Baby Hummingbirds

Just today I noticed 2 tiny beaks above the edge of the nest. In the bottom photo you can see one standing
right up.

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

.

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.

RAW SEASONED KALE CHIPS

Slice the spine out of the kale, & keep the leaves in big pieces that will still fit in your food dehydrator.

Put the leaves in a big bowl.

In the magic bullet, grind up:

sesame seeds

pumpkin seeds

nutritional yeast

some himalayan salt

Then add:

garlic

a chunk of onion

tamari

lemon juice

a bit of olive oil

Grind this all up, it should be a fairly thick paste.

Toss it with the kale leaves until they are evenly coated. If the seasoning mixture is too thick, add a bit of water.

I line my food dehydrator trays with parchment paper (not a fan of the plastic liners), and cut a whole in the center, sometimes I cut some wedge shaped sliced out of the outside edges, so the warm air can circulate more easily.

Dehydrate your seasoned kale until its crispy.

This is the best dehydrated crunchy thing I've tasted in ages.

Harvesting Sage

Driving through Osoyoos this weekend, I was finally able to replenish my supplies of sage.

Big Sagebrush

Artemesia tridentata

is my favorite to use for saging my house & the

reiki room.

This plant grows in with sage, it is a little larger, but looks very similar to sage . It is

Antelope Bush

Purshia tridentata

Doesn't smell as good as the sage for sure.

This last plant is Wild Blue Flax.

Linum perrenne ssp.

It was in bloom in the interior, so I brought a plant back to try in my herb garden.

Mama Hummingbird

Mama hummingbird in her nest 2 feet from the reiki room window.