Charming Calendula

The Bangor Daily News posted my latest piece today, this one on calendula.

I love calendula for its color (in the garden, kitchen, and dried in the apothecary), its many skin benefits, and its long-blooming season.

We've just passed the half-way point between summer solstice and autumn equinox. The calendula in my garden began blooming in early June and should continue into the fall. As the days get incrementally shorter and the evenings grow chillier, the calendula will remind me of these warm days of summer. When I begin to worry about the coming winter, calendula will help me remember that summer will always return.

Playing with roses

I dream of the day I'll be harvesting baskets upon baskets of rose petals from our gardens here at Ridge Pond Farm. That dream is likely a few years away still. To tide me over this year I had the opportunity in late June to pick rose petals at the home of a close family friend.

Cathy and my mother have been friends for more than 40 years. She and her husband live on the coast in Northport and have roses planted right along the ocean's edge of their property overlooking a lovely cove. Their roses are just gorgeous with huge, fragrant petals. I picked a few white ones but concentrated mainly on picking the pink petals for their color and fragrance. It took little time to fill my harvesting basket. 

Their scent was simply perfection. I kept getting distracted the next morning in the kitchen by these beauties, repeatedly pausing whatever I was doing to deeply inhale their fragrance. Roses are known to elicit joy and that's exactly what I feel when I'm breathing them in.  

With my small harvest (I didn't want to be too greedy with my gathering) I made 6 small batches of different rose products for personal use and as research for future Ridge Pond Herbals products: roses infused into sweet almond oil, a rose elixir, a rose oxymel, rose-infused witch hazel, rose vinegar, and rose sugar. 

Arguably the prettiest concoction was the rose sugar. I pulsed equal amounts of rose petals and sugar (I use organic cane sugar) in the food processor until well combined, then added a tablespoon of lemon juice. The final product was deeply, intensely pink and absolutely delicious. A decadent treat is vanilla ice cream with a sprinkle of rose sugar. The prettiest of indulgences. 

The runner-up in the pretty department is the rose vinegar. I packed a pint jar half full with rose petals and poured in warmed-to-a-simmer apple cider vinegar to fill the jar. Very quickly the petals gave up their pink and after a week and a half I strained the mix and bottled the rosy smelling and colored vinegar. It takes willpower not to use this in everything. 

For the oxymel, I filled a pint jar 3/4 full with petals and poured in about a cup of raw honey (warmed to pour easily). After stirring the honey and petals thoroughly I filled the rest of the jar with apple cider vinegar. I'll be straining this soon to make a sweet-tart syrup to add to sparkling water (and possibly vodka...ok, definitely vodka).

For the rose petal-infused sweet almond oil I filled a jar half-full with petals, mashed them up a bit to release more oils and fragrance and then added sweet almond oil to fill. I still have it soaking and will strain it soon. Still pondering what future Ridge Pond Herbals prototype I'll use this loveliness in. 

The rose-infused witch hazel is made from a pint jar 3/4 full of petals covered with organic witch hazel. I'll give it another few weeks and will then strain to test a facial toner/body spray idea for Ridge Pond Herbals.

At the moment my very favorite rose experiment from last month is the rose elixir. Made from a pint jar full of petals with warmed raw honey poured in to fill 1/4 of the jar amidst the petals. The last step was to fill the rest of the jar with brandy. After sitting several weeks I strained out the petals (they were boozy and delicious, by the way) and have been relishing small doses of utter bliss in every rosy sip of this elixir.

Tallow Power

Have you ever used tallow on your skin? Tallow, or rendered beef fat, is a phenomenal moisturizer, particularly if it comes from 100% grass-fed cows. I've been using tallow in my personal care regimen for some time now and love how soft and healthy it makes my skin. I combine it with various beneficial-for-the-skin herbs, herbal oils, and powerful essential oils for the highest quality skin conditioners. I source my tallow from local farms here in Maine that raise their cows completely on pasture, with no added grain in their diet, and carefully and slowly render it for Ridge Pond Herbals products. Not only does tallow benefit the skin but it feels good to support Maine agriculture in the process. 

As someone who spent a lot of money in her past on expensive face creams and other products, I have high standards for quality while wanting an effective, simple, and safe moisturizer. When I started making my own bodycare products I continued to buy commercially made face creams because I didn't like how greasy or pore-clogging homemade ones felt. Once I tried tallow, however, I stopped buying face creams and switched to using tallow-based balms and herbal salves on my face. Tallow has properties uniquely similar to our skin making it a great, nourishing moisturizer. It's important to start small when first trying tallow. Apply a small bit with your fingertips and rub in gently but thoroughly. It goes on feeling a little thick but quickly absorbs into the skin. 

Ridge Pond Herbals currently offers three tallow-based products: Herbal Restoration Tallow Face Cream, Comfrey & Lavender Tallow Hand & Face Cream, and "Man Hands" Hand Cream. 

Herbal Restoration Tallow Face Cream is the most complex skin potion we offer. Carefully rendered tallow is combined over low heat with organic lavender, roses, and chickweed (three herbs great for the skin) and left to infuse several days. Once strained, the tallow is then combined with rose-infused extra virgin olive oil and another olive oil infusion made from 10 skin-benefiting herbs. Once the tallow and oils are fully combined and melted, essential oils of frankincense, carrot seed, lavender, and rose otto are added, and the mixture whipped into a creamy mix. 

The scent is fresh and light and while it feels somewhat heavy at first, this cream absorbs quickly, leaving the skin soft and happy. Some people prefer to use tallow-based creams for nighttime and I recommend starting that way. I personally use it day and night. 

Yesterday I whipped up a fresh batch of Comfrey & Lavender Tallow Hand & Face Cream. This cream is wonderfully healing with the addition of comfrey leaf- and root-infused olive oil and lavender essential oil. When whipped up it looks just like a decadent frosting (I even use frosting bags to fill the jars).

The third tallow-based product in the Ridge Pond Herbals line is "Man Hands" Hand Cream. You can read more about this fantastic hand cream for men AND women here. 

I bring these creams to market every week in Gardiner and every other week in Yarmouth. If you haven't tried tallow on your skin yet, I highly recommend it! 

Colors of summer in flower

I've been not a little flower obsessed lately. This is our first summer living here at Ridge Pond and every new flower, every new stage of growth in the plants and trees captures the attention. A busy time of year to say the least but when possible I've tried to slow down long enough to smell the roses (and other blooms) and take some photos to share. Like all seasons (well maybe not that long cold one we just recovered from) summer flies by and it's a daily balance of enjoying and appreciating it while getting all the things done that need doing. Summer balance. 

PINK

Sweet musk mallow closing up for the night.  

There are a couple happy stands of mallow around the farm, this one by the front door.  

More mallow thrives by the chicken run, its exuberant blossoms pushing through the fence.  

I don't know if the chickens appreciate this pink beauty but I certainly do.  

I was ecstatic to see that our newly transplanted rosa rugosa is making a few flowers. Judging by the number of pollinators on this bloom I'd say I'm not the only one! 

A bee in every bloom. Hoping that by this time next year the roses will be putting out loads of flowers for harvest.  

Lovely pink lilies in my mother's flower garden.  

Cleome in my parents' garden.

ORANGE

Calendula and friend.

Daylilies in the bright light of midday sun.

This is the first year I'm really appreciating daylilies, both for their beauty and as a food.

YELLOW

Yellow elecampane bursting open.

Elecampane with bee. Look at those pollen-laden jodhpurs!

St. John's wort

Wildflowers in the field, including Black-eyed Susans. 

More Black-eyed Susans and pretty little sunflowers at the back of my parents' garden.

Just a couple more colorful shots...

The colorful and oh-so welcoming front porch at my parents' house

Sleepy Fozzie and a bouquet of local cut flowers to bring summer's many colors indoors. 

For my grandfather

My grandfather would have been 93 today. While he's often in my thoughts, on the occasion of his birthday I wanted to share one of my favorite photos of him, taken by my uncle Charles.  

Photo credit: Charles Eiben

One of the most influential people in my life, my grandfather taught me the importance of family, education, travel, curiosity, languages, food, and appreciating the pleasures of life. He was a wonderful grandfather, a devoted father and husband, and above all found his highest purpose in being a doctor, a care-giver. Another time I'll tell the story of how he (my mother's father) and my father's mother, got married when I was six years old and spent the next 30 plus years as the most romantic couple I've ever known...

In our last conversation just before he passed away, I was able to tell him that Mike and I had closed on this special place here in Palermo. It means a lot to me that I could tell him we were moving back to the area we grew up in, a few minutes away from my parents (a fact that pleased him to no end). In that last phone call he asked me to keep him posted on our progress here on the farm.  And that's why I have this blog, why I take so many photos documenting our life here, my business, the seasons here in this magical spot in this magical corner of the world. I do it for him as well as for our family and friends far and near and anyone else interested. But first and foremost to keep a promise to someone who did so much for me over the years and whom I will always love and miss. Happy birthday, Grandpa. xoxo