Do you ever go back sometimes to visit the house where you grew up? I love the house, forests and fields where I spent my childhood. Our house was originally part of a historical settlement in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, built by families from Oklahoma displaced by the dust bowl. It's still labeled on maps as "Little Oklahoma". On a trip back to my home ground ...
My Own Secret World
Recently, I did a trade with my friends, Jeff and Taryn at Mystic Orb Sacred Earth Talismans. Taryn fell in love with my felted wall hanging of chickens by a red wheelbarrow, and said I could make a custom request in return. Jeff carves some of the most amazing jewelry I've ever seen out of all different kinds of gorgeous wood, antler, bone, stone, you name it. Recently, he even did ...
Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low. That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right. That is I think it's not too bad. Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard ...
My Father the Hero!
In honor of Father's Day, I want to let you all know that my dad is a hero. Really! He backpacks, he hunts elk, he builds things, and in all his spare time, he lends a hand to conserving land. When I was growing up he helped form the North Olympic Land Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to land conservation. Last year, he won the Cox Conserves Heroes award from the ...
Honey Do
Handmade honey bee necklaces on my Mountain Hearth Handcrafts blog! Click the link to check out the sweet little honeys, and pay a visit to my crafting blog. ...
Greenhouse Turned Hothouse
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Backpacking Trips: Threemile Lake
Last year we were looking for a good backpacking trip to do with some friends of ours, with all our kids ranging in age from 3-7. In my experience, three miles is generally a good rule of thumb for backpacking in a day with young children. This can certainly vary depending on the trail, how old they are and how accustomed they are to backpacking. In very good keeping with this rule, ...
Honey Bee
It's that time of year again, when the summer rolls in and the flowers are abuzz with busy honeybees gathering pollen to transform into delicious, amber colored honey. I felt inspired to make some jewelry in honor of these important little creatures, and I came up with these sweet necklaces. I started with ceramic honeybee pendants, and strung them with small amber chip beads and ...
Enjoying our Wild America: The Amazing Wildlife Documentaries of Marty Stouffer
Recently, I discovered a love for nature documentaries. There's something really amazing about seeing footage of places you wouldn't normally get to see, or things that are rare or impossible to observe on your every day walk in the woods. While I am really not a fan of television in general (we don't have TV and never will), I do have a hearty appreciation for the art ...
Hooray, Hooray for CSA’s!
It's that time of year again that I look forward to in eager anticipation all Spring. When fruit and veggie prices start to go on the rise, and things get a little lean, our Groundworks Organics CSA comes in and saves the day! What, might you ask, is a CSA? This stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which means that folks buy a farm share early in the year from a local farm, and the farm ...