More Demo Dates!

Friday, November 4th
2PM-5PM
The Wedge
2105 Lyndale Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55403
612.871.3993

Saturday, December 17th
11AM-3PM
Mississippi Market - Selby
622 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55102
651.310.9499

Natural Home and Garden Magazine

Make sure to check out our ad in the November/December issue of Natural Home and Garden Magazine. You'll find it on page 74 in the Green Gifts Guide section.

We are also lucky to have been mentioned as a resource for beeswax candles in an article in that same issue on page 81.

When the online version comes out, we'll be sure to post the link!

Beekeeping Course

I attended the University of Minnesota's Beekeeping Course this weekend. Unfortunately, Neil was not able to come along so he'll have to go next spring. What a wonderful course! Neil and I plan to begin keeping bees when we make our move and are looking forward to making some of our beeswax candles out of our very own wax!

Demos for October/November

We periodically make appearances at some of our local stores to display and provide information about our candles. These are some of our current dates.


Saturday, October 22nd
11AM-2PM
River Market Community Coop
221 N. Main Street
Stillwater, MN 55082
651.439.0366

Tuesday, October 25th
11AM-2PM
Lakewinds Natural Foods
435 Pond Promenade
Chanhassen, MN 55317

Saturday, October 29th
11:30AM-2:30PM
Seward Coop
2823 East Franklin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55406
612.338.2465

Tuesday, November 1st
11AM-2PM
Lakewinds Natural Foods
17523 Minnetonka Boulevard
Minnetonka, MN 55345
952.742.1207

Tuesday, November 8th
3PM-6PM
Linden Hills Coop
3815 Sunnyside Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55410
612.922.1159

Saturday, November 12th
11AM-2PM
Mississippi Market - W 7th
1500 W. 7th St.
St. Paul, MN, 55102
651.690.0507

3PM-6PM
Mississippi Market - Selby
622 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55102
651.310.9499

"Green" Vs Green ($)

Yesterday, I spent the day mostly in the truck, driving the six hour, one way trip to our little spot in the north woods of Minnesota, to meet the horse logger we had hoped would do our building site clearing. Having 15 sled dogs at home and a "to do" list the length of my arm, means no luxury of staying over night this time around.

Mark met me on our property at 1PM on the dot. I love punctuality! This was a great start. He looked like he knew the woods well from his appearance, which gained him my instant respect in that category. I had read a bit about him prior to setting up the meeting and was impressed with what I had read. He had been involved with the US Forest Service for many, many years, working contracts for horse logging and specializing in primitive tools. Raising him even further above the rest was that he had formed a sustainable forestry organization in our area. If anything, I knew I was in for an interesting and educational visit.

Taking the time to walk our entire flagged area, Mark was kind enough to offer tidbits of knowledge and recommendation along the way when it came to what trees to keep, which ones were on their last leg, what that particular type of fungi was used for and how it was harvested, along with comments on our two "nurse" trees that had fallen and now lay host to a beautiful and fascinating straight-as-an-arrow line of baby Balsam trees. The first comment, however, that made me think we were now heading down a different path with our clearance was, "You won't want to clear all of this".

We had planned to clear roughly 2.5 acres to make space for our beeswax candle workshop with attached living quarters, pole building, dog kennels with large roof over top, dog food shed and two large hooped garden sites. This size clearance was on our "wish list" and it was designed to comply with Firewise recommendations, our need for solar power and our desire to create a large open space where air could flow, keeping the nasty insects away from our dogs. Mark was aware of our requirements and our tight budget so now we were getting to the reality of what could actually be done with the resources available.

Excited about the prospect of the horses doing our clearing, I daydreamed of them tromping around in our woods as our "green", wilderness savvy logger, wandered in our present day woods, uttering various indistinguishable exclamatory notes to himself and scratching his head.When his figuring was complete, our journey down the "horse logging trail" took an abrupt turn when the horse logger himself bid the job as a mechanized one, excluding the horses all together, after considering the carnage left from our recent driveway job, making the area to be cleared not as easily accessible by the horses and therefore cost prohibitive. Yikes! That day dream sure met a quick death. But you know, I respect straight, honest and unfluffed information. It saves time! So, all being said and done, even with a project that is mechanized, the clearing looks like it could potentially be under an acre. Nothing like a swift slap in the face by reality.

So now we ponder over the new direction life is showing us. Actually, it's all in the same general direction, just a different path leading us to the same end result. It's difficult when you very much would like to follow the path your values send you, knowing that doing so, to the full extent, would mean a nice big clearing as a result of horse and man power alone, but no money left for a roof over your head! "Green" versus Green.($) There's got to be a healthy balance that supports both our values and our pocket book. Still we ponder...........

Come and See Us!

We'll be selling our Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles and promoting our wholesale venues at the 2011 Do it Green! Minnesota Green Gifts Fair. Come and see us!

New Store; Heartfelt

We're happy to welcome Heartfelt to our wholesale family. They can be found at 4306 Upton Avenue South in Minneapolis, MN. For a complete list of where our Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles can be purchased, please click here.

Oake Lake Orchard Project for Out State Food Shelves

Bill demonstrates the way to pick apples. Never pull or twist, just gently lift the apple up.

The orchard was buzzing with activity this summer!

Not too long ago the honey bees were in the orchard pollinating, making this all possible!

Beautifully ripe Honey Crisp apples.

The branches were overflowing with apples!

It's been a while since I gave an update on the orchard project. The State Fair is over but there are mounds of residual paperwork left to complete so that project may not be wrapped up for another month. Thank goodness we found a good home for the apples this year because, with our schedules, we would either have failed the orchard terrible or be in the loony bin by now, had we taken it on ourselves.

To date, our friends in charge of getting the apples to the out state food shelves have picked approximately 24 - 40# boxes of Zestar apples, 2 - 40# boxes of Sweet Sixteen and 22 - 40# boxes of Honey Crisp. The Honey Crisp trees are still heavy with fruit so an additional 22 boxes is expected. There are also Victory apples to be picked and then three different types of pears. The pear trees didn't set well this year so there are fewer than anticipated. Those will be purchased and picked by a local orchard keeper with the funds going directly to the organization picking the apples to be dispersed amongst the food shelves.

I think this project is going better than expected for all and my hope is that it can continue for next year. Thanks Bill and all for such a great job!

Fall on Oake Lake

We received the stamp of approval by this little honey bee that wandered into the shot.