Happy Holidays! Yes, ALL of them because I just doubt that I'll get back here between now and the end of 2024. Maybe. But we've got some exciting things coming up and making time for everything just doesn't happen sometimes. And well, right now creating and restocking awesome products is the number one priority!
So ANYWAY...is everyone making holiday plans already? It seems that it would be almost getting to be too late if you haven't started deciding if or when you're going to do that thing that makes the holidays memorable for you. We all have those memories and we should all make as many more as we can!
I came from a family of seven kids. To say it was a busy house is a severe understatement! Holidays, well everyday, was loud and busy and exciting and usually ended with popcorn in front of the tv. Not a bad way to grow up. I miss those days but I'm thankful to have had them.
Being the last born, and many years younger than the others, growing up as the "baby" of the family created some common personality traits but it also gave me a front row seat to picking up what Mom & Dad both knew. This was after the riff-raff (that would be the OTHER six kids, lol!) moved out mostly. I think our parents had gotten to a place where they had a little more time and money to throw at their hobbies and crafts and this was good for me. It was then that I started to follow Dad around to his Scout meetings and outings. Yes, I was the Leader's daughter hanging out with a bunch of Cub Scouts and then Boy Scouts. Everyone knew a girl like me. I wasn't going to get left out of doing cool stuff. And they did cool stuff.
During ALL of my growing up years I was also a Camp Fire Girl, which apparently was very different than that organization has become in more recent years. We went camping, sometimes for weeks, we learned outdoor skills of all kinds, tended to home and outdoor chores, immersed ourselves in Nature and performed wildcrafting of all sorts. Everything outdoors was what we did. Building things, burning things, learning things. Tending to horses and other critters. Yes, knot tying (which made those Cub Scout years pay off!), cooking, all kinds of things. Including plants, gardening and using what we grew.
As I said I was a Camp Fire Girl for all of my growing up years. I joined when I was 7 and my last active membership card came in the mail when I was 18. The year before I got married.
All of those years and all of that time spent with people who were interested in and had great knowledge of the skills necessary to live off the land and how to avoid being put in that situation in the first place has always been a part of who I am and who we taught our own kids to be. While my oldest daughter is a full on "city girl", the other two kids are both extremely comfortable outside and have a good grasp of the skills needed to survive that environment. Even the "city girl" could do it. She's just not going to.
What Jen and I are attempting to get across to everyone we visit as smittyslittlefarm is that the things we make and the knowledge we've gained in how to use herbs and natural ingredients is available to anyone. EVERYONE can do what we do. There is nothing unlearnable or undo-able here. Which means that nobody has to live with just the mass-produced and questionable personal care products that are sold in most big box stores. All of the petro-chemical heavy, unpronounceable and oddly compounded lists of ingredients in most commercial choices seem to us to be unwise. And then there are the fake "natural" products that actually cloak questionable ingredients with fancy names. So much competition for your money and attention. The truth is your skin, your body would prefer you to not fill it full of chemicals and strange things.
If you can use natural herbs and minerals to provide for your body, shouldn't you? I've never thought that the Universe, God, Mother Nature, Evolution or whoever you believe in or want to credit, has ever made a mistake. We should have what we need right here in our environment to keep our bodies healthy and happy. Or we evolve, or the plant evolves to make that happen. We just have to know how to use what we have right here, right now. And when it works or when it doesn't.
None of what we do is "magic", although some of the results are indeed magical! What we do is combine the best possible ingredients that we can find, then we take the time to process these things into a desired mix, which then becomes a finished product over time. Not rocket science and not wizardry. Maybe it's somewhere in between!
Maybe having a few less chemical cocktails going on in and on our skin is a good thing.
And learning all that you are interested to learn to take care of yourself and your family is also a good thing.
And with all of that in mind, we want to let you know that we'll be starting a short video series on making many of the products that we've produced. While we aren't teachers, we do have some techniques and interesting twists to present. When our busy Holiday Season schedule is done and January rolls around we hope to release these instructional videos out to you!
As they say - Stay tuned!