and make something that fits our American culture. But the key is reigning in the Insurance and Pharmaceutical corporations that are currently pulling all the strings. Talk about holding all the cards! These businesses can afford to pay to influence political leaders at all levels and to influence, quite successfully, the citizens as well, through advertising and what can only be called propaganda - promoting their self-interests.

Read this article for some insight about how Big Business uses Madison Avenue to control the direction of our Socio-Political future.

But I don't despair. I believe by getting the ball rolling towards Health Care reform we have an opportunity for future changes. And if we, the People, actually rise up from complacency and work actively toward what I consider part of our Nation's founding ideals. From the Preamble of the Constitution (In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers". ( Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids. ) , and the Declaration of Independence as well; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". If "Life" does not include basic Health Care protection against preventable death I think we are missing the point.

Ah well. There is a lot of information out there for everyone to see. Do the research and make up your own mind how you would like to see our nation treat it's citizens in this regard.

Coopus Optimus...

2009-12-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

This post is for the birds. Chickens in particular. Our laying hens had lived in temporary housing since we moved here in 1977. This year we put the finishing touches on the Ultimate Hen Coop and the girls finally have the deluxe housing they so richly deserve. Our steady egg production and happy hens indicate that they appreciate it.

It's testimony to how easy it is to raise poultry that they did so well in the various housing they were given. From a tiny 4 foot high by 4 foot wide by 2 feet deep coop to refurbished pig and goat pens, they still provided us with eggs and meat. Unfortunately they also provided a lot of the local wildlife with meat and eggs as well.
EVERYTHING likes poultry! And we have a wide variety of predators here: coyotes; fox; hawks; skunks; bobcat; cougar; raccoons... All fond of a chicken dinner. And rats, snakes, and squirrels enjoy eggs. And mice like the feed... The list goes on and on. Our eggs were fabulous but, given all the native competition, they were also rather expensive.

We had plenty of time to ponder the perfect hencoop and all the features that would make it most useful to us and the hens. Here are the things that ended up on our list:

1) Roomy. We wanted to make sure there was enough room the hens would not be too crowded. When crowded they have problems from illness to aggression. We also wanted to have room to raise meat birds part of the year. The bird's indoor portion of our coop is 6 feet by 10 feet in size, with a covered enclosed 10 by 10 foot space outside.

2) Easy to clean. Chicken manure is a wonderful thing. It can also be really disgusting. We wanted the main poop collection area, that is, the area where they sleep, to be dry and easy to access and clean. And cleanliness helps prevent parasites and other negative health issues.
One big step toward this was pouring a cement slab for the chicken's living area and putting their roost on hinges so it could easily be raised out of the way. It attaches to a hook in the ceiling. We also have a hinged lower wall behind the roost that opens so we can easily shovel out the manure mixed with bedding (wood shavings).

3) Safe. With all the hungry critters in the woods we know we have to be able to completely lock up our birds when there are predators in the area. We wanted to have both indoor and outdoor safe areas. This means a roof to protect from hawks as well as fencing that a skunk won't dig under or a raccoon dismantle or climb over. Foxes and bobcats can get in tiny openings, too. We also have a door that closes from indoors via a pulley system to lock the girls in at night, and a door separating their covered yard from the larger outdoor run. On nice days when there have been no predators about recently we can turn them loose into the world at large.

4) Sturdy. We can get a lot of snow here in the winter. We learned that chicken wire holds snow really well, until you are under it trying to do something. And it will also collapse under the weight of snow, taking wooden supports with it. A solid roof that sheds snow was a must.
Also, any loose boards that can be pried make entries for a variety of critters. Solid siding is important.

5) Well ventilated. It gets hot here in the summer. Poultry wilts, wings sagging, which can result in health issues and egg production going down. Having good cross ventilation in the coop makes a world of difference. We were lucky to have scrounged 3 free windows that open from the dump/recycling center. We also put in a solid vent that is "screened" with chicken wire.

6) Versatile. We wanted ample room for the birds, to separate an injured bird, broody hen, or raise hatchery chicks. We wanted this space to be flexible, so in the chicken part of the coop we made chicken wire doors that could separate an area when needed, but open out of the way otherwise.

7) Human friendly. This means storage space, easy access to all parts of the coop, and lighting. It also meant a covered entry so we wouldn't get soaked unloading feed during the monsoon... I mean, rainy season.

You can see the nest boxes are located in the "human" area, taking no space from the hens at all, And are "double decked" with 4 boxes proving plenty for 14 hens.
The hens indoor area has a ceiling which creates an overhead loft for storage of various tools which are not in constant use. We also have a hinged shelf that holds a brooder (read: foil lined cardboard box) for hatchery chicks when needed, but otherwise folds out of the way. We keep the chicken feed and hen scratch in a metal garbage can for further protection from mice and such.

Everyone will come up with the design that best fits their needs and terrain, but we are tremendously happy with ours. 10 years in the planning, it paid off when we finally had the opportunity to build it.

A poem a day...

2009-12-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

We occasionally get a wild idea to make ourself do something we have no time for. Here's one we had recently: write a Twitter length poem every day.
Given the restriction of only 140 characters I thought I might be able to do this, giving myself a little daily brain exercise. Here goes:

11/24 –
The mist is rising
This Autumn morning
As sun warmed breeze
Caresses night chilled Earth.

11/25 -
Morning dog walk.
I see, she smells, the day.
We both know
Cattle trucks have passed this way.

11/26 -

Rise early to prepare,

Food and kid projects,

Music and lodging.

Thankful we have it to share.

11/27 –

Family and friends

Are the mirror

Showing people are connected

One to another.

11/28-

Deep frost, like snow,

Crisp, bright,

With sky ice blue.

A day of clarity.

11/29-

Old sheep shed torn down.

Rotted wood and timber

Burns furiously

Its story now flame and ember.

11/30-

Lichen streamers

Wave from fir branches

Riding a canyon breeze

No one else sees

12/1-

December dawns

Bright and chill.

Yearling fawns

Nosing the frosty earth.

12/2-

Ducks drop from sky with a splash!

An aeronautic comedy.

No grace to this crash,

But it gets the job done.

12/3 –

Night wind howls.

Sings in the trees,

Roars through the canyon.

Liberating the last autumn leaves.

12/4 –

Too much to do!

Still at my desk working

As the full moon rises.

Hoping to finish one more thing.

12/5 –

Highest tide I've ever seen

On Humboldt Bay.

Sloughs are rivers, flats submerged,

Islands melt away.

12/6 –

Bitter cold night.

Ducks paddle

In frozen pond

To keep open channel.

12/7-

In the teens,

The pond a solid icy mass.

Poor ducks! They huddle
In a single liquid puddle.

12/8 –

Sunrise starts above

With pink-edged cloud.

Then pours light down mountain,

Through trees to ground.

12/9 –
Another freezing day.
We brave the wind and chill
Taking pup out for a walk.
Now must thaw: That wind could kill!

12/10 -
Where did the water go?
Vanished dead of night,
Temp. around 20
Buried pipes, no leak in sight.

12/11 –

The wild mallards return

On ice bound pond alight.

Slide, flapping, skating, skittering,

To onlookers delight!

12/12 – Precious elixir of life,

Water from the sky.

Without it follows strife,

We fear the well run dry.

If you like these, follow us on Twitter and get a poem daily, as well as information on special online sales and environmental and other news.

Stumbling into the Holi-daze...

2009-11-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

Wow! Where has the time gone.?
Actually I sorta know - last month my back went out, and before it was healed (Hooray for chiropractors) we both caught what appears to have been the infamous H1N1 (or "swine") flu. It was a mild case, I think. We stayed in self imposed quarantine for about 3 weeks or so, with sore throat and fever and some congestion but mostly feeling short of breath. Cloudy of mind and weary of body, it was as if someone had stolen our oxygen.
So here we are, just before the holiday season and behind in everything except, thank goodness) soap. Fortunately we have everything here we need to make special gift assortments.

Our job this time of year expands to include making our customers gift giving easy. We choose combinations to please a variety of situations and make them as beautiful as possible, filling a range of prices in the hope of making something to fill most needs. It is rather fun, actually, seeing how attractive and practical and luxurious we can make any gift - all at the same time.

We love the challenge. We approach it as though these are the gifts we are giving to our family and friends, as, indeed, some of these have been.

We hope you appreciate our efforts and choose some of what we have at Simmons Natural Bodycare to offer in your gift giving this year.

War and Peace

2009-11-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Today, November 11, is Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day and Veteran's Day). It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" 1918.
This date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations, to commemorate members of the armed forces who were killed during war. After World War II the name was changed to Veterans Day in the United States and to Remembrance Day in countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Armistice Day remains an official holiday in France. It is also an official holiday in Belgium, known also as the Day of Peace in the Flanders Fields.

Nobody celebrates the beginning of hostilities. But when peace is finally achieved (or, at least, the end of a given conflict), it is a cause to commemorate. And to remember.

The following poem, written by a surviving veteran of WW1, was inspired by the poppies that spontaneously grew on the disturbed soil of the battlefields. Hence the scarlet poppy came to symbolize the blood and sacrifice of those who fought and died.

Those in the Armed Forces deserve our respect. While there are many reasons for enlisting: some noble; some of necessity; some for adventure, these are the people who put their life on the line to serve our nation. While we may disagree about any given conflict, that is not the soldier's doing. Their ambition is to serve in the cause of good, not evil.

Our job is to try to make sure those are the only causes for which they are sent into harm's way. And to honor and respect those who serve on our behalf.

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Celebrate Peace.

Every Day - work toward Peace, honor the dead, respect the living.

River bummin'

2009-10-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

Made it to Fortuna yesterday & while there, walked the puppy, Kumalie, on the Riverwalk Trail. To my amazement, all along this stretch of Eel River there were huge salmon leaping out of the water! I must have seen 20 or so. So very cool. I have never seen them jump in level water and, while some suggested they were being chased, I saw no indication of predators, be it seal, otter or other.

I love Riverwalk. It is, for me, the highlight of the town of Fortuna on the North Coast. A biking, walking trail of some length bordered by the Eel River and pasture. These views are, respectively, looking South, SouthEast, and NorthWest along the river there.

In early summer I saw a congregation of around 75 (!!!) Merganser Ducks on a riverbar there. On the return leg of the walk they had disappeared - then I spotted them further downriver diving, all in a frenzy.
Obviously they were feeding on something (Anchovies? Sardines? What comes up the Eel?). Very odd to see these loner ducks in a group like that.
Love it.
Nature phenomena of the river habitat.

Besides the ocean and mountains we have 6 rivers that define this area. In addition to the Eel there is the mighty Klamath, the beautiful Smith, Trinity, and Mad Rivers, and the Van Duzen river on which I live. The Van Duzen River has been federally designated as a "National Wild and Scenic River". Here's a view of kids in the Van Duzen in summer.

One last Eel River story for now... When I first lived in this area in the late 1960's I was standing in just-over-the-knee deep water in the Middle Fork when a huge school of shad went upstream. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of medium size shimmering silver fish filling the river, bumping my legs, backs sticking out of the water. This went on for several minutes.
Interestingly, it turns out the American Shad is a non-native species. From the Atlantic coast, they were introduced in the 1800's and are another migratory specie that lives in the sea and journeys upriver to spawn.

Be familiar with your local waterways. There is much to discover there and to enjoy. And knowing them will encourage you to work to keep them healthy.

In Memorial - Brio

2009-10-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

We unexpectedly lost our 9 year old Border Collie, Brio, Oct. 18. A loyal, if neurotic, part of our animal family, Brio was happy with the way things were, especially if someone would play fetch with him. You could always find my husband by looking to see where Brio was. He generally would be on the step of the shop or house or barn - whichever.
He only wavered when there was company staying in our guesthouse, then he could be counted on to be sleeping on the step there.

Crazy fast and, perhaps, just a bit crazy, he would run in the direction he thought you would throw the ball or stick. Often this would be the opposite direction, but he would seek for 1/2 hour if needed to find that object so he could bring it back to play again. As have all our dogs (all dogs?), he loved snow.

Now he and our old Australian Shepard, Rosie, are both gone. She died at 17 in 2008. It was rather expected, she had slowed considerably her last few years.
But with Brio it was entirely unexpected.

He missed his canine companion, but when we got a new puppy 6 months later they became the best of friends. They played furious games of tag and follow the leader, particularly every morning and at twilight. He was busy teaching her all his (bad) habits.

And then one day last spring Brio was running and began to limp. The limp continued and became more serious over the next few days. It turned out he had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). It appears that in most dogs with the problem, the ACL slowly degenerates and becomes weaker until it ruptures, without any sudden injury.
We decided to have it fixed as the chance was high that his other hind leg would go, too, if we didn't. After the surgery we had a Border Collie in a crate for almost 2 months. He was a very unhappy dog.
After that he was never the same. He recovered well, and lost the extra weight from being sedentary all that time. Was playing with the puppy some, but not as much. Would fetch, but not as enthusiastically. Then, this past month, he started having days where he was just - well - depressed, as far as we could tell. He would not come out from under the truck to say 'hi' or play or eat. The next day - fine!

The day he died he seemed slow but OK in the morning. Followed us around and had a dog biscuit treat in the afternoon. But when our family came over in the evening they found him in his usual place, under the truck, dead. No visible sign of distress.
We miss him. Now we just have our one 11 month old Aussie pup, Kumalie.
She misses him, too.

Cider time. Autumn = Apples

2009-10-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

Every year we borrow a neighbor's apple press and make cider from our apples and those we can glean from unharvested trees. It is a family affair and one that is work and fun deliciously combined.
This year is special as it is the first time 2 year old Lila can actually help in the process.
Today is the day - a storm is predicted and apples are ready, so this is it. Our semi-dwarf Empire apple is laden with zillions of small apples. They are sweet and crunchy. We have a box of Snow apples, pure white inside, and a couple boxes of the tart and mushy "mystery apple" from a tree that re-sprouted below the graft.
Jars are clean, the press is set up and we are ready to go. We pick apples and bring them up from the orchard. There are actually more than we expected.

First step is sorting and washing the apples. Any with bites in them, large bruises, or that are otherwise unacceptable get set aside for our chickens, compost, or a neighbor's pigs. The rest we place in a plastic bucket with holes drilled in it so we can easily rinse them with a hose.
Now the fun begins!

This press has an electric motor on the grinder. One of us washes apples, one (or two - a favorite kid job) feeds the apples into the hopper to be ground up. The ground apples fall into a cloth lined (old pillowcase) wooden basket beneath. There are 2 of these baskets. When one is full it is moved beneath the press, the cloth folded over, a wooden disk placed on top, and you turn the handle which turns the "screw" that presses down on the disk. Lila needs a lift to help turn the handle!
Beautiful golden apple cider runs out of the basket and into the pans we collect it in.
We run the pans full of cider into the house and funnel the juice into clean, disinfected jars, straining out any bits of apple as we go.
We leave extra space in the tops of the jars for expansion for the cider we freeze, and some we put in 1/2 gallon canning jars to Pasteurize for storing in the pantry.
Frozen cider, once thawed, tastes fresh as the day we pressed it, but fresh or thawed, you must drink it before it ferments. Pasteurized tastes wonderful, but not quite the same, and has a longer shelf life once opened. Best of all it takes no freezer space or electricity to keep.
Today's work resulted in over 20 gallons of cider to share! Wahoo!! Even so, we will probably do this one or two more times before we return the press.
The press we borrow is a Correll Cider Press.
These presses are the best! Our family is all pitching in so we can have our own, and we now have one on order that will be ready for us next summer.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus,writer and philosopher (1913-1960)

Deep in Harvest Season - Overabundance!

2009-09-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

We are having a bumper crop of fruits and vegetables and between running Simmons Natural Bodycare and preparing for winter we barely have time to rest!

If you're interested in a snapshot of harvest season on our homestead with recipes & food preservation techniques, I am chronicling it closely on our Eat Local Challenge BLOG - LocalVore Challenge.
From applesauce to zuchinni, dried pears to sour cherry liqueur, you will find our culinary saga there.

We've got worms!

2009-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Fortunately not the icky internal kind, but those great little wrigglers who till and enrich the soil.

A couple of years ago a friend gifted me a book, "The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms" by local author Amy Stewart. A wonderful treatise on the wonders of small subterranean creatures, it inspired me to add earthworms back into our tended livestock - but indoors this time. I cannot begin to tell all the amazing things earthworms do, read the book or check out this info.) but suffice it to say, they work diligently to their own end, which conveniently helps make the planet habitable for us all.

Back when we had a lot of critters (goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, etc.) and before we had a business, we kept a worm bin beneath our rabbit cages. One of the great symbiotic relationships of all time, of immeasurable benefit to gardeners, rabbit manure is one of the very best in the garden and one of worm's favorite habitats. The redworms we inoculated that pile with ultimately migrated on their own throughout much of our farm, and we personally introduced them to our vegetable garden where they could do the heavy work of moving nutrients and aerating the soil for us.

But that was a long time ago now, and I miss the wonderful abundance of worm castings and manure for vegetables, flowers, and houseplants. Our garden compost pile has become a happy worm habitat, and provides enough for us to use when transplanting and topdressing the garden, but I can always use more, and pure worm castings for houseplants and outdoor container plants is the best.

After looking into the many plans for home made and pre-manufactured worm bins and ultimately settled on the "Can O' Worms" recommended by Amy in her book.
We have had it going on our back porch over a year now, and we are hooked (you can get one at Abundant Earth). The basic idea in most of these is: worms move up in their world, looking for new food as they eat the old food, and leave behind nutrient-rich castings (yup, worm poo).
Worm bins are multi level condos, and as the worms move to the top level you can remove the bottom one and empty the finished castings onto your plants, moving the empty tray to the top to continue the process. Simple.

Things we discovered...
• You can overfeed them. If you do, what you end up with is a proliferation of fruit flies (vinegar flies). Prevent this by feeding less and/or covering the scraps you feed them with a thin layer of dirt or newspaper.
(An effective fruit fly trap: place a small amount of wine, red or white, in a small jar or bowl. Cover with plastic file or? and poke a few holes in it. The holes need to be slightly bigger than you may think, say 1/16" or so. this will catch a lot of flies pronto and they die hapopily intoxicated, I think!)
• Tea bags disappear faster than anything!
• Keep them moist. The worm casting "tea" you can drain off (see spigot on Can O' Worms) is great, if smelly, fertilizer.

There are a lot of preparations concocted by we humans for the benefit of plants. The nursery carries a zillion natural and synthetic things I can buy - but the worms do this job for me providing a soil conditioner and fertilizer that cannot be beat.
---

And how to clean up after getting dirty playing with your worms? Use Simmons Soap of course!

Autumn Hazards

2009-09-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

I sometimes think that in late summer, when all the year's spring baby animals are effectively "teenagers", there is an overload of roadkill and other mishaps. Squirrel, faun, raccoon, fox, and skunk corpses line the highways. So sad.

Another problem, really an all year one, but possibly more prevalent this time of year is the ultimate stinker - when your dog gets skunked! Here is the recipe that works for a dog bath to get rid of the smell...

The Recipe

1 quart (or liter) of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide, H2O2.
Use fresh (unopened) hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Hydrogen peroxide eventually turns into water (H2O).
*    1/4 cup (50 ml.) of Baking Soda
*    1 teaspoon (5 ml.) of Liquid Soap
*    1 pair of plastic or latex gloves

To Use
*    Bathe the dog outside or, if it's too dark or cold, in the bathroom with the door closed and window opened.
*    Combine the ingredients in an open container (do not store in a sealed bottle--it will explode).
*    Using gloves, wash your dog with lukewarm water and the mixture while the mixture is bubbling. Work the mixture well into the fur.
*    Be sure to concentrate on the area that was sprayed.
*    Keep mixture away from your dog's face and eyes (it's a harsh solution). (If your dog has been sprayed in the face, try a mild vinegar water combination.)
*    Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes or so before rinsing off.
*    Rinse the dog with lukewarm tap water. Don't wash the mixture into your dog's eyes (use a washcloth to cover the eyes if you're rinsing the head).
*    After bathing, check your dog's eyes. If they are red and watering, your dog may have taken a direct hit in the face. Skunk spray won't blind the dog, but it's very painful. Contact a vet.

How it works
Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, when combined, become a "chemical engine" for churning out oxygen. That's why it has to be used immediately after mixing. The soap breaks up the oils in the skunk spray, allowing the other ingredients to do their work.

...and, no, I did not personally take that particular photo!

Taking the Challenge...

2009-09-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

We are taking the local North Coast Co-op September "Eat Local Challenge".

For this whole month I am trying to eat foods harvested or produced only in our Northern California 7 county bio-region.

To chronicle this adventure I have a separate BLOG: LocalvoreChallenge

Learn more about the challenge at NorthCoastCo-op.com.

On a Green Volcano!

2009-08-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

We just returned home from a trip to Lassen National Park.

In case you did not know, Mt. Lassen is a dormant volcano. It last erupted in 1915 and the area became a National Park the following year. While sleeping it still has many active bits and pieces with hydrothermal areas of all types: steam vents and boiling mudpots and hot springs. Relatively close to where we live (about a 4 1/2 hour drive), it is one of our all time favorites for a long weekend vacation.

Nonetheless, we had not made it over there in about 5 years and we were interested and excited to see the changes. One change is that the fumaroles at the Sulphur Works near the south entrance are growing. I am not sure what I think of this... The last couple of times we have been there it has been different each time. New vents open, old ones stop, and activity levels switch from one to another. Looking at it, you cannot forget this is an active planet beneath our feet. These pictures were taken a few seconds apart:

fumarole: noun, A hole in a volcanic area from which hot smoke and gases escape.

It is incredibly lovely driving over the mountain. High meadows and wooded peaks along with alpine views and impossibly blue volcanic lakes. The drives goes from about 5,900ft (1798m) to the highest point, a crisp and clear 8512ft (2594m). Awesome views. Fabulous hiking trails, short and long, for everyone to enjoy.

This is Lake Helen, right below Lassen Peak. It is so deep it really is that blue.

But the highlight of this particular visit was the new Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center. Recently opened in September of 2008, this beautiful building is not only a comfortable and informative information center and food & rest stop, it is an awesome example of green building and sustainable, energy efficient operation. When done it should qualify for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification. What a joy it is to see such a great public example of the benefits of energy conservation and good design. Yes! And the Park guides and displays speak to the benefits and need to go Green to help modify the human impact on this ever-changing planet.

We highly recommend checking it out. Still one of the best bargains on the planet and could become one of your favorites, too.

Beauty all around us...

2009-08-15T09:52:00.002-07:00

I walk the puppy most mornings. Morning outdoors is a beautiful time, and I am always reminded of this. It is a side benefit of the walk. But I do not incorporate it into my life, perhaps, as much as I could.

Then I see something like this:

Wow!

"The Buddha was once invited to give a talk to a crowd of people and so he stood before them, and held a flower up, and did not say a single word. Scholars call this “the Buddha’s flower sermon.” And it is said that only one person in the audience understood what he was trying to say. To be honest, I am not entirely sure that I know what he was trying to say. But there are times when I think I do. There are times when the words must stop so that our eyes can be open to the beauty all around us." Rev. Chris Buice

See the world. Try to do it every day. There is nothing between us and beauty but our minds, really. It is everywhere.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Phenomena

2009-08-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

Thunder and lightning last night, fortunately accompanied by rain. We don't want any fires, and rain is welcome.

While I am rather nervous about lightning, I am still fascinated by it and marvel at its power. Early this summer we had an unusual Thunderstorm. Unusual in being so early in the year and in the abundance of lightning making strikes in our vicinity. The photo is of a tree which was hit about 1/4 mile from our house. A strip of bark was blasted off in a spiral down the tree. Awesome. Last year there was a silent lightning storm of cloud to cloud lightning. The sky was full, constantly full, of electric lace for more than 2 hours. Wow!

I love phenomena. When the spectacular comet, Hale-Bopp, was visible I went out every clear night to gaze in awe at it. I was actually offended when it had the nerve to no longer be visible. It was MY comet! How could it abandon me?

Phenomenon: (from Webster's online)
1 plural phenomena : an observable fact or event
2 plural phenomena a : an object or aspect known through the senses rather than by thought or intuition b : a temporal or spatiotemporal object of sensory experience as distinguished from a noumenon c : a fact or event of scientific interest susceptible to scientific description and explanation
3 a : a rare or significant fact or event b: plural phenomenons : an exceptional, unusual, or abnormal person, thing, or occurrence

A simple phenomenon can make my day. On what was otherwise a difficult day I saw a "V" of swans flying when I was driving through Eureka, California. The day changed from that moment. A bald eagle in an unexpected place - flying up a creek along Highway 101 in Leggett, Ca. An aurora, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station flying over last week. The Milky Way on a clear dark night. These things bring me to the here and now. They take my breath away. They remind me I love life.

Life is fleeting. I am well aware I have less time left than has already gone by and I want to cherish every moment. But these special moments make life exceptional. Make the mundane sublime. Be there. Be here. Now.

Oh - my aching dogies!

2009-07-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

By the end of the day I am SO ready to sit down and kick off my shoes.

We work our feet harder than any other part of our body. They carry our weight through everything we do, often confined in shoes they only want to escape from. Especially in the heat of summer, when we spend a lot of time outdoors in sandals or flip-flops, they can get dry, callused, and cracked - making them even more sore. It's important not to neglect our poor dogies, happy feet make for a happy person!

Keeping feet healthy and in good condition is easy. First of all, there are simple daily stretches you can do to maintain flexibility and circulation in both feet and ankles.
Pick a time when you have a minute or two and sit in a comfortable chair. Remove your shoes and, simultaneously with both feet, perform the following moves holding each position at least five seconds:
• Point your toes, extending them as far as you can.
• Bend your feet up, pointing toes toward your head.
• Rotate feet at the ankles slowly making circles to the right, then to the left, repeating at least three times in each direction.
• Drop a hand or bath towel, crumpled, on the floor in front of you. Grip the towel with the toes of both feet at the same time, at least one foot (12 inches)apart and lift until your legs are straight out in front of you. Hold for ten seconds, then drop the towel. Repeat 10 times.

Massaging your feet at the end of the day brings up your spirits, helps you relax, and feels oooohhh sooo good.
Proponents of acupuncture and reflexology believe that areas in your feet connect to all parts of your body. Pressure points are stimulated to relieve stress and ailments elsewhere, so a good foot rub could help with other sore spots as well.

Pampering feet with a regular pedicure keeps them smooth and supple, healthy and beautiful. Including massage as part of a pedicure will give you the best of both: Relaxed, refreshed, beautiful feet!

You don't need a spa to get the best treatment, here is a perfectly simple natural pedicure you can do to yourself or a friend (It makes a very special gift):

Start by washing feet, then prepare a soothing foot soak in a tub large enough to easily accommodate both feet.

Use water that is comfortably hot. For added benefits, add a few drops of essential oil to the soak, epsom salts, or a tea made from herbs placed in a muslin bag and infused in the tub of water (see herb chart below for a few suggestions).

Relax and, when feet have softened, use a nail brush to clean cuticles & nails followed by scrubbing all over with a mildly abrasive cleansing cloth, loofa, or ayate to remove dry skin. You can even use the bag of herbs as a washing cloth.

If needed, a pumice stone, terra cotta foot stone, or pedicure file will gently remove rough spots and calluses on soles and heels.

Dry feet thoroughly and trim nails and gently push back cuticles, as needed, then rinse and dry again.

Now massage deeply, paying particular attention to the instep, toes, & ball of foot. To leave feet in top condition use massage oil based on vegetable oil with essential oils (as noted in chart below) or use Simmons Cocoa Butter Creme.

Follow up with Simmons Duck Butter™, as part of the pedicure and other times as needed, rubbing it on dry heels and other problem spots to rejuvenate the skin and protect them from further damage.
If you paint your toenails, do it now, giving 2 coats for luster and adding a topcoat of clear polish, if you like, for extra shine. Make sure to relax and give ample drying time before putting on your shoes and resuming your day.
You can get foot care tools and Cocoa Butter Creme and Duck Butter™ at SimmonsNaturals.com.
Happy feet make for a happy you!

Herbs for foot care:
Chamomile - A, C, 1
Clary Sage - B, C, D, 5
Eucalyptus - B, C, D, 1, 2
Geranium - B, C, D, 2, 4
Peppermint - A, B, C, D, 1,2
Spearmint - A, B, C, D, 1, 2
Rosemary - A, B, C, D, 1, 4, 5
Thyme - B, C, 1, 3

Key:
A - Herb
B - Essential Oil

Use in:
C - Foot Soak
D - Massage oil

Properties:
1 - Deodorizing
2 - Antiseptic
3 - Antibacterial
4 - Antifungal
5 - Relieves stress, soreness

More easy exercises you can do while standing:
• Walk on your tip toes for 30 seconds, relax, and then from a flat footed stance, roll your feet out so you are standing on the outside edges of your feet. Hold this posture for fifteen seconds. Repeat this sequence 5 times.
This will help relieve aching arches.
• Place feet about one foot (12 inches) apart and squat down so you are resting on your toes. If needed, hold on to a chair or other steady furniture to steady yourself. Slowly roll back so you are resting on your feet, then slowly roll back up onto your toes. Repeat this as many times as you comfortably can, working up to 10 repetitions.
This will stretch and exercise your entire lower body as well as your feet, improving balance and flexibility while it strengthens and conditions the muscles.
Overall, walking is the best exercise for feet. It stretches, strengthens and improves circulation. Try to walk 4-5 times weekly for ½ hour or more.

The Teddy Bear's Picnic...

2009-07-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

Here's to a spectacular Independence Day! An American summer holiday classic: Barbeque; family; fireworks; red, white & blue.

We love it and take the day off with family. But for us it really is just a prelude to going up to the Oregon Country Fair.

We have had a booth there since 1983 and can't imagine missing this counter culture celebration of life, conscious life, and living the dream.

Of course, that's assuming your dream is as ours - a sustainable green future with peace and tolerance and art and music and juggling for all.

See us at booth 73 at the fair, outside of Eugene, Oregon, the second weekend of July.

Summer's arrival...

2009-06-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

in actuality, if not weather.

42 degrees this morning and all day cool, foggy, & gray. Even some drizzle.

Our spring has been unseasonably dreary and cool. From earlier thunderstorms to recent days of coastal fog (but we are NOT on the coast!), it sure doesn't feel like tomorrow is Summer Solstice.

On the one hand we yearn for sun and warmth and all that can be done outside on these long days. On the other it is making it a little less painful as we wait to complete a garden retaining wall to plant the bulk of our vegetable garden. But even with only 1/3 of the garden in production we have been harvesting quite a bit of food.

Last night we ate the first of the artichokes from the plants we planted in March. We have lots of kale and Swiss chard and radishes are now in every salad. We are on our third planting of lettuce and arugula, and the garlic is close to harvest. We have picked broccoli, the cauliflower is ready, and cabbages are heading up (already time to start seed for the fall cole!).

To get us a bit ahead, both of the wall project and the cooler weather, we have been planting our greenhouses with peppers, basil, cucumbers, and squash, as well as a few tomatoes. I am sure we will end up with more than we need (that is, plenty to share) as we usually do (despite the fact that the gophers ate 99% of the onions). Gardens are like that. Not to mention an addiction of the best sort.

If you have followed the news, you will know that 73 pounds of lettuce & 12 pounds of peas were picked this past week from the White House garden. The little organic garden Michelle Obama started at the White House has been feeding them for some time.

What a great example for the country. How to eat well, get exercise, and save money at the same time. Here's to an addiction that actually improves your health!!

Decisions, decisions...

2009-06-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

For years we have tossed around the desirability of making all organic soaps, but the cost is so high it conflicts with our goal to make quality all - natural soaps affordable for everyday use.

How to keep natural and non-toxic products easily available to the most people...
Can you help?

Should we switch to all organic? Should we add an all organic line?
Click Here to take survey

I'm All Mixed Up...

2009-05-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

...With herbs and spices that is!

We are cooking a pot roast in the solar oven today and when I reached for my seasoning blend (Meat Treat) I found the jar almost empty. Time to make more of this and my other blends as well.

I find myself a rather lazy cook. I want to have my herbs and spices pre-blended so I don't have to formulate them for every meal. Over time I have learned of or invented herb and/or spice blends for everything from steak to tofu, Mexican to Chinese. For us the process begins in the garden.

Here are 3 blends of herbs we grow, dry, and combine to brighten our meals:

MEAT TREAT:
Rosemary - Easy to grow perennial in the ground or a pot. Impervious to bugs or deer.
Sweet Basil - Hot weather annual, easy to grow, pick repeatedly to keep from flowering and it will grow back.
Thyme - The regular sort, varigated or plain, perennial with tiny leaves. Harvest before it flowers.
Bay Leaves - Mediterranean Bay (the kind you get in stores) is milder. If you use the west coast native Bay Laurel, use it sparingly. We have a Mediterranean Bay tree in a large pot!
Garlic - OK, we buy garlic granules by the pound and use that. It is slightly coarser than garlic powder, and is definitely NOT garlic salt. I store it in a glass jar with airtight lid.

FISH FEST:
Lemon Thyme - Wonderful fragrant perennial, easy to grow and harvest as for Thyme (above).
Lemon Basil - Another wonderful basil. Loves hot weather. Annual that you can harvest it repeatedly and it will rapidly grow back as do all the basils. Just remember to cut it above 2 new leaf shoots.
I have never found Lemon Basil or Lemon Thyme in a store, so plan ahead and grow your own if you want to try this blend.
Dillweed - The feathery leaves, not the seeds. Plant this annual once and it will re-seed and grow forever.
Oregano - Another hardy perennial. Greek is milder, Mexican stronger, use accordingly. We prefer Greek.
Sweet Marjoram - Very fragrant annual. Relative to Oregano, used with eggs, vegies and meats.
Celery leaves - I actually grow a specific type of celery that mainly produces leaves. When I have tried to grow nice stalks of celery I always got wimpy stems with lots of leaves anyway - it just does not like our climate. I also save the leaves from celery (organic) I buy at the market and dry them in a colander after trimming them from the stalk.
Garlic - (See above)
Onion Powder - this we buy as well.

ITALIAN SEASONING:
Oregano, Sweet Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic
See above for all of these.
Fennel Seed - We buy this, toast it lightly in a small, heavy pan (we use cast iron) and then crush it slightly with a mortar and pestle.

PREPARING THE HERBS:
All the herbs listed here are harvested early in the morning after the dew has dried off of them, and hung in bunches by their stems in a well ventilated place out of direct sunlight. I like to use a rubber band to hold the bunch and a twisty-tie from vegetables I purchased at the store, or string, tied on to hang them by. The rubber band conveniently stays tight as the herbs dry and the soft stems of basil and others shrink in diameter. Woody stemmed plants such as rosemary and thyme have no problem. As to the bay, I just prune off a very small branch full of leaves and dry it and that lasts us a year or 2!

When dry, strip the leaves from the stems and store as whole leaves in airtight containers (we use glass jars) in a cool, dark cupboard. When you make a blend or use the herbs directly in cooking - that is the time to crush or chop them. Once broken they will lose their aromatic and flavor qualities faster.
By the way, you can save the stems and bundle them, tie with cotton or jute string, and throw on hot coals when grilling for herbally smoked meats.

ASSEMBLING THE BLENDS:
This is the inventive part. I never measure anything unless I have to, and cannot begin to give you exact measurements for any of these, but I do have some "rules of thumb". In all the blends you use equal amounts of the large leafy herbs (basil, oregano, dill, celery).
Grind these coarsely with a herb grinder (there are many styles, I like the Mouli Parsmint best - shown in photo) or chop with a knife. Thyme, more condensed, should be around 2/3 the amount of one of the others after grinding. Ditto rosemary. You can run the rosemary through the grinder as well.
To 1/2 cup blended herbs add 1 large bay leaf, ground, and/OR 1 Tablespoon garlic granules OR 1 Tablespoon onion powder, or 2 teaspoons fennel seed, as called for. If you use bay laurel, use less.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, then store in an airtight container until used.

USING THEM:
Sprinkle Meat Treat over chicken, turkey, whatever, before cooking. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons to oil and vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon salt for a nice herb vinaigrette.
Sprinkle Fish Fest over any kind of seafood before cooking. Also sprinkle with a bit of lemon pepper or a squirt of lemon juice.
Italian seasoning can be added to tomato sauce for pasta, lasagna or any tomato dish.

YUM! I'm hungry just thinking about it all. Now off to transplant my basil plants (sweet, lemon, purple (for salad dressing), mammoth (mild - good in salads), and Thai). I think ahead, as I work in the garden, to the harvest and culinary delights ahead.

Eating Well...

2009-05-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

We have been planning our garden for months.

Late winter is spent perusing seed catalogs and choosing what we need. We generally start tomatoes and peppers indoors in February, cabbage and other cole crops soon after. But only since April has the weather been such as to allow us to play in the dirt outside.

Our cole crops, onions, lettuce, chard, and peas are now planted in the garden proper. We also have overwintered garlic, leeks, multiplier onions, and early spring greens and radishes already producing in barrel containers made from the drums our soap oils come in. These barrels are critter proof and have good drainage, unlike the garden's heavy clay soil. We also filled 2 whole upright barrels (with drain holes in them) with soil and planted an artichoke in each - yet another attempt to foil the gophers from another of their favorite delicacies.

This year we are building a retaining wall and leveling out the main part of our garden. It sets back our planting dates by several weeks, so we are starting even more plants indoors to be ready to transplant when the project is done. It delays our garden harvest gratification, adding to the bit of envy we feel seeing all the early bounty in the Farmers' Markets out on the coast where the climate is so much milder (see our blog post: Time Travel - into Spring).
On the other hand, now that these markets are up and running for the season, we can get a preview of the garden delights to come.

No matter where you live, you probably have access to locally grown fresh food. As big and as urban/sub-urbanized as the United States is, there are still community gardens, small farms, and local markets virtually everywhere. Getting food from the area where you live is a good experience for many reasons. Not only is the food fresher, you get to experience what is "in Season" and close to the earth, and you support your local farmers. On top of that, the carbon footprint of local produce vs. that which has traveled hundreds (if not thousands!) of miles is much, much smaller. And, environmentally speaking, that is a huge benefit even if you leave out the part about supporting your local ORGANIC farmers.

So how to locate sources of fresh local food near where you live?
One way is to use the "Eat Well Locally" search tool to the right of this post. Another great tool is LocalHarvest. Use it to find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area. Enjoy!

Garden planning - to share...

2009-05-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

We had four of our grandchildren here for a week in April. Once again it went from snow to summer weather in this wildly variable spring weather that has become the norm. But we had enough lovely days to begin the prep work on the garden.
In the photo you see Emily and Devan with the last of the carrots. We grow our winter carrots in the 1/2 barrels you see to the left, and it was time to take them out and replace them with lettuce and other spring greens.

Part of our garden plan is to have intentional excess to share with those who need it most. One local county food bank, Food for People, is promoting the national "Plant A Row for the Hungry" program. In the past we have taken garden excess down to local food distribution centers. Yes, everyone does appreciate good organic tomatoes, cucumbers, and even (!) zuchinni.

Another good example of one person's idea blossoming into something wonderful, the Plant a Row program can boast that: "Since 1995, over 14 million pounds of produce providing over 50 million meals have been donated by American gardeners. All this has been achieved without government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape — just people helping people." Not bad. Good, organic, local, REAL food getting to those who need it most. And a good example of how we can easily share the benefits of our personal success.

Our business, Simmons Natural Bodycare, is tiny. Barely a blip on anyone's business radar and never to be a candidate for the Fortune 500. But we can contribute to the greater good in a way defined and proportionate to our own good fortune. Thus we give a percentage of soap sales to Heifer International, our favorite all around holistic organization to help end hunger and care for the Earth, and we plant a tree through Trees for the Future for every 12 bars of soap we sell. Our success equals greater donations automatically. Yet, if our business has a tough time we still donate, just less, so it does not cut into our ability to help however we can afford to.

I am fortunate to live in this rural mountain community where neighbors look out for each other. I like to feel that, as a world community, we can be as caring.

Music - the universal language

2009-04-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

I cannot help but believe that music touches us all. Playing for change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect and bring peace through music.
Enjoy...

Habitat for one and all...

2009-04-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

Spring is bursting out all over. Our area is green and fertile - green with new grass and buds swelling on the trees. At the moment water is abundant and the earth is juicy with potential. This is not always the case (see our post "Water, water everywhere" ) A home full of abundance for human and animal and plant life alike.
I sometimes wonder if those urban dwellers who rarely get to see a mountain, forest, or other wide open and wild expanse, realize this is the source of what makes life possible on Earth.

There is a great learning song for kids by Bill Oliver:

Habitat, Habitat, Have to Have a Habitat
You have to have a Habitat to carry on!

Hear it online.

The ocean is a habitat, a very special habitat
It's where the deepest water's at
It's where the biggest mammal's at
It's where our future food is at
It keeps the atmosphere intact
The ocean is a habitat we depend on!

It is a wonderful ditty to help remind us that this fine planet is a home shared by a large community of creatures, all intertwined. And with Earth Day coming up, a good reminder that our actions all effect the quality of the Earth/Home we share.

While we ponder how to solve the big crises of war and poverty and economics, we cannot afford to let the bigger issue of habitat destruction become collateral damage, a side effect as it were, of our way of life. It is not only the obvious issues like clear cutting and oil spills and CO2 emissions. It is not just changing to energy efficient appliances and not littering. It is tied to every aspect of everything we do. If we poison our home it will make it impossible for us to live. Seems obvious, but it is insidious. The way of life of the human race has changed to where many of the material things we strive for ultimately work against our long term future. Maybe not so long term, anymore.

But there is a growing consciousness of this. There have always been people who recognized that all "progress" wasn't necessarily positive and that understanding has grown. Coupled with tight economic times it is becoming more common to consume more wisely and less excessively. To make choices that are maybe inevitable but also very beneficial.

The river is a habitat, a very special habitat
It's where the freshest water's at
For people, fish, and muskrat
But when people dump their trash
Rivers take the biggest rap
The river is a habitat we depend on!

If each of us makes a commitment to keep their tiny portion of the planet healthy, to keep our room clean, so to speak, it can only make a difference. I have always believed that no action is too small as each bit adds to the whole and helps create the momentum that is so crucial to making change.

People are different than foxes and rabbits
Affect the whole world with their bad habits
Better to love it while we still have it
Or rat ta-tat-tat, our habitat's gone!

Humans are the ones with the power to make a difference. The best way to display our power is to make life on Earth a sustainable proposition. We can do it. We can't afford not to!

One way we can work toward this goal is to use products that are biodegradable. Merriam-Webster defines this thus:

bio·de·grad·able adjective
: capable of being broken down especially into innocuous products by the action of living things (as microorganisms)

Cotton shopping bags are biodegradable, plastic ones... not so much. The soaps and detergents that go down your drain need to be biodegradable - not to leave their byproducts in soil, rivers and the sea forever.
Find our biodegradable soaps and products on our website.

Happy Spring!

2009-03-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Vernal Equinox, 20 March 2009 07:43 (EDT)

Today marks the "official" beginning of the spring season.

Now is a time of balance, of equal light and dark,
when all the elements of the earth and within us
ask to be brought to peaceful harmony.

Spring Equinox is one of our favorite times of the year --
days are longer than nights, it's getting warmer,
the trees are budding and the air has that expectant
stillness before the full bursting forth of summer.

Now is the time to plant the seeds that will grow and
bloom into our hopes and dreams. Let us be fearless --
and wise! The world will reap what we sow. And
remember the Native Americans, who consider the
effects of their actions for seven generations to come.

Despite the above quote and popular belief, the equinox is not necessarily the day of equal light and dark. That day generally happens slightly before the spring equinox (or after the fall equinox), the exact date depending on your location on Earth.
Technically the vernal equinox occurs when the center of the sun crosses the Equator, rising due east and setting due west. It really means the "center" of the sun. Sunrise is defined as the moment the very top edge of the sun appears to peek over the horizon. Sunset is when the very last bit of the sun disappears below the horizon. Those astronomers get pretty precise about these things.

But for millennia humans have given much more significance to this day. It is celebrated as Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Festival of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, or the Rites of Spring among others.
While Winter solstice truly marks the beginning of the return of longer days, Spring Equinox embodies the return of light and warmth and renewed life, giving rise to traditions of life, resurrection, fertility, and feasting in many cultures.

We celebrate this time of renewal here with work on our garden-to-be. With snow forecast for the weekend we are not doing much outside, but there are seeds to start and young seedlings to tend. We do cultivate in a greenhouse to extend our season here and this weekend will be sifting dirt and compost and planting greens and cool hardy crops in large tubs.

For anyone, the easiest, most cost effective vegetables to grow to extend your food budget are greens. From lettuce to Swiss Chard, all grow happily in containers. They are very quick to mature and you can have fresh, organic vegetables and salad year-round with little effort. We grow ours in reused large storage tubs we scrounged. Drilled a few holes in the bottom and Voila! Free 18 gallon planters. I generally grow lettuce in succession for a constant supply. I start new seed within a week of transplanting out my starts. $3.00 worth of lettuce seed will keep you in salad most, if not all, year. Add to that radishes, other types of greens, beets, carrots and such and you can grow a large amount of vegetables in containers, easily, for a very small amount of money.

We mix our own potting soil with about 1/3 of our clay-ey soil, 1/3 compost and 1/3 mixed chicken or steer manure and bought potting soil. Often the latter is actually really old potting soil I have reclaimed from other planters. We never throw any out as it is a nice amendment to loosen up our clay soil here.
The nice thing about all these vegetables is that they are also beautiful. Even if you only have a couple of planters of lettuce, with maybe a dwarf marigold in them, they can double as landscaping. So start your own salad bar as a way to celebrate the spring season, and remember to garden organically. It's easy.

Rolling Along...

2009-03-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this Nov. 18, 2008. There was a little tremor that evening. A small earthquake about 20 minutes before I wrote the post. The computer USGS Site told me it was a 4.4 situated 17 miles out to sea, about 92 miles southwest of us. I didn't feel a thing. But Dennis, he felt it, and immediately went to check our hanging lamp which doubles as an earthquake detector. Sure enough, it was slightly swaying.

Earthquakes are one of those things that reminds us earth is not just a solid rock, but a geologically active structure. Reminds us that we humans are just a part of a very big picture, of which humans and other living beings, even the multitudes of microbes, are only an element.

In southern California there are raging fires accelerated by strong winds. Tearing through communities without prejudice for wealth or age or rank these fires are very destructive of homes and businesses and those parts of the infrastructure in their path. In 2007 terrible floods ravaged the area around the great rivers of America's heartland. And lest we forget, weather, earthquake, volcanoes and tsunami continually shape the entire planet and affect the lives of all the worlds peoples.

And while all these things are able to disrupt, destroy, and fill us with fear, at the same time they are the actions of change which have created the habitable planet. Out of tumult comes the future: fertile; strong; and different.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

I think we can get caught up in seeing these things as "good" or "bad". View them as actions to be tamed or conquered... as if we could. I think we have pretty much discovered that the forces of nature are without judgment and cannot be manipulated for human purposes. So we are left with the mission, as the inhabitants of a volatile planet, to learn to prepare for what may happen without fear and accept courageously the challenges. This is our opportunity to show our humanity by working as a community, local, regional, national and world-wide, to support each other in times of need.

Of course, this can translate over into the hardships of our own creation as well. The tight economic times also extend world wide. Each of us will have needs and/or ways in which we can contribute to others. It will be a time to see if we stand as a community and come to each others' aid or retreat to protect ourselves from the perceived need of others.

All things will pass, the elders say. All things are temporary. Change is constant and our strength is in how we choose to work with it. It is opportunity to work for the better - no?

Time Travel... into spring

2009-03-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

In the northern California mountains where we live, the climate is often determined by elevation. Enough so that the seasons are accelerated (or decelerated) going from one altitude to another.

For us, town is on the coast and as we travel over 3000 feet down to sea level, we drive visibly into the future. I may drive out of snow and ice bound winter into blooming cherry plum and daffodil springtime! There is about a 3 week difference between and we get a sneak preview into the coming season. In autumn, the reverse is true.

So, this most recent trip to town was full of spring glory, including one of my favorites: frolicking lambs. They always remind me of this little ditty my mother used to sing and that I learned as a nonsense song as a small child "Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey" - only much later to learn the real meaning:

Mares eat oats and does eat oats,
And little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

My first "commercial" craft was hand spun yarns and hand knitwear. We raised sheep for years and the spring lambs, with their buoyant antics, were an annual delight. There is nothing so pastoral as sheep out grazing. I love their mellow demeanor and, of all our livestock, they were probably the easiest to tend.
However, of the larger livestock, they were also the most vulnerable to predators (only poultry are more delectable to a broader range of varmints). From Mountain lion to coyotes, they were targets, but dogs were the worst. After 15 years of sheep raising we gave up due to a particularly persistent pack of dogs in the neighborhood who thought running down sheep and maiming them was a grand sport. Sigh.
So now I enjoy the lambs in other people's pastures.

But I do I keep my hand in the wool work, spinning and knitting for my own pleasure and family.

So, what do you get when you mix wool and soap? To perpetuate on a small scale my earlier business, "Sheep Thrills", we craft felted soap!
A soap in sheep's clothing, our Woolies are the perfect travel soap and help me meld my two favorite crafts. Check them out.

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Update: Speaking of time...
Remember to set your clock forward this Sunday morning for Daylight Savings Time!

Oh Foo... we are under the weather

2009-02-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

And I don't mean the rain! We are talking about the contagious nasty known as the flu, which is everywhere this time of year.

One of the greatest flu-fighters is soap. It sounds odd, I imagine, 'soap for health'... but in fact the act of hand washing with soap, is one of the greatest single advances in medicine.

Before soap and later, before the discovery of microbes and the idea of 'germs' became common knowledge, medical procedures from the common to the extreme were performed with no attention to cleanliness. Not only the environs in which treatment was done, but the hands of the healer were often filthy and doctors went from patient to patient without washing, as did the others who attended the wounded and ill. Little did they know that they carried with them the infection and contagious disease that often spread wildly among their charges. It was actually in fairly recent history that cleanliness became 'scientifically' accepted as a means of preventing disease.

You may have heard this anecdote: "Sometime during the 19th century, a doctor discovered that if he performed a simple procedure when assisting women in labor, their mortality rate was cut in half (this was at a time when childbirth was among the leading causes of death for women). He shared his findings with other doctors, who, much to his dismay, ignored his advice despite solid evidence that supported his findings. Only much later, after other researchers had come to the same conclusion, did doctors begin to adopt the practice... of washing their hands." (Thanks to Don Wangberg of Fair Oaks, CA. for contributing this).

More than two million children still die from diarrheal disease in developing countries every year. A review in The Lancet Journal suggests that "a surprising 42-47% of all diarrhea could be prevented if people washed their hands with soap. This makes hand washing more effective than water supply, fly control or sanitation improvement in preventing diarrheal diseases. There is growing evidence that hand washing also works to prevent acute respiratory tract infections, which are the biggest infectious killers in the world today."

And just last night on the National News, they capped the article on the current flu cases with a reminder that the best preventative is washing your hands several times a day.

"Most infectious diseases are spread by contact, either person-to-person, or by touching surfaces harboring germs," said U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona. "Proper hand cleaning is the best prevention against communicable illness."

What happens if you do not wash your hands frequently? You pick up germs from other sources and infect yourself when you:
* Touch your eyes
* Or your nose
* Or your mouth.
One of the most common ways people catch colds is by rubbing their nose or their eyes after their hands have been contaminated with the cold virus.
Yet in the United States today several studies have shown that 20% to 50% of us do not wash our hands after using public restrooms.

Doctors warn that it is critical to wash your hands before eating, when preparing food, when you or someone around you is sick, after touching animals, and after using the bathroom, and to do it correctly.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the following technique:
• First wet your hands and apply liquid or clean bar soap. Place the bar soap on a rack and allow it to drain.
• Rub your hands vigorously together and scrub all surfaces.
• Continue for 15 - 20 seconds or about the length of a little tune. It is the soap combined with the scrubbing action that helps dislodge and remove germs.
• Rinse well and dry your hands with clean towel.

The most recent CDC guidelines for hand hygiene for practitioners in health care settings basically sums it up: wash your hands with soap and water. Additionally, use other hand hygiene preparation as called for.
It appears the key is "additionally" use other preparations. It seems that if your hands are even slightly dirty the other chemicals are not as effective. Everything seems to indicate that plain old soap and water remain the best all around health tool.

Taking care of your health includes eating right, getting fresh air and exercise, and washing well to ward off those sneaky microbes. Soap is your ally on the road to a healthy life! See all our excellent soaps for your health and pleasure.

Swine flu update - April 30: for current information, go to the Center for disease Control website: www.cdc.gov or The California Department of Public Health: www.cdph.ca.gov,both have up to date information specific to many situations including for schools, healthcare, home and more.

Billions and billions...

2009-02-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

We used to imitate Carl Sagan using that term to describe the seemingly infinite stars in the universe. Back then it seemed like the ultimate huge number and, like "millions and millions" came to express an unimaginably large amount, without anyone really understanding what that amount really was.

These days the world has changed. We now talk in terms of unimaginably large numbers to define real amounts that we still have trouble understanding. As of today, Feb. 16, 2009, the world population is estimated to be 6,706,993,152. That is: 6 billion, 706 million, 993 thousand, 152. Wow. The United States alone has 305,830,170 (305 million) people.

With all this economic bailout, recovery, and stimulus talk throwing around gargantuan sums like $787,000,000,000 (787 billion), folks are often lost trying to decipher exactly how much this is. This leads to comments you see proposing that if they just gave the money to the citizens we would all be millionaires. Not so. These enormous sums are not so enormous as that. Distributed to every person in America using the population figure above, that would only be $2573.32 each. Not so much after all.

Part of the confusion arises from there being two scales for determining ridiculously large numbers. To paraphrase the Wikipedia page on this: The long and short scales are two different numerical systems used throughout the world:
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Short scale refers to a system of numeric names in which every new term greater than million is 1,000 times the previous term: "billion" means "a thousand millions", "trillion" means "a thousand billions", and so on.

Long scale refers to a system of numeric names in which every new term greater than million is 1,000,000 times the previous term: "billion" (from bi and million) means "a million to the power of two" or "a million millions", "trillion" (from tri and million) means "a million to the power of three" or "a million billions", and so on.
The difference between the two scales grows as numbers get larger. Million is the same in both scales, but the long-scale billion is a thousand times larger than the short-scale billion, the long-scale trillion is a million times larger than the short-scale trillion, and so on.

For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom uniformly used the long scale, while the United States of America used the short scale, so that usage of the two systems was often referred to as "British" and "American" respectively. In 1974 the government of the UK abandoned the long scale, so that both countries now exclusively apply the short scale interpretation in mass media and official usage.
So, one billion = 1,000,000,000, and 1 Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.
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Fortunately, unless we are astronomers, other scientists, or government economists, most of us do not have to wrap our mind around numbers like this every day. But it is important we do have some sense of the scale they convey when following and voting on projects that effect us all.

The White House team promises to have a website where we can follow the expenditures of all this money. I plan to keep an eye on it. While I have faith in the intent and intelligence of President Obama's administration, I sometimes feel that a large sum of money given to the legislative branch is like a Pinata with kindergartners. They tend to get a little crazy with it.

UPDATE: 2/18/2009 here is the page on the White House site with the State by State information on the Recovery & Reinvestment Act

UPDATE #2 - Here it is, the official site: www.recovery.gov. If nothing else, this administration is keeping it's vow of transparency in Government. I'm impressed.

Perfumery...an Olfactory Harmony

2009-02-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

Harmony: the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.

I love the aspect of my job that encompasses perfumery – mixing blends of exotic essential oils to develop a new fragrance for our soap. While some would argue I become rather a mad scientist when mixing my olfactory potions, I think more of it as a kind of spiritual artistry, linked by history to temples and Gods.
Consider that the first use of fragrance was aromatic plant matter burned ritually as incense to the Gods and ancestors. Even the origin of the word, 'perfume', comes from the Latin 'per fumum' meaning "through smoke". The fragrant smoke was believed to carry prayers aloft, connecting people with their deities.
Early bathing, too, is linked to religion as a means of purifying oneself, linking both soap and fragrance to the spiritual process.

Mixing the various aromatic oils is much like composing a painting or piece of music. Balance and harmony can be achieved in a good composition. Deep, heavy scents such as Sandalwood or Patchouli form the base note, the dark elements that ground and fix the blend. The middle range is held by solid, but even, entities including Lavender, Jasmine, and Clary Sage. The bright, but fleeting, top notes are played by delicate oils like those from citrus. They are first to catch your nose before they give way to the aromatic melody that follows.
The trick is to find the balance between these aspects that plays the sense of smell as a chord of beautiful music tantalizes the ears. A true master creates olfactory symphonies and, indeed, the workplace display of essential oils is called a “perfume organ”. But, unlike music, the fragrant blend takes time to mature for all its harmony to become evident. When you first mix the essences the result can be harsh – the notes distinct and sometimes discordant. It takes time for them to meld and mellow and reveal their true character.

When making soap this need for patience in perfumery is magnified, as the chemical reaction and essence of the soap itself can mute or change the flavor of the blend. You make a wonderful aroma and yet, when added to soap, it becomes dull and listless. So you consider the notes which have dampened and accentuate or compliment them and try again, waiting the long time for the soap to make and cure. Needless to say, when you finally refine one to the point where you are pleased, it is a grand moment!

We hope you enjoy the fragrant melodies we have created for all our soaps. The ones which have required the most work, and of which we are proudest are: Aloe Vera/Kelp; Apricot Poppy; Forest; Lemon Shea Butter; Sweet Herb; Rose Clay; and now Oatmeal Spice.
See them on our soap page.

To read a brief history of perfume, see my article here.

Out with the old, in with the new...

2009-01-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

We start the year with a new soap... more about that further down.
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The dawning of the new year is often a time for house cleaning, literally and figuratively. It amazes me how many things have bypassed earlier attempts to toss out unnecessary stuff. I can find something I haven't seen, used, or missed for a decade and immediately think I cannot live without it!??? How silly!

Discarding those things we no longer need is good for our home, our space, our spirit and, depending on what and how, often good for the someone else. There is often need for those things we no longer regard as necessary to our own lives, be it gently used but wrong size or out of fashion clothing, to that extra pillow or kitchen gadget (I am famous for keeping clothes long past a time I could even fantasize fitting in them again).

Before you purge your closet and cupboards, see what charities and resources are in your area and what they need, you may be inspired to donate even more (and get more taken care of) that you may have thought when you began. And it is important not to take a bunch of stuff that is as useless to the recipient as is it is to you. Often there are even places that are willing to reuse old cardboard boxes or packing peanuts as well as more ordinary household items and clothes.

Needless to say, you should recycle everything that can be recycled. Some things are obvious and easy: aluminum, glass, and paper. Plastics are trickier and electronic equipment, from cell phones to televisions, trickier still. These items are hard to recycle in a way that is environmentally friendly and, in some cases, it can be downright dangerous. While paints and motor oil and such have a special day or method recycle as hazardous waste, as far as I know, they have the method down. Electronics are perhaps the trickiest. Our sleek machines seem to contain a lot of deadly toxins, not least of which is the lead in the Cathode Ray Tubes of old TV's and computer monitors. Many of these get shipped abroad to countries where people are so desperate they think nothing of breathing toxic fumes and polluting their homes and children's environment (all the environment, actually) as they dismantle and melt old components to get the parts of value. Poverty eliminates concern for health and safety.
So please, ask your recycling center how they dispose of this waste and if they have knowledge of where it goes and how it is handled.

On the other hand, we enter the year with a new soap - Sweet Herb. Actually we have had it out since November 2008, but it is still the newest in our family of soaps. enriched with organic hemp seed oil and a soothing blend of essential oils.

This soap has met with rave reviews from our test crew (friends and family), as well as those customers who have tried it, for it’s fresh herbal fragrance, superb silkiness, & luxurious moisturizing qualities.

Hemp seed oil is a rich source of both Omega 6 and Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids (EFA's), and Vitamin E. These healing enzymes can be absorbed directly into the skin to replenish missing oils, so they are ideally suited for many cosmetic & skin care products.

You can really feel the effects of the hemp seed oil in this soap. It is emollient, and has rejuvenating properties for the skin. Rich in vitamins and minerals, Hemp Seed Oil’s benefits are easily absorbed through the skin, resulting in a more vitamin and mineral enriched soap. See it featured on our web store.

Dawning of the New Year...

2008-12-31T09:12:00.001-08:00

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

See this video for a condensed bit of time-lapse sky gazing. And know that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.
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Today ends 2008. Tomorrow a new day, a new year, full of possibilities. What governs this calculation of time is literally our place in the universe, something I was thinking about last night as I gazed at the glorious crescent moon and opulent Venus.
If you do not sky gaze, make it one of your New Year's Resolutions to begin.
The sky is always amazing and always a source for reflection on beauty, the cosmos, on things bigger than ourselves and wholly detached from the petty goings on down here at human level. The universe is pretty grand, and that's all there is to it!
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As we are just human, wandering on the surface of our lovely planet, our thoughts for the New Year tend to have more terrestrial roots.
Given that, I hope you are all looking to toast the turning of time with the universal toast: "To your Health". That is probably the best toast - and the best New Year's resolution we can all make.

Our health is one of the few things that we can truly change through our personal actions (or inaction, as the case may be), and it is by far the most precious thing we own on a personal level. Each of us knows deep in our being what we are lacking and what we need to do if we can summon the focus to accept it. Be it exercise or eating healthier foods, quitting smoking or other addictive behavior. Working on our health from within.

There are also the things that are outside of us that influence our health negatively and it is up to us to moderate those as best we can. Try to remove toxins from your lifestyle, be they chemical air fresheners, super toxic cleaners or moldy furnace filters. And always try to use the safest, least harmful products available - which, of course, is why we are in business. We hope you choose the soaps and basic body care products from Simmons Natural Bodycare for 2009 and beyond!

We wish you a Merry...

2008-12-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah... the holiday which speaks to you in these cold, dark days of winter.

And all the best now and for the coming year...

May your days be warm and safe and your future be bright.

May the world see more peaceful, more balanced times in 2009.

May we find the time to relax, time to share, time to enjoy life.

May we find peace with who we are and who others are, as well.

May we find acceptance of those things that are new and different, freedom from fear, and the strength to face our challenges.

May we bring a smile to our friends and family.

May our life journey be one of wonder and curiosity and endless discovery.

From our home to yours, our family to your family, all the best wishes for the Holidays and year to come.

"A Hungry Man...

2008-12-04T22:32:00.002-08:00

... is an angry man" Bob Marley would sing. Sage fellow, Marley.

I have been thinking a lot lately, perhaps inspired by this season - as it were - of "giving", about the way poverty and need have such broad ranging effects on the way we humans treat each other. To me it appears as if we Americans often see those who are destitute as lazy, as crazy, as being in despair, as living in a third world country, as different from us... as dangerous.

Yet this is actually about the point in our existence where we are all exactly the same. We all want to be healthy. We all want to have enough food and adequate shelter and, given that, provide for our families. When we can provide those basics for our families, we hope to better our lives and have our children be educated... For children are the future and education is the key that unlocks its potential.

We also, fairly universally, do not want to be dependent on others. And finding ourselves through circumstance to be forced to be in that position individually, as a family, group, community, or tribe, can elicit deep emotions from frustration to sorrow to rage. Yes, a hungry man is an angry man, and an impoverished community is desperate. It is difficult to focus on peace, education, or anything but survival when times are hard and the situation is only one of frustration.

And hard times are here. The economy has reached a tipping point and the results are being felt at all levels, with the promise of a slower time before it gets any better. We could be in it for a long haul. But as difficult as things may be getting for us, with those for whom it has always been rough it is now harder still. While the number of those in need in our towns, our states, our country and, in fact, the world, gets to be more and more, the ability of others to help support them is decreasing. Food banks and other charities are facing more challenges than ever trying to do their important work.

While there should be no specific season of giving - generosity and caring for others should always be part of our lives - the Christmas season is traditionally associated with the spirit of sharing with those less fortunate than ourselves. We would like to share a few of our favorite methods and organizations who do good work.

Of course, do what you can to support your community. Volunteer or otherwise assist the schools, churches, food banks, and other groups that tend to the health, welfare, and education of our neighbors.
Be aware of what is happening in the larger picture and follow your heart to participate and support those issues which speak to you. From donations to writing letters to mentoring a child, your effort is valuable. Visit someone who is housebound and lonely, take food to someone who is hungry.

Many fine organizations exist which address the needs of others on every level. We particularly like:
Heifer International, working to end hunger and care for the earth by giving people around the world the knowledge and tools they need to improve their environment and support themselves.
The Stamp Project is one’s woman’s simple organization where you send stamps you tear off of letters and she sells them to a jobber and uses the money to support rural health programs in India and Nepal. Send stamps to: The Stamp Project, 340 Carter Street#2, Vallejo, Ca. 94590
Kiva is an online platform for making small loans (as little as $25) to entrepreneurs in the developing world, similar to the Grameen Bank of India, helping them lift themselves out of poverty.
Another simple way to help that is fun for even the youngest computer savvy child is a word game that gives away free rice through the U.N. world food program. While only 20 grains of rice are donated for each correct answer, it is a perfect example of how every little bit adds up... over 54 BILLION grains of rice have been donated since the game began. And you really do improve your vocabulary in the process. It drives me nuts when I don't know the correct answer!
The possibilities are endless.
The list goes on and on...

And, remember, every time you buy a bar of Simmons special Soap we donate 2% of its cost to Heifer International.

May your holiday be peaceful, joyous, and both prosperous and generous.

Over the meadow and through the woods...

2008-12-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a delectable and fun Thanksgiving Holiday. A small one after last year's reunion (see the photo on our blog "Belonging"). Our son is traveling, but both daughter's families were here along with a few friends.

It really is a trek to get here... to Grandmother's house, as it is. Where we live is very rural and the highway is the kind of winding road that separates those who must have fresh air and the front seat from the rest of us. Actually, I belong to the fresh air group myself. I never saw the road to my own Grandmother's house in Pennsylvania. My parents drugged me with Dramamine before they let me near a car, and I slept en route to everywhere we went. Fortunately, none of our clan needs medication to make the journey.

I find it interesting that one of the things that always impresses everyone about our holiday meals is that I save the ends of bread all year to make stuffing. Is this so odd? Once they start to dry out (or before they mold) I will take bread and tear it into small pieces and spread it out in a shallow bowl to dry. Once dry I put it in a gallon jar to save for stuffing. It makes for interesting and very good sage stuffing - I have mostly whole wheat bread with sunflower seeds and cracked grains in it, but also white sourdough, rye bread, whatever comes through the house. It is such a favorite that I need two full gallons of dried bread to make enough! It can be made vegetarian or not and is good all year. Here is the recipe:

Simmonsville Sage Stuffing
(Measurements are approximate)
4 cups dried bread cubes or pieces, all kinds
1 c. chopped onion
6 cloved diced garlic
1 c. chopped celery
1 c. chopped mushrooms
Bell's Seasoning
salt
Pepper
Paprika
Chopped parsley
1 egg, beaten in 1 c. water or stock.
1/4 c. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Saute onions in oil and butter until soft, add garlic and other vegetables and saute until mushrooms are soft and celery still slightly crunchy.
Place bread in large bowl. Add cooked vegetables. Put a little water in the pan, swirl and add to bread mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper and up to 1 tablespoon of the Bell's Seasoning.
Toss it all together, then add the egg liquid and a liberal amount of sweet paprika. Toss again and correct the seasoning as needed.
If stuffing a bird remember to do it loosely to leave room for expansion. As a bird-less side dish, place stuffing in covered casserole, dot with butter, cover and bake until heated through - about 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.
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So, with Thanksgiving behind us we are left with a very small window ahead for getting all the Christmas/Hanukkah orders out. How this season gets compressed!
For us, part of the difficulty lies with our wonderful, but remote, location. One pays the price for being far from urban centers. In our case, for one thing, it slows delivery time.

During regular order flow we ship 2 times weekly, Monday and Thursday. That way all orders go out within 1-3 business days. Once we start in the morning the race is on to get the UPS orders ready before the driver gets here - between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Then we can take a break, as the Postal Service pick up is on their way back to town around 3:30 p.m. (we would never make their morning schedule of 9:30 a.m.).
If we receive an order after the orders are shipped, it will go out the next shipment day. When order volume is up, we ship more days per week to make sure all the orders get out within the same week (excepting orders received after pick up on Fridays). We are shipping every day this time of year.

So, while ground shipping and Priority Mail generally take a "normal" amount of time, due to our remote rural location 3-day generally takes 4 days. What happens is, when the driver gets back to the main office in town after driving his 120 - 230 mile route, the express plane has already left, delaying the package by 1 day.
This is why we do not offer overnite (which is impossible from here) or 2-day, except in very special circumstances, which is a lot more expensive considering it cannot be that fast anyway.

When a customer lets us know it is imperative a package arrive by 'X' date, we do everything we can (and they are willing to pay for) to get it there on that date. But we always recommend that you order up to 2 weeks ahead to guarantee early delivery, as for a gift.

So, with this in mind should you want to bestow a gift of our special Soaps or lovely Gifts this Holiday Season, here is our Holiday Shipping Schedule.

Last possible dates to place orders for on time delivery of Christmas Gifts:

UPS Ground
East Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Military & Territories: order by Dec. 14 to ship on Dec.15
Rocky Mountain States to Midwest: order by Dec. 16 to ship Dec. 17
Western States: Order by Dec. 17 to ship on Dec. 18
UPS 3 Day Select
From anywhere: Order by 10 a.m. Dec. 18 to ship Dec. 19
U.S. Priority mail
Order from anywhere by 10 a.m. Dec. 18 to ship on Dec.20

Change is in the Air...

2008-11-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

This country is nothing if not amazing. What an election!
Yet again, a peaceful r/evolution from one group to another. As we write the outgoing administration works together with the new for the transition to go smoothly.

I have always been non-partisan. I do not follow completely any party's platform, I vote for the people and programs that I believe will do what needs to be done. And, now, I am ecstatic about the possibilities for the future.
It will be a long hard road to get this country economically and otherwise stable again but, with an attitude change away from the philosophy of fear, I think great things are possible.
But then, I believe in manifestation. And I believe the future of the U.S.A., as well as that of the world, depends on the participation of all of us.

The transition team has put up a website where you can learn more about President-Elect Obama and Vice-President Elect Biden, and about their proposed agenda. But more intriguingly, they ask for your vision and opinions to help shape the future. This site promotes open government through both transparency and participation.

I want to share here the experience of someone who was at Grant Park in Chicago as the beginning of this monumental change was confirmed:

I was there to share History. Obama is now, my President - too!

I don't know why, but I feel spirited for some reason - may be, because I am always known to find the hidden gems in moments.. no matter
how distraught time seems, at the time.

It was an amazing experience to stand in the midst of 250,000 people all chanting: 'yes we can"...and filled with hope.. my husband Chris and I in our beloved
Chicago - surrounded by this ocean of love, hope and joy....emanating from fellow humans..
I must say - i was moved to tears too....... and I am not, ; I stand corrected - I WAS not an Obama supporter till last night!

Crowds, row upon row of an elated people....bonded in some magical, invisible yet powerful joy and hope filled way .
Young and old, men and women, dressed up and dressed down - with flags, badges, slogan covered shirts - clutching that palpable air of elation and joy, eyes misty, yet mouths wreathed in smiles....striding purposefully yet politely towards giant jumbo trons that beamed the heralding a new era in global politics.

They waited. Patiently .
It was not a sports arena.
It was not a rock concert.
It was not the winner of a big lottery to be announced over national television.
It was just a balmy night in Grant Park, Chicago.
Yet they waited. Calmly, patiently. With bated breath.
Waited to hear what one man had to say, as he took a mantle , before he took a title, a title conferred to him,
of the people, by the people, for the people - a grand finale to events that culminated a glowing autumn day.

It may be sentimental to say that their eyes were bright as well, but of all the subtle corrosives that broke down the old order and gave rise to the new America,
surely none is as important as the spread of confidence and hope that filled the air around, to an extent unprecedented and as yet unmatched in modern American political history.

People tire of government, tire of endless debates, tire of wars, tire of poverty and above all tire of indifference and apathy from their chosen leaders. Having a democracy that is yet controlled and promoted and sustained by the powers that be, of big corporate interests, or to be held captive by corrupt politicians - to continue only as a 2 party system. Having to live with one of two pre determined leaders, being forced to vote for one of two 'nominated' candidates is bound to be the demise of the enthusiastic voter.....

We know all these things to be true--and yet there, in Grant Park, Chicago, last night, Nov 4th, 2008, I saw a counter case. People had shifted. Energies moved.
A demographic Himalaya suddenly rising on my mental atlas.
It was if someone demonstrated to me in a lab that flame didn't necessarily need oxygen, or that water could freeze at 60 degrees.
It demanded of me, a new chemistry to explain it, a whole new science.... to understand this new brave American Spirit!!

America is indeed still filled with hope and love... people like each of you who so tirelessly work so that you can share your life's passion for life ..is the direct opposite of a global market. It is the essence of an enterprise, so exquisitely local--it demands democracy, literacy, participation, a true cooperation...of its people on a scale that is unprecedented before.

This is a land where the mantle of leadership has passed gently without blood shed from one leader to another... a non relative... over and over again....for 200 years that is karma that cannot be pushed away. That is priceless.

Like Ron Paul, my political star said today : "And, most of all, we have awokened within ourselves a spirit of freedom and independence that cannot be suppressed by any ruler, army, or philosophy of subservience and fear. Yet we must not reflect long. We must press our efforts and lay the groundwork for the future of our movement and our country. ...let the revolution begin. "

I say to you all:
Support Obama.
Not his party, not his politics, not his rhetoric.
But the man. The man who is now your president. The vision he espoused yesterday as your president.
President of the American people. Question his politics, question his policies, seek clarity when you are confused by his party ideas, or him.
Challenge him when you think he is wrong.
Seek and enforce that he rely NOT on color or race or status BUT ON integrity in his decision's for America and Americans.
Demand truth, justice and equality.
But for now, at this moment of a triumph for a nation, for a people who for so long -only dreamed of this day, that a day like this would come to pass in their lifetimes....
- set aside pettiness, strife and insecurities.

This is a colossal moment in History, and you have a leader. Help him be a real leader.
He is no demigod. But a man. A human like you and like me. Human with fragilities, a human who needs both questioning and support.
Your support to help him take the correct decisions and lead this nation along the right path, always.

Don't forget that nation's have destinies that are greater than individuals...

This is OUR LAND.., This is OUR EARTH . .. this is OUR MOTHER.. giver of our Life to live, cherish and protect and that WILL Prevail.... against all odds.
Let America be the one that brings that beacon of hope again!

Yes We Can!

Blessings, love and light.
A'isha Be

Aisha Bauer from www.eSutras.com

The Countdown...

2008-10-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

The last days before the election are ticking away. Are you registered? Have you read the voter pamphlets, figured out enough about the candidates and issues to make some kind of decision? Do you know where your polling place is?
If you haven't done those things yet, this weekend is the time to get it done. here are some resources that can help:
Find your polling place at: Vote 411
The League of Women Voters has information on the Presidential candidates as well as all state contests and measures for California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. Local elections are covered in the most populous counties in California and in Hamilton County, Ohio, the St. Louis, Missouri area (several counties), and Westchester County, New York.
Check your local TV Station, news and State government websites for local issues and candidates.
I never get tired of saying VOTE!!! Vote as if your future depended on it.

Lastly, on another topic, remember at 2 a.m. on November 2, 2008, Daylight Savings Time ends. Turn your clocks back one hour (Fall back... Spring forward, as the saying goes) when you go to bed and enjoy that extra hour of sleep!

Frost on the Pumpkin...

2008-10-11T22:41:00.001-07:00

We saw the first migrating geese fly over last week. I start to become anxious waiting to see them this time of year. It's easy to miss them if I'm in the house or shop - you cannot hear them then. But outside their presence is heralded by such a commotion of honking you hear them long before they are in sight, even when they fly so high you can barely see them. I don't think they can flap their wings without commenting on it! This annual migration is one of the great hallmarks of the turning of the seasons for me. More than anything else it signals the coming of long nights and cold weather.

And now we have had the first hard frost. It dipped into the 20's last night, putting an end to all the watering and much of the work in the garden. Also an end to the basil and tomatoes and such – after we eat all the ones that are now ripening in the house! We are still trying to finish all the pre-winter list. Cleaning gutters, coiling hoses and removing filters that keep the drip irrigation from clogging. There is still firewood to split and stack, projects to wrap up, hammocks, folding chairs, and such to put away until next year.

The business prepares for what we call the "Holi-Daze", when we work hard to ship gifts on time for our customers while we ponder when we will get to do our own. All the soap for Christmas has to be made long before Thanksgiving to be cured and ready in time. Woolie soaps must be felted and gift assortments figured out, baskets ordered, flowers dried, all well ahead of November. The economy is bad in many ways, but we must prepare as if everything is the same. We cannot afford not to be there for our customers.

We love putting together the gift assortments. We try to anticipate what might be most fun, most useful, most attractive to each of you when you see the gift in a store display. For the gifts that are sold via the internet store we try to give each a personal touch to compliment what you have chosen to put in the basket. The dried flowers we add are from our, or a friend's, garden. A few are wild everlasting flowers that we gather locally. Our feeling is we try to make each gift as if it is for our own best friend.

We hope our soaps and other products are the personal gift that pleases all who receive them. See our offerings on Simmons Natural Bodycare's gift pages.

To Every Thing There is a Season... Abundance - Part 2

2008-10-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

We are just having the first rains of the fall season. Days in the garden are now limited and the plants know it - things are ripening at an alarming rate. Getting things harvested and in the house before they are overripe is a job that leaves no slack. Do it now or lose your food. The same goes for getting the food processed before it rots or the fruit flies get to it. It is harvest season and that's all there is to it - no matter what else is on the schedule. It makes for late nights and/or early mornings.

While we preserve a lot of food every year, we wanted to really fill the pantry in this year of economic uncertanties. On top of that, to compensate for a possible early hard freeze, we planted three small greenhouses with extra vegetables... just in case. The surprise dip in temperature we had last year in September killed all our basil, squash (summer, winter, melons, cucumbers - all of it), and most of the tomatoes. Well, the early freeze did not happen this time and we are swimming in vegetables. Currently it is tomatoes.

Thankfully we love tomatoes, and they are possibly the most versatile vegetable for storage. They can be made into a vast variety of sauces and condiments, can be dried, frozen, or canned and, picked end of season green, will ripen slowly in a cool dark, place giving you fresh eating tomatoes into the winter months. We prefer drying and canning over freezing as neither requires energy for storage.

We do not dry many tomatoes, usually only cherry tomatoes and, this year, a variety called Principe Borghese. I learned about these reading Barbara Kingsolver's fine book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". These tiny, paste-type tomatoes dry readily when sliced. I look forward to trying them out this winter. The cherry tomatoes we halve and dry, cut side up. We call them "tomato raisins" as they are sweet eaten out of hand. A treat in salads, especially grain based salads, we like to toss them in casseroles and cooked vegetable dishes. No pre-soaking required.

But the bulk of the crop goes into jars. I originally canned only plain peeled tomatoes and plain tomato sauce that could be seasoned any way I liked and otherwise added tomatoes into the vegetable medleys we use for soup. Over time it dawned on me it was actually easier to have my own "fast food" by seasoning the sauce when I made it. This was even more versatile as I could add other ingredients which may not be available to me mid-winter. So we make onion-herb tomato sauce that is good for spaghetti or other Italian-style dishes. To this we occasionally add the end of a bottle of red wine for a ragu-style. I make a smooth enchilada sauce with Mexican seasonings and a chunky style Mexican sauce to add to chili. The main difference is whether I run it through a food mill or blender or a plain old meat grinder. We add peppers. onions, garlic to all of these. Herbs and spices as desired. The Italian style sauce may get the addition of everything from eggplant to zuchinni, the Mexican variation - chili peppers to tomatillos. Anything available seems to find its way into a jar. Then there is thicker sauce for pizza, catsup (when we really have more tomatoes than we know what to do with!), tomato juice and soup.

Then we do the condiments. There are many salsa variations we play with, but we always make a basic red hot sauce and a green hot sauce (which uses green tomatoes and tomatillos). Temperatures vary depending on which chili peppers did well that year. We also make sure to have a chunky style salsa to be used to dip chips or added to layered dip. A large part of our pantry is devoted to tomatoes - that's for sure!

As I write this there is a stock pot of red hot sauce simmering in the kitchen. Not just for Mexican style food, this is a favorite on rice dishes, casseroles and eggs around our house.
Here is the recipe for those of you who may enjoy this savory to spicy condiment. This is a sweet/hot sauce, almost chutney-like in flavor.

Red Hot Sauce
8 cups chopped, cored, tomatoes
1 - 1/2 cups seeded chopped red peppers, varying degrees of hotness!
(Use hot peppers as desired for your preferred degree of heat in the finished sauce.)
1 quart cider vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices
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Combine tomatoes, peppers and 2 cups vinegar in a large saucepan until soft. Let cool, then blend in blender until pureed and return to pot (I generally use a second pot).
Add sugar and salt. Tie spices in cheesecloth or place in clean, small, muslin bag and secure top and add to sauce. Simmer until thick. Stir as needed to prevent sticking or scorching on bottom of pot. Add remaining 2 cups of vinegar. Simmer to desired thickness.
Ladle hot sauce into hot, clean jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Adjust lids and process 15 minutes in boiling water bath.

Note: Remember that rubber/latex gloves are good when cutting and seeding hot peppers. At the very least, wash hands immediately afterwards with (Simmons) soap and water.
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I end now to go put my red hot sauce into the bail clamp beer bottles that we use to keep it. It will process, as any normal jar, in the canning kettle. Here's to a future spicy winter meal!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

2008-09-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here in the United States, Election Day, November 4, is coming up soon. Very soon. Less than a month and a half... Everyone, possibly the entire world, knows this. However, for those who are not registered to vote, the action of getting registered can fall to the bottom of the "when I can get around to it" list.
If you are an U.S. citizen, the most important thing you can do is participate in the process that governs our country and vote. Here is a way to make it easy: just use this link to REGISTER TO VOTE !
Here, in California where I live, you can register until October 20. To find out the voter registration deadline in your state you can check here at Rock the Vote.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

I know I am repeating myself here, but it endlessly amazes me how many people do not take the time or have the interest or??? to get it together to participate in the only tool they really have to back up their interests in how their country, state, or city conducts business. It is not just about the presidential choice, although that is very, very, VERY important in my opinion, but this is your voice in the highways that get built, the money that goes to schools, what extra taxes are levied... the list goes on and on. In our family, we have the rule: "if you don't vote you cannot complain about the government and it's actions". If it is inconvenient for you to go to your local polling place, you can always vote by absentee ballot. We do. Our polling place is 1/2 hour away. On a work day it is not only inconvenient, but if we are very busy we may just forget until it is too late!

What does it say if you go out on the street and protest about things you don't like but are not willing to step up to the plate and cast a vote that would help nudge the direction of government and it's actions in the direction you believe is best? Voting, like so many things, may seem ineffective at the personal level - "it is only 1 vote, it won't make any difference" - but like drops of water in a bucket, each vote adds to the whole and creates change. Remember, non action is a vote as well, it is just as if you voted against yourself either by not neutralizing a vote against your beliefs or by not adding emphasis to the things you support.

So, and I cannot stress this enough, it is the ability to participate in government, to make our voices heard, that makes a great country. Be part of that. Get registered and VOTE in every election.

Late breaking news:
There is a new book out for first-time voters. The Rookie Voter Handbook by JamesTurner was inspired by his own coming-of-voting-age-son, and covers the essentials of voting and more, with topics such as: voter registration, absentee ballots/votes, lobbyists, national & local issues, pros & cons of hot current issues, earmarks, special interest groups, party-line voting, two-party system, the role of MONEY, voting for the person , attack ads, truth in advertising, single issue voting, going negative, Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, & Independents, secrets and tricks used to persuade and manipulate voters, and much more...
Might not be bad information for some of us more seasoned voters as well!

Abundance... Putting Food By

2008-09-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

Harvest season, that time of year when we are blessed with an abundance of vegetables. Sometimes it seems more like a curse as we try to stay ahead of it. If they were not so heavy I might just add a zucchini or cucumber to every soap order!
We hate to see anything go to waste so, what we cannot eat we try to get in jars to store for the winter season ahead. Only the occasional gargantuan summer squash that escaped our notice until it was over mature and such bypass us, our friends, or the canning kettle to become salad for the chickens.

It does become problematic as we try to keep the business going, do regular maintenance and preparation for winter, and keep on top of the bounty of the the garden before it turns to compost right in the garden. It is a busy time of year, running late nights just as the days are getting shorter trying to get everything done. But the garden and food are one of my passions. I am a dedicated plant-a-holic and determined to enter winter with a full pantry.

I must confess, with years of this sort of thing behind me it is not as much work as it might seem. Many things become an add on to making a regular meal, when we are in the kitchen anyway, and get processed while we eat. Some things, such as tomatoes, peaches, or making apple cider, are an all day affair and we generally have some friends or family over to share the bounty and the fun. We are truly fortunate.

But lately, watching the news, I am struck by comments on the economy and what it is doing to the price of food. Right now, worldwide, there is everything from protests about food prices to riots to rationing to famine. Some, as always, is caused by failed crops and weather related shortages. Some is caused by war and civil strife. But a lot is also caused by high energy prices. You know, energy like that spendy gallon of gasoline and the agriculture based biofuels they want to replace/ augment it with. Since 2001 overall food prices have increased by 75%!

Get used to it. Since the root cause appears to be higher energy and fertilizer prices (also often a petroleum byproduct - Buy Organic) the problem won't necessarily be solved by a better crop next year. And since 1/4 of the U.S. corn crop is now devoted to making ethanol (and more is mandated for the future) and so much food in this country is ultimately corn-based... well you see where this is going.

The good news is that, living in the U.S., chances are it will just be expense, rather than serious shortages, that plague us.

So we start vegetable seeds, garden, and fill the pantry against the year ahead. But what about the food we do not grow and people without gardens? Well, our family has been in a position both where every penny had to be accounted for and where we could not get to a store for weeks on end. As they say, necessity can be a great teacher. It taught us to buy in bulk. It taught us to learn about food preservation. It taught us to keep staples in the house at all times, especially those that do not require refrigeration. It taught us to eat in season, eat at home, and prepare our own food. The interesting aside to all that is we end up eating really, really well. For those who cook, having staples on hand can be a source of creativity and inspiration.

Everywhere I have lived I managed to make a food storage place. Sometimes we just commandeered a coat closet for food, adding shelves and bins, sometimes built bins that doubled as counters when the lids were closed. It is just a matter of creating a cool, dark, dry area. Our family long ago learned to only buy food we would actually eat. Rice, beans, cornmeal, oatmeal, flour, pasta, these long lasting staples are the backbone of our personal food economy. Airtight lidded buckets, gallon jars, small lidded trash cans are inexpensive or free containers that keep insects out and help preserve freshness. Just as important are the condiments and necessities that transform these staples into delectable meals, from dry milk and baking power, sugar and salt, to soy sauce and vinegar, herbs and spices. Keeping basics allows more flexibility when you buy the extras that make a meal.

Purchase one or two bulk items at a time, as works for you, and ultimately you find you always have the basics for what you need and your overall costs go way down. If roads close or commodities or money become scarce, you might like to know you have a culinary slush fund.

For us, the basics plus what we can and freeze, dry and store fresh in the cellar or in the garden itself, keeps us fed well, year round. Putting away food went from necessity to habit, and some might argue that, with me, it's a compulsion. But no one complains as they put in their order for their favorite jam, salsa, or pickles!

Over the years we have been doing this we've learned a lot of tricks and tips. If you have questions about anything from canning applesauce to zucchini bread, drying fruits, vegetables, or herbs, types of fresh storage, to types of equipment... post it, and I will answer all as best I can. I can always turn to my experienced neighbors for any information I may not have.

Happy Harvest!

Climate Change... seasons

2008-08-31T23:35:00.000-07:00

The climate of our fair planet is going through some changes. Both natural cycles and mankind’s influence are affecting it on a broad scale, the combination of which could produce some pretty major transformation from what we are used to. How fast this will evolve is still unknown. But I can truthfully say that in my own lifetime basic weather patterns have changed a lot.

Here in California's far northwest, just inland from the coast, the general weather pattern was easy to predict. The sun was out full time by the end of May and you saw little or no precipitation of any sort until late July or August when there may be a thunderstorm or two. Come September there would be a rainstorm to remind you winter was coming and you better finish getting the firewood in for the winter. By November it would be raining full time. During winter it would snow one or more times at elevations over 2000 feet. In January and February you would probably get one full week of warm sunny weather to remind you not to despair, you can relax about building an Ark, and that the day will come when you are not wading through rain and mud everywhere you go. Periodic dry weather would increase through May and then the cycle would start over again. It had been like this as long as anyone could remember.

Back around 1970 this changed. That was the first year of a 7 year drought (meaning only 30 to 45 inches of rain, not 60 to 100). You would get up in the winter and the sun, low in the sky and too far away to be warm, would shine brightly blinding you with its low angle. Since then the weather has never resumed its old, predictable, pattern. There also seem to be more intense storms followed by long dry spells in the winter. This summer, as noted in our post "Fire on the Mountain" we had a wholly unusual thunderstorm in June! Our ability to adapt is already being put to the test - as well as that of all the local flora and fauna.

In some cultures bad weather and other natural catastrophes are attributed to displeasing the various Gods, or Spirits. In the cases where we have changed our own environment through pollution, from poisoned rivers to acid rain, the tons of plastic refuse in the oceans or greenhouse gases, I can only hope we have attained a point where we have displeased ourselves.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are
consequences. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

As a specie, our ability to change our habits to lessen our influence on the world's climate is one of the most important challenges facing us. Our ability to adapt to change, natural or man made, will determine our survival. These are interesting times.

Meanwhile, on the smaller scale, we undergo a climate change with each passing season and these fluctuations have an effect on our health, our skin, and even our temperament. Whether you go from hot and dry to cold and moist, warm and foggy to cool and soggy, or hot and humid to cold and dry, these changing conditions have their influence and the transitional season of fall gives us some time to prepare for the harsher (usually) environment of winter.

Not only is it time to boost your immune system, it is time to become aware of how the different conditions interact with your skin and complexion. Many people need to use more moisturizer in the winter months. Our lips may chap more readily in winter, but even more so in the transformational times of spring and fall. The dry, cracked, chapped heels and hands of those who garden or wear sandals in the summer months may fade, only to be replaced with dry skin elsewhere and hair that frizzes or otherwise reacts to the winter weather – both outdoors and in the now heated interior spaces of home and work.

While many notice the seasonal changes in their interior and exterior health, colds and flu have their “season” but changes in skin and hair fitness often are not related to the different climate conditions.

Time passes and things are always changing and, whatever the cause, it helps us maintain our health if we are aware of how these external differences act on our bodies and adapt our diet and personal care to flow with the seasons.

What can you find at Simmons Natural Bodycare to help you adapt to winter weather? Check out our moisturizing soaps, and our Apothecary section. You will find lotions, creams and balms to help keep your skin happy in every climate.

Belonging...

2008-08-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

We are affiliated with a number of groups. It is human nature, I think, to belong to various groups, beginning with family and moving out. Belonging strengthens you and the other members of the group, as you enhance and enlarge the possibilities when you work together. It can be a support system for the benefit of all. Yet I don't feel it has to define who one is or make you beholden to mimic any group's belief's identically.

Take our immediate family. I love my family and feel very much a part of the group - yet we are all very different individuals, with different tastes, tempos, and basic beliefs in some cases. There is freedom to be oneself in this group without it jeopardizing one's membership even if it isn't always all smooth relationships. And we are there for each other in times of need.

Then there is the community. Our rural area is sparsely populated, but I suspect that makes the community stronger in some ways. Even if we do not know each other or participate in the same activities, I know the folks up here all feel they belong as a part of this region (or, perhaps, that it is part of who they are). We come together to support the events and organizations that define the locale, be it rodeo or festival, the school, or the rural clinic. We work together to help each other, improve things (school and clinic board, our volunteer fire dept. and emergency rescue team), and more. Within that are sub groups such as the back-to-the-land folks, the ranchers, the loggers, the old timers (you get to be one of those when there is no one else alive who can remember a time before your family was here. 30+ years and 3 generations counts for nothing!). These groups are separate generally, yet overlap comfortably when community events occur. Despite our differences there is common ground.

Beyond that many belong to groups that go well beyond community. Some are temporal, such as environmental organizations, political parties, volunteer care groups, or book clubs. Others are spiritual. Sometimes these overlap. And of course there is the group of citizens of a particular country.

Being an American, the same as being a citizen of another country, is usually a group, like family, that you are born into. And, like family, it should give you the freedom to be who you are with your own individual beliefs, that family does. Of course, I am speaking of freedom, not license to behave in a manner which results in excessive or unacceptable behavior.
Being a member of any group should in no way diminish your individuality. It should be a way for you to share it and to enhance and strengthen your relationship with the world around you.

And I feel is important not to forget we all belong to a bigger group, the family of Mankind and the family of Earth. We are all linked together as the inhabitants of this lovely habitable planet. In the big picture, we all look out for each other through our daily actions. With that knowledge subliminally in your mind, I believe you can live a conscious life.

Now...
That said, for citizens of the United States the time is coming up to assert your beliefs in an important way. VOTE!

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
-Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

As an U.S. citizen, the most important thing you can do is participate in the process that governs our country. If you haven't already, please use this link to REGISTER TO VOTE
While it may feel as though we are mere voices in the wilderness, and that our lone vote may not have any effect, these votes add up. For each issue, for every candidate, you belong to a group of like minded voters and only by adding your vote to that group does it have enough to create the change you want to see for the future.