The South Fork McKenzie River in the Oregon Cascade Range is a historically important spawning ground for native salmon and currently the site of a large scale floodplain restoration project to restore their habitat and the river ecosystem. For the first time in over 50 years, hundreds of Chinook salmon are returning to spawn in the waters where their ancestors returned year after year. The ...
Mountain Hearth Handcrafts
Finding Those Moments
Sometimes life gets busy. Busier than you ever thought possible, where you suddenly find that you're putting all of your energy into just keeping up. The consensus of advice seems to always involve giving yourself small breaks, but it can be hard to figure out what that actually looks like for you as an individual. My greatest success with this as of late has been what I would call ...
The Lantern Walk
Every November, the lantern walk was a tradition I looked forward to with my children at our Waldorf school. They would make beautiful lanterns in class, sometimes out of colorful paper or tin cans, sometimes out of jars and leaves, and we would all bundle up and meet on Martinmas to walk through the dark night singing cheery lantern songs. We did a couple of our own lantern walks at home when ...
Raven and Rainbows
I had just finished my latest wall hanging of the story of Raven returning the light, when a rainbow came shining through the prism in my window, illuminating Raven's dark silhouette. It's those little bits of light that come shining through in the shortest, darkest days of the year that really make all the difference. With each year that goes by, winter seems more and more to me an exercise in ...
Harvest Moon in the Pumpkin Patch
That big harvest moon the other night had me dreaming of giant pumpkins, and I was inspired to needle felt this wool wall hanging of a pumpkin patch on a full harvest moon night. I made one similar to this that I traded with a crafty friend a couple of years ago for a beautiful sweater she knit for my newborn niece. When I was working on this piece, the wild, witchy woman out in the filed ...
New Chocolate in Mountain Hearth Handcrafts Etsy Shop
Good chocolate is important, so with the holidays approaching, I made a push to re-stock the Mountain Hearth Handcrafts Etsy Shop with bean-to-bar artisan chocolate. These handcrafted chocolates are made from scratch, bean to bar, with fresh roasted cocoa beans. These bean I use primarily are a tiny, wildcrafted variety from Bolivia where they are harvested by canoe during the rainy ...
The Mushroom Hunters
They pop up from the forest floor when the autumn rains arrive, golden and glowing through the moss and mist. Chanterelle mushrooms are one of the fun things to forage, and just one more reason fall is my favorite. This time of year, folks are headed out to the woods with their families to go on mushroom hunting expeditions, bringing home bags and baskets full of wild deliciousness. I needle ...
Wilderness Campsite
September and October are my favorite months to spend time in the backcountry. Days are warm, nights are cool and crisp, the summer crowds are gone, and it feels good to soak up some time outdoors before winter sets in. It is also the busiest time of year on the homestead with harvesting, preserving and storing the fruits of our labor and tucking things in for the colder months. Sometimes I manage ...
Growing Love
I just finished needlefelting this wall hanging as a custom order wedding gift, and I think it is one of my favorites yet. A pair of farmers are taking a break from the day's work to cool off by the stream in the shade of the pear tree. The farmer is serenading his wife on the banjo, while she picks the golden ripe pears and dips her feet in the cool stream. All the while, ...
Banjo Pickin’ in the Garden
My newest needlefelted wall hanging is a celebration of growing food, working hard, pickin' an old-time tune, and enjoying the simple things in life. In the heat of the afternoon, it's time to sit back in the shade of the pear tree for some banjo pickin'. The vegetables ripen in the field, the chickens scratch away in the orchard, and some fine old-time music floats on the breeze. It's a ...