Dear Garden Journal,Every morning I go out to check on the changing colors of the trees. Those leaves are the highlight of the season against the sunny blue sky! Yesterday I spent a few hours in the morning, then later in the afternoon doing a smattering of tasks around my front yard. I started and ended the work sessions by gazing at the leaves from the Japanese maple in the side yard, so beautiful!!

Hello readers and writers of the web!! I wanted to update you all on how my DIY writing retreat is going. If you missed that last post let me explain briefly what I have been up to.This week I had the opportunity to spend a whole week alone at my house while my hubby is away helping family on the other side of the mountains. Having no one else at home (and thus no one to cook for) opened up a few hours each day which I decided to dedicate to working on my latest project ~ a zine about homesteading.

It has become a bit of a clichè in movies : the writer, alone for weeks on end writing their novel in a cozy cabin in the mountains. That sort of thing does sound nice but ... I wonder how very productive I would be in such a scenario?

Not only did I grow up in a different country than where I currently live but also, the seasons are totally opposite! I grew up associating May with warm weather, not the frosty mornings that we are currently experiencing here in the southern half of South America.

Hi ppl of the internet!Yesterday it snowed. Not here but, in the mountains to the East. I could see the snow up there and decided to stay inside all morning. That is one of the benefits of running an online store, that I can work from the comfort & shelter of my own home. As you can see from the banner of this post, however, the comfy indoor time couldn't last all day.

I love fairy tales and myths heard around the campfire and found in the pages of dusty books. From time to time such tales feature information about herbs; their medicinal uses, their origin stories, their more mystical properties too. Even the Lord of the Rings trilogy discusses herb lore on occasion. Aragorn heals more than one person with his knowledge of plants, remembered in verse and gathered from the fields.