Seed Packet Organizer

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Yes, I needed one.

I am using mostly Heirloom Seeds now rather than plants, and this is due to both needing to save money on my part yet wanting as much growth of both food and flowers as possible, and not wanting those GMO plants spiked with chemicals.
I want to start everything I can from heirloom seeds and support those hard working devotees of quality over greed. So I'm doing as much planting from seeds as will grow and will fit.
This also takes alot longer than I would like. Plantings and growing is taking months, and I find this is changing the way I'm experiencing gardening in a huge way.
Rather than buy/plant/buy/plant....I'm sowing seeds for the right time, and this takes an awareness of what plants do best in what season, and how long cycles are, planting in Spring for Fall, and planting in Fall for Spring.....and such.....however, we in Zone 10 can bend those rules quite a bit. So gardening is moving slower, it has become seasonal, more cyclic and tuned to Natures Seasons, rather than my own shopping whims.....and this is good. Though I am not happy at how long some seeds take to become 5 inch tall plants, I must continue to pace myself, and continue planting seeds for continued growth, and this requires alot of planning ahead which I'd never really been good at.....I'm a more in the moment, now kinda person. Waiting around for plants to grow big enough to plant in ground is almost torture and feels like I am doing nothing most of the time, which has become true, but it is the way it must be using heirloom seeds for a garden.
However what is happening is that Nature is teaching me about ''time.''......actually the correct, real and natural cycles of time. It has nothing to do with a gregorian clock or calender, those are man made and useless, yes useless and keeps those who are tuned into it in a closed loop ever in the same closed and one dimensional flat circle.
Planting seeds, I am learning the time cycles of Nature which move around seasonally, 3 dimensionally......and offers ones spirit a soft place to land by taking ''time'' to enjoy each cycle, and though it comes around again, it does so in a different place, like an upward moving spiral as opposed to the closed man made clock which goes around and around in retarded circles to the exact same spot......which is totally unnatural and leads to spiritual discontent without fail.
The upward cycles of seasons is natural and I'm loving acclimating myself to these...looking forward to seasonal changes feels so much more alive. I spend seasons few though they are in these parts, still they are cyclic with Nature and am content to spend the time in the season. The Cycles of Nature Spiraling keeps me in a movement in tune with something so much greater, it is a pleasure to tune in and take that ride.

So. I had my collection of seeds growing and I put them in a basket.

 


But I didn't like it. It didn't work, it simply held the seeds in one place. But was sloppy for my mind.
This became unorganized and confusing as I would go through them to find what I needed to plant and when, what was already planted and what needed to go in soon.....I don't like being unorganized, I can't think that way. I need organization, the kind that helps one to think and work in productive ways, efficiently and effortlessly.
So I thought I'd organize my seeds into ''those I've planted'', ''those I have yet to plant'', ''those to plant in Spring for Fall'', and ''those to plant in Fall for Spring''.....general rules that can be bent here quite a bit because it is so warm.

I thought I'd look for a couple of box organizers or something from office sections, so I went to Home Goods. Eureka! I found something perfect and though it cost alot more than what I wanted to spend, I had a credit there and well....when something is perfect, its perfect. I didn't even have to paint it.

It has pockets for labels such as ''those I've planted'', ''those yet to plant'', ''those for Fall'', ''Spring'' etc.....I will work on it.

 I added the seeds I had, and I'm getting more delivered soon, but I sectioned them into ''veggies'', ''flowers'', ''those planted'' and ''those yet to be planted''.  The other two sections will be for ''those to plant for Spring'', and ''those to plant for Fall'' :D.

The drawer I am using to hold the labels and markers and anything else I use for seeds stuff, like paper clips I use to keep the seed packets I've opened sealed.

I love this.


Thanks for visiting.

Bone Broth as Medicine

Hello Everyone,

I am posting today about bone broth, my new love, elixir of well being.

I never really wanted to continue to eat anything with animals, but I found I don't do well without some animal products. I've tried over and over for years and though my choice is to be vegan, I don't do well. The time I spent 6 months vegan and was so spaced out I ran 2 red lights, I learned it wasn't good for me. I came home shocked that my spacing out so involuntarily was so dangerous. While at home it was ok, no one was affected but me and I didn't even realize really, I was so out of it, wandering around my home like a ghost in my own skin was fine......at home!.....but when I had to drive, and within 10 minutes ran two red lights.....I realized something was wrong, I am an excellent driver with eyes in the back of my head normally, but I was not present, not in my body it seemed like, and I don't know how I even realized I ran 2 lights, but I made a u-turn and determinedly tried to focus and slowly drove back home without another incident. Once back here, I put my head in my hands and thought of the horrid implications of what just happened....what if I had gotten in a accident with another? If I was hurt or killed which didn't horrify me as much as hurting someone else. That idea was sheer torture. I was pretty freaked out and could not think, or fathom why I was so spacey I ran lights! I could not understand what was happening with my mind. I was fine so what was the problem? I resigned into depression for just a moment when my body of its own volition got up, walked to the refrigerator, and grabbed one of John's turkey burgers, I took a bite out of that cold thing and within 5 minutes, was back again, I was present again, like I hadn't been for over 6 months. This sudden presence of having myself back, my mind back, clarity and thinking abilities was shocking, and I learned something. It took me a while to figure out what happened....that it was related to foods.....but I after taking a bite of turkey burger and within minutes find myself back again......this meant something. I attributed this dramatic change to the bite of burger I took and I had to rethink everything I thought I knew about me being a vegan.

Now, I do have whatever I feel like actually when I feel like but only if I really want it. I stopped eating beef many years ago with no problem, and when I came across this broth I hesitated so much, but at the time I was sick, and I kept looking at it feeling I needed it.
There was an argument within me, one was wanting this bone broth for reasons I could not fathom, and the other was saying ''logically'', it was beef and I don't eat it anymore blah blah. After a couple of weeks of being haunted by this, I realized why there was an argument. One was the wise one of my body telling me what it needed and the other was the dogmatic mind who is basically just a program of beliefs or so called ''learning''.....I put learning in quotes because often we learn things that are plain wrong.

I received Cauldrons and Cupcakes emails, a womans journey with lyme's disease, and being psychic and a great writer despite all her difficulties, and in this one was this recipe here. From the moment I read the recipe and all her detailed pictures I knew, or my body knew, was screaming Yes! for this,,,,,,and the argument began. Yuck, its beef and raw bones!!!....I can't do this!!!   At the same time there was this inner conviction saying, ''you need this''. However, wisdom and medicine won out and once I realized I needed this yes, and wanted it, I realized I could never make it myself. So after 2 weeks of this and being haunted by a body telling me what it needed, I decided the medicine was more important and though I knew I could not make it myself, another reason I kept putting it off, I don't handle animal products......I finally figured out my housemate can. He can handle anything especially as a cook for Whole Foods Market for all these years now, he handles large amounts of food and animal products with no problem. I had to pull him into this and have him make it for me.

But I stay out of the kitchen while he does this.

But once the bones are in the soup pot and simmering on the stove for 24 hours, the smell, whilst not of gardens, forests, flora and fauna, nevertheless enticed me with ecstatic premonitions of soothing healing!
Once the broth is made we split it in half, freeze one half and the other half goes into a soup pot to make soup. We add a rotisserie chicken de-boned, and other veggies, potatoes, carrots, celery etc, and asian garlic chili paste, marjoram, etc, whatever flavors I feel like, and at the last minute before serving, a handful of cilantro. Sitting down for this meal, I have to say, there has never been anything I have eaten that is more satisfying...each and every time, for over a year now. I have no desire for any other foods at all when I have this soup, for many hours. Even if I try to test this, tempt myself, nothing interests me, I am fully and totally sated.

This recipe is a household favorite now, but lately, I have been challened with other things.....and realized that every mallady I have is remedied by something called gelatin, which is best derived by......guess what.....bone broth. So I now make it often so there is always a pot there and I've been drinking this every morning, I actually crave it. And then for the rest of the day, I want nothing.

However, I think in trying to perfect this ''medicine'' as I call it, I decided to go for only those bones from grass fed beef which is also available at Whole Foods, and my housemate got the 3 lbs we use for the basic recipe. He made the broth and I find it is having the opposite effect upon me, unlike the previous year of the regular bones broth.....is that it is making me hungry. I don't like this, so I am going back to regular bones broth. When I have that one, either in the soup or as a pure broth in a mug, I have no desire for anything for the entire day. I love this, having something so simple to satisfy my body for an entire day. I could use losing a few pounds, and love simple eating.....and winter time for this broth on some of the chillier days here, as in 60 degrees lolol, is perfect to me.

I highly recommend making it, it is very satisfying and if you look into its benefits, bone broth heals so very much and as I mentioned was the medicine I needed for everything I have suffered from.
I am taking this mostly because I want to rebuild cartilage in my hip joints, and I do believe in time, taking this regularly, it will work. I do sense an improvement, but have yet to give it time to actually rebuild the tissue. It is natural in glucosamine and chondroitin, which helps me with the pains, but still nothing compares with the real thing.....I always go for the real thing when at all possible.

 May your life be blessed with hearty soups and warm friends or hearty friends and warm soups! :D