Hello friends! I hope the end of summer was kind to everyone, and you're enjoying the colors and cooler temps of fall. This time of year is great for collecting flowers and leaves for pressing, and saving seeds! Have you ever seen radish seed pods? I'm attaching pictures in case you haven't. There are just a few seeds in each pod so it takes a while to collect them, but it's a nice relaxing activity for sitting on the porch. Once the sunflowers died back and dried up, I collected those seeds too. I let the tomatoes go too long, so we'll just have a lot of volunteer tomato plants next year. I also saved calendula seeds, corn kernels, pole beans, and pepper seeds. As long as you store them in a cool, dry place they should keep well until next year. I put a lot of my seeds in small envelopes and label them with the year.

I am really enjoying taking the dogs and family on walks and collecting leaves and flowers to press for crafts! I could spend hours making arrangements in molds. I really love seeing the beauty of each season. It's so easy to walk right by all the colors and textures wih the hustle and bustle of life. Fall reminds me to slow down and take time to savor those last remnants of bright colors before everything drops and goes into hibernation.

A couple weeks ago, we gathered a bunch of jewelweed so I could make poison ivy soap. There's yellow and orange jewelweed, and both are good for relieving poison ivy rashes, but the orange is a bit stronger so that's what we collect. I make a really strong tea from the plants, and then freeze it in ice cubes to use when making soap. Here's a picture of jewelweed in the woods. It's very common and grows everywhere.

Tyler finished the brooder, and now we have 200 baby chicks growing feathers and living the good life. Before Tyler built the new brooder, we were only able to raise 60 chicks at a time, so our production capability is really ramping up! There is a sweet spot, however, for raising as many birds as possible. In order to maintain a high quality of life for the chickens and feel confident that we're doing what's best for our customers and local ecosystem, we have to put a limit on how many one man can raise. Tyler visits the brooder and every pen multiple times a day, feeds and waters each bird, and looks them over for health and wellbeing. We have to make sure there's enough fresh grass to move the birds to everyday as well. And we have to raise enough through the growing season to provide meat through the winter when the grass isn't growing. We feel confident that 150-200 chicks every few weeks will best meet the needs of the people, animals, and land in our care. It feels really good to be able to serve our friends and family in this way, and know that we're contributing to the health of the land for future generations. Hopefully our children will join us as caring, responsible stewards and help grow the business so we can make even more of a positive impact!

Thanks for being a part of the dream, everyone. You help keep it alive and validate all our hard work.

Cheers,

Sandi