Mating disruptor
Uninvited Guests (Pests!) When I first started writing The Uninvited Guest: Fire and the New Consciousness, I was thinking about fire. Collectively we banned it from our environment over the last 100 years and now it threatens to return with a vengeance. In this fifth year of severe drought in the West, we are being warned… Read more »
Two reasons we farm biodynamically!
Acres: Article on Biodynamic Farming This month Acres magazine published an article about our entry into biodynamic farming. Along with the story of why we began farming in this way, we offer suggestions about how to start gardening or farming this way yourselves. One of my greatest pleasures is to know that when I walk through the… Read more »
Replanting Biodynamic Lavender There must be a eulogy for the old lavender and a blessing for the new, as there must be a prayer for the bare earth in its liminal, in between state. This week we pulled the last of Lot Sophia lavender, 420 plants, just as the new replacements arrived from Cottage Gardens… Read more »
Grounded on the Pond Bottom
Pond Bottom, January 2014 Dark Gifts of Drought Donald says that he remembers a year when the hills did not turn green. He was forced to pump water from the lower pond, which fills first and quickly, to the upper, much larger pond, to capture and save what rain water he could. This has not… Read more »
No wonder she was tempted! Demeter’s Grief: Reflections on Our Evolution Yes, she was a great Goddess, that Medium of a tone of consciousness, and boy, was she pissed! Her daughter Persephone had been abducted by Pluto into Hades and the Underworld. In her fury, Demeter stopped everything from growing until she got Persephone back…. Read more »
Rose Geranium. We distill the leaves. These plants will be distilled in October. The wires will be covered with frost protection throughout the winter. Rose Geranium We get two distillations of rose geranium a year, one in the late spring, another in October. We are learning… Read more »
The Smell of the Living Earth
The Smell of the Living Earth Once my sister and I dug a “raccoon trap” in the fall stubble of my father’s corn field, a 3’ by 4’ hole about 3’ deep. In the bottom we placed marshmallows and then disguised the hole with dried corn stalks. The only thing we ever “caught” was the… Read more »
Biodynamic Prep 502: Yarrow: Healing Earth and Psyche
Yarrow on our ranch. Biodynamic Prep 502: Yarrow: Healing Earth and Psyche When I first learned to use the I Ching for divination, I divined with yarrow sticks. This takes about 20 minutes: you take 50 yarrow sticks, setting one aside, which symbolizes the beginning, that state before Heaven and Earth separate. You divide… Read more »
Farming and Politics: A Personal Story
Farming Couple, about 1900, identity unknown. Photographers, Ed Damery and Mr. Sutman Farming and Politics: A Personal Story Some years ago my oldest son Jesse interviewed my father for a school project. My father lived his entire life on a small Illinois farm. In early years he and his family raised several crops as well… Read more »
On Grumpiness and Biodynamic Certification
Records: not my cup of tea!! Each year about this time we are confronted with accounting for our farming practices over the last year and reporting our plans for the next. This is no small matter! In Biodynamic organic certification, we annually update four (long!) documents, two for Demeter Biodynamic certification, two… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
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