Special Announcement! THE SHOP IS OPEN!
Lavender Lemongrass Epsom Bath Salt The First Product In The Shop.
I am super excited today. And I have Dr. Farmer Moomin, to thank. Thank you Dr. Farmer Moomin! The shop, by popular demand, has been set up and is now officially open for business! Dr. Farmer Moomin, got it set up. he finally got sick of having friends and B&B guests, asking, “I love this! Where can I buy some?” And I would respond, “Oh well, errr…. I don’t sell it…. But here are a couple more bars of our soap and some other extra odds and ends I made. No charge.” So the shop is now set up and ready to take orders. I must say I am super excited. It has been a long time since I had something like this set up. I miss having a place to actually earn from the product of the work of my own hands.
Lavender Lemongrass Epsom Bath Salts.
I first cooked up this bath salt idea a long time ago while living in Vienna Austria, before my homestead days. Back when I was living a rather peripatetic life as an aristotelian and the wife of a young physicist doing his post docs. We were living in a little apartment on Schmidgasse, above the Centimeter pub. In the kitchen, one day I was sore because my dog had behaved badly and my muscles now ached from having to control him. So, I thought back to an even earlier time as a child, back in the Buddhist Hippy commune I grew up in. I had a friend there who would craft and make all kinds of things. it was from her, I first learned to think creatively. She had once shown me how to make a very simple bath salt to soothe and relax tender muscles. So in my kitchen I looked about and I asked myself, “How can I improve on that old method, because a soak would do me good right about now.”
Bath Salt
So, I decided rather than a rose oil, something relaxing for the muscles and my stress level made more sense. Rather than a rose fragrance, a lavender lemongrass one made more sense, especially if I unified them with a small cream drop of vanilla. I also added some glorious oils, a little vitamin E, a bit of coconut oil, a small amount of Moringa oil, because why just treat my back pain when I can give my dermis an amazing uplifting as well. I added a couple small drops of soap dye, purple for lavender, and I made a beautifully fragrant skin soothing, muscle ache killing soak for my bath. It did the trick so well. And the smell was so beautiful I noted the recipe in one of my many recipe note books where so many different ideas I have made in the past live and where certain ideas for future needs live waiting to be realized.
Bath Salt
The fragrance is beautiful. Lavender, is a floral, woodsy, sweet, delicate, slightly smokey fragrance that mixes truly beautifully with lemongrass which offers an undertone of citrussy, earth and grass inspired scent that is then mellowed just enough by the very trace bottom note of exotic vanilla, which offers a warm creamy comforting touch. Both lavender and lemongrass are super relaxing and with the comforting vanilla, this fragrance is unique, and glorious. Having actually soaked in this exact product I can say, this is a really wonderful bath experience.
Bath Salt
As an expat, let me tell you lugging my suitcases and battling my leashed dog in the city, I thought I knew the true meaning of muscle aches…. hahahaha…. Was I wrong. To truly know pain, one must embrace the chores of homesteading. The difficulty that breeds aches and pains in parts of your body you didn’t know existed. The pain, of staying in one place, bound to it. Until you become a part of it, no different than the trees growing on the property and the stones in the little gravel road. Just harder working. This bath potion is now a chronic friend of mine. It does such great things for me, that I decided to share it with guests. And soon, requests for purchase started coming in. As of tomorrow morning it will be the first product in my little shop. And more will be forthcoming soon.
Bath Salt
Oh this farm will always come first. The needs of the animals, lifting hay bails, collecting eggs, burying my seeds in my raised beds, harvesting, weeding, etc… This is what I live here to do. I wouldn’t want to make anything else the primary focus of my life. But while making these things for myself when I need them and making a little extra for the B&B guests, not really a difficulty to make a little even additional extra to get the shop going, and running. This farm could use a method of earning some of what it takes to keep it running even when covid is of issue and the B&B must be closed for a time.
Thank you for reading about the first product on offer in the shop.
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
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Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
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