Welcome to the TGN Forums!

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  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @DitaMallon Welcome! Your experience is important. Sharing is how we learn.

    Make sure you check in on the homeschool thread!

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Welcome @Jaylene! This is certainly a diverse group & getting more so daily.

  • Grounded
    Grounded Posts: 153 ✭✭✭

    Hello from the western suburbs of Chicago. My interests are in vegetable gardening, local food production, permaculture and investigating alternative health strategies. There was always a garden behind the garage, with tomatoes, peppers, rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberries. The tastes were amazing. When I moved away from home, I took a different path for too many years, getting old and fat, and sick. I have grown vegetables for several years now at the local community garden. Our property is too shaded to grow vegetables, but, I am using permaculture plants and techniques to eat up my lawn. I am also interested in learning about herbs for cooking and medicine. I look forward to sharing experiences and knowledge with this groiup.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Welcome @attydennis1! You will be among friends here on TGN. As varied as our membership is, we have similar goals.

  • moreyshadypines
    moreyshadypines Posts: 72 ✭✭✭

    Hello, my name is Diane,

    I have a small farm in coastal South Carolina outside Savannah, Ga. I am a master gardener, master naturalist and have my permaculture design certificate, m

    y farm utilizes those principals. I've been farming this piece of land for 25 years and everyday, I still learn something new. So joining this group of adventurers, I'm excited to expedite that process. :)

  • moreyshadypines
    moreyshadypines Posts: 72 ✭✭✭
  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    Welcome! That is one of my favorite areas on earth.... sure with I was in Beaufort right now!

  • valizona
    valizona Posts: 48 ✭✭✭

    Well, hello, ya'll. I'm in Texas and have lived the past 15 years in the Austin area homeschooling my 6 children, "raising them on peaches", and befriending and covorting with all kinds of farmers and homesteaders. We've farmed and worked on farms. This DIY livin' is in our blood. That's why I just love this place. Look forward to befriending my new TGN community folk.

  • Kayce
    Kayce Posts: 1 ✭✭✭

    We're in SE Virginia. Been here 8 years and love it, but watching storms become more severe and more flooding each year. Considering moving. We use no chemicals here. I have, and love, a scythe.

    We started homesteading with food preservation. I frequented the produce auction, and preserved what we bought. With the help of friends I learned various methods of food preservation and storage. Still learning. Seeking good ways to manage inventory fo freezer and pantry.

    We are trying to garden - not very successful, except for herbs and scallions. We forage on our land, and had bumper crops of violets this year, which we both dried and froze. We also appreciate and use the dandelions, bedstraw, curly dock, Pennsylvaia knotweed, chickweed, jewelweed, moneywort, purple deadnettle, purple henbit, plantain, stinging nettle (planted), sumac, + honeysuckle (total pest but used for cordial this year), We had mature pecan, muscadine grapes, and figs when we arrived, We added blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, loquat and pawpaws - all but the latter giving us lots of wonderful food for little effort. With covid19 we are renewing are efforts at gardening. We are making a 30' hugel bed from a fallen Bradford pear, working on building soil and making fertilizer.

    We have planted American Holly, Bald Cypress, Swamp Bay and magnolias on the north side to shield from the winter wind, Easter red cedar on the east for the same reason (a bit drier area), loblolly pin trees on the south, for shade. Also working on a hedgerow on the south to help block the sprays from the 'big farmer' who works those fields. Hedgerow has hawthorn, sumac, and tulip poplar, so far. Considering nitrogen fixers to add.

    We are on sabbatical as beekeepers. Plan to start up again when we retire. We feed and grow for the wildlife on our land, and have ponds for tadpoles and sand piles for snake nests. Interestingly, the animals seem to recognize us and don't move away from us much, if at all.

    We collect rainwater, are building a rocket stove, and learning to use a solar oven, and we distill our water, Hope to do this year's canning outside. Researching the use of a small quonset hut shed to double as a storm shelter.

    We have avoided livestock so far. We see deer, turkeys, bear, eagles, lots of birds, frogs, toads, snakes, and insects! Right now, the air can be ashimmer with dragonflies during the day and fireflies at night.

    Glad to be part of this community and looking forward to learning from others.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I would like to welcome @valizona & @Kayce to the forum, so my greetings are coming your way all the way from Canada.

    This is a good group that has a lot to share & is passionate about learning more.

  • kfoto
    kfoto Posts: 108 ✭✭✭

    Newbie here so I hope I'm doing this right. I look forward to what @stephanie447 will be sharing in Ayurvedic. I am in a beginning Ayurvedic school. I just love cooking with spices and fine tuning the experience we can have in the kitchen. My dream is to be able to bring the fun back to the kitchen with a healthy mind set.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @kfoto Bringing fun back into the kitchen is a great goal!

    Welcome here.

  • andrea745
    andrea745 Posts: 89 ✭✭✭

    Hello, I am Andrea Trank from Fort Myers Florida. I was an environmental activist and science teacher for years. Then I got autoimmune disease and my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's so I left the traditional classroom to begin the journey of becoming healthier and become a Yoga Teacher and Health Coach. I started that journey in my early 50s. I am now 61 and am certified in Integrative Medicine Health Coaching, Registered Yoga Teacher, Certified Memory Maintenance Yoga Teacher, Certified HeartMath Clinician for Stress Reduction, Essential Oil Wellness Consultant. However, I am a newbie herb users and lover. So I am so excited to learn more about these wonderful way to stay vibrant and healthy as we age. And to live in better harmony with our beautiful planet. My mom passed from Alzheimers but I have my autoimmune issues under control with all natural means. I am so excited to be part of this community and learn from each and everyone of you. Sometimes it is lonely when so many people my age are either not taking charge of their health or not interested in natural and complimentary medicine. Our property is small, but we are growing quite a few herbs and pinneaple and aloe. I want to grow more but in SWFL we have lots of wildlife all year who will eat most of your plants.... Lol.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome to TGN @andrea745! You will find lots of like minded people here! Hard to feel lonely in a crowd like this. Congratulations on your accomplishments! It sounds like you have a lot to offer.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @andrea745 I am interested in how you were able to get your autoimmune condition under control.

    In a new thread, would you be willing to share what your condition was & how you achieved that goal by fully natural means? There are numerous people who are either members or visitors that are looking for exactly this sort of help. You could potentially change the lives of many by sharing.

  • mmarriott
    mmarriott Posts: 9 ✭✭✭

    So happy to be part of this network! My retirement dream is life in a cabin in the woods with a big veggie plot and native species left alone to re-wild all around. Maybe an art studio; woodworking shop for the hubby. But for right now we are city dwellers – Vancouver, BC, Canada to be specific - with just a couple of raised beds behind the garage for veggies, pots of herbs and flowers on the back deck, a butterfly/pollinator garden on the boulevard (verge). My husband and I are very much of a DIY and circular economy mindset, and try to repurpose, reuse, and recycle as much as we can (I even found HIM on Craigslist). Together we have raised 5 awesome zero-waste, socially conscious, vegetarian/vegan kids, now all young adults trying their best to make their way in this mixed-up world. Now that I have a bit more free time on my hands (no young kids at home) I have been taking a lot of workshops to learn more about the natural world, and becoming more activist about environmental protection and restoration. Recent online courses (during lockdown) include mushroom cultivation, container gardening, migratory birds, backyard pollinators - and sewing DIY face masks 😷. Urban garden challenges are critters (and unscrupulous humans) spoiling and stealing my harvest. Looking forward to the multitude of online learning opportunities this network will bring me.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome @mmarriott! So glad to have another team member from BC! I am just a bit north of you. Just north of Williams Lake.

    You are in a great location for migratory birds. Have you been to Reifel's. My mum was a big birder and that was a favourite place for her.

    There was a thread just started about using ivy for laundry. Something you might be interested in. Save the environment from the Ivy take-over and get free laundry soap at the same time.

  • Bryce Langebartels
    Bryce Langebartels Posts: 47 ✭✭✭

    Greetings from Indiana (shout out to Denisha in the last post!)! My name is Bryce and my wife and I have 5 children and live on a 7 acre homestead on the northwest side of Indianapolis. We raise chickens for meat, egg laying chickens and ducks, boer goats, We also have 3 Tufted Roman geese that keep watch over our different flocks. We are always expanding our garden trying to grow as much of our food as we can! We also homeschool our children and love being together and with friends.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Welcome here Bryce! It sounds like your place is a busy one like ours. 🙂

  • Joette
    Joette Posts: 17 ✭✭✭

    I’m new at posting but very grateful to be a part of this community. I’ve enjoyed reading about all of you and realize there are like-minded people I can relate to. My interests are gardening, foraging, raising chickens and ducks, cooking, sewing, art, making and/or using natural household items, health products, fertilizers, insecticides, learning and sharing. I live outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome to TGN @Joette! With your interests it sounds like you will fit in perfectly!

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Yes, welcome @Joette! I think we will need to talk birds. 🙂 Actually, I think we have a lot to visit about!

  • Joette
    Joette Posts: 17 ✭✭✭

    I would love to talk about birds with you. They are wonderful and funny little creatures.

  • angelapete06
    angelapete06 Posts: 6 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020

    Hi! I'm Angie. I live on 2.5 acres in Minnesota and we currently raise chickens for eggs. In past years, we have also raised meat chickens, as well as pigs. I'm into herbal medicine and foraging and/or growing my own herbs to make teas and tinctures. I grow a large garden and dove into bio-intensive gardening this year for the first time. So much to learn!!

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin
    edited June 2020
  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited June 2020

    @angelapete06 Yep. You are a perfect fit as Judson said! Welcome, herbal chicken Angie! We'll need to talk chicken with @Joette. Haha!

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome @angelapete06! I'm sure you have lots to share as well as learn.

  • smik123
    smik123 Posts: 60 ✭✭✭

    Hi, I am Sandy. I live in the Phenix City, AL/Columbus, GA area. One of my biggest challenges is I want nearby friends in addition to on line friends and my husband and I are newer to this area. I have suffered at the hands of pharmaceuticals (I was treated for Rheumatoid Arthritis and a couple of other things) and I follow a particular lifestyle where among other things food is medicine. I really want to become a good gardener and a great herbalist and if I can repress my perfectionist tendencies I may have a shot. Looking forward to learning a lot here and making friends.

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