Immortal Mountain

Full Spectrum

2011-12-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

Bronze Fennel Seeds

2011-12-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

I noticed our bronze fennel has gone to seed, so I decided to harvest most of those seeds.

I snipped off the base of the dead stems with seed heads and gathered them all together in a paper grocery bag. Short on time, I stowed the bag in the garage to later shake/pull/pick/pinch off all the wonderful fennel seeds.

Below, the base of the fennel. Aren't the leaves gorgeous? And this is definitely not even its prime viewing time.

I made sure to leave some seeds for the birds!

New Cacao Flavor -- and a Special Promotion!

2011-12-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

First Frost Cacao

We've been wanting to offer a mint cacao for a while now, and here it is!

All natural peppermint oil (in an almond oil base, just to let those of you with sensitivities know) cools the tongue as this rich, dark chocolate melts in your mouth. It is sweetened with pure maple sugar from organically grown maple trees, which are ensured not to get "over-tapped" using ecologically friendly extraction methods. Our cacao is, as always, heirloom, raw, organic, and fair-trade.

Right now, in the spirit of giving, we have a couple promotions going on... Order any three 1.5-oz bars to be shipped, and receive a First Frost Cacao bar for free! Also, we're offering FREE SHIPPING on orders over $50! And for all other orders, our shipping fees have been reduced with the falling autumn temperatures. Check out our website to order!

We hope everyone is having a toasty, frosty, lovely, fun-filled season. Cheers!

Sage, in two glass jars.

2011-11-19T18:21:00.000-08:00

Here's all our sage, picked over, dehydrated, jarred, and ready for the winter! I know we'll be thankful we did this. What is one thing you can preserve for this winter? You don't need a dehydrator or fancy equipment. Even if you have perhaps a last decent harvest of any of your kitchen herbs, just cut them at the base of the stems, bundle and tie them together into a bouquet, and hang them upside down somewhere not humid for a week or so. (We dried a bunch of nettles over the summer this way and hung them in a window-- it looked so pretty!) Then just break off the leaves and stuff them into jars!

Big Harvest, and A Dinner Fit for a Garden Gnome King & Queen

2011-11-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

Drew went shopping last night out in the garden, and look at all he brought in!

Bag #1: Nettles!

Bag #2: Kale! Swiss Chard! Cayenne Peppers! Scarlet Runner Beans!

Bag #3: Sage! So much sage!

What a beautiful bouquet of sage, said I. But my, oh my, what to do with such a bounty from this almost-end-of-season harvest? Preserve, that's what! Then feast!

Phineas the Cat sniffed each leaf of sage before it went into the magic Excalibur Dehydrator to make sure it was of the topmost quality for preserving for the winter.

And then, after making sure I had gotten all the sage out of the paper bag, Phineas declared it a perfect look-out post. Phineas could see far and wide, but not a soul could see him.

After all the labor was done of separating the leaves from the tough stems, and laying the herbs on the dehydrator sheets, Drew chopped kale for a big salad. Then I chopped some garlic, a cayenne pepper, sage, perennial celery, and rosemary to saute for an omelette with eggs straight from the backyard. But wait! We almost forgot the nettles! Luckily, Drew threw them in the pan just in time for the stinging to get cooked out of them. Whew!

Absolutely scrumptious. And best of all, a dinner to be proud of! Almost every ingredient came from right outside our front door. My advice for the easiest things to grow that you'll get great harvests from well into November? Kale, Stinging Nettles, Sage, and Perennial Celery. And don't forget that garlic you harvested over the summer, hanging in your garage!

And to top it all off, raspberries for dessert, with fresh, local, raw cream, whipped with a dash of vanilla bean and a drop or two of stevia extract. Oh my.

Free Chocolate Samples!

2011-11-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow Immortal Mountain will be at Midas Touch Health Food in Berryville, VA. We'll be discussing our three chocolate flavors (Wolf Berry, Black Flower, & Wild at Heart), the benefits of indulging in pure cacao, and of course handing out samples! We'll also have squares of our flavor of the season, Spiced Hallow, available-- but only for the duration of the demo! Hope to see you there...

Immortal Mountain Chocolate Demo

3:00-5:00

Midas Touch

1025 West Main Street

Berryville, VA 22611

Eleven Eleven Eleven Eleven Eleven

2011-11-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Or, in numerals: 11:11, 11/11/11.

A brush of natural beauty encroaching on Drew's illustrated beauty.

Surprise

2011-11-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

A new nest for Little Guy:

After circling the entire perimeter of our house, I finally found her laying an egg in the newspaper bin inside the garage. To each her own...

I hope it's not too late...

2011-11-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

Last year we planted our garlic given to us by Zoe & Matt at the end of October. This year, however, I was out of town for the last few days of that crucial month. And on top of that, it snowed! I don't really know what the protocol is for planting garlic after a snowfall, but the ground wasn't frozen yet, so I'm hoping for the best. This is what our little 2.5' x 3' bed looked like in the midst of planning:

Each row has a different variety of garlic! Ten altogether, and I think I planted around 67 cloves. I decided to only plant the varieties that were heavy producers of giant bulbs. I'm not a garlic afficionado, I just love it all. So if a plant will give me huge, beautiful bulbs, I'm all for it. Just plant the individual cloves pointy-end up (the side that sometimes sprouts while sitting on your kitchen counter) a few inches apart. I put mine about 2 inches under the top of the soil.

You can sort of see my map here. If you're planting multiple varieties of anything in the same bed, and you care about the names of them (our include such lovelies as "Music," "German Porcelain," and "Whistlestop," so how could I not want to remember those?), then a map is a must. Just put it somewhere where you'll be able to find it come next summer.

And the last step is to cover the babies with a heaping layer of mulch. Last year we put on about 6 inches of straw with huge success, but Drew is out of town and I didn't have any straw to spare. What's a girl to do? I gathered up a bunch of fallen fig tree leaves from the blizzard, along with some oak leaves, and thinking this will probably be pretty acidic, I topped it all off with a few big comfrey leaves for good measure. I have no idea if this was a huge mistake, if maybe I should have just waited till Drew got home to help me with the straw. Anyone know? Anyone? But I suppose gardening is a constant learning experience. And darnit, I had to get those cloves in the ground soon!

An unexpected gift

2011-11-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

A recent weekend trip to see my family in Savannah, GA ended with this surprise to come home to:

What used to be our raised terrace beds.

Poor kale, so sad.

And these photos were taken two days after the blizzard, so a good four inches or so had already melted. I am really upset with myself for not harvesting all our sweet basil and holy basil and all our other annuals before they succumbed to frostbite. But who would have guessed we'd get hit with a freakin' blizzard bringing 6+ inches of snow in OCTOBER?!

Very Small Things

2011-10-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

This gem popped up out of our compost pile recently:

The world's smallest Pattypan squash.

Pawpaw Pickin'

2011-10-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Our friend Tamara invited us out to a pawpaw patch she knew of a couple weekends ago. Right when we got to the patch and started to investigate, a downpour began. It felt like we were back in the jungles of Panama. We continued to search, but unfortunately the only thing we got from that outing was really wet. We did, however, catch a glimpse of a beautiful rainbow (the top of it!) on the walk home, which made it worth all the while. And I love seeing her new baby Jonah anyday.

Panama: Part 6

2011-10-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

And on for a hike to the most spectacular waterfall I've ever seen!

Check out this log we encountered-- how many kinds of fungi can you see?

In front of one of many bridges we crossed to the waterfall. They were all just barely wide enough for my feet to walk one in front of the other, and for some reason there was only a handrail on one side. Yikes.

Seriously?!

And wild watercress abounds! Look at it all! We enjoyed a handful in our guacamole that evening.

We brought along a cacao fruit from one of our earlier hikes that Drew left at the waterfall as an offering. This waterfall really was humbling.

Wild jungle papaya! See? All the way at the top of the photo, baby fruits forming under the umbrella of wide papaya leaves.

Someone was growing corn right alongside the pathway. In this climate, people have to grow crops on challenging landscapes like mountainsides. But the soil is so fertile from the nearby dormant volcano, Volcan Baru.

Since our promised bus never showed up after our hike, we started our way back to town on foot. We noticed some things we probably wouldn't have otherwise-- like these coffee plants. Like cacao, they're an understory plant, liking the biodiversity and shade other trees offer.

On our last full day in Boquete, we wanted to hike to another waterfall. This went awry pretty quickly, when the cab driver dropped us off at a very obviously CLOSED hiking site, which wasn't even the right trail! So no waterfall, but a very pretty walk if nothing else, over rolling hills (kind of an understatement) of beautiful Heidi-like pasture. The views finally snapped me out of my 2-year-old tantrum I was throwing about the steep hills and no waterfall goal in sight. If you can read this, I think the bottom line says in Spanish that the altitude here is 1990 meters. That's over 6500 feet! Could that be right?

I think I see Heidi walking with her grandpa!

We took our time on the walk back to the "closed" trail head, focusing on the micro the jungle was offering. Not sure what this is, but the whole tree was blossoming with these wonders. A type of hibiscus perhaps? You can see by my hand the scale of this flower.

And thus our online travelogue of our journey to Panama finally comes to an end. Whew.

Panama: Part 5

2011-09-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

OK, I promise, I'm almost done with our Panama posts. But I feel like I can't move on to other topics till I've told our Panama story in full. I guess that's the obsessive part of me shining through.

Here are some photos from a day walking around the town of Boquete...

We had to try the local coffee... with local honey!

This was at my favorite restaurant there, Restaurante Las Orquideas. There was no menu, just a choice of chicken, beef, or fish of the day, with rice, lentils, plantains, vegetable of the day, and local coffee or house-made lemonade. For $3.75. I think we ate here three or four times.

Boquete, in the clouds every morning.

Our daily trip to the fruit markets usually resulted in a humongous papaya, lime, avocados, and bananas. For something less than $5.

A secret rose garden outside a nursery in an alleyway.

The river running through town. La iglesia is off to the left.

Stay tuned for one last Panama post. Or maybe two...

Panama: Part 4

2011-09-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

On to the western highlands of Boquete, Panama...

The view from our five-hour bus ride from the warm, humid, tropical beach town of Bocas del Toro to a cooler (but just as humid) town in the clouds called Boquete. The ever-changing landscape just outside the window was so captivating, I had trouble catching up on my sleep.

We checked into another hostel as soon as we arrived, and it wasn't the only property in Boquete fully decked out in fruit trees. It seemed like everyone who had a few square feet of a yard had multiple varieties of lemons, limes, loquats, grapefruits, and papayas were actually growing in ditches on the sides of roads! This is the backyard of our $15/night hostel.

Our first full day was an adventure of a taxi ride out to a hike to Los Pozos, the hot springs!

The property actually belonged to a woman whose home had in turn been adopted by a menagerie of animals, including a flock of peacocks.

The property had a total of three hot springs, each one hotter than the last. They smelled slightly sulphurous, but were intoxicating and relaxing. I wish we hadn't just gotten so badly sunburned!

Guess whose legs are short and blindingly pale?

We made a couple friends during our trek. This fishing spider wanted a free ride. Just to give you a better visual, this guy had a leg span of about four and a half inches!

And our last encounter was with Chita (as we found out from his adopted human mother). We think he was a spider monkey. He was swinging in the trees above us on our hike out, and seeing as it was our first wildlife sighting thus far, we immediately started luring it closer with a (curiously handy) banana. Maybe not the brightest idea. Drew had the banana, and Chita wanted every last bite of it, not caring what happened to its owner in the meantime. He grabbed onto Drew with all hundred of his appendages, with only the banana in sight. It wasn't until this point that images of primates hissing and throwing feces flashed into my mind, but Chita finally had broken-up banana in too many hands to ask for more, so we took advantage of his distraction and took off through the jungle. Good thing I got it all on video instead of helping Drew.

Panama: Part 3

2011-09-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

And you thought it was over... But alas, there's so much more I want to share!

We encountered many interesting six-legged creatures. This guys was the most fashionable we saw, in gold and ruby stained-glass chaps. He may be related to our common stinkbug, but something tells me I wouldn't mind a plague of these quite as much...

Dave Cerutti, owner of Green Acres Chocolate Plantation on an island off Bocas del Toro, Panama. Dave and his wife Linda are such role models-- Dave's in is seventies, hikes his property almost every day, AND they make amazing chocolate! They built their home on this existing cacao plantation to be completely eco-friendly, including solar-powered electricity and filtered rain water for plumbing. The Ceruttis were gracious enough to give us a private tour of their beautiful land. Justin took us (plus a newcomer, Ruth) on the tiniest, canopy-less water taxi ever, over open waters under a blazing sun to another tropical island far, far away. At least it seemed far away, I think it was about 45 minutes. I had a mini panic attack five minutes into the ride, so each second seemed like an eternity. But we arrived, pink and shiny, ready to see some more cacao trees in their natural state!

A young cacao fruit.

One of the older trees is still producing heavily!

Dave then took us to the processing area. This is a flat bed where the beans, once fermented for a few days, lay out to sunbathe. He rakes them occasionally to make sure they get good and dry.

Mmm...

This is the sun-drying bed with the roof pulled over. The solar panels power all his gadgets (roaster, grinder, and refrigerator) in the "processing shed." Very cool.

This metate, the traditional Central American tool used to grind cacao beans, was on his property when he moved here! What a beautiful instrument.

By the time we finished the tour, Drew and I realized how sunburned we were. Add that to the wasp stings we received in the jungle on the cacao tour, and we were getting just a little uncomfortable. We luckily didn't let that overpower the high we were on from meeting two great people and visiting some amazing cacao trees. Drew decided to be proactive on the boat ride back to prevent further first-degree burns.

Pink, shiny, and cranky. But it was a small (?) price to pay for quality memories.

Panama: Part 2

2011-09-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

Panamania, continued...

After walking the streets of Bocas del Toro (above photo- see the bananas?) for a little while one afternoon, Justin and some researchers he's befriended (who just all happen to be German, but met for the first time in Panama-- weird) decide to go swimming off Isla Carenero. It's less than a ten-minute water taxi ride away, and since we've yet to even put our toes in the Caribbean we can't help but join in...

This island was so tropical it seemed fake. The waters were so blue and so clear, and the vegetation in some parts grew right up to the coast line. If it weren't for the mosquitoes, some might call this paradise.

Drew and Justin try out different poses for their first collaborative album. This is a choice pick.

Patacones!!! Wonderful greasy, golden medallions of pure crispy-starchy love. Thickly sliced unripe plantains, mashed, deep-fried, and lightly sprinkled with salt. This was our nightly snack at Restaurante Chitre for a mere 30¢ a serving. Más patacones, por favor!!!

Panama: Part 1

2011-08-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Some photos from Panama to satisfy the traveler in all of us...

Above Panama

Water taxis are the main mode of transportation from island to island. This was my first time simultaneously traveling by boat and viewing mountainous jungles from afar.

Our first ever living cacao fruit sighting in undisturbed rain forest near the property of Ventura, a very welcoming and knowledgeable member of the indigenous Gnobe tribe in Almirante. I really can't say enough good things about Ventura.

Justin fears not the poison dart frog! On the contrary, he is one of the leading researchers in the field. And don't worry, he knows how to hold them so he doesn't get poisoned. I kept my distance, though.

A bird of paradise flower about to burst open into fiery flames of red and orange petals.

Drew contemplates the likelihood of bringing home the unwelcome souvenir of dengue fever...

Ventura ventured off to collect some ripe ("maduro") cacao fruits from his property for us to drool over. You suck the white pulp off each individual cacao bean, relishing in its tart, citrusy, floral sweetness.

He then generously knocked down a coconut for each of us, and proceeded to hack off the tops of them for us to eat, drink, and be merry after an exhausting trek through the jungle. This was seriously THE most live-tasting food I've ever had! Delish!

Group shot with coconuts! From left: Henry (Justin's intern), moi, Drew, Justin, Ventura, and David (another researcher intern). Fun (albeit sweaty) day all around!!!

More to come...

PANAMANIA!

2011-08-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

On the path to the cloud forest...

Pipeline waterfall in Boquete. Absolutely humbling beauty.

Communing with the elder Cacao spirits...

We had an amazing time on our recent trip to Panama, and enjoyed a staggering shift in perspective.

We will be posting more pictures and some descriptions of our adventures traveling from the Carribean coast to the volcanic, western highlands of Panama in coming posts, but for now, we'll leave you with a few snapshots from our journey.

Ciao!

La Vie En Rose

2011-07-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

These beauties were just in time for my recent brush with the Saturn Return. I think next year might be it for sure, but it felt pretty close this year...

Perennial Oriental Lily

Chioggia Beets and Japanese Eggplant, ready for roasting with rosemary and thyme (sorry, parsley and sage).

July 2011 Food Forest Video Update!

2011-07-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

Garlic, harvested!

2011-07-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

We harvested all our garlic yesterday! This was a crop planted late last October, of cloves given to us by our good friends Zoe & Matt. We've been enjoying all aspects of this miracle vegetable since late spring, first with the scapes (stems with the buds), then with the flower heads, and soon onto the bulbs! Just about every part of this plant is edible, and it's a great store-able crop to have.

Here's a 2.5' x 2.5' garlic bed (we have one other) right before harvesting. There are still some scapes and flower heads that we hadn't gotten to yet, but we pinched off all the heads (that sounds way more gruesome than it actually was) and put them in a bowl in the fridge to add to salads and stir-fries. This bed produced over 50 bulbs of 12 different varieties of garlic. I planted the cloves closer to each other than recommended (about 3" apart), but only a small handful didn't sprout up. If you only have one square foot to garden, plant garlic! It's got antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, bug-repelling, vampire-repelling, immune boosting, heart-healthy properties. What more could you ask for in a single plant?

Harvest time! I referred to my dirt-covered, insane-looking map I drew last year to bundle and label like varieties. You want to harvest when almost all the leaves have died back. Make sure to pull them up on a dry day!

We then rinsed the dirt off them before laying them in the sun for an hour or so to dry. This is really the only time to do this, because after they're hung to dry and cure, you don't want to get them wet, or they'll get moldy.

Sunbathing before it's time to hang...

I didn't really know what I was doing when it came to actually hanging them, so this is was they look like in our garage (and boy, does our garage smell appetizing now!). I think the key is just making sure they're in a warm, dry place, able to be hung freely to completely dry. Traditionally the leaves are braided for drying and storage, but really, who has time for that? These will hang and cure for about 2 weeks, then we'll cut off the stalks and store the bulbs at room temperature (don't refrigerate them) in low humidity. They can keep for at least 6 months. Want to be more self-sufficient, more confident in self-healing, and make your dinner guests ooh and aah? Grow garlic!

Buttermilk [Sourdough] Pancakes

2011-07-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

This recipe was adapted from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book. She calls for freshly ground spelt, kamut, or whole wheat flour. I didn't heed that, but they turned out mighty tasty...

2 cups organic buckwheat flour
2 cups organic buttermilk (what I used), or yogurt or kefir
2 eggs, fresh from the farm, slightly beaten
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp melted grass-fed butter
organic coconut oil

Soak the flour in the buttermilk in a warm place overnight. Stir in the other ingredients. I found this consistency to be perfect, but add water if you need to. Cook on a hot cast iron skillet greased with coconut oil. Serve with grass-fed butter, fresh raw milk yogurt, honey, peaches, and blackberries if you want exactly what you see in the photo!

Mixed Berries and Wild Chicory

2011-07-07T03:54:00.000-07:00

Today's wild harvest:

Wild Chicory between our compost pile and woodshed

Wild Chicory grows happily in abundance along roadsides. You can recognize it by its many blue-violet flowers. I've tried to make bouquets with the lovely lavender beauties, but I've learned they only bloom in the mornings until early afternoon, then close up. And after picking, they rarely re-open. But the roots and leaves are edible! The leaves are a good addition to salads (I've yet to try this), and the roots can be cut and roasted for a coffee substitute. It's quite yummy-- I'm looking forward to making a brew with some raw jersey cream and a little maple sugar-- or better yet, adding some cacao and ice and blending it all together! Mmm... Take that, Mochalattefrappaccino!

Chicory roots harvested at our local spring. I took care to only dig up every few plants, to make sure these perennials will spread again next year.

Wild Blackberries on our mountain

And also today, on our way home from some errands, we dangerously pulled off the road when we spotted bushes bespeckled with red Wineberry jewels. We parked illegally on a blind curve (sorry Mom, we're fine!) and picked as many as we could in record time, with cars whizzing past. Some honked, but I think they were just really excited for us. I was sure we'd be covered in chiggers and ticks afterward (battle wounds, as I now see them, par for the course), but no! It had just rained, so no bugs! Wineberries are pretty much only good fresh, right from the bush. They make an excellent topping to fresh ice cream, adding a juicy burst of tartness and a crunchy kick from the tiny seeds inside. And blackberries are finally starting to pop up around the house! Yes!

July, 2011 in the Garden...

2011-07-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of three of our terraced raised beds. They are full-on vibrant and enchanting...

Pictures definitely can't do it justice, but here's an attempt to document our garden in early July. Green tomatoes are forming on the vine, we're harvesting daily squash, kale, chard and herbs, the few cabbages that haven't been eaten by moths are heading up nicely, unripe plums and figs are getting bigger by the day, shiny beetles have taken a liking to the Asian persimmon and bush cherry leaves, garlic scapes are on the verge of flowering, horseradish leaves are shading out the chives, deer occasionally prune our apple trees and patio peach (aaarrrrgh!) , birds are leaving enough mulberries for us to have an occasional snack, the okra and eggplant are producing their mysterious blooms, wild black raspberries and blackberries are about to ripen and overwhelm us, and blueberries are an amazing addition to the locally produced, grass-fed yogurt and cream we've been enjoying...

Here's a recent harvest of Chiogga Beets, Heirloom Carrots of some sort, Pattypan Squash, Swiss Chard, and Lovage.

The young ones are growing up so fast... Here's Peeper and her moms foraging in their new paddock/run.

Powdery blue amazingness.

There's a bumble bee exploring the malva (edible hollyhock) flowers.

Garlic scape and butterfly bush blooms.

Canteloupe!

Pattypan Squash!

Hearty Hibiscus about to flower...

Some sort of flowering allium. Also popular with the bees.

We've got to take care of this hornet's nest somehow, but they've made it clear they don't want any visitors...

... And the beginning of another.

2011-06-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

The solstice has come and gone, bringing with it a bundle of fresh greens, herbs, and veggies each evening.

Kale, Sorrel, Garlic scape tops, Patty-Pan squash, Zucchini

A male Goldfinch feasting on the seeds of a musk thistle (see the fuschia flower in the upper right?)

A harvest of Stinging Nettle, bundled and hung to dry (wear gloves or you'll feel the sting!). We're excited to try out nettle & walnut pesto this season.

Happy Summer!

The end of one season...

2011-06-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

In an explosion of blooms and berries!

A gift of blueberries and strawberries awaiting us on our doorstep.

Potato bloom

Red yarrow

Larkspur

Peony

Tsatsuma (citrus fruit)

Strawberries!!!

Farewell, Spring...

New Chocolate Bars!

2011-05-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to announce the addition of BARS to our Immortal Mountain chocolate line-up!!!

All three flavors (from left: Wolf Berry, Black Flower, & Wild At Heart) are now available in this format. They do still contain coconut oil for that oh-so-delightful truffley consistency, so keep in mind when ordering that they need to go right in your fridge when you receive them. We've found that the texture is absolutely perfect (like buttuh!) when you take it out of the fridge and bring it up to room temperature right before enjoying. Mmm... chocolate... why can't I get enough of this goodness???

And the other day I had to prune back our pineapple sage, which ended up making a lovely bouquet. The scent was intoxicating, it really smells like pineapple!

In the News!

2011-05-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

photo by Rich Cooley of Northern Virginia Daily

Drew and I had a blast last week with Laetitia and Rich from the Northern Virginia Daily when they visited us here on the mountain. We talked about our chocolate-making process, and couldn't resist showing them around our land and talking permaculture! Their article was released today, and you can view the complete online version here.

Arrangement of the week: roses and possibly(?) feverfew.

Maybelle and Juneberry show Peeper and Little Guy where the good stuff is.

Drew has completed the fourth raised terrace bed, and filled it with rich compost/manure. Now we have plenty of room for all the new plants we just got from Better Thymes' annual Herb Plant Sale! Our new allies include: valerian, southernwood, arnica, calendula, more sorrel, stevia, and bronze fennel.

Immortal Mountain Food Forest UPDATE!

2011-05-06T13:23:00.001-07:00

Just like last Spring, in 2011 the landscape is changing so rapidly and on a daily basis, its difficult to document our plant allies' conquest of that ever-shrinking lawn. But here's some photos from a walk about the grounds, taken a couple weeks ago...

Garlic!!!! With ten varieties crammed into a really small space, we'll see what happens when bulbs stop being polite and start getting REAL!

This is the South-facing slope on the East side of our house, where we just finished installing a fourth raised bed. Here's what it looked like with just three completed. This is our cinder block version of Machu Picchu, though I suspect the Inca wouldn't be all that impressed. As the backdrop of Virginia Wilderness continues to leaf out, and that all-encompassing greenness deepens, we can't wait to see what these terraced beds will look like later in the season, all planted-out with a combo of perennial and annual veggies.

Parallel to the terraced beds are some rustic raised beds with plum and hazelnut trees. They are surrounded by strawberries and various medicinal and culinary herbs like tansy, comfrey, and marjoram. Some annuals like kale and basil are plugged into the open spaces. We are trying to make all the nooks and crannies in our garden as bio-diverse as possible, and hopefully, therefore, stable and balanced. In an attempt to avoid an overpopulation of veg-eating pests (like the flea beetles we encountered on our brassicas last year!) the mantra "Security through Diversity" has guided our plantings this year, and we'll see where it leads us...

Terraced beds continue down the hillside and include rows of asparagus, blueberries and a couple "chaos garden" beds, where we direct sowed all manner of herbs and winter squash. We'll see how these fare throughout the season, with as little intervention as possible. Hopefully the swales (ditches dug into the hill on contour, just above the raised garden mounds) will collect all the water that the veggies will need, and slowly disperse it into the root systems, so we won't have to water this area much, if at all. The winter squash are already sprouting through a thick application of straw mulch, and we are eager to let the experiment unfold... In just one year, our garden has proven itself an invaluable teacher, and we eagerly await all the lessons to come.

In the spring of 2013, we'll celebrate passing through the Mayan calendar's end-date unscathed with a huge pile of asparagus that we'll finally be able to harvest! Waiting two years after planting the asparagus crowns seems like such a long time, but we made sure we'll have massive asparagus-abundance when the time comes, with 25 plants in the ground now...

Our raspberries are looking enthusiastic and eager to start making some fruits! Let's DO THIS!

The Nursery. We're going to try to find homes for all of our volunteer avocado seedlings this year. They may or may not fruit in 8 to 10 years (and if they do, its indefinite as to whether the fruits will be palatable), but they do make great indoor plants if you've got a sunny room and pets that won't attack your house plants... Any takers?!!! Email us!

We are ecstatic to announce that our fig trees made it through the winter with a little TLC (ie, wrapped in Ikea PVC-free shower curtains). Figs this year!!! ...Can't even describe the anticipation...

Pineapple Sage, sharing a large container with Stevia, both of which overwintered indoors and are coming in full-on right now. The electric red blossoms of the pineapple sage are supposed to be good hummingbird attractors, but those nectar-crazed avian types haven't discovered this guy yet. Our eyes are peeled and our windows are boarded up... those darned shifty hummers.... just can't trust 'em...

Here's a fun new pathway leading toward our front door, flanked by the likes of Agrimony and Motherwort (thanks to Donna's lovely herb sanctuary), two Honeyberries (early-fruiting berries!), a very young Smith's Best Persimmon tree, loads of flowering bulbs, three Bush Cherries, Catnip for the feline inhabitants of the Lodge, a Bonfire Patio Peach and a load of culinary herbs.

There I am, reaching out to the Patio Peach through an idyllic, Thomas Kincaid-ian morning haze (he does such AMAZING things with light, though... or...something....crickets) ANYway, that peach, she's a beauty, with her dark red leaves and amazing pink blossoms. As if the aesthetic nourishment she offers isn't enough, she's in the process of forming some little fuzzy peaches, too. Here you can also see the corner of a hobbit-style bench we made- a place to sit and watch those peaches grow, as the bees bumble on by.

The Spiral Garden! The two big green masses are Lovage and Sorrel, which are so easy to grow and allow for a huge harvest of greens EXTREMELY early in the season, which is such an awesome attribute if you live in a cold climate. They are both perennial and are exceptional tasting, culinary marvels. Lovage is like a wilder, more intense version of celery, and Sorrel is an incredibly unique-tasting green, with citrus-y overtones and a tender, soft texture. I don't yell demands at our readers very often, but i'm all worked up now and can't contain myself: GROW THESE HERBS!!!! They require such little care and effort, they can grow in the shade OR sun, they don't seem to get attacked by pests of any kind, and they make wonderful companion plants to the more common annual veggies...What else could you ask for? Populate your garden with low maintenance, gourmet varieties of plants like these, and you're well on your way to a self sustaining edible landscape!!!

Here is a small segment of a larger planting of trees and a variety of herbs. We're utilizing the "stacked functions" approach from permaculture in this area, and as the young plants grow, they will each begin to fill their own vertical niche. We finally got our hands on some nitrogen fixing shrubs, such as Autumn Olive and Silver Buffalo Berry, so they are planted between the higher nitrogen demanding trees (two Plums, an Asian Persimmon, and a Paw Paw), which will make up the future canopy in this area, food forest style!

GOJI BERRIES!!!!! Need I say more?

There is so much more to document, but I will stop here in an attempt to keep this post within the bounds of "mildly excessive." Throughout the season we will keep the photos coming (with some degree of regularity) and maybe even a video or two once things start getting really out of hand round here on tha garden tip.

NOW is definitely the time, so go plant something (ANYTHING!) and get amazed!

Gifts Large and Small

2011-05-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Spring is indeed the time for GIFTS and CHICKS...

Maybelle and Juneberry are very determined mothers. They haven't left the Chicken Cabin for weeks, spending all of their energy keeping their clutch of eggs warm and sitting upon the young ones when they get too cold. So far, two chicks have hatched and are quickly learning the ways of the mystical Realm of Chooks from the wise elders of the flock.

Peepers was the first chick to emerge from it's shell.

And here's Little Guy, poking it's head out from the downy underbelly of the hens.

Our garden is already offering us a generous harvest of greens and herbs.

And these majestic fungi have been graciously gifted to us from our mushroom growing and gathering friends.

Connie and Karin donated some swank green rain-barrels to the Immortal Mountain homestead, and their addition to our water harvesting strategy will be crucial as things get warmer and dryer heading into the summer.

Hugs of appreciation abound!

Spring is HERE!

2011-04-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Cadyn and I just returned from a trip to Georgia, and after being gone for two weeks, I am floored by the amount of growth that's happening around here. Before leaving it was a mad dash to get all the amazing plants into the ground that we'd been accumulating over the winter, and a massive order from OIKOS Tree Crops arrived just before I left, so it was a whirlwind four days of planting non-stop. In addition to new fruit trees and shrubs, there are so many awesome projects going on around here right now that its hard to keep updates flowing, but I will be posting a comprehensive Immortal Mountain food forest update in the coming week, and some really exciting news on the Immortal Mountain Chocolate front is about to drop as well. We recently did a tally of all the fruit/nut trees and shrubs we've planted since early 2010 and the count is around 88 or so, and we don't intend to slow down any time soon. It's so humbling to observe these fine beings evolve with us as we spiral through the narrowing vortex of time...

In other news, I've been working with fellow members of Circle Takes The Square (the band I play guitar and scream in), recording a multi-part concept album about compost called Decompositions: Volume I. We are in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to generate funds to finish up the project and release it ourselves ('cuz that traditional business model is simply DONE). You can check out the info HERE!

Cadyn's been hard at work finishing up a new line of gorgeous beaded jewelery, which she will be sharing photos of on her craft blog once they are completed later this week. Check out her artistry over at Life Embellished.

Gotta get back to the Great Work, but just wanted to make a quick post and a promise of more fun stuff to come in the very near future...

Love from the Lodge,
Drew S.

Cat in Bags

2011-03-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

It's the little things in life sometimes.

Almost there...

2011-02-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

Spring really wants to visit to our mountain:

Forsythia

Hazelnut

Plum

A fallen tree in our woods that I thought looked pretty.

I started making a fire pit for when the weather starts to warm up (see it on the left side?). Apparently I'm ready for spring, too.

A cardinal brings stark contrast to the monochrome backdrop.

And to end on a more colorful note, we were chocolate-making fiends for this past V-day! This is our Wild At Heart cacao. Mmm...

Guthrie's Clan

2011-01-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

We've gotten about twelve inches of snow in the past three days, so the silkies haven't been able to free range too much. Yesterday, however, Drew shoveled a walkway out to his car; today I let the chickens out to follow the white-carpeted path.

Guthrie ventures off the beaten path for a moment. Skeeter is the only one to follow.

Hope everyone is staying cozy and safe during these wintry days!

Wild At Heart Cacao... and a new WEBSITE!

2011-01-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

We're super excited to make two announcements:

We have a new chocolate flavor, just in time for St.Valentine's Day!

Wild At Heart cacao includes our very own Immortal Mountain-grown Holy Basil, along with freshly ground Hibiscus Flowers, and sweetened with pure Maple sugar, making this cacao good for your spirit, your heart... and of course, your loved ones! These yummy heart-shaped chocolates are individually wrapped in red foil. Buy them individually, or in a 4-square box!

On similar note, we've started an official WEBSITE to make ordering Immortal Mountain chocolates easier for everyone. It's kind of a work in progress, but we're excited to finally be getting it off the ground. And all four of our cacao flavors are available in the Apothecary shoppe, so check it out! If you are interested in getting any of our Cacao varieties in time for St.Valentine's Day, please let us know by February 7. Thanks, as always, for checking in. Have a great day!

Kraut Harvesting Time

2011-01-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

I think my two favorite gifts from the past holidays are a Jadeite funnel from my mom (what??! where did she ever find that gem?!!!) and a Korean kimchi crock from my mother-in-law. While Drew was away recently, I decided to put the crock to good use and started my first-ever batch of fermented sauerkraut. It was so much easier than I thought it would be!

Here's what I did so you can make your own: Purchased three heads of organic green cabbage (use any kind you'd like). Tore off the outermost leaves and chopped off the hard base/stem. Using a freshly sharpened chef's knife, I chopped one head at a time, pretty finely. I got out three big salad bowls and put one chopped head of cabbage in each bowl. I then added about three tablespoons of Celtic sea salt to each bowl (after tasting the final result, though, I'm going to decrease the amount of salt next time to perhaps 2 tablespoons per head).

I used a big spoon (you can use your hands if you want) to thoroughly mix the salt into the cabbage. Instead of massaging the cabbage to coax the water out of it, I took the lazy route and covered each bowl of salted cabbage with a tea towel and let them sit overnight. By morning time, the salt had drawn a significant amount of water out of the cabbage! I poured everything into the crock and used the bottom of a mason jar to pound the cabbage down until it was covered by its own liquid. I placed a wide, shallow bowl (use a plate if it fits) on top of the cabbage, into which I put a few heavy stones and a tightly sealed jar of water. All these will weigh the cabbage down, keeping it submerged in its own salt brine. Whatever stays beneath the brine will be naturally preserved, free from harmful bacteria (lactobacillus acidophilus always prevails!) or mold (unfortunately inevitable).

My crock came with a nice lid, so I put it on and placed the crock out of the way (yet prominently displayed!) for the next two weeks. I checked it every couple days for mold; according to everything I've read about making sauerkraut, when mold does appear, not to worry-- just scrape it off (gross, I know), and let the fermentation continue... everything under the brine will be perfectly OK. Magically, the sauerkraut was ready right when Drew came home!

Drew jarring up the precious kraut-- we'll be enjoying this bounty for a while!

Yay!!! Now go make your own!

Snowfall and Westerly

2011-01-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight marks the fourth snowstorm this winter here in the northern Virginia mountains. It's snowing as I type this. The fire is going steady downstairs, the chickens are snug in their cabin, and The Darjeeling Limited keeps me company while my husband is down in coastal Georgia recording his second full-length album. Check out Circle Takes the Square's blog here.

Over the holidays, Drew and I spent (too short a) time with his dad and aunt at their beach house in Rhode Island, then made a mad dash on Christmas Eve to Coudersport, Pennsylvania to (again, too quickly) visit with my extended family.

Westerly, RI

A Moon Bathed in Shadow

2010-12-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

What a powerful event to witness, and viewable with the naked eye from our precarious perch here on planet earth. Viewing the eclipse last night was not only visually beautiful, but it gave me an unexpected sense of balance by which i felt somewhat overwhelmed. The realization that three massive planetary bodies were aligning in such a way to create, for a fleeting moment, symmetry in this constantly transient, spiraling universe was a staggering one for me. Things felt, briefly, stable. And just when i was finally getting used to the whirlwind of flux and flow, with its little reminders embedded in everything.

So, the Winter Solstice has arrived with the Full Moon and the earth's Shadow in tow- not hidden away, but unpacked and on display for everyone to see. With Archetypes like these at play, what do you think ol' C.G. Jung would have to say? Could it be that 2011 will be the year to start pulling out some of the baggage we've buried away, to dive in and root around a bit... if not just to take inventory- maybe there's something of value in there we've been neglecting, and it might be a good time to reacquaint.

The weather this fall has been merciful compared to last year, but we got our first snowfall last week of a few inches. Lovely to return home to a blanket of snow gently draped over this landbase that we love... We'll see what the winter has in store for us as we lay down our first footprints at the trailhead of a new year.

Enjoy the Solstice, friends, and thanks as always for checking in.

Signed,
The Immortal Mountaineers

All wrapped up.

2010-12-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

We got our first dusting of snow on the ground this morning! The wind was whirling it around, and looking out the windows made me feel like I was inside my own personal snow globe. Drew and I (mainly Drew) finished readying our land for the winter just in time.

According to a local fig expert (whose family heirloom fig trees got the royal treatment of being wrapped in carpets when he was living in New York), wrapping them with plastic tarps (or in our case, PVC-free shower curtains from IKEA) should protect them from the harsh winter winds. He said that it's not actually the snow, or even the temperature alone that prevent young fig trees from future fruit-bearing; in fact, it's the cold winds. We tied pieces of twine around them, and placed a couple heavy rocks at the base to prevent the bottom of the plastic from flying up.

This is a small bed we prepared back in October when we planted garlic cloves from our friends Zoe and Matt. We then piled about six inches of straw mulch on top for the winter.

This bed is up against the chicken run, housing two grapevines from Edible Landscaping.

Lastly, Drew finished another bed that runs along the north side of the house. We plan on planting tons of culinary herbs here in the spring!

Horseradish, Harvested!

2010-11-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

Our first planting, here at Immortal Mountain, was a tiny horseradish plant we purchased at the Sunflower Cottage's annual herb sale last year. If I can recall, I believe we bought it before we were even officially living in our house! The poor thing stayed in its little pot on the front porch for a couple weeks until we were able to plant it in what would become our perennial herb garden on the west side of the Lodge. This spring we planted a few more baby horseradishes in our raised Pirate Ship bed.

After reading that horseradish is best harvested in November, in its second year, we decided to go out and dig up our first batch today...

We loosened the earth around the base of the stems with a shovel. We had the option of allowing some to stay in the ground to continue to spread, but we dug it all up. Drew broke off small bits from each root and planted them around the other horseradishes in the Pirate Ship bed. Our plan is to convert that bed into mainly root crops next year, to include ground nuts, Jerusalem artichokes, turnips, and, if I'm brave enough, another round of purple potatoes... We'll see if the new little horseradishes will take!

They each look like they have different personalities! This is what the horseradish roots looked like after breaking the leaves off and rinsing them, before storing them in the fridge.

Garden Update: November

2010-11-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's a gnome. Stealing a miniature pumpkin, no less, in front of one of our rain barrels.

Here are some pictures of what it looks like in November in and around our gardens...

Chooks! Here's our motley flock of Silkies, enjoying a shady corner in their run. The fearless white rooster, Guthrie, leads the charge.

Roses still in bloom in our herb and Goji Berry bed, fed by a rain barrel and soaker-hose system we rigged up this summer.

One of three Goji Berry plants- lots of growth on these beauties since we planted them in July. Some marjoram in the background.

Saffron Crocus!!! These are starting to bloom around our Plumcot tree. If you look closely you'll see that we're not the only species who enjoys these lovelies...a small insect is making himself at home on one of the petals.

We're attempting to cultivate some wild Prickly Pear cactus that we came across on an embankment in the forest. These are native, fruit-bearing succulents, and extremely drought resistant, apparently. So we'll see if they take to the sunny spot by our Blueberries.

Mustard Greens are coming in pretty strong in our Pirate Ship raised bed, in front of a backdrop of retired tomato plants.

New stone planting bed with three Raspberry plants and a heavy application of straw mulch for the winter.

Our Princess Diana Juneberry, still clinging to a few of her red-orange leaves, and a long tentacle of Nasturtiums behind her, hanging close to the warm wall of the house to gain some leverage in the cooler temps.

These hardworking heirloom Nasturtiums have been blooming faithfully since June. Here's a wilted flower next to a new bloom that survived the recent freeze.

Stinging Nettles! Spreading and growing soooo fast since we planted them. We're completely excited to have them as part of our family here at the Lodge, as they're such a powerful medicine AND food!

Swiss Chard, French Sorrel (an awesome and very resilient perennial green) and Lovage- a perennial herb that has a similar taste to celery, but much more intense (from front to back). This is in the Urbanite Spiral, which features some other culinary herbs as well, and a Joy Bush Cherry in the center.

Donna's Garden

2010-11-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Drew and I jumped at the opportunity this week to visit a fellow gardener's home in northern Virginia's Rappahannock County. Donna la Pré (Field and Flower) has three acres of beautifully arranged garden beds and pathways. She graciously gave us the grand tour, explaining how she intuitively landscapes her diverse collection of flowers, herbs, and fruit trees (of both native and exotic descent). Donna's intuitions are deeply rooted in conversations with elemental energies/beings, and their guidance has certainly helped her to create a unique and incredibly gorgeous space of love. She periodically gives workshops on topics such as Hoophouse Gardening and Beneficial Insects, so keep an eye out for her flyers in local establishments (like Better Thymes in Front Royal) as well as on her website!

Hoophouse #2 (#1 is on the left). In here, Donna grows all her baby salad greens that keep her in fresh supply all winter. The hoophouse has also been known to temporarily shelter creatures passing through, including a snake, salamanders, and a raccoon!

Donna guides us toward the potting shed she designed herself. The floor of the English-country style shed is made of bricks she helped to lay; it acts as a sponge, soaking up thermal and solar heat during these cold days.

There were still some blooms to be seen throughout the gardens.
Her many outdoor beds are mainly based around perennial polycultures, consisting of forage plants for birds and insects and medicinal plants for human use. It was enlightening to see a successful system where annual veggies are inter-planted among the sea of diverse and multi-functional perennial plants.
Donna utilizes biodynamic techniques in her compost creation, which definitely seem to be working wonders in nourishing the staggeringly eclectic landscape that she stewards.

Donna had this little house made to fit over her well pump near the base of a huge crabapple tree. The tin roof is actually crafted from flattened coffee cans! I envy the creatures that get to call this home...

Visit my other blog, www.LifeEmbellished.blogspot.com, to learn about Donna's artistic creations, and about her upcoming open studio nights next month!

Behold: The Wild Persimmon!

2010-11-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

First for the bad news....
We didn't get to say goodbye to our acquaintance, the Elderberry shrub, from which we gratefully harvested our first elderberries this summer. A road construction crew came through and leveled the roadside on which it grew. Cadyn noticed on her way to work one morning and her eyes welled up with tears.
We'll miss you dearly, Elderberry!

(August 2010)

(November 2010)

Many goodbyes lately- but as if to balance out our losses, we came across a very wise old tree on Halloween. A native Persimmon tree! And bearing enough ripe fruit to share with us and as many deer in the valley who want in on it.

This gentle soul has seen it all, a fact made clear just from the experience of eating these lovely little orange gems.

Though it's fruits aren't as big as the store bought varieties, each persimmon is loaded with five huge seeds, which means they're brimming with fertility, and loaded with life-force (yep, i said it). We're collecting as many seeds as possible so we can try to grow some seedlings in the spring. Our vision for the land surrounding our home is to cultivate and encourage native, food-bearing plants within the forest itself. The wild persimmon (which is indigenous to many states in the U.S.) is a perfect variety of tree to introduce into our surrounding woodlands, as it provides food for two leggeds like us, and other foraging mammals, and shelter in its formidable canopy- great for winged creatures (other than chickens).

Cadyn has recently noted how prevalent the color orange is this time of year. Squash, pumpkins, leaves and persimmons. If you are on the hunt for some wild persimmons right now, in November, here are two pieces of advice: Look for large, leafless trees that appear, from a distance, to be decked out in mysterious, orange and globular ornaments. Fairly easy to spot. And when eating, go for the softest, most weathered looking fruits possible, as they will be the tastiest. I mean pulp basically falling out of the skin.

Go find a Persimmon tree...

Seriously!

P.S. Check out Cadyn's jewelry and craft blog for some pics of her newest line of Fungi-inspired handiwork:

Life Embellished!

First Frost

2010-11-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

On November 2nd we woke up to the first frost on this tilted mountainside that we inhabit. The folks at a slightly lower elevation have reported a few milder frosts already, but this was the first of the year here at the Lodge, and a vigilant one at that. So we bid farewell to our annual allies- the great vegetal teachers and gift givers who comprised our initiatory garden. I thanked the weary stalks and crestfallen leaves of our frostbitten companions while gathering what leaves and fruits remained, in an honorary, final harvest. They will be missed, but we know the progeny of these heirloom plants will return in the coming years... maybe as volunteers springing from the compost in our heavily top-dressed garden beds, or perhaps intentionally sown from the seeds that Cadyn fermented, dried and stored for future propagation.

The nasturtiums have dropped loads of seeds under their radar shaped leaves. Here, the satellite-dish foliage catches gemstones or pearls or water droplets, finally falling from the sky with a bit more frequency these days.

Parting gifts from our first garden.

One of four Juneberries that we planted in early October. This is a cultivar called Regent, whose leaves first turned to crimson, then orange, and have since begun to drop. We are looking forward to digging deeper into the Sarvisberry lore, and developing our relationship with them. Their heritage is rich, and their range is vast. Their wild cousins inhabit nearby forests, though we've yet to come across any in the local landscape. Our eyes are peeled...

Recent travels took us to Scranton, PA where Matt and Zoe prepared some beautiful eats from their amazing garden, and showed us around the lovely oasis they've created. We also sampled some of their potent and well-aged ferments (such as wildcrafted Reishi-Chaga kombucha, and some intense pear meade). Matt's a baker (read about his Mockingbird Bakery here) and guitar shredder (Nimbus Teriffix), among many other things. Check out Zoe's Pearled Earth blog immediately... right here.

They, generously, sent us home with 13 different varieties of garlic to plant. Cadyn did so promptly upon our return to the IML....

On a related note, an abundance of Sacred Fungi have been falling into our laps lately thanks to our gracious and tuned-in friends. Matt hooked us up with the mother load of Chaga and two nice specimens of Ganoderma Tsugae that he foraged. And Rob from Earthworks Gallery flowed us some Shiitakes that he grows on oak logs, and an extremely informative book devoted entirely to the folklore and medicinal properties of Reishi Mushrooms.

Above is a jar of Turkey Tails that we foraged, among the many gifts from our Mushroom benefactors.
Below are some Oysters we encountered recently, which flourish abundantly around here in the fall.

Just another stop on the long and winding road of Recapitulation...
Here i am, October 14th, soaking up some inspiration on Rocky Neck, an art colony perched over a wind-blown cove in Gloucester, MA. An old haunt and i hold it in high regard.
It was important to return.
This wheat-pasted woodcut blew my mind.
Adamski-style saucer and everything. Amazing.
Double click for clarity (if you dare).

In spite of our recent walkabouts and blog neglect, things around here continue to progress. As the majority of our perennial plant companions are beginning to go into dormancy, our horticulture-based projects are shifting gears this fall to include more hardscaping and earthworks, with a focus on creating a more efficient water catchment plan and the creation of more raised beds for use in the spring. More on these projects and our recent plantings (lots of fun new trees and shrubs and medicinal herbs are in the ground!) in upcoming posts...
!
-andrew S

A Trip Across the Country

2010-11-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

When family calls...

I fly across the country to answer. Last month, I made a split-second decision to fly out to Portland, OR to help my sister move out of her apartment. And then drive back to the east coast. We were on the road for four straight days...

Day One. Pepe (the feathers from the peacock that wants to be adopted by my parents) had to travel up front with us, on the dashboard. It was the only place he would be safe.

Portland is so green, and not just in the eco-sense of the word.

The beach two hours north of Portland (where they just happened to shoot scenes from The Goonies and Twilight). When I first laid eyes on this scene, my brain physically couldn't accept the sheer beauty before me. I had never been awestruck like this before.

Moi.

Isadora.

I yelled for Isadora to pull over so I could snag a photo of this Hobbit-like garden fence.

So there really IS an end to the rainbow! And can you see the second rainbow that formed beside it?

'Nuf said.

The Badlands. I half-expected to see the Roadrunner. Oy, I watched too many cartoons as a kid.

Prairie dogs!!!

An early breakfast of homemade sourdough waffles with friends in Louisville.

Apparently in Louisville, people put things they no longer want out on the curbside on certain "trash" days. My friends scored these now treasured crocks.

You'd think that after four straight 15-hour days of driving, we wouldn't be able to sit any longer, let alone spend one more second together. Think again. I took one more day off work to veg out with Isadora and Harry Potter, making garden-fresh fried green tomatoes and homemade rosemary focaccia. Yum... I love having Isadora as my sister! Take the time to deeply appreciate family and loved ones as often as you can, even if it's just having a Harry Potter marathon. Trust me, you won't regret it.

Introducing...

2010-09-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

Juneberry and Skeeter Davis!!!

The newest additions to our family. June (rear) and Skeeter Davis (front) came from a loving family in Berkeley Springs, WV. They are both Silkie hens, however Skeeter Davis is considered a "bearded" Silkie, as she has a puffball of furry feathers on either side of her beak. One of the daughters that raised her proudly informed us as we were deciding which Silkies to get, "And I just washed her beard this morning!" The family also raises goats, and last night we were fortunate enough to see the new babies! It took all my willpower to walk away without a new goat, too. As for Drew's mom and I, we did walk away with a plate of homemade goat cheese and a belly full of fresh goat milk.

On another note, our house is being invaded. By stinkbugs. These are no native species. They are an invasive species from China that are attacking every homeowner in our area that I've talked to. They look like ancient insects wearing miniature suits of camouflage armor. They are terrible at flying, bumping into anything and everything in their way. They are, however, terrific at landing. They fly at an incredible speed at anything light-colored, and stick to it. They are attracted to white house siding, light bulbs, and dark crevices where they will eventually hibernate and literally go into "suspended animation" until spring. Ugh. And the worst part? Their smell. They're not called stinkbugs for nothing. If you handle them, they leave you with a parting gift of a stench that can only be described as moldy cilantro that doesn't wash off immediately. And, they leave this lovely smell all over your house so that they can find your house (and tell all their friends and family) the following year to hibernate all over again. Last year, when we first moved in, I painstakingly captured them in jars and released them into the wild. I think I inadvertently contributed to the mass numbers we're now seeing. This year is different. The vacuum cleaner is my weapon of mass destruction. The frustrating thing is, as I move from room to room with the vacuum cleaner hose, sucking up these nasty buggers, that by the time I get back to the first room, there are MORE than when it started! How is this possible?! So far, because this is such a new species to our area, there are no known predators for these beasts.

I wanted to leave you with a happier note:

Cayenne pepper and pear and Sunset tomato harvest!!!

Weekend at Monticello

2010-09-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, Drew and I went over to the grounds at Monticello (former home to Thomas Jefferson) in Charlottesville, VA. I had only ever read about Monticello in my art history classes, so I was excited to see it in person! Jefferson was really keen on introducing and propagating foreign plant species into his garden. And as if this weren't reason enough for a Saturday drive down for a visit-- this weekend in particular happened to be their annual Heritage Harvest Festival! Regional vendor tents, medicinal herb walks (which unfortunately turned out to be kind of wack), permaculture lectures, cheese & fruit tastings... We had to use our time wisely, and before we knew it the last bus back to the parking lot was loading up!

A view from above of part of the gardens. The people who now run Monticello are trying hard to keep it as it was in his day.

A view of the house.

There was a wall-- literally, a wall!-- of fig trees! Too bad we just missed fig season...

A view down a pathway of grapevines.

One of many, many apple trees.

Drew's dirty hobbit feet by the end of the day.

One of Drew's prize purchases: a nice, big comfrey plant. We also got two baby stinging nettles to add to our medicine garden.

Food Forest Progress: Before & During....

2010-09-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

We figured it was time to show off some before and after photos of our food forest landscape. The photos range from before we even moved in (March 2009) to our most recent ones of August 2010. Here goes...

Side slope before building the raised cinder block bed (its pirate ship name is the Immortal Marauder).

In progress...

Sprouts popping up!

Full bloom: exploding with heirloom tomatoes & summer squash.

Somber pre-Hobbit Bed days.

Yay! Hobbit Bed!

Full bloom: tomatoes, cucumbers, and nasturtiums overflow.

Beginnings of the culinary herb garden: Horseradish in foreground, hydrangea, chives, oregano, winter sage, mint.

See how it grows!

Full bloom: It didn't take long for the horseradish, oregano, and mint to take over.

Before any chicken run existed, let alone a Chicken Run Bed.

Beginning stages...

Full bloom: In front, mostly flowering plants to attract insects (chrysanthemum, echinacea, nasturtiums, and giant zinnias). Behind the egg sign, a mulberry tree takes root, surrounded by annual vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, marigolds, and basil).

Some days, the harvest is a little disappointing. This was my much anticipated purple potato harvest. Maybe the hobbits would like them.

Other days, we get more things than we know what to do with! (I've been experimenting with little success making pickles, and with more success dehydrating sliced tomatoes.)

Time to go sow some Fall crops. Now that the flea beetles are dwindling, along with other pests, it may be a good time to try some of the following:

-Broccoli Raab

-Spinach

-Radish

-Arugula

-Leek

-Various Lettuces

-Mustard Greens

-Turnip

Off to the garden!

A Visit to Georgia

2010-09-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

My parents are fortunate enough to have a dock to call their own, overlooking a community marsh cove. Right now their dock is harboring an alligator fugitive... if any of the other neighbors find out, it will get taken away by animal control, so for now it's their little secret.

On my recent trip down to visit Mom and Dad, I did not get to have the pleasure of meeting said fugitive. I did, however, get to meet Pepe the Peacock. Pepe lives in an assumed petting zoo of sorts, outside the perimeter of my parents' neighborhood. For some reason, Pepe has of late taken a liking to hanging out on their porch, eating birdseed, pacing, observing, and sometimes gazing longingly into my parents' living room. He has yet to invite himself in, but we think it's only a matter of time.

Cats are funny.

2010-09-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Felino (left) & Phineas (right)

A Tribute to Emmylou

2010-08-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Emmylou

May 6, 2007 - August 27, 2010

In Drew's words:

I put [into her resting spot] some papaya, kale, sunflower seeds, a feather of Lucinda, Loretta, and Guthrie, a few crystals and special rocks in a pouch, and a rose from her favorite flower bed to dig in (which always drove me crazy), for her to take along with her on her journey. I told her how much she would be missed and Guthrie said goodbye in his own special way, too.

She was such a great chicken and of course our memories of her will stay with us indefinitely. I loved when she sat on our laps in the passenger seat during car rides, eating kale and mulberries. She was truly the Queen of Immortal Mountain, always quick to take whatever tasty bugs she wanted (often at the behest of her very polite sisters), and never afraid to do her own thing.

I also remember that the day Lucinda, Loretta and Emmylou arrived in the mail in their little box, she was the first one to figure out how to eat and never looked back, becoming the top of the pecking order in the process. Even in her last couple of days, as tired as she was, if she spotted a cricket she would lunge after it, taking Cadyn and I (and the unsuspecting cricket) by surprise.

I'll always remember the sounds she would make, whether it was the cute mutterings to herself while pecking around, or the eardrum piercing shrieks she'd belt out with pride after laying an egg, almost getting us in trouble with the law at our apartment in Brunswick.

She was so great, as were her sisters, and I'm sure that they are together now, embarking on a new adventure- probably in a magical land where there's never a lack of papayas and kale and crickets. She has arrived at peace here, and moved on to a new, beautiful place.

We will miss you, Emmylou. You'll always be in our hearts.

Garden Update: August

2010-08-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

We've had a long drought here in Virginia, but it finally broke recently with a few rainstorms last week, and a HUGE thunderstorm today! Of course we had to go out and play in it... Here are some recent pics from the Immortal Mountain Garden:

Drew planted some raw sunflower seeds to see if they would sprout.

These tomato bushes (or should I say trees?) are officially taller than either of us!

A view of the Hobbit bed, with Holy Basil in the foreground and a cucumber vine growing up the hand-made trellis.

A bird's eye view of our future avocado grove.

A plant's eye view of the Chicken Run bed. Squash in foreground, multiple annual veggies abound!

A day's harvest.

This garden has been such a learning experience for us. While we've lost a couple plants here and there, most things have been really productive. It's been a lot of work: hornworm hunting (ugh, shudder) twice a day, watering during droughts, planting fruit trees, removing chickens from vegetable beds... There are some things we'll do differently next year (like maybe planting more wildflowers for our bees, spacing tomatoes a little further apart from each other, and caging them EARLY), but some things we'll definitely do again (heavy biodiversity seems to have saved a lot of our tomatoes from getting completely destroyed by the hornworms; planting borders of sage, rosemary, and lavender around annuals helps keep the deer at bay).

All in all, it's more than worth it. To only have to buy a couple things from the grocery store, to taste the most amazing pickles from your own cucumbers, and homegrown heirloom tomatoes make store-bought ones look like something other than food. Even if you just have a patio or a fire escape to work with, make a small raised bed, or use a big galvanized bucket to grow a miniature biodiverse salad garden (nasturtiums are so easy, and are quite happy planted next to a tomato and some basil...). You'll never look back.

Elderberry Time

2010-08-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

August is Elderberry harvesting time here in Zone 6! You'll find elderberry bushes in the woods, but especially growing along roadsides. They love it there for some reason. Or, if you're like us, you'll be planting some along the fence in front of your house!

Elderberries have myriad uses (am I using that word correctly? I never know), and many parts of the plant are beneficial-- most commonly the flowers and berries. The flowers can be used to make a tea to boost the immune system during cold and flu season, while the berries (also great as an immune tonic) are known for making jams, syrups, and wine.

Elderberry bushes are known as the "Tree of Witches," and folklore tells us that they don't get struck by lightning in thunderstorms. But don't go stand under one in a storm because I said anything!

While at Edible Landscaping last week, Drew and I purchased four different types of Elderberry bushes, in addition to one we already owned. Our first is called a Nova, a self-fertile variety.

Drew using Hugelkultur-inspired techniques to plant our new Elderberry guild! He built the planters out of log fragments and covered them with straw mulch to keep moisture in the soil. In a couple years when they've grown, we'll have Elderberries hanging over our fence line!

I then told Drew that those possible Elderberry bushes we saw flowering last month on my commute route looked like they were dripping with berries now! So last Saturday on the way to the Farmers' Market, we pulled off the busy road to investigate, mason jars in hand, just in case. What do we have here, but 3 giant black Elderberry bushes ripe with fruit, and no one taking advantage of this?! We soon filled 4 jars with ripe, purple-black clusters of berries...

One of three Elderberry bushes, sandwiched between a railroad (behind) and a busy street.

When harvesting Elderberries, pinch off the entire cluster at a time.

On the way to the Farmers' Market we sampled a few of the just-picked berries. A little bland, somewhat tart and bitter. When we got home, I started researching what in the world we should do with all these berries. Freeze them for smoothies? How hard would it be to make them into wine? Could we just eat them as is? I soon became disheartened with the answers to all these questions. Here is what I learned:

1. The wine would take at least 6 months to make, and it requires "wine yeast." Not an option right now, as I also learned it is best to use them the same day they are picked.

2. The berries must be cooked, they cannot be eaten raw. Great. We had just eaten a few! Would they kill us now?

3. No, it turns out eating a couple is just fine, but no more than that. Why? They contain cyanide, and heating them cooks this out. Eating large quantities of raw berries will make you throw up.

4. Jam? Probably really tasty, but requires a LOT of sugar.

5. Syrup? Also a lot of sugar.

I came to the conclusion that this first Elderberry experience would be experimental. I took a little from everything I learned and came up with my own recipe: ready-to-throw-in-a-smoothie 100% Elderberry juice ice cubes, no sugar added! Here is what you need to do:

Pick berries off stems as best you can (this is next-to-impossible, but you'll be straining them later, so a few stems are OK). I found that combing through them with a fork worked well.

Rinse in bowl of cold water. Strain.

Dump all berries in a big pot. We probably had about a gallon's worth.

Heat on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. The berries will turn from purple-black to reddish-purple once they're all cooked. And they will smell like cherry pie.

Remove from burner and use something to mash them up (I used the bottom end of a glass jar).

Spoon into a strainer positioned over a bowl, and push through with spoon to release the juice. Discard pulp as you go.

Pour syrup into ice cube trays and place in freezer. When you need an immune system boost, just pop one out and blend it with some spring water, lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cayenne pepper for a revitalizing treat!

The thing about eating figs all day...

2010-08-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

... is that if you eat so many that all your teeth fall out, at least you won't need them to finish eating the rest of your figs.

Until I met Drew, the only fig I had ever claimed to have tasted had the surname Newton. Then one evening, he was eating an odd-shaped fruit from a pint-sized container purchased at the local Publix. "What's that?" I asked so innocently. And I never looked back. So tender, almost sickeningly sweet and sticky inside, with the tiny, crunchy seeds I remembered from those shadowed days of fig cookies...

It turned out our family friend living on Tybee Island, GA had a fig tree in her back yard! Come August each year we were living in Savannah, she tempted us to come pick from her tree. But for some reason, the timing never worked out, so we sadly lost out each year.

Then we moved to Brunswick, GA. Upon moving, we took a walk around our live oak-lined streets, down the alleys, exploring our new neighborhood. Lo and behold, we came across a fig tree hanging generously over a backyard fence-- out into the alley! It was just asking us to taste some of its forbidden fruits, and taste we did...

We are now growing four fig trees: a Hardy Chicago, a Black Mission, and two Brown Turkeys. One of the Brown Turkeys was a gift from my mom (our first, and the only one currently bearing fruit). The other, along with the Black Mission, were purchased end-of-season at Lowe's for next to nothing. The Hardy Chicago (ironically a bare stick right now, due to our confusing its natural season chronology) we got at Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA.

Last weekend, Drew and I hiked White Oak Canyon, and went swimming under the Upper Falls!

We then hit up Edible Landscaping to spend some of our wedding gift certificates... For our food forest, we bought:

4 kinds of Elderberry (native: Johns, Adams, Golden; European: Black Lace)

1 Regent Juneberry

2 hardy Russian Kiwis (one male, one female)

2 kinds of Persimmon (native: Smith's Best; Asian: Sheng)

It turns out Smith's Best is named after J. Russell Smith, one of the first permaculturists, popularizing the term. The crazy thing is, his last home (and where Smith's Best Persimmons were found) was right in Front Royal, VA! According to the handy-dandy Wikipedia:

"In 1929, Joseph Russell Smith took up the term as the subtitle for Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, a book in which he summed up his long experience experimenting with fruits and nuts as crops for human food and animal feed. A revised and updated edition was published in 1950. Smith observed, 'Forest -- field -- plow -- desert -- that is the cycle of the hills under most plow agricultures... When we develop an agriculture that fits this land, it will become an almost endless vista of green, crop-yielding trees.' Smith saw the world as an inter-related whole and suggested mixed systems of trees and crops underneath."

I fell in love with their organization systems in the greenhouses.

Sigh.

Making Fresh Goat Cheese

2010-07-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

I LOVE goat cheese! Now that I have that out of my system, I thought I'd share with everyone my recent experience making it. It combines some experimentation, some words of wisdom from Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation, and a little from a recipe I found on the internet.

Here were my conditions for awesome goat cheese:

1. It had to taste amazing, of course.

2. I wanted to make it using sea salt (most commercial brands just list "salt" in the ingredients).

3. Including fresh herbs from the garden was a must.

4. I wanted it to be good for me!

This last condition is inherent, since goat milk is already way easier to digest than cow's milk. In fact, many lactose-intolerant folks can happily enjoy goat milk products! It also has less fat and more calcium, which may or may not be a good thing. And, according to Premium Choices' website, "Goat milk fat contains a much greater proportion of short and medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) than cow milk fat. The uniquely beneficial effects of these MCTs are protection against disease and stimulation of the immune system."

Using unpasteurized goat milk direct from a farm is best, since it will be fresher and will retain its digestive enzymes. I was unable to get raw goat milk for this batch, so I used a pasteurized version from Trickling Springs Creamery. However, I wanted to bring it back to life, so to speak, using readily available probiotic capsules. Here is what I did, and what you will need to make your own:

Ingredients:

1 gallon fresh goat milk

1/4 cup raw apple cider vinegar

4 probiotic capsules (available at health food stores; mine contained multiple lacto- and bifido- strains)

cheesecloth

kitchen thermometer

small towel

colander

whisk

ladle

large pot

tall bowl or pitcher

wooden spoon or stick

2 tsp sea salt

fresh herbs, finely chopped (optional)

1. Pour milk into large pot on stove. Gently bring up to 100°F. Remove from heat.

2. Open up probiotic capsules and empty contents into pot, discarding capsules. Stir.

3. Cover pot with lid, leaving the smallest crack for air. Wrap a kitchen towel around the pot to insulate it. Let sit overnight. This will activate the probiotics, which will begin to multiply, thriving from the sugars in the milk.

4. Remove lid and towel. Gently bring milk back up to 100°F. Remove from heat, add cider vinegar slowly while mixing with whisk. Mix until the milk curdles: the whey will sink to bottom, while the curds will rise to the top.

5. Fold cheesecloth into a few layers and use it to line colander. Place colander in sink. Using ladle, skim off all curds into colander. Save the whey for future fermenting recipes, protein shakes, etc., or feed it to your plants!

6. After most of the whey has drained off of the curds (leaving them in cheesecloth, in colander), add sea salt and herbs. Mix thoroughly.

7. Bring up corners of cheesecloth and tie into knot around the middle of a wooden spoon/stick. Gently lift up and place bundle o'curds into a tall bowl or container. Rest spoon on top so the curds can continue to drip into container. Make sure the bottom of cheesecloth is a couple inches above the bottom of container to drip properly. The salt will work overnight, continuing to drain the curds of any remaining whey.

8. Place somewhere away from any pets or insects (I put mine under my kitchen sink) and let drip overnight. This also allows the probiotics to work longer.

9. Put cheese into an airtight container and refrigerate. Keep it there for a couple days before tasting it.

10. Enjoy your fresh-as-can-be goat cheese!

After adding cider vinegar, curds separate from the whey.

Ladling off the curds.

Curds draining in cheesecloth-lined colander.

After mixing in sea salt and herbs.

Bundle of cheese in cheesecloth, hanging from wooden spoon.

Fresh herb goat cheese!

Virginia Wolf? I don't think so!

2010-07-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is Charlotte, one of many, many grass spiders living around Immortal Mountain. Although she may resemble a wolf spider, she is in fact a grass spider (or as we like to call them Funnel Spiders). They weave webs that are not sticky, like most webs, but rather a very strong funnel. It seems as though this time of year, almost every nook and cranny contains a white funnel, which upon closer inspection is made up of hundreds of thousands of intricately spun warps and wefts. We love spiders! They keep all those other nasty little buggers in check.

Charlotte is expecting...

Yay! Congratulations, Charlotte!

Sweet Rewards

2010-07-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

We got bees!!! My aunt Sally and her boyfriend, Todd, have a farm in northern Pennsylvania (where Drew and I recently got married). Their wedding gift to us was (drumroll, please) a starter set of bees, complete with an extra super, a brand new bee suit, and gloves! Drew and I are ecstatic to have these new additions to our family here at Immortal Mountain. We had to carefully consider where we were going to put the hive: it had to be high enough so a bear wouldn't get it, far enough away from our daily outdoor activities so that we don't get stung, yet easy enough to access for harvesting the honey. Hmm... how 'bout the roof? I've never heard of anyone beekeeping on their roof before, but it seemed the logical solution. We placed it on a part of the roof that hangs fairly low over the deck, easy enough to access with a standard ladder from the deck. The opening that the bees fly out of faces away from the deck and house. We don't know yet whether Drew is allergic to bees, so for now I'm happily the family Beekeeper.

A garden bed outside the chicken run. We have two more beds inside the run, along with some potted tomatoes and squash, and a mulberry tree in the center of it all.

Drew behind the mulberry tree in the biodynamic chicken run garden.

Guthrie (white silkie rooster) woos Emmylou (black silkie hen).

We found this little box turtle behind our rainwater barrel!

A typical evening's harvest: kale, blackberries, fava beans, cucumbers, sorrel, basil, sage, and nasturtium flowers.

Yum!!! (It's hard to save the cukes for pickling...)

I'll leave you with this lovely number: A bumblebee (not one of our honeybees) making love to our zinnia.

July Garden Update: Drought!

2010-07-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Summer's in full swing, and unusually dry heat abounds. I've been in our sweatlodge of an office doing battle with photoshop for what feels like an eternity, but i'm getting out to water (with vortexed Thalassa and powdered-kelp-based preparations) and to encourage all of our plant friends as much as possible. For almost three weeks we've had temps in the high 90's-100's and no rain whatsoever, so some proactive garden TLC has been very important in keeping things moving along here at the Sanctuary. Loads of green tomatoes are forming and cucumbers are ripening daily now. Above is a new video with some meandering, one-sided pontification on the importance of ground cover in these dry times, as well as some visuals to document all the growth we've had since June. Not much else to report, or rather, not much time to spend on the reporting, but Cadyn will probably post something more multifaceted and substantial soon...

In the meantime, your assignments:

Master the art of manifesting rain, and enjoy the Summer!

-Andrew S.

Solstice Garden Tour, Part 2

2010-06-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

Here's the second part of the garden walk-through. Check out the previous post for Part 1. There's still lots of new growth to be documented, so some more videos are in the works. Our first cucumbers were harvested today and some of our tomatoes are coming in pretty strong. Exciting to watch our first summer garden unfold....

Today's harvest: Two cucumbers, a huge bunch of Kale, a handful of Yellow Pear Tomatoes, edible Nasturtium Flowers, a handful of Blueberries, wild Blackberries, Oregano, Sorrel, Chives, Basil, and Sage!

Immortal Union and Solstice Garden Tour

2010-06-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who helped make our Immortal Union on June 19th such a special day. We had an amazing time and are truly grateful for the company of all of our friends and loved ones in attendance, who traveled great distances to join in the celebration. Our heartfelt thanks, and much gratitude to all in our newly unified tribe!

Here's a video we shot before we left our Immortal Mountain Sanctuary, to head up to Pennsylvania. We were a little concerned about the well-being of our plant family in our absence, since we would be away for so long, but we were happy to find a lush jungle of a garden upon our return. I was tempted to just re-film and scrap this video since there has been so much growth in the last week and a half, but i decided to go ahead and post it since it shows the layout of our property and helps put things into context in terms of locations of the many beds we have going on... i'll be shooting another video update soon though, to document all the new developments and growth, and some new plantings and beds we'll be adding in the coming weeks. We harvested our first tomatoes last night and found three nasturtium blossoms when we got home from the wedding. It's breathtakingly beautiful here in the mountains this time of year, and we're still extremely happy to call this our home after a year of working on our house and our little slice of land. Oh, and apologies for the abrupt cut-off at the end of this video, i'll be posting the second part in the next couple of days....

Gearing Up

2010-06-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well, our big day is right around the corner and there simply aren't enough hours in the day. I wish I could be like Michael Keaton's character in that 90s movie Multiplicity. But many things are falling into place beautifully:

Our friend Matt from Scranton is generously baking all the scrumptious bread for appetizers; we'll have raw, local goat & cow cheeses to go with the bread; Frank Giglio will be exhibiting his culinary skillz with some amazing, unique dishes; Drew's dad John (and possibly others???) will be supplying some dancin' tunes; my mom and Drew's mom have accumulated a HUGE collection of vintage/secondhand cloth napkins and wine glasses (which will double as favors for guests!); my cousin Amanda has somehow found time while planning her own wedding to round up 4 teenage helpers for the day; and our friends Seth and Emily will be expertly documenting the entire shindig. This sounds more like a big, fun party than a wedding! After all, there will be a bonfire...

On a closer-to-home note, the garden is going crazy! We're still getting a bowlful of strawberries each night, a small handful of blueberries are ripe for the pickin now (!), and we add fresh herbs to our salads pretty regularly. The oregano is officially a bush now, and we just planted a few more varieties of basil: cinnamon, Genovese, African blue, and holy (Tulsi). The flowers of the holy basil smell amazing! Very sweet, kind of like blueberries.

It's been raining a lot lately, which has brought the dreaded garden slugs. Ugh. They live in the ground and can eat roots, as well as surfacing and chomping through all our hard-earned pea and cabbage leaves. But I came across an interesting home remedy to get rid of them: beer traps. Apparently humans aren't the only animal to find the drink irresistable-- slugs just can't help themselves. You dig a hole in the garden (big enough to fit a jar), put a couple inches of fresh beer in the bottom of a jar (it has to be fresh, otherwise the slugs turn up their snouts to it), then bury the jar up to the lip in the hole. The slugs slither over to the beer traps and thirstily meet their demise by falling in. Sad, but some things in life must be sacrificed in order for others to survive, right? At least they're probably too drunk to realize what's going on by the time it happens. We have yet to go out to purchase the beer, so I'll post a further update soon. Drew's only question was, "What kind of beer do they like?"

Our Garden in Two Dimensions, May 2010

2010-05-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

(Heirloom Kale, Cabbage and some others in the Hobbit bed)

(Containers and raised beds with Figs, herbs, Satsuma tree, and Heirloom Tomatoes)

(Brown Turkey Fig tree guild)

(Avocado tree that migrated with us from Georgia)

(Bloom on one of our Succulents)

(Hardy Chicago Fig guild next to the potted Black Mission)

(Soil building with Peas and Rye on one side of the Hobbit bed)

(Beds around our chickens' run)

(More Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Marigolds)

(Mulberry Tree enjoying the company of the Tomatoes, Cauliflower, Peppers, etc)

(Berries on one of our six Blueberry bushes....maybe a little excessive?)

(Starter bed with Fava Beans, young Kale, Arugula, Purple Potatoes...)

(Gooseberries in the shade of grandmother Mimosa Tree)

(Two Currents and a Lilac between grandfather Black Locust and Mimosa Trees)

(Medicine Spiral made of dumpstered concrete slabs- yet to be planted, Clover as cover crop)

(Plum trees, Cherry Tree, and some Blueberries in our future food forest)

(Sorrel, Oregano, Marjoram, young Strawberries, Mint)

(Collecting rainwater in our wooden barrel, more Tomatoes and Nasturtiums in our stone raised bed)

(Perrenial Herb and Flower bed- the Horseradish got HUGE)

(Container planted Watermelon)

(Overhead view from the deck with Pokeberries going crazy in the back right)

(Our new favorite addition to salads- Chive flowers!)

(Grateful for the offerings from our floral allies)

More documentation to come as we create more growing structures and continue to build our plant/animal/soil/human community!

Endtroducing...Black Flower Cacao!

2010-05-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

BLACK FLOWER CACAO contains Prima Materia from each phase of a plant's life cycle. MACA, a high-altitude tuber of Peruvian origin, represents the root structure of a plant, offers a multitude of B vitamins and is touted for its vitality-enhancing qualities. Stone ground by hand, JASMINE and PASSIONFLOWER represent the colorful plumage of our floral allies and lend their alluring medicinal energies to this cacao. LUCUMA, grown in the dense jungles of the Andes, and VANILLA, the fruit of a delicate orchid known as Tlilxochitl (or "Black Flower") by the Aztecs, represent the delectable, seed-bearing gifts from the plant realm. Whole granules of BEE POLLEN are added in a spherical representation of the highly dynamic reproductive cycles of nature. All of these ingredients are brought together with Black Lava Salt and a touch of Stevia to create a creamy and smooth, dark chocolate synergy, with floral overtones and some intense medicinal potential. This is some incredibly powerful chocolate...

As always, our chocolates are Organic, RAW, Gluten-Free, No Sugar Added, and hand-crafted with Love

in the Immortal Mountain Apothecary by Cadyn and Drew.

Now available at Better Thymes or directly from us. Get in touch!

The New Addition to Our Tribe...

2010-05-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our new rooster, Guthrie, demonstrating his battle cry.

Our bantam silkie hen, Emmylou, has been quite lonely since we

tragically lost our other two hens, Lucinda and Loretta, in March.

She was loving all the undivided attention that Drew and I were
giving her, but since we can't keep her company all day,
we've been on the lookout for a new friend for her.

We were specifically seeking out a few more hens (and still are),
but along came a craigslist ad for a free, six-month old,
silkie rooster who lived not even fifteen minutes from us!

It was a sign, so off we went to pick up Emmylou's future boyfriend.

Apparently he was constantly getting picked on by all the other
roosters at his previous home. Only two days before we adopted him,

he had been attacked by a rooster who plucked out some
of his crown feathers. Poor guy!

He needed to be around chickens his own size. Like Emmylou.

We named him Guthrie (in keeping with our "country legends" theme),

treated him for poultry lice (a whole other story, ugh),
and he is now healthy and happy in his own run.

Emmylou is slowly getting used to him when she free-ranges,
preferring to hang out near his pen, and keeping him
in view at all times. We've let them be in close quarters a couple
of times, probably too soon, as Emmylou would sneak up on
him and peck at him with all of her might.
Although she was the smallest,

she was at the top of the pecking order among her flock.

Poor Guthrie has had a rough week. But he seems to love his
superfood chicken feed and cantaloupe scraps!

Soon he and Emmylou will be ready to share the bigger run,
and maybe even fall in love...

We've been working a lot on our gardens lately.
Drew has been making cedar-board raised beds, and we've added
a bit more biodiversity to our plant community:

3 varieties of rosemary, lovage, lavender thyme,

pineapple sage, and a rose bush.

Our first Spring Harvest! Clockwise from top: rainbow Swiss chard; cilantro; wild mint; oregano; sorrel; chives. They made the most flavorful salad I've ever had! Now that a lot of the greens and culinary herbs are in full swing, we're trying to add something from our garden to our dinners each night. It's unbelievably rewarding and delicious!!

This is a purple potato. We didn't grow this one, but we just planted some sprouts from them yesterday, so hopefully we'll have our own in a few months!

On another note, while Drew and I were in Pennsylvania recently, we found a locally made goat's cheese that is out of this world! It's made from raw, local goat's milk, uses vegetable enzymes for the culturing process, and sea salt for flavoring. Woah! We got three different kinds: Jack, Cheddar, and, my favorite, Havarti. The producers are called Premium Choices, located in Richfield, PA. Look into it if you get a chance, they seem to be a pretty cool company. Here's their profile at Local Harvest's website (they don't have a website of their own).

I don't really have any kind of closing statement for this post, it's a little all over the place. But I hope you enjoyed some snippets from recent life on the Mountain!

xoxo

Cadyn

In loving memory: Loretta and Lucinda

May 6, 2007 - March 17, 2010

You will be in our hearts and memories forever.

From Farm and From Forage...

2010-05-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

Harvesting some high-flying Birch Polypores, thanks to a climb-able neighboring pine tree.

Here's some photos from our recent trip to Coudersport, Pennsylvania, where we stayed at a farm in the heart of the PA State Forest. We indulged in many of the amazing local resources such as fresh spring water from multiple springs, raw milk from beautiful Jersey cows, orange-yolked eggs from truly free-ranging chickens, wild leeks that carpeted the forest floor, and a multitude of polypore mushrooms found on birch trees in the surrounding woods...

Cadyn and Emmylou checking out the bee-hives in the barn.

An adorable Conch mushroom, or as we like to call them- Wizard's Cap!

Topping off the ol' canteen at a nearby spring/portal.

Immortal Mountaineers enjoying the company of soaring eagles at the PA Grand Canyon.

Forest Garden and Chocolate updates coming SOON!

Art as Antler and Stone

2010-04-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

"Art's task is to save the soul of mankind. Anything less is a dithering while Rome burns." -Terence McKenna

This is my favorite lecture from the late Terence Mckenna. Here he addresses the concept of the Shaman as artist, the lack of danger in most people's creative approach, and the potential of art to provide a unified, cultural vision and direction. My summation does it no justice- if you've got an hour to spare or can listen while working on something beautiful, check it out.

Visions of a Forest Garden

2010-04-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Here's two videos that illustrate a fully developed example of what Cadyn and I mean when we use the term "Forest Garden" (also referred to as a "Food Forest" or "Edible Landscape"). This gentleman is tending to his incredibly mature and extremely dense Forest Garden and lays out some of the basic guidelines and techniques he's used to design and maintain his amazingly dynamic piece of paradise.
His explanation of starting a forest garden "from scratch" at the end of the the second video is simple but enlightening, and i love getting to see mature examples of some of his plant allies, like the tree-climbing hardy kiwi and the nitrogen fixing siberian pea shrub (which we're in the process of tracking down to include in our plant community!). I also geeked out about the footage of the young patch of forest he's created (since that more closely resembles the first goal that we're working toward here at the lodge) and his use of comfrey and nettle infusions, foliar fed to his plants for bug determent! In the years to come, i can't wait to watch our humble piece of land grow into a similarly dynamic and magical ecosystem based on a model that the Wild has provided... ENJOY!

Year of the Radish

2010-04-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

This is one of my new favorite veggies- the WATERMELON RADISH- and they're in season now! We normally just bite into them like an apple, but I decided to get creative and slice this one up as dipper chips. They're about the size of a big beet. They're crisp, almost sweet tasting, and green on the outside with the most amazing pink interior. Mmm... I highly recommend getting some! Or better yet, grow some!

Drew's been working like a bee on preparing a bunch of new beds for planting. Below, he's finishing up the first raised terrace bed on our south-facing hillside. For stability, the blocks actually go down another two rows into the earth than what's visible. Lots of hard work, but it'll pay off big time! During the spring/summer season this year we're going to plant things all around the bed to cover the blocks, and use the holes in the tops as more planters. Then Drew had the idea that we can continue to use it through the fall/winter season by turning it into a makeshift hoop-house: planting the ends of long pvc pipes into the holes of the blocks, arcing them, and covering it with plastic sheeting to prevent frost inside. Brilliant! And you can do this, too-- the materials are pretty cheap, and often free on craigslist. And if you live somewhere flat, you only need to make the bed one or two blocks high (depending on what you want to grow and how deep their roots need to go). We'll post again soon with more up-to-date photos of all the new additions to our food forest family! Here's the plants we've got in the ground so far: 2 plum, elderberry, 4 gooseberry, cherry, raspberry, 6 blueberry, 4 fig, 2 black currant, mulberry, 3 paw paw, satsuma, 15 strawberry, kale, arugula, collards, stevia, a variety of culinary herbs, and seedlings for chamomile, comfrey, plantain, and multiple heirloom tomatoes.

xoxo

Cadyn

REAL Living Foods!

2010-04-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy eating primarily raw, unprocessed, unadulterated, living whole foods. That being said, I also love eating seasonally, so during the winter months I was steaming lots of sweet potatoes and making quinoa grain dishes. Now that it's warmer out, I'm incorporating more eggs and other lightly steamed veggies: broccoli raab (amazing with a little ghee and sea salt), kale (my sister quickly sautees her steamed kale with chopped garlic, and oh my is it good...), and other springtime goodies. Mama Deb's steaming advice: add a splash of apple cider vinegar to the steaming water for extra tender veggies.

Raw, fresh, grass-fed (albeit black market in VA) dairy products are bountiful at local farms right now, and the quality is peaking since the pastures have started growing back for the cows to graze in. This means amazingly satisfying cream and milk from Jersey and Brown Swiss cows that actually have names and are treated with respect by the farmers. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where raw dairy is available in stores, try to make sure it is: grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and comes in glass jars (with a cherry on top)!

P.S. Grass-fed dairy has up to TEN TIMES MORE conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, a fatty acid with anti-cancer properties) than grain-fed dairy!

Anyway, we've been having fun getting creative in the kitchen with living foods. Many people think that live, living, or raw foods means fruits and vegetables. It does, but it also includes the wide assortment of living, cultured foods. These foods are actually ALIVE, consisting of millions of probiotics (good bacteria) that help you digest better, fight off disease and infection, and taste incredible! It is said that every geographic culture has a native culinary culture or fermented food dating back millenia, serving as a method of preserving food for the winter months and enriching the health of their peoples: Korea's national dish is kimchi; Germany and many eastern European countries have the traditional sauerkraut; much of the Middle East uses yogurt and kefir; many Indian dishes include paneer (vegetarian farmer's cheese) and dahi (yogurt sauce); Sangria is a fermented fruit and wine drink used in Spain; China, Japan, and Russia are all credited as the early origins of kombucha... You get the picture.

Coconut Water Kefir.

Water of 2 Thai young coconuts & 1 Tbsp water kefir grains. Cover with cloth and let sit 48 hours. The kefir grains will eat up the sugars from the coconut, reproducing as they do so. Strain off the grains (saving some liquid with them) and save them for your next batch. This tasted a little like coconut champagne!

If you don't have kefir grains, you can try this with a few acidophilus capsules (refrigerated probiotic available at health food stores). Open them up and empty contents into coconut water. Cover with cloth and let sit 48 hours. I have not tried this, but David Wolfe suggested it during a lecture we attended last year.

Coconut Sour Cream.

I scraped the "meat" out of the coconuts from the above recipe into a blender, and added enough spring water to cover. I blended it on high until it was creamy, transfered it to a bowl, and followed the same previous instructions as the kefir. This time, instead of straining off the grains (it was too thick), I put it all back in the blender and blended again until creamy. It tasted exactly like coconut milk sour cream! Yummy!

Sprouts: the old-school living food!

Fun to make, fun to eat!

So have some fun in your kitchen this spring with living cultures. Check out these books: The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates and Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. Visit local farms (many Amish and Mennonite farms are really helping to make raw dairy products available) to see where your dairy could be coming from. And it's that time of year to sow herbs for your herb garden directly in the soil. Get creative outside and be happy inside!

All the best,

Cadyn

Equinox Update

2010-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

(Wild Leeks and Daffodils)

The Spring Equinox has finally arrived, and yet it feels like no time has passed since we were shoveling pathways through the waist high snow. The transition was brief but fierce. A monumental thaw carved trenches through the gravel, clay and blue shale with no regard to the boundaries of our human world. Melted snow flowed through "forest" with the same degree of impartiality as it flowed through "road," toward frenetic convalescence at the river, which surged in defiance of its usual boundaries as well.

Transitions are not always tame.

Destruction is not always cruel.

(The Thaw)

(The River)

The days last longer now (largely due to our recent clock arm manipulation) and the weather here in Virginia is becoming way more docile. The sun has been stealthily warming the earth and the plant spirits have begun to surge from their roots to the tips of their branches. Small buds are forming on our fruit trees and berry bushes, and new shoots have begun to break through the hard cold clay. The perennial herb garden we planted last year is already starting to come alive, and the mint is beginning to act as unruly as it did last fall.

We're excited to start introducing more diversity into our small community of plant friends. Below is some Horseradish, starting to spread its leaves.

In a week of warm days, we've gotten a lot of preparations done for our first season of growing here at the Lodge. It has been amazing to observe the sudden (practically overnight) manifestation of wild edibles all around us. Wild leeks are shooting up like crazy and are almost big enough to harvest, as well as dandelions, whose bitter leaves are a much appreciated snack while working on building some raised garden beds. The first sign of floral life we noticed was skunk cabbage (thanks matt and zoe for the helping us i.d. this amazing ally!), rearing its fuscia and yellow-green flowers in the tide pools along the stream- surreal in their vibrancy against the backdrop of decaying brown leaves. Now, all manner of weeds are taking over in a mass greening of the landscape.

Here are pictures of two of our growing areas. One is made out of some salvaged hardwood logs and is quite Hobbit like, and the other is the humble start of a series of terraced beds that we're building into the hillside. Since we have very little topsoil here, the ground is comprised of mainly compacted clay and rock. To compensate, we're using raised beds and utilizing sheet mulching, which entails covering the existing layer of grass and weeds with newspaper or cardboard, then piling on compost mixed in with a variety of mineralizing substances, followed by a top layer of various types of mulch to help keep the moisture in and eventually break down into another wave of nourishment. This way we'll minimize the damage that digging does to the microbiological population of the land, which helps keep the plants and trees healthy and nutrient rich, and as a bonus we'll avoid the laborious task of attempting to till through all the blue shale on our property.

Since we're starting at ground zero in so many ways, we're experimenting with adding a variety of supplements to our growing beds, to help kickstart the immortality-inducing vibrancy of the soil. Here's what we've been adding so far:

Horsetail powder and tea - silica rich

Nettle leaf tea -mineralizing and nutrient rich

Kelp powder - for its concentrated, bioavailable sea minerals

Spirulina -apparently great for your fruit trees

Diluted Dead Sea and Himalayan pink crystal salts- structured minerals, bearing ancient information

Finely Ground Quartz Crystal- highly energized silica

Viktor Schauberger style Tree Compost

Biodynamic Compost

Biodynamic Thalassa Mix

The last three were ordered from Steve Storch at Natural Science Organics, who's got an amazing bidodynamic operation going on in New York state. He utilizes all manner of mystical practices to produce his preparations, including long term vortexing in vortex-generating machines that he's designed. We add a couple tablespoons of his compost mixes to about a gallon of rain water as well as varying amounts of the other ingredients listed above, then stir for awhile before pouring it over the compost-filled beds before planting. We also water all of our plants pretty regularly with similar preparations and we're excited to see what the results will be after a long period of time using this regimen.

We rigged up the beta version of a rainwater catchment system using a plastic refuse barrel and some gutter redirection hosing. We eventually want to have a one under all of our gutters and hope to come across some wooden barrels to use so we can nix the plastic, but for now this does the trick. Plants obviously love rainwater, so its great to have some on hand whenever its needed. Super easy and cheap to make one of these, and once its installed just dip your watering can or bucket into the reservoir and you're good to go!

That's it for the Early Spring garden update. We'll keep adding photos and updates as we build more growing structures, plant as many fruit trees and shrubs as possible, and hopefully nurture some beautiful and healthy plants throughout the year.

Now go out and plant something! -drew S

(This post was ghost-written by Emmylou- resident Silky, evil genius, and mastermind)

Entity Update!

Cadyn saw the Entity AGAIN two nights ago in the middle of the night. Our first sighting since the post about it over the winter. It walked across the room and vanished by the window. WHA!!??

Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie

2010-03-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

This will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth, with not much sugar at all.

-about 3/4 c - 1c frozen strawberries
-1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp extract)
-1 tsp lucuma powder
-1 tsp maca powder
-1/2 tsp stevia powder
-pinch celtic sea salt
-2 Tbsp chia seeds, soaked in 1/3 c spring water
-1 Tbsp organic ghee
-1 c - 2 c spring water (depending on desired thickness)

Blend everything in high-power blender until it's a smoothie. Whoa!

Creating in the Kitchen

2010-02-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

I have the day off, so I've been alternating wedding projects and kitchen experiments. My kind of day! So far I'm gently warming cacao butter to make a batch of chocolates later, I've got some marinated broccoli in the dehydrator, two huge batches of tea cooling for kombucha, and I'm trying two new recipes from the Body Ecology Diet book: coconut water kefir and coconut meat "cheese." I think the latter sounds totally disgusting, but I think it will end up tasting more like yogurt or sour cream. We'll see...

Drew and I started our day with a little yoga, while listening to a great interview on OneRadioNetwork. It was with Lierre Keith, called "The Vegetarian Myth." Very interesting information for vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters everywhere! She had some fascinating statistics. While I believe a vegetarian diet is great for a lot of people out there, and a strictly vegan diet is really beneficial for periods as a cleanse, I am beginning to accept that incorporating small amounts of animal food is essential. I'm not referring to a Big Mac once a week, or Kraft mac and "cheese." I think sourcing the animal food you are consuming is just as important as sourcing your organic produce, your supplements, your water. I had been a pescatarian for years, then became a strict vegan about four years ago. No animal products whatsoever!

Then about a year and a half ago, inspired by Drew (a raw foods enthusiast for over 10 years now), I finally decided to try a raw foods diet. I loved it! I felt great! I was totally raw for about 6 months, and I do think it was very beneficial for me. Very cleansing for the body, soul, and mind. I think it lifted my consciousness somewhat. I am now probably 75-80% raw, while backyard eggs, organic ghee, steamed veggies, quinoa, some whole grain rice, and cultured foods fill in the gaps. I have always had a sensitivity to lactose, so ghee is perfect: it's from pastured cows, it's organic, it's naturally lactose-free, and it's creamy, buttery goodness! I use Purity Farms, available at most health food stores, if you're wondering.

When I first went raw, I ate mostly fruit. I also ate a lot of avocado salads, but a LOT of fruit. This is great, if you're going raw for a short period of time, but I am now a convert to low-sugar for longevity. Eating some animal products and very little sugar actually leaves me feeling even better (if possible) than I did when I first went raw. My energy is longer-lasting, and the cultured foods mysteriously replace my cravings for sweets. One of my new favorite herbs is ground, whole-leaf stevia. It took a few weeks to get over the initial bitterness and to perfect the amounts I need to sweeten something, but now I love it. We typically get ours from Mountain Rose Herbs (awesome selection!), but our most recent batch came from Natural Zing. Anyway, I don't totally restrict myself (I know from experience this can lead to insanity...), but I've found that the less sweet fruits are super-satisfying now! My favorites are big papayas (non-GMO) and berries. Click here for the recipe for a not-too-sugary but oh-so-good smoothie I made the other night.

Everyone is at a different place in their lives with their diets, but I just felt like sharing where I am right now. To everyone's health and happiness!

xoxo Cadyn

Philly & Chocolates!

2010-02-20T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that we just finished up another batch of Wolf Berry Cacao! I'll be bringing it in to Better Thymes Natural Foods in Front Royal, VA today.

On another note, Drew and I just got back from a crazy fast trip to a town outside Philadelphia. There we visited Dr. Gerald Smith, mostly known for his amazing dental work, but also renowned for his broad spectrum of alternative healing knowledge. The visit was unusual, intriguing, and impressive, to say the least. Dr. Smith was really friendly and personable, and he is extremely up-to-date on many cutting-edge health topics currently in circulation. He performed applied kinesiology to me (Cadyn), which is a highly debated method of finding deep-rooted physical ailments. We found it utterly fascinating. There are plenty of youtube videos out there demonstrating its wonders. Dr. Smith has been featured on multiple interviews with Patrick Timpone on OneRadioNetwork.

After our visit with Dr. Smith, we explored South Street in downtown Philly. It was cold, windy, and a ton of fun! We stopped in a record store, looking for any Tom Waits LPs (my new collecting hobby). Then we picked up some various raw cheeses (grass-fed cow, sheep, and goat) from Whole Foods and Essene Natural Market, along with some kimchee and dehydrated crackers. On the ride home, we concocted our own fast food: avocado & kimchee with Brad's Raw sun-dried tomato crackers. Amazing combo!!!

Have a great weekend!

xoxo
Cadyn

Moonlighting With The Entities, Broken Snow-Shoes, and Other Tall Tales

2010-02-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

    Two nights in a row this week we hosted an uninvited, though not necessarily unwelcome, visitor. Or maybe it was just the moonlight's reflection on the closet door. A few nights before our first official "encounter," I experienced the most intense case of sleep paralysis (S.P.) I've ever had, which made it seem like I was having a hard time breathing and moving my arms and legs. I suppose my eyes were open, as my view of the room was the same before and after waking, and I managed to become conscious of the fact that I was "dreaming" while I was still "asleep," though in this state its really hard to tell the difference between the two. The old-school name for sleep paralysis is "riding the witch" because it's associated with the sensation that an "old hag" is sitting on your chest and making it hard for you to move or breathe! This expression is obviously antiquated- a relic from an earlier age, when the Witch archetype was more prevalent and authentically frightening to the masses (owing to the religious propaganda at that time, but that's another story...) so the Hag is the face they projected onto this strange experience. Some people claim that S.P. is a good jumping off point for astral projection- that if you are able to call to awareness the fact that you are simply experiencing a peculiar stage of sleep, you can focus your attention on a part of the room you're in and travel there... for starters. All very interesting, and I had a lot to consider when I woke up.

   Before going to bed a few nights later, this was all still on my mind, which could definitely have contributed to the brief event that was to follow. I "awoke" during the night with a very mild case of S.P. (it's rare for this to happen to me which such frequency) and the sensation of being watched. When I looked over at the far corner of the bed, I saw a columnar "entity," for lack of a better word, that seemed to be looking back at me, though it had no specifically "human" characteristics. Then, almost instantly, it floated out of the window and was gone. The strangest part, in hindsight, is that I wasn't disturbed by the event at the time, and went back to sleep without a second thought. Was this visitation more of a dream than not?

   After recounting the experience to Cadyn the next day, I was reading downstairs when she went up to bed. About an hour later, she called my name and I ran into the bedroom to see what was going on. She was half asleep, but told me she had seen something floating over my side of the bed that had the texture of bubble wrap and was, gasp, columnar in form. Whoa. She told me it hadn't been frightening at all, and when she noticed it, it disappeared. After that, she went back to sleep with ease.

We've been on the lookout for the entity since, but so far no sign of it. It's interesting how our reactions weren't fearful at all during and after our encounters, which leads me to believe that this was either (most likely?) some kind of optical illusion caused by the moonlight on our white closet door (sounds a little too complex to be the actual explanation, methinks) or (less likely?) some kind of... I don't know... let's call it a 'forest spirit', just checking us out and seeing what we're all about. We have been moving a lot of brush and fallen branches around outside and it would be appropriate for the trees and nature folk to have a few inquiries about our intentions. Anyway, just an interesting couple of nights I wanted to take note of. If anything develops, I'll make mention of it here.

Currently, we seem to have been forgotten up here on the mountain. No plow has graced our gravel road, and we've got a sea of three foot high, virgin snow between us and the rest of the world. We've been here for five days so far, since the first storm hit, and its been predicted that another 10 to 20 inches will fall on top of the existing ground cover, beginning this afternoon and lasting into tomorrow. So, we're kicking into survival mode here at the Lodge, and anticipating another power outage soon. With only enough fresh produce left for another night's kale salad, we've begun sprouting loads of seeds so we can hopefully harvest a few days worth of kitchen crops and not have to subsist entirely on stored, dried goods (i.e. nuts, seeds, raisins, etc) in the coming days. As a result, its starting to look like a chapter from 'Survival into the 21st Century' around here- a young Viktoras Kulvinskas would be so proud.

I just got back from an interesting adventure, trekking up the mountain to a neighbor's house, who's been stranded in town. His five cats and rabbit have been there for five days, and really needed some food and water, and maybe a little love. Through an interesting synch Cadyn and I discovered our neighbor's current plight and I was excited for an excuse to get outside, into the deep, deep snow. Last night was my first attempt at reaching his house, but I got off to a late start as the sun was setting, and I soon found that the two pant layers I was wearing were unsuitable for such an excursion. I got three quarters of the way there before the numbness in my shins got the better of me, and I decided it was in my best interest to try to avoid hypothermia. So, I returned home to warm up and would try again in the A.M. This morning I suited up in at least six layers of all manner of random household items, including plastic grocery bags tied around my feet, some of Cadyn's 'real-long' socks to tuck my pants into (thus avoiding the inevitable snow-getting-under-the-cuff-of-my-pants with each step through the thigh-deep fluff, which had been the cause of my frost-burned shins the night before), and attempted to make some snow-shoes out of some scrap floor boards and wire. Cadyn helped me strap them on, and it was pretty comedic as I slipped off the porch on some ice and broke one of them in half before I even made it to our driveway. I ditched that idea and trudged onward. It was actually really relaxing to be slowly trekking through the unobstructed snow, reminding myself to stay centered and trying to keep my heart rate down. One step at a time through a couple waist high drifts, all the while under a canopy of snow-flanked branches, establishing some comraderie with all the old trees- the Natives, our curious neighbors...

Broken snow shoes.

In other news, Cadyn is knitting, Lucinda is laying eggs like crazy, and we've posted a new Immortal Menu sidebar for links to some simple but highly vibrational recipes.

Toward the Singularity,

Drew

Zero-Point Sweet Potatoes

2010-02-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

This simple recipe has brought us comfort and loads of (free) energy on many snowed-in days. The sweet potatoes can be stored for a long time, so they're a wonderful winter food to have on hand, and all it takes to spruce them up is a couple other kitchen staples. Ciao!

Serves 2:
2 organic sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp organic, unrefined coconut oil
1 tsp celtic sea salt (or to taste)

1. Rinse and dice sweet potatoes into large-ish cubes.
2. Bring 1 inch quality (spring!) water to a boil in a pot.
3. Place vegetable steamer or strainer over water. Add sweet potatoes and cover.
4. Steam sweet potatoes until tender (about 20 min.- they should easily fall apart with a fork when pressed). Make sure water does not evaporate from pot and add more if necessary.
5. Spoon sweet potatoes into large bowl, add coconut oil & salt. Mix well until it becomes slightly creamy and oil is melted.
6. Enjoy on a cold, snowy day (or anytime)!

Seed of Life Pate

2010-02-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

Serves 2-3:

-1 cup raw organic pumpkin or sunflower seeds, soaked for 1/2 - 3 hours, drained, & rinsed

-2 Tbsp nama shoyu or tamari

-2 large cloves organic garlic

-1/2 inch slice of fresh ginger

-1 Tbsp organic, unrefined coconut oil

-Enough quality water to cover seeds in blender

-1-2 tsp honey (optional)

-1/2 fresh hot chili pepper (optional, for the daring)

Optional Precursor: For extra life force benefits, blend soaked seeds with enough water to cover them in blender until creamy. Transfer to bowl, cover, and let sit anywhere from 3 hours to overnight. This allows natural fermentation to occur (=probiotics!!!), and the flavor becomes more "zing-y!" Then continue with the remaining directions...

Directions:
Blend all ingredients together in blender or food processor until thick & creamy, adding more water if necessary. Enjoy with Quantum Kale Salad or as a dip for seed crackers or fresh veggies!

Quantum Kale Salad

2010-02-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

Serves 2-3:
-1 bunch organic curly kale, VERY finely chopped

-3 ripe avocadoes, diced

-1 organic leek, white and pale green part thinly sliced

-2 Tbsp organic extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil

-1 Tbsp raw apple cider vinegar or juice of 1/2 organic lemon

-1-2 Tbsp organic, unpasteurized mellow miso paste

-2 Tbsp dulse flakes (or to taste)

-handful goji berries (optional)

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except kale until avocadoes break down and become creamy. Add kale and mix thoroughly until evenly coated and creamy. Serve with Seed of Life Pate and enjoy!

No Phone, No Lights, No Motorcar

2010-02-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

But luxuries abound here at the Lodge! Not that it takes much to make us happy. Drew and I made sweet potatoes on our wood stove last night, and we're still thriving on herbal elixirs, green juices, and kale salads. Today is Day 3 of being snowed in. Yes, again. We were without power and phones yesterday. Today everything seems to be restored, though. We spent the better part of this morning shoveling a path out to Drew's vehicle, then spent even longer digging it out of nearly 3 feet of snow. Now we're ready to roll as soon as the plowers decide to come up our mountain! Which could still be a while... And we're expecting another winter storm Tuesday and Wednesday! Yeesh!

Temporarily Separated...

2010-01-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

Drew and I are currently each snowed in at different locations. It's all over the Weather Channel right now (my future mom-in-law, Ann, has cable)-- this winter storm is hitting everywhere from Little Rock to DC. I went in to work this morning and, like clockwork, the snow started to fall just as I was pulling into a parking space. My boss came in a few hours later to relieve me, and let me go "home" early. I decided I'd try to drive home, and if the roads got too slick, I'd turn around and go to Ann's house. Well I got out of the parking lot, and that's all it took for my car to start slipping and sliding. It wasn't a good sign that I was the slightest bit out of control on flat ground, and we live up on a mountain! So turn around I did, and drove 15 minutes down the normal 4 minute drive to Ann's house, and here I am.

It's frustrating that I came into town to do 2 1/2 hours worth of work, and now I don't know when I'll be back with Drew and the homestead. Hopefully tomorrow, at best. Sad. I really hate being away from Drew... But Ann and David are taking good care of me here, and letting me watch all the mind-numbing cable I can squeeze in. "Worst Chefs of America" is on soon, so I must hurry...

On a different note, we both want to sincerely thank everyone who came out to our presentation at Better Thymes on Tuesday! Conclusively, it was a great success for our first Immortal Mountain lecture. Everyone was extremely open to new ideas, positively charged, and many were already aware of some of the material we were doling out, which is great! Be on the lookout for our new Recipes page (I'll put an icon on the right side of the blog), which will include the recipes we gave out during our talk. We hope to do another presentation soon, so keep checking in here, and on the Better Thymes event calendar inside the store.

We're also proud to say that the Immortal Mountain Apothecary is doing very well! The Wolf Berry Cacao is a big hit with pretty much everyone who tastes it, from picky little kids to older, allergy-suffering adults. We've sold out at Better Thymes three times, and are awaiting more cacao butter to make another batch. Look out chocolate lovers!

Stay warm and safe,

Cadyn

Cleanse Thy Ol' Temple!

2010-01-23T08:52:00.000-08:00

Cadyn and I will be presenting an informal lecture on Tuesday, January 26th, focusing on simple but extremely effective cleansing protocols that are easily integrated into one's daily or weekly hygiene and nutritional routines. We will also focus on the periodic use of living and raw foods as a means of cleansing, and will introduce a few different approaches, from very moderate to very intense, to facilitate detoxification and overall healing. The event is free of charge and will be held at Better Thymes Natural Foods in Front Royal, Virginia. We'll be starting around 6:30 PM and ending around 7:15, followed by a Q and A session. We're looking forward to talking about all the weird bodily stuff that happens during a good cleanse in front of a group of strangers! Its going to be awesome. Come out if you can!!!

Hand Crafted Medicinal Cacao - Now Available!

2010-01-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

Immortal Mountain Apothecary

Medicinal Cacao

Handmade Dark Chocolate Indulgences

RAW * VEGAN * ORGANIC * LOW GLYCEMIC

-Black Flower Cacao-

ingredients:

-Wolf Berry Cacao-

ingredients:

2-square package: $4.50

4-square box: $8

Available at Better Thymes Natural Foods in Front Royal, VA

shipping: $2.50

(contact us for orders over $25)

to order, please paypal drew.speziale@gmail.com

(specify your choice of Black Flower or Wolf Berry)

for bulk orders or questions, please contact us at

immortalmountain@gmail.com

Toward the Blue Moon, Waxing

2009-12-31T07:53:00.000-08:00

Icicles are hanging from the roof and reaching upward in weird formations out of the frozen clay around the Lodge. Some seem to spell out words like "forward" and "without form." One frozen puddle hosts curvaceous hieroglyphs yet to be translated. Exactly whose message they contain is yet to be determined.

Cadyn and I just returned from a road trip through the northeast, visiting friends and family- a trip that was almost hindered by the 30 inches of snow we received a couple days before the Winter Solstice, our intended date of departure. "The Blizzard of '09" as I'm sure some will call it, was our second snowstorm of the year -two within a matter of weeks- the second of which easily boasted the most accumulation this region has seen in years. The night the snow started was brimming with electric energy, as Cadyn got stranded in our four-wheel-drive-deprived Explorer, and had to abandon it on the side of the road a few miles from our house. She hiked homeward through the snowy darkness and I ran through the windy blizzard, strobing-bike-light in hand, to meet her and determine a course of action. These are not problems commonly faced in the southeast. I'm kicking myself for agreeing to have my drive shaft stripped rather than have it repaired whilst in Georgia, to save (quite) a few bucks when it started acting the fool. Little did I know we'd be needing that (seemingly) excessive little component in less than a year's time just to navigate the roads to our house here in Virginia.

When the snows start to fall.

I decided to check out the situation at the car, so I hiked down the desolate Blue Mountain Road, past an abandoned truck and trailer, until I spotted flashing yellow lights- the only color not devoured by the nightstorm's voracious sea of black and gray. It was a convoy of plows, one of them stranded, their drivers discussing their own plan of action in a fog of kerosene fumes and chimney smoke. I staggered on and spotted my car among a hillside of other abandoned vehicles. I determined it was hopeless to try to get it out of the ditch, as my unruly-weather-driving-skills have atrophied over the last decade, and I set about gathering the few possessions left in the vehicle. As I did so, a sedan attempting to mount the icy slope came sliding toward me and ended up in the same ditch as I, just a few clips up the hill from my car. Only moments passed before an enormous tractor with plow attached came sliding down the hill and skidded into the sedan, which then slid into my car, resulting in a two-car-and-one-enormous-tractor pile up, the likes of which I'd never hoped to witness. I narrowly escaped being pinned between my car and the guard rail, which was slightly intense. And mildly cinematic, if not somewhat slow-moving. Strange night, overall, followed by two days of shoveling our driveway. Which was awesome because I don't think anyone's ever shoveled so much snow using a garden shovel. A record of some sort may have been broken.

Our trip was amazing. We caught up with many lovely folks whom we haven't seen in way too long. We drank from three different springs, all quite unique and beautiful tasting, throughout our travels and received a tour at an undisclosed, small-scale dairy farm. There, we were allowed to milk one of the Jersey cows, got to hang out with and feed some recently born calves, and obtained some RAW, grass-fed, hormone-free milk -a coveted commodity during these times of the raw dairy prohibition (Patrick Timpone calls the contraband "Moo-shine!"). So for the past few days I've been enjoying the first dairy "product" (what we prefer to call Sacred Animal Medicines) that I've consumed in about 11 years. Going at it moderately, obviously, and with no negative reactions at all. The raw milk tastes amazing blended with some raw cacao powder, local honey, goji berries and a dash of nutmeg. Easily the best chocolate milk ever, from well loved, beautiful cows with cute names.

Just found this quote on Dale Pendell's website about the difference between making art and making magic, and it really called out to me... here goes:

"For magical objects technique is less important than vision and
attention. Don’t be sloppy, do it well, but if you focus on technique
or virtuosity chances are you’ll lose the magic. It’ll be perfect, and
perfect won’t do. It’ll be your great creation, but that’s not the
point. To make magic you have to attempt the impossible, you have to
attempt what is beyond your powers, and accept that it will be
imperfect. Then it can have power, the power to heal, which is what
this is all about...."

I've been reading the last book of Pendell's Pharmako Trilogy, "Pharmako Gnosis- Plant Teachers and the Poison Path" and Holy F----! It should be considered required reading for anyone interested in the history of the development and evolution of human consciousness, and it includes a thorough examination of the plant allies that helped us along the way. Plus the structure of the text is extremely innovative, jumping from poetry to lore to scientific data with a flow that resonates completely with our much neglected right brains. Maybe I'll draft out a more detailed synopsis here, when I'm finished reading it.

It's new years eve today- well, at least as defined by the Gregorian Calendar- and a Blue Moon at that, which is the day most westerners reflect a bit (often melancholically) on the previous year and start to set intentions for the year to come. A lot can happen in 365 days, or 13 moon cycles or however you prefer to count and divide time, even in spite of the 'great acceleration' that everyone is starting to notice more and more. It's crazy how it simultaneously feels like no time has passed since the day we left Georgia, and yet it feels like we've already put many lifetimes of work into our abode over the last six months. Yesterday, I spent the morning clearing some brush and vines from a small patch of overgrown, snow covered yard and I can't stop visualizing a future paw paw and nut grove there, a little patch of strategized wilderness, sewn onto the quilt of a dynamic, sustainable landscape that's slowly going to take shape here, at our humble sanctuary. Visualizing goals, writing down dreams, sprouting wild seeds, planting a single tree, attempting to build something well beyond our means, working with intention, slowly, slowly, with patience and gratitude.... these are technologies at everyone's disposal, little acts of magic that anyone can perform. My resolution this year, in this great Age of Transition, is not to "take advantage" of the present moment, but instead, to be thankful for it.

To anyone out there, blessings from the Lodge and Happy new year!

Hearts,
Drew and Cadyn

Fresh From the Apothecary....

2009-12-15T22:43:00.000-08:00

We're elated to announce that the Immortal Mountain Apothecary is officially open for business!

We just finished packaging the first batch in a forthcoming line of medicinal chocolate confections-

Wolf Berry Cacao!

We kept these organic, vegan and VERY low glycemic, sweetened only with Stevia (zero glycemic) and whole Goji Berries (low glycemic), so even those with the strictest dietary regimens can enjoy the overwhelming nutrition inherent in these chocolates. Raw Cacao and Goji berries deliver practically the highest antioxidant levels of any food out there, and chocolate is rich in magnesium as well as the bliss molecule, theobromine, which opens up the heart chakra and has inspired thousands of years worth of choco-love-mythology!

We'll post all the ordering information soon. In the meantime just email us at ImmortalMountain@Gmail.com if you're intersted in acquiring some Wolf Berry Cacao.

Answer the call of the WILD... just don't get bit!

How to Make Wood-Fired, Snow-Frozen Cacao: The Immortalist Way!

2009-12-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

Digital Smoke Signals: Entry III, Medicinal Chocolate-Making

The Mountaineers take you through the process of making their invigorating Kundalini Chocolate

without the use of motorized mechanisms; utilizing the elements of Fire, frozen Water, and ice cold Air. Inevitably, things get mildly ridiculous when cacao vapors meet cabin fever after only a couple days snowed in... We ask that you observe with reserved judgment as we spiral downward into blissful incoherence in this, our latest dispatch from the Lodge.

P.S. Apologies for the pixelation-induced nausea- someday we'll use a better camera, we promise. In the meantime these chocolates may be able to help...

First Snow at the Lodge!

2009-12-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

Drew and I experienced our first snow storm at the Immortal Mountain Lodge yesterday! We found out the hard way that apparently no one plows the roads in the neighborhood, or even salts them. So we were quite literally snowed in. We got somewhere over 6 inches in one day! The power even went out for 4 hours or so, but luckily our wood stove was keeping us nice and toasty. We even heated up an elixir on the burner right on top of the wood stove! I felt a little like Jo March...

It was seriously magical. Everything turned white and sparkling, and the air just sounded different, which people seldom ever really mention about snow. When you talk, you can hear every breath you make. It sounds like you are not out in an opening in the wilderness, but rather in a small, softly padded room. Not that I would know what that's like.

Now being from Savannah, Georgia, I sound like I've never seen snow before. But I have. Every Christmas when my family visits my grandparents in Pennsylvania. And that one time (1988? 89?) in Savannah when we got about 1/2 inch and I insisted on getting out my plastic beach shovel to clear the back yard for safety purposes. But I'm not ashamed to say that yesterday I made a snowman. That's right. With eyebrows and a carrot for a nose and all.

Stay warm,

xoxo Cadyn

The wilderness behind the Lodge.

Drew removing piles of snow that had accumulated on top of the protective sheet over the baby greens.

Lao Tzu, the Taoist Immortalist Snowman.
Look carefully and you might just see one of our chickens, Loretta...

Snow!!!