A friend of ours recently sent us an article about growing food from your current food scraps. What a cool idea – that I have unfortunately never thought of myself. This time of year we’re so focused on planning our gardens, purchasing seeds, etc., it’s neat to now be able to mix some of these [...]

Many home gardeners start out buying seeds from just about any old place – with very little understanding that all seeds are not created equal. This can result in poor yields and wasted money. Choosing the type of seed to buy for your vegetable garden can be a very confusing process: open-pollinated, heirloom, hybrid, organic [...]

We love 100% pure maple syrup but until recently we only used it for traditional breakfast fare. Looking for natural ways to sweeten our smoothies we had an ah-ha moment when we tried using maple syrup – wow, our smoothies were delicious! Because maple sap is 100% natural (and we’re all about “natural” as much [...]

Even though we’ve come upon the month of March, we still have a few months of chilly weather here in Minnesota. Nevertheless, there’s just something about March that puts a spring in my step, anxiously awaiting the winter thaw with the promise of garden season right around the corner. To occupy our leisure time until [...]

After several promptings by a friend of ours, I decided to give Oil Pulling a try. I have to admit, I had no idea what it was, how it was done, or why it is done. For whatever reason, I just resisted the unknown. It wasn’t until Lynn sought out a holistic dentist here in [...]

We live in a world where processed foods, pesticides, pharmaceutical drugs, mercury, plastics, and chemicals are everywhere – it’s nearly impossible to get through a day without being exposed to harmful toxins. Our bodies are designed to detox naturally through different organs in the digestive system, but you can help that process along the way. [...]

We’re seeing a resurgence in home remedies by those seeking to get back to more natural care for themselves – shunning our pill-popping culture and the side effects. If it works for humans shouldn’t we use these same techniques on our pets? Humans have been keeping pets for thousands of years. It just makes sense [...]

Lynn’s birthday falls on 4th of July and coming up with gift ideas for her has always been challenging. We’re usually at our cabin and it’s a holiday so my access to shopping is limited. Yes, I’m a man so I’m typically scrambling around at the last minute for her gift. Last summer I hit [...]

It’s -13 degrees here in Minneapolis with no end in sight to the below 0 temperatures. I can’t think of a better way to spend the weekend than by planner our spring garden(s) by the comfort of our roaring fireplace. We do as much research as we can this time of year to ensure we [...]

“I’m throwing out all of our Teflon skillets”, Lynn said to me last week. So, we took inventory of the condition of all our cookware and decided yes, these chemically manufactured, “non-stick” cooking items had to go. Most of them are getting up there in years, many of them are scratched, and we have no [...]