Doin's Round Here and HERB BEAD CLASS

Has there even been a post that seems remotely herbal yet this year? Sheesh. I'll get something up this evening or tonight. There has been so much maintenance going on. End of year for the business, The Hague Int'l Model UN coming up in a few days for the daughter (I'm not sure either one of us could be more excited... imagine meeting and debating the future of the world with 4000 kids from around the globe, throw in a trip to Amsterdam and The Hague, and you have the general idea), another magazine deadline, and the scheduling of spring talks and classes have been occupying my mind.
So it's all good, it just isn't all herbal, all the time.

Herb Bead Class
I would like to take a moment to announce the quickly advancing Herb Bead Class. On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 from 12 to 1:30 (take a long lunch!), Radiance will be hosting this class. We'll have everything there to make up some beads of several varieties and everyone will be making some to take along home.
Learn how to make almost any botanical into beads. Some are used for fragrance, some for appearance, and some for their folkloric magical properties. In any case, it is great fun. Come join us. $18 per person.
Reserve your space now!

Radiance
9 W. Grant Street (across from Central Market)
Lancaster, PA
717-290-1517

I will be bringing along a new booklet on making beads and premiering several new pre-mixed botanical powders - just add liquid and you've got bead clay!

Winter Wonderland in the Herb Garden!

Brrrrr!!!!! It is getting really cold! The one thing good about below zero temperatures we are going to have in the next couple of days is that we have sunshine! We are one of the cities with the fewest days of sunshine during the whole year. Soooo if you are lucky enough to be in the southern hemisphere where it is summer, enjoy a little bit of below zero weather!

Butterfly or moth?

Not any species I recognize, but that's "art" for ya.
Finally got a chance to paint some sealer on my latest mosaic garden stepping stone.
What'dya think? Can't wait to put it outdoors.

Cardinals in Winter

At dawn or dusk the cardinals are at this feeder. It is a magnet for them. I was lucky to get any pictures at all because they tend to fly when we are around. It's really hard to see in this picture, but there is a beautiful male cardinal sitting in the middle of the sunflower feeder in the herb garden. Click the picture to enlarge it. We have several pairs of cardinals who come and eat with us every day. Some times there are up to four pairs feeding at one time. They have their fights, but in the end they find a way to coexist together. I love that the male and female cardinals both sing. Mostly it is the male in the bird species that sing. Cornell University has a great website for all things bird. The picture at the bottom is one of the females that comes each day. They are very comical with the tuft or crown standing up when they become alarmed. We enjoy all the birds that feed at our house, but the cardinals in winter are particularly beautiful.

Planning the veggie garden in the depths of winter

CSA farmer Pat writes today that she is busily reading her seed catalogues and planning this year's vegetable planting. The eternal grounded optimism of people who are connected to the earth is ever so comforting and inspiring to born cynics like me.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus

It is zero degrees Fahrenheit today, but I can feel the real world stirring, thanks to Pat.

The time is now to read the CSA contract, and to mail our downpayment for our half a working share, and although Herb retired this year and the economy, especially in Slow Motion Katrina'd Genesee County, Michigan is looking like the first hill on a roller coaster to many of us, we can't lose sight of the fact that "this too shall pass" and summer will come, and we need to do something to keep our world, from our backyard to the whole nation, on the right path toward sustainability, community, and good health.
Thanks, Pat, For doing what you do.

Here is a good interview with Ken Meter on local economies and sustainability that I hope you'll watch:

Snow has a Benefit for the Herb Garden

I know I have been whining about the snow in the herb garden since around Thanksgiving, but it does help the plants survive. It is going to get a lot colder this week. There is now a layer of snow on the ground and that has a benefit in the herb garden and in the garden as a whole. The snow is acting as an insulator. As long as the herbs you planted have good drainage meaning the soil has been tested (you can get a soil test kit from your county extension office or local nurseries have soil test probes for sale) and amended for the particular herbs you have planted. The best amendment is your own compost or the bagged kind works as well. We have clay soil in the western Pennsylvania, so amending the soil is a given. If the soil is amended properly, and the plants do not hold water around the crowns or roots of the plants, the perennial herbs such as lavenders, sages and thymes will survive the winter. Hope you are staying warm wherever you may be!

Another Grand Adventure Begins

After much deliberation and consideration, Susanna Reppert Brill and I have decided to open a Yahoo! list for herb and herb related businesses.

Susanna was raised in an herb family, as her mother, Bertha Reppert, founded The Rosemary House over 40 years ago. She is one of the best networkers I know, although it is much like when you hear about rock 'n rollers from the 60's and how their kids just know everybody because they jammed around the kitchen table. Susanna now manages the business, and her sister Nancy has a tea room next door.

My background is similar in that I was raised in a family business, but our home biz wasn't herbs. Later my sister and I went on to open an herb shop at both a renaissance festival and in the real world. They ran simultaneously for a year or two before we gave up the faire shop, and then we added soap to our repertoire. We split up eventually, with my sister running her wholesale soap company and me running the magazine.

One of the biggest things we've learned is that we can accomplish 10 or even 100 times more if we put our heads together with others who are attempting to do the same thing.

In the early 90's we banded together with other herb businesses in our state and came up with the PA Herb Business Network. Although the Network is now defunct, as charter members of that group we were involved in the very beginning of the PA Herb Festival. Besides that, we joined together in some group advertising efforts, came up with ideas that helped each other, had mini conferences and best of all we knew each other.
What we found was that through knowing each other, we could rely on that friendship when it came time to list a source in an article or book, recommendations, and when opportunities that didn't quite fit came along. Knowing each other is a HUGE benefit to business, one that has fallen a bit by the wayside since the internet has come along. We are going to fight back, and we're using the internet to do it.

If you're an herb or herb related business, join us! Click here

Swinging Blue Jays!

Every morning the Herbal Husband whistles and feeds the birds. Here is the peanut caddy in our Japanese maple. The blue jays, cardinals and titmice love it. The caddy swings back and forth for several minutes. It does not take long for the peanuts to disappear. This next story is entirely true. We also feed a group of crows. They will come below the caddy and wait for any peanuts that drop to the ground. On occasion, the blue jay will toss a peanut to the crow and the crow catches it! I'm not making it up! I'm just sorry you have to imagine it. Maybe some day, I'll get a picture or video of it happening! Remember your feathered friends during the winter.

I'm Over It. You Too?

I've been mulling something over in my head for a long time. It's been almost a year, really. Last year at this time, my very sick relative moved in here. Shortly thereafter, business which had been roaring along and gaining speed just grabbed a spot and stayed there. Didn't drop (thank goodness!), but the growth I projected didn't happen either.
Somewhere in the dark of winter, I noticed that I was not spending any time writing to my business or personal friends - something that had always been the most joyful part of my day. Instead of putting an hour or two a day into spirited, stimulating email volleys filled with ideas and challenges, I was reading what came in and clicking "save as new", hoping to get to it when I had the energy. Eventually, I would set aside a day to call and apologize to several of my friends, thinking that the whole problem was me, or the different energy in my home. Invariably, I would find that the person on the other end of the phone was in the same place... lethargic, listless, feeling dull and out of ideas. Sometimes even feeling like any effort was useless or futile. More than once, my old cheerleader hat would come out during a call, and I would remind them that they shouldn't give up because everything is temporary.

Gradually, I've come to realize that there something going on in America's psyche. Is it more pronounced in small business owners? Maybe. Maybe not. My friends are small business owners, and they have it bad. For the last year, we've been thinking that there is something wrong with US. Although the economy is in ruins, our country is in a never-ending war, we've just gone through a harrowing election campaign that pitted friends and lovers against each other, and long-standing businesses of every ilk are falling day by day, somehow we still ignore that and think that WE are alone in this feeling of depression. How did that happen?

For one, as business owners, we've been trained to put on a brave face right up until the ship goes under. We don't talk publicly of our woes. A sniff of a problem can sink a company, so we are alone. We are alone, and all the other businesses are crowing about how well they are doing (while we secretly suspect that they are crowing in the dark).
For another, most of the women I know accept full responsibility for anything that happens in their business. Succeed or fail, it is our own doing, right girls? Well... sometimes we just can't control everything or shoulder all the blame. Sometimes we just have to ride it out and see which way the wind blows.

So I posted about this insidious, low-level energy infection on The Essential Herbal's Yahoo! list yesterday, and was gratified to find that several list members were suffering in silence, and thrilled to find they were not alone. It has prompted me to share it here. Best of all, I feel the clouds shifting. I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I don't have to carry it all by myself. And I also get that people aren't ready to lay down and give up.

I don't know how or why, but I am optimistic for 2009. I'm either crazy, a small business owner, or both :-).

It's Icy and Cold in the Herb Garden!

Winter is cold, snowy and gray in the 'Burgh. Now it is icy today. We had mostly frozen precipitation yesterday. It could have been worse and been snow. We would have been buried today! Fortunately the low tracked further south or north and we were spared. We're supposed to have the coldest weather of the year so far this week. I hope the forecasters are wrong! Stay warm wherever you may be!