Lindsay Hodge

My daughter and I make Zuppa di Lindsay and Emma all the time.

Sometimes I make a creamy soup. It starts with a light roux then add half and half water and milk to any veggies and protein on hand.

Sometimes it's a stew (if I feel like thickening my soup with floor or potatoes) and sometimes it's just regular soup. Water, veggies, protein, salt and spices. Easy peasy;-)

I will say no matter what, I usually skip the whole broth making step and use water, but that's because I don't like storing veggie scraps until I can get around to making broth. Besides, my chickens and vermiculture (worm) bins need to be fed! I have very limited freezer space!

Whatever you do, don't forget to mulch! I believe that a good deep mulch is key to growing plants with out irrigation in any climate.

Hey! Awesome work... I wonder if you can make your magazine available through my library's magazine app, Zinnio... I don't know how it works, but I know is live to see your rag there!

Stinging nettle tea saved my bacon a couple of summers ago, but the problem I had was that I needed to drink 6oz or so every four hours to get the same relief I got from OTC allergy meds. After everything stopped working for me I looked into allergy shots and I just recently learned about sublingual immunotherapy drops... I'm getting allergy shots and they are working wonders!!!

Thanks Tara! I'm glad you like our site! I've worked really hard on that

The rest of this post is for anyone who wants to make a living on their farm... (including you Tara!)

One thing I've heard a lot about lately is that anything worth doing takes time, and this has become my mantra, "slow, deliberate steps."

It's the permaculture way to opt for the slow, well-thought-out, permanent fix, instead of the quick, messy, bandaids. Haste makes waste, and that's not an efficient use of your valuable time and talents!

I think that anyone embarking on making multiple streams of income work, would do well to remember that! It's not about getting project ADD. It's about finding complimentary jobs that you are passionate about doing, that can be generating income simultaneously.

Maybe I'll blog about this! I seem to have a lot to say here! Hehehe good luck!

"Many Arrows slay the mastadon."

I love that! It's really the best way that I can see to make it on a permaculture farm.

We are in the transition stage from "having" to do off farm work to doing only farm stuff and it's so exciting! We keep going over our revenue streams and expenses and we say, "this is totally doable!"

Our place is called Haven Homestead and we are in Onalaska, Wa.

www.havenhomestead.com

One of the things that we did was set up a business plan that mimics the seven layers of a food forest. One stream of income for each element in the food forest. It helps to have a plan.

We are teaching classes through the local community college's continuing ed program (neither of us have a degree, just lots of experience! ) We hold a majority of these class on our property, and we are developing new classes. The goal is to have a stay rotation of Saturday only courses, and one or two major week-long workshops a year. Just remember, teach what you know!

We are establishing a harvesting service, we are calling it Haven Harvests. Every year hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of fruit from local trees goes to waste and people go hungry because there isn't an adequate vehicle to get the fruit to the bellies! The idea is to register tree owners (the pay some sort of membership fee) and volunteers, harvest the fruit and divide it for ways; 1/4 to the owner, 1/4 divided among volunteers, 1/4 to charities, and 1/4 gets sold or made into products that can be sold and we'll return that surplus to the business! It's still in its planning stage, but I see a lot of potential from this stream of income! We may end up do a garden harvesting device, honey harvesting service, etc. I'm very excited about the potential from this.

I'm also a writer and I am working on building up some content to release as e-books, etc.

We plan on hosting an intimate Calvin's/tiny house cabins/communal eating area/need and breakfast some day... this is more long term, but still in the plan!

Chris is a certified permaculture designer and we are designing several properties (for real money! ) right now.

Hmmmnnn... Oh! We'll have a farm store too! But I think that that will be a smaller revenue stream, simply because so many people on our community are DIY-ers, but it is a must-do since we enjoy making products to sell and what not.

I could go on, but I won't! You can just check it out at our website, feel free to ask questions, pick brains, etc. And good luck!

Go to, www.havenhomestead.com

Hello!

We are starting our own little landscape design business (we are calling it Easy Edible Edens, and we are focusing on perennials) and I am trying to compile a list of plants that I can use as "go-to's." Can you offer any suggestions? Even if you don't do your top ten, one or two would be great!

Thanks!

Are these still available? I'd make a great Christmas present for my hubby!

We'll Jon the fun! How much dirt and water, etc.?