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Here are a few photos I took when we were visiting my parents recently.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time, I was hanging out with my mom and daughter on the patio when I turned around and one of the many hummingbirds that grace my mom’s garden had stopped by for a fountain bath.  I wish I had been quick enough to catch him in flight.  My dad came out just as the hummingbird finished and he was green with envy.  They’re not an easy bird to sneak up on!

Worms can consume half of their weight in food every day.  One way to gauge how many worms you need is to keep a tally of how much food waste (less the meat and greasy bits) your family averages.  If you average 1 pound per day, you’ll need 2 pounds of worms.

Anyone who has visited our garden I’m sure has noticed our aviary, containing a variety of birds including a few chickens.  We’ve kept chickens for almost as long as I can remember and have been spoiled with superior tasting eggs for nearly as long.  These days, as people recognize the health benefits of eggs from chickens allowed to roam, scratch, hunt bugs, and eat fresh greens, backyard chicken coops are much more common.

We’ve all heard it before, exercise is good for us.  If you’re like me and you’re not a crazy exercise nut, but are still concerned with staying healthy consider adding regular stretching into your daily routine.  There may be some people who are naturally more flexible than others, but 95 percent of it is practice.  The more you stretch, the more flexible you will become.  We should also incorporate flexibility into other areas of our lives, including emotional and professional.

Even though our pets are a cherished part of our families, we often don’t consider the quality of the food we feed them. Even high quality pet food products still must go through a rendering, heating, and drying process and pet food labeling can be just as confusing, if not more so than labels on people food. Additionally, many dry or canned pet foods can lead to food sensitivities, skin conditions, or even allergies in our pets.

Our garden is on the northern edge of this butterfly’s habitat, so we don’t often see it. Here, it is resting on some eucalyptus but its larvae feeds exclusively on passion flower plants.

We all know we need water to survive. In truth, we need water to not only survive, but stay healthy. Our bodies are comprised of between 50 percent and 70 percent of water and without it, we would not exist. If you were to stop drinking water, within a very short timeframe dehydration would begin. Symptoms include headaches, tiredness, and loss of concentration. If you were to ignore these, you could eventually become constipated and in severe cases, have kidney stones.

When we think about seaweed, most of us picture smelly piles on a beach after a storm or the wrapping that keeps your sushi together, not a food product with a surprising number of health benefits.  Seaweed is high in essential amino acids; contains a wide variety of minerals and trace minerals including calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, iodine, iron and zinc; and vitamins C, niacin, B1, B2, B6 and B12.

Menopause is a woman’s transition from the responsibility of biology to the freedom of opportunity. It is the emotional passage from physiology to spirituality. Menopause marks the milestone of a woman’s life from the first half to the second. The rules of the first half need to be reworked and modified to prepare for the challenges of the second.