Katie 1/29/16 "Waiting for Spring"

Happy Friday, my beautiful people! How’s it hanging?

Man, is it just me, or are you also bursting with impatience for the spring? Ever since I went to college and had to walk back and forth to class in snow and ice and piercing sharp winds, I haven’t been fond of winter. That’s an understatement. I hate winter.

Sunshine and daffodils and crocuses cannot come soon enough for this girl! I’ve been consumed with gardening lately. I’m eagerly awaiting my seed orders to arrive, and then I’ll probably start plotting where I’m planting everything in the garden. I know the tomatoes are going in the hottest, sunniest spot and that the potatoes are going in the dampest spot, but the rest is still to be planned.

For today’s post, I’ll share some gardening tips and talk about heirloom seeds. I’ve been learning so much! I’m hoping you’ll learn something new, too.

If you need to order seeds and bulbs, check out Sand Hill Preservation and Fedco. Sand Hill is a smaller, more hobby style farm. They are committed to preserving heirloom seeds in order to combat the rise of GMO’s and loss of pure, fertile seed. Fedco also has a good selection of heirloom and open pollinated seeds. Just avoid their hybrids and you’ll be good! Look around locally for places that sell heirloom and OP seeds. The benefit of shopping local is that they often know what plants grow best in your area, and can help you find native plants.

I really admire farmers who pledge to save the pure genes of fruits and veggies grown hundreds of years ago. Genetically modified plants and hybrid plants do not produce seed after their own kind (and GMO seeds aren’t even fertile), so it is of the utmost importance that we do not use them. If you do, you have to rely on the company who makes them every year to grow your plants, instead of harvesting your own seeds and growing stronger and hardier plants each year from this natural selection.

When you harvest seed from your best plants and plant it next year, you’ve just done yourself a favor. If you always choose the healthiest, best tasting, best producing plant to save, you will be breeding a plant that is better suited to the climate you’re in, as well as always having a better plant each year. People used to give their best and firstborn back to God, and so must we do to the earth in order to reap our best harvest year after year. Incredibly simple to do, and makes perfect sense, yet how many of us do that? Let’s start now!

I was wondering the other day about the difference between heirloom and open pollinated seeds. If anyone has any input, I’d love to hear it. The gist of it is that heirloom are antique varieties, often passed down in a family. It’s pretty cool to eat a watermelon from the 1800’s that’s the same as what your ancestors ate! Family history truly can be delicious.

Open pollinated are plants that will produce seed true to the plant’s traits. No mixed genes, no surprises. They produce seed after their own kind, how God designed them.

When it comes to saving seeds, you have to know a thing or two. Let’s look at the tomato, who is a bit of an anomaly. Is it a veggie? Is it a fruit? Turns out, it’s all sorts of complicated. If you want to save tomato seeds, you have to prevent cross pollination. I found an awesome explanation about why here. I just love learning new things!

Did you know that potatoes are the easiest thing to grow? With all that hilling and crop rotation nonsense, you might be scoffing. The secret is to grow them with a cover of woodchips (the secret to growing anything with ease and amazing results is woodchips). Paul Gautschi, renowned by gardeners around the globe for his inspired woodchip covering, does his potato planting and harvesting in one day! I’ll let you watch a video of how he does it, because some say that seeing is believing. And remember, potatoes love water!

If you’re an eager beaver like me and are anxious to get back to the garden, winter is the perfect time for pruning. Go clean up the suckers on your fruit trees, and make space in your bushes for better producing branches. Note: fruit only grows on the lateral branches of trees, not the vertical. Cut off all the verticals, because they take energy from the tree and block the sun from ripening the fruit below! Again I must refer you to Paul. He prunes beautifully. He is an arborist by trade, after all. Watch some of his pruning videos and go have fun! Personally, I find pruning to be very relaxing and therapeutic. I love seeing how nature corrects itself with such grace when we help it along.

Some other things I’d like to share is about weeds and insects. Do not use poisons. These are awful for the ground, the water we drink, and environment. If you have weeds, you can pour vinegar on them and they dry up. Vinegar isn’t poisonous to the earth. If you’re tenacious, you will eventually clear out the weeds. One of the easiest things to do is put down cardboard and then cover that with 4-6 inches of woodchips. The cardboard will kill the weeds and they’ll begin to compost, and after a few months you’ll have rich soil from all the compost tea the woodchips produce.

As for insects, they won’t harm your healthy plants. They are God’s police force. The weak plants send out a signal that insects pick up on, and subsequently they take the plant out in order to preserve the strength of the plant species. When the bugs eat the weak and dying (the same that predators do to flocks and herds), only the healthy plants can reproduce. We want this! We want to encourage survival of the fittest. If you have unhealthy plants, fertilizers will not fix this. Nutrient dense, living soil will. To preserve that rich soil, you have to put the natural covering back on it. The plants will be full of water and bugs will drown when they bite into it. They want fiber and cellulose, which is easily accessible in dehydrated plants. Woodchips are God’s way of keeping the soil moist and plants happy (the forest will testify of that!).

A natural way to stop insects is using diatomaceous earth on the ground around your plants. It’s harmful to insects due its abrasive nature, but not to the plants. Put it around the stalks and it will help keep bugs away. Just wear a mask when you handle it, because the tiny particles are really rough on our lungs.

I hope this year you have your best garden yet! If you have questions or additional information, please share! I would love to find the answers or learn from you!

Now we just have to wait for spring. I’ll be staring out my sliding glass door, biting my nails down to the quick in anticipation! Please save me from being driven crazy with cabin fever!

Thanks for reading folks, and live well!

Katie

Claire 1/22/16 “The Benefits of Writing”

By Claire

Now that we’ve talked about food and healthy eating, I thought I’d post about something else entirely. We’ve already gone over what it means to live holistically. We know it means living in such a way that we realize that everything is interconnected. This means that our physical bodies, spiritual well being, and mental health need to be in balance. It’s when they aren’t in balance that we start to feel sick in one or more areas of our lives.

So, you may be wondering: Claire, what does keeping writing have to do with living holistically? Well, let me tell you. Writing as a whole can be healing for your emotional and mental states. It allows you to release your emotions and work through your feelings in a safe zone where only you reside. It also helps you to manifest what exactly you want out of life. A lot of living holistically is learning to manifest what you want out of life. It is setting goals and accomplishing them. So, I’m going to provide a few ideas of how to write regularly and how they will help you to manifest your goals and dreams.

1. Blogging is a great way of writing about things that are important to you and sharing your thoughts with those around you. In fact, it’s an effective tool used by therapists with their clients. It is a way of working through your feelings and thoughts in a productive way, and it allows you to do research on cool interesting things! (Like right now I’m reading an article on journal writing in order to write this blog!)
2. Letter writing is another great way of writing regularly. In my creative non-fiction class a couple semester ago I was first introduced to this way of writing. Basically, you write a letter to someone or some entity that describes how you feel. This can be kept in a personal place where no one will ever read it, or you can share it with others. Either way it will benefit you by allowing you to work through your feelings freely.
3. Journal writing is another great way of writing regularly. Here is the article I mentioned about this. It said that if you write your daily to-do list down each day, and go over your goals, that you’ll learn to manifest them. How awesome is that?! In fact, I was reading more about keeping a planner or journal and found this awesome video that I’m hoping to try out soon. It sounds like it would really work for me and is just what I was looking for! I’ll tell you how it goes once I start.

I hope that these ideas gave you some awesome things to think about. After all, holistic living is about all aspects of your life being in balance, and writing is a great way to balance everything out. Also, please remember that you don’t have to be talented to be a good writer! Writing is all about getting your thoughts down on paper or on the computer screen in a productive way. Journaling and letter writing is private, so let your feelings flow. No one will be grading you. It requires work to develop a writing skill, but talent is such a small portion of it. Never give up!

Live well,

Claire

Katie 1/15/16: "Restore Your Power"

Welcome back!

Today, we’re going to “start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” I find that when things are sequential and build upon each other, it is simpler to understand. “Precept upon precept; line upon line” (Isaiah 10:28).

We begin with the most basic question: What is holistic living? Some definitions follow:

“Characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.”

“Encompassing the whole of a thing, and not just the part. Holistic medicine looks at the whole person for answers, not just at physical symptoms.”

Everything is connected. Your childhood affects how you react to stressors, your reaction affects your choices and health, your choices affect your life, your health affects your quality of life. We already understand that. What we aren’t taught though, is how to advance our lives from lack and sickness to abundance, perfect health, inner peace, joy, and freedom.

In our modern American culture, we are dependent consumers. We don’t grow our food (In 2009, 37% of Americans grew their own gardens. Link #1 below), we don’t make our clothing, we don’t build our houses or furniture, we don’t repair our cars. The list goes on and on. I am in no way saying that having tradesmen and specialized professions is detrimental, quite the opposite. It is wonderful to have skilled people doing what they are good at and being able to make a living off it. Not all of us have the time and talent to provide for all of our needs.

The detriment with consumer culture is that we eat what is fed to us. We don’t have to look far for products that boast miraculous things, and we don’t do more than read warning labels. We are lied to every day, but we don’t even see it anymore. Too few of us question and dig for answers. We’ve given up our power in exchange for instant gratification and convenient access.

The people who are in control of our food and medicine do not have our best interests in mind. The animals we eat live in dirt or cages and are pumped full of hormones, no matter what your packaging says. Yes, grass fed and cage free is a step in the right direction, but it’s still full of antibiotics and growth hormones. If you bought it at the grocery store, it’s probably not good for you.

Your fruits and vegetables are sprayed with poison to keep bugs away, then dowsed in chemical fertilizer to try and get them to grow in hard dirt, and showered in tons of water in an attempt to keep them hydrated since they don’t have strong root systems or living soil to keep them alive. Farms get bigger and bigger every year because they are producing less and less. This unnatural way of growing plants isn’t working, and our land and water and bodies are paying for it.

Even organic isn’t organic. They spray things to make them keep longer on the shelf. Once something is picked, it loses 80% of its mineral properties within 10 MINUTES. Not hours, minutes! (see link #2 to read a bit about why.) Organic farmers have to do some non-organic things to get their food to last long enough from field to truck, truck to grocery store, then store to your fridge.

You wonder why you’re sick and tired and allergic and overweight? It’s because there is no live, clean food available to us at the grocery store. We’re all being poisoned (watch link #3).

My friends, there is a war being waged on us. If we do not take our food back into our own hands, we will continue to be unhealthy, pained, diseased, and obese. We are living in a time when almost all of our food is unsafe. It sucks. It’s evil. Why has this happened? Let’s think of who the god of this world is. God created the earth, but who rules the flesh? It’s Satan. He is the father of all lies. He spreads corruption and sin. He is in control now of our food industry, because he knows how much power he holds over us with it.

We have to fight back. We have to reclaim our right to health and wellness. If you want to be skinny, you have to grow your own food. If you want to be pain free, you have to grow your own food. If you want to be healed of your diseases, you have to grow your own food.

Please understand: you can grow your own food, and it will be simple.

You’ve been told lies your entire life about how much work it is to garden. No one will profit from you feeding your family by your own labors, so of course you’ve been lied to. Where is the money in telling you how capable you are, and how easy it is?

The thing about God is that he’s simple. His truth is simple, even a child can understand. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. He tells us to ask and we shall receive! He doesn’t say, “Ask, and I will make you go on this long, roundabout journey to find an answer and it will be really difficult.” He says receive. It’s instant.

He loves us. He wants us to be happy. In Nephi 2: 25 it reads: “Adam fell that men might be, and men are, that they might have joy.” God put us here to gain experience and physical bodies, which allow us to have families and to progress! He never set us up to fail. He’s given us all good things. Read the first chapter of Genesis. Not once does it say that God made bad things. He saw that each thing he made was good. It was important to him to bless us, not curse us.

I truly believe that His yoke is easy. This is why I am so excited to share my findings with you. I want all of us to live abundant, healthy, joyful lives. If we live after God’s way, we can be nothing but blessed! Sin and lies are what make life hard and painful. That is Satan’s way, not the Lord’s.

Here are the solutions to the food crisis.

Clean animals make healthy bi-products. Buy your meat from local farmers who don’t fill their animals with shots and let them graze all day. Buy eggs from chickens who eat bugs and plants, instead of the sad hens locked in filthy cages and fed grain. Hunt wild animals. They have never been touched by growth hormones or antibiotics and feed solely on organic matter (do all of this legally, so we can begin to improve our rights as citizens).

Grow a Back to Eden garden. It is simple, suits your needs, feeds your family year round, and will be the best food you’ve ever had. Link #4 will show you exactly how to do this. I will also be chronicling my own experience with a Back to Eden style garden this year. You don’t need much space, you don’t need much water, and you don’t need much work! You will be amazed at the perfection God designed for us to partake of! And it’s all free from the Lord!

To return to my previous statement about advancing the quality of our lives, the first step is always a shift in consciousness. You have to become aware that something isn’t true before you can find the truth. Shift with me now. Shift to trusting God, that He will direct your paths if you let him. Proverbs 3:5-10 is powerful. If we depart from evil, it will bring health to us. That is amazing. The more connected we are to God, the more healthy. The happier. This holistic thing gets so clear. God doesn’t overwhelm us. He tells us to start where we are and trust Him to guide us. Wow!

Living holistically isn’t hard, it isn’t a burden, it isn’t unpleasant. It’s a joy! You restore your power as a divine being. Let’s move forward in joy together! Keep following us, and please leave comments, suggestions, and questions. This is our journey together as children of God. We can do all things in Him, who strengthens us!

Live well,

Katie

1. Home gardening on the rise
2. Nutrient loss in fruits and veggies
3. Powerful message on the crap we are fed
4. BACK TO EDEN GARDEN

Claire 1/8/2016: “Why I Believe In A Personal Word of Wisdom”

By Claire

I was sitting at the dinner table recently with my family, and we came upon a pretty normal conversation for us: allergies. My sister is extremely allergic to quite a bit of foods such as soy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, and pears. Because of this she has a very strict diet, and can’t have regular bread which is a part of our sacrament at church services. My other sister has a gluten and dairy intolerance; she ends up in bed for days if she eats even a crumb of bread.

This past year, I took a class on campus about Church History. One of the things we talked about was our word of wisdom, which is a set of guidelines set by God for us to follow. It includes not partaking of alcohol, hot drinks, drugs, or anything else that could harm our bodies. It also talks about eating meat sparingly and eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. As we discussed this piece of doctrine, we somehow got on the topic of allergies and illnesses that prevent you from eating some of the good things on the Word of Wisdom. That’s when we discussed having a personal word of wisdom.

A personal word of wisdom is a guide to a specific individual. It would include a list of “don’ts”, meaning a list of foods that you shouldn’t eat because it will make you sick. The word of wisdom is all about being the healthiest you can be, and God would want you to be healthy!

So, I get a little angry when people say, “It’s fine, you can have a little,” because they are saying that it’s okay to let just a little bit of a toxin into your body! In my mind, that’s tantamount to tempting me to drink alcohol or coffee and saying it’s okay because it’s “just a little bit”.

This year, I will be working on my own personal Word of Wisdom. This will include foods that make me feel sick or that I think I’m allergic to, and also include things I should limit or eat sparingly. Here is what I have so far:

Claire’s Personal Word of Wisdom:

Eat meat sparingly, ie not with every meal

Avoid sugary/carbonated drinks

Avoid processed foods

Stay away from raspberries, nuts, and other allergies (deadly toxins!)

And, because I also believe fitness should be on my personal word of wisdom:

Exercise 30 minutes daily (yesterday I went swimming with my friend Hannah!)

In the upcoming weeks, I will discuss more ways to eat healthy and even share some of my favorite recipes! In the meantime, why don’t you write your own personal word of wisdom or whatever you decide you want to call it? It’s a good place to start as you learn to eat and live a healthier, more wholesome, holistic life! And remember, if something makes you feel sick, you probably shouldn’t be putting it in your body. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that if something looks unappetizing to you and makes you feel nauseated, don’t eat it! And NEVER be afraid to say no if someone offers something toxic to you!

Love your life, live your life, live well!

Claire

Katie and Claire 1/1/16: "The Pilot Post"

By Katie and Claire

Scene opens on a split screen to two women in their mid-twenties. One short, one tall, both with pixie cuts. On the left sits Claire at her kitchen table, typing away at her laptop. On the right Katie’s kitchen shows, where she paces on the phone.

Both have a dream of one day being famous writers. In the meantime they have each other and their love of writing, reading, and living a holistic lifestyle. With these interests in mind, they have combined to create something amazing: a new blog!

“An amazing blog, yeah right!” some may say, but hold on to your pants folks, cause this one is gonna… well, not steal your pants. But it MIGHT rock your socks off.

This is definitely going to be something new. At least for us, because we’ve never done anything like this before!

Our great minds (perhaps diabolically great) conjured up the scheme whilst discussing their passion for all things holistic. Health, gardening, self-sufficiency, spirituality-

Beauty!

Yeah, yeah. That, too. And then Claire strong-armed me into agreeing to write REGULAR blog posts. What the heck!

For those that know Katie, that’s not easy to do… It took me YEARS.

Stuff it!

Make me!

Jk, I <3 you. But I’m a busy woman! I have a job, a house, a husband. Not to mention a novel I’m in the middle of. This is exactly why I thought it was important I do this blog, though. It forces me to slow down and take time to focus on the essentials. What I really want in my life. I’m sure it will be a blessing, or some feel-good nonsense.

All jokes aside *Claire glares at Katie* I think this will be a very good experience for both of us. Now that she has introduced herself, let me tell you a little about me. I’m a Senior at BYU-Idaho. I study Creative Writing, Spanish, and Music. I am set to walk in April, and then I plan to go to Mexico for the summer to teach English there. However, writing is my real passion, and I especially love blogging so I decided to pull my best friend Katie into it with me. I thought it would be something good to do together!

We are also working on a story together. Something fantasy, wasn’t it Katie?

DEMONS!!

And Angels!

Those, too. Though I hate to admit it, I am excited to write this blog, because it’s all stuff I love. Also, I’m going to be gardening, canning, exercising, and trying to incorporate a higher way of living into my life, starting this year. PERMANENTLY! Which makes it easier to write, since I’ll be interesting for once.

And I’m excited because it gives me the chance to try something new! I am so excited to be learning how to be more healthy holistically, and I’m especially excited to be doing this with Katie and sharing it with all of you! This will be an amazing adventure. I hope to share something new with each of you. Together, we can learn, grow, and become!

As you read each post, please share your thoughts and ask questions! We’d love to find answers for you or have discussions. The more we talk to each other, the smarter we can be, collectively! Cause trust me, I am not all-knowing, despite what I tell my husband. (Shh.)

And, if you have any suggestions for future posts, let us know! We love research and all that stuff. Seriously, I LIVE for research.

I live for cake.

Shut up, Katie. Cake is not healthy.

BUT IT’S GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL. Just not keeping the same pants size.

Despite what you may think, we aren’t going to be telling you that you can’t eat unhealthy foods, just teach you how to moderate it. Right, Katie?

Why you gotta spoil the surprise? Okaaaaay, yes. I will share healthy recipes and crap like that.

And you’re gardening, too, right?

I finished spreading the last of my woodchips yesterday! Which is technically late, because you want your ground covered in fall (like God does with leaves). But it will still be ready for planting in spring.

Well, I am excited to read more about that! I do not have a green thumb at all. But I will be sharing a bit about food allergies and celiac and some other things like that, and recipes. I will also share my love of yoga, meditation, minimalism, and downsizing (which I will be incorporating in my own life this year, which is super exciting!)

No one needs a green thumb with Back to Eden gardening. The earth does it for you, how God designed it. More on that later. ;)

Wow, that’s really interesting! I am SO excited to hear more about this!

I’m just as eager to share about it! The thing about holistic living is that it’s simple. It makes sense. It’s not just healthy food, but a healthy mindset. It’s getting back to nature and God’s proper order. It’s a wholeness between body and spirit. We all crave balance and simplicity. I truly hope our findings will bring that into our life and the lives of others.

Well, I think we’ve rambled long enough. Perhaps we should just show them? How often will we be posting, Katie?

Don’t ask me hard questions! Every Friday! I can haz cookie now?

Yay! This will be fun! Katie… *sighs*

That’s what they all say. LET’S PROVE IT.

YEAH! Let’s go! <3

See you all next Friday. Claire will be sharing… something great?

Yes! I will be talking about allergies and food actually, so stay tuned for more!

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about the type of gardening I’ve been studying, watch these videos. You will be so blown away!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLohrv7JcWR5pjmRYTf1rSqw-qNKwcEapp

Live well,

Katie and Claire

(some photos of Katie’s woodchip garden)