We look forward to enjoying and sharing our passions and gifts again when our transitions of our move to Minnesota are more settled. Gen will be offering an intuitive guidance practice later this year. It will be an online space for those seeking one on one support and guidance from a magically inclined elder in these difficult transition times that is freed from the constructs of conventional mental health work. As someone who practiced psychotherapy for years in that traditional world, she’s very excited. A link to reach Tea at the Lost and Found Department will be posted here once it’s up and running, for anyone who’d like to find out more about it or access these services. She’ll also be offering a new chapter of hand-made micro-batch natural care products again, focussing on botanicals gleaned from wildcrafting walks and organic gardening to foster full and nurtured senses and times of ritual and wonder.

Rick will be wrapping up the closing bee work and clean up at Bee Haven in the warm months this year and determining the best future for the farm, and yes, we’ll be starting some hives here in northern Minnesota to come. Not many, but just enough. This website will remain up and around until we can share these new ventures.

In the meantime, this will be a space to share old recipes and tips to commemorate the old and inspire the new.

Notes on infusing Honey: Ever so wonderful to have around. Easy to get in children or medicine avoidant adults, since you can use it in tea and coffee, in hot water and lemon juice, in cooking, drizzled on toast. Go gently, gently and not very hot at all, if you choose to use heat. Simmer a mason jar filled with the honey and herb/s in a water bath at the very lowest setting you can manage. The trick, if you do it this way, is to do it when you’re in the kitchen doing meal prep or making something more elaborate that has you there for a while. This way you can turn the simmer bath on for a bit and then turn it off for a while and do this repeatedly. Burnt honey and herbs is useless since it’s not good for you any longer. Don’t go there. You’ll be so mad. Or don’t use heat at all, my favorite method, by combining your honey with your herb/s and letting them sit for a long time, close to a wood stove or radiator if you have them, or in a sunny location for a month or more. It won’t go bad. Don’t be afraid to use fresh herbs, especially if you have them on hand from your garden or a friend’s and you have fresh summer honey. Let the herbs wilt a bit, add them to the honey and make sure to not put a lid on it. Instead cover it with a paper towel you use a rubber band to hold on to the jar mouth. This helps the moisture from the herbs be released from the honey. Don’t rush it. Let it be. Consider the medicinal effect you’re going for. Do you need nervous system support? Are you wanting viral protection and immune support? Are you recovering from a virus that really got you down? Do you want a honey you can use in your bedtime cuppa? A sexy honey? You get the idea. Some favorites for us are clove honey, tulsi honey, schisandra berry honey ~ so utterly delicious, or do a savory honey riff on herbs de Provence or a sleepy time lavender and passionflower honey. So many ways to love this and people love getting them in little jars as gifts. They also make amazing facial masks when there’s just a little bit left in the jar and you an scoop it out with your fingers.

Baby Face Facial Oil: ~a facial oil that does wonders for sensitive and reactive skins, for people with hot, inflamed acne, for folks with rosacea or for mature skins in general. This is also a great oil for oil cleansing. Use a bit to cleanse and then add another few drops afterwards as your moisture and treatment. Keeping it simple like this is WAY better from your skin then the roller coaster of barrier harming weirdness the natural skin care industry is peddling these days and is ultra cost- effective.

You’ll be using an organic, unrefined jojoba oil as your base along with a combination of soothing carrier oils of your choice that will be added to the jojoba oil after you’ve infused it. Good options are a combination of borage, meadowfoam, avocado, argan and/or rosehip. Using organic and unrefined carrier oils is much better for you, and the earth, for a myriad of reasons, but efficacy is a major one. Fill a mason jar with dried herbs. You don’t need to be precise. Use what you grow or have or buy a few herbs in small quantity to use in the ratios you feel drawn to try. You can make a batch as small as a pint jar for just yourself for very little $. Our version used licorice root, marshmallow root, yarrow, calendula, fenugreek seeds, chamomile, elderflower, lavender and rose petals. Whatever size mason or any old glass a jar you use, fill it most of the way with a combination of these herbs. Then fill it up with the jojoba oil, covering them. Seal your jar and keep it in a sunniest window for a lunar cycle or more. Shake it a lot and give it some intention and love. You can also very gently heat it for an hour or so by simmering it in a water bath, but be very careful not to scorch the herbs and oil if you do this. Very low and slow, knowing it’s so easy to ruin if you overheat it while you do this. Strain the herbs out of the oil using cheesecloth or a coffee filter when you’re ready. Squeeze this bundle of oily herbs as well as you can, to get all the potent infused oil out of the herbs before you compost them. You can use them as a fire offering at your next campfire or scrub yourself with them as a gentle exfoliant in a bath letting yourself soak in the tea bath afterwards. Finally, you’ll add about an equal amount of a combination of the other carrier oils to the infused jojoba oil once you’ve strained the herbs out and your facial oil is complete

Bitter Hounds of Hell Elixir: ~a medicinal syrup you ingest for softening and expelling phlegm and supporting healing from a nasty cough and inflamed lungs. Very effective and really speeds up healing.

You’ll be using about equal parts brandy, apple cider vinegar and honey for your final product as you make up this recipe.

Start by infusing apple cider vinegar strongly with herbs like oregano, sage, hyssop and horehound, lemon balm and lavender, some lemon or orange peels, dried or fresh. Use what you have. Don’t get hung up on specific recipes ratios. Use the knowledge that you have already. If you want to be extra fancy add some gotu kola or horsetail or both for tissue healing, too. Infuse this for a lunar cycle or so and strain it.

Then add equal parts brandy and honey to this. I’d used lemon balm and lavender infused honey when I made it and the alcohol portion was infused with blackcurrants and/or elderberry.

Combine your ACV with your brandy and honey and you end up with a sweetish potent dose of medicinal wonder you can take by the tsp. to break up your cough, heal your lungs and give a punch to the virus that got it all going. Add this to a cuppa of herb tea or hot water, squeeze in some lemon juice, or not, or just take it straight.