Birds & Herbs in June

Some of the birds at my feeder. A goldfinch &
the grosebeak is in the background.

Mama hummingbird is now feeding her babies, they
hatched a day or 2 ago. Her nest is a little too high
up for seeing down into it. Her babies are well below
the edge of the nest still. So cute to see her fly up to
the nest & poke her beak down into it to feed babies.
The hummingbird feeder is so busy with them this
year I have to refil it daily. I've seen 6 at time out
there.

As we were talking about in our latest herb class,
the dandelion leaves are huge this year. I encouraged
all my students to start picking & drying lots of wild
spring herbs. I grind up a mountain of dried herbs in the fall & put them in an amber wide mouth jar & use a little bit in my shake every morning.

Great time of year to be picking plenty of wild nourishing herbs for infusions.

I have been drying lots of nettles (about 20 lbs), dandelion leaves, cleavers (I usually pull up lots of it before it gets those tiny sticky green burs on them), yarrow, a few comfrey leaves.

Comfrey is in bloom now, with lots of bees on it. I am harvesting some of the big stems before they fall over. Its great to see a few more bees outside now, apparently  about 90% of the bees in our area died off.

 The foxgloves are in bloom too, one of my favorite flowers, not to be used as an herb, but can be used as a vibrational essences.

And the valerian is in bloom, I bring lots of these flowers in the house, they smell incredible, which is amazing, since the root (which is used medicinally) smells so strong I store it in glass jars.

More on Mama Hummingbird

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Mama Hummingbird is still sitting on her nest.
The first 2 pictures are a little older, her nest was smaller.
Second 2 pictures, she's added a lot more lichen.
I saw her bringing tiny chicken feathers to line the nest.

The babies must be almost ready to hatch, she's been sitting on the nest almost 2 weeks. In the rain! Hopefully the weather will clear up soon.

An easier way to make Kale Chips

I just made another batch of kale chips & found an easier way to do it.

This time I made mexican flavored ones.

I made a paste of seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, & sesame (all raw, not roasted), and added hot cayenne powder & chili powder & some cumin, and himalayan salt.

Then I ran some red pepper, green onions & a chunk of lemon through the juicer with the blank in it, so it just pulverized the vegetables.

I mixed all this together as a paste, kind of a peanut butter consistency, then just used a spatula to smear it on huge pieces of kale. I filled 12 trays in the dehydrator.

Remember, the reason you are using a food dehydrator & not the oven, is too keep all the nutrients & enzymes of the ingredients. So you are still eating a raw food.