MoonMaid's Signature Soap

Here is our newest offering @ MoonMaid Botanicals!!!  It is a wonderful sudsy organic goat milk soap!!  Guys love shaving with it.  Your dogs will love being washed with it.  Good for grease!!

                                                       Coming Soon!!

We are busy designing a Blissful Bath Experience just in time for the holiday gift giving season.  It will include our signature soap, bath salts, a body mist as well as a beeswax tea light to help create the perfect mood.

And as usual we have our usual offering of MoonMaid Botanicals herbal remedies.  Get them here!

The Color Purple

It is all sorts of purple @ MoonMaid!!  I have been enjoying Spring more this year then I can imagine.  Have some Dandelion Wine brewing, some violet leaf oil infusing and nettle leaf vinegar and tonic stewing as well.  So much is blooming, growing, sprouting and ready to use.  I'll be harvesting wood nettle leaves this week to dry for nourishing tea.  I love a pot of nettle tea at night.  I can feel my body say Ahhhh!!

I am ever amazed at what I find growing in my woodland garden paradise. Goldenseal, black and blue cohosh, mayapple, trillium, ginseng, nettles, wild lettuce, violets and the list goes on and on.  I am honored to live here.  Grateful to have so mush growing around me!!!

            

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Spring in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee

www.moonmaidbotanicals.com

                                       

Emerging.......

Tulip emerging

Crocus emerging in
emerging Chickweed

 I am

 emerging from a long winters sleep.  I am emerging from issues that I have been ignoring for far too long.  I am feeling the sun rise in my soul.

Sun emerging

Trillium emerging

Comfrey emerging

                              I am  

feeling the green energy of Spring beginning to course through my veins.  

 

I am growing with knowledge and grace each and every day!!  

 I thank the artist who drew this picture.  I know not who she is.  I do know that I will carry this image with me this week and feel my wildness, feel the growing energy of Spring all around me.  Have a great week y'all!!!  Until next time............

Just a dusting of snow last week and then Spring spurng forth.

 I love how fast it can change from Winter to Spring here in the Smoky Mountains.

This week will be full of podcasts, delivering orders and making lots of VitalVulva...which will soon be called Vital V.  Seems I need to make a name change.  All the women who love it will know what it is, what it does and where it goes. :) No matter the name!!!  As herbal products become increasingly popular, we have to adapt to the regulations present in our FDA system.  Though I wouldn't say I am happy, I will comply.  Listen later today to MoonMaid's Menopause Moment here   The show is live @ 6:30 PM Eastern.
I will also be cohosting Big Blend Radio's show with mother and daughter team, Lisa and Nancy @ 7:00 PM Eastern.  The topic is Style and Wellness for Women.  These gals are great and it will be a good time.  Hope you can listen here  Until next time, I hope you enjoy these photos.  I especially love the water shot......all that you see is a reflection.  Beautiful!!!  I am blessed to live here in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Have a great week!!!!

February 25th, 2013

We have been busy here @ MoonMaid Botanicals.  I just returned from the Florida Herbal Conference where I learned a lot from several teachers.  I really connected with Phyllis Light, and herbalist from Alabama.  She teaches the folk ways of Appalachia.  I think I will be learning a lot more from her in the future.  When I was down South, I thought I'd warm up a bit but it was in the 30's.  Cold for camping at the conference, even for me!!!  

.

When I was visiting family in Lakeland I picked up a few goodies for the garden.

There are also lots of beauties popping up in the garden; daffodils, crocus, chickweed and dandelions coming up everywhere!!

 Especially exciting this week, tomorrow in fact, is my BlogTalk Internet Radio Show with Leslie Howard, yoga instructor, who is an expert on the health of the Female Pelvis.  It is amazing how many problems women have with the pelvic region.  Dryness is the number one complaint I hear of from my customers.  There is also an unbelieveable amount of hysterectomies, prolapsed uterus, vulvadynia, vagimismus and much more.  Leslie will give us some ideas to increase our awareness as well as providing us with breathing and yoga techniques to help create a happy and healthy pelvis.  Listen here or call in with your questions to 646.200.0217.  I hope you have a beautiful week as we transition into March and the beginning of Spring!!!

Mondays @ MoonMaid Botanicals

The day for my blog posting.  This week has been busy with the "starting" of lots of projects here @ MoonMaid. Been making lots of VitalVulva and getting a stream of calls about dryness, vulvadynia, vaginosis, atrophy, soreness and on and on.  I definitely hear far more about this problem then any other.  Because I get so many calls about the same things over and over, I decided to start a weekly podcast on one "issue."  It's a brief 15 program.  You can listen live and call in or listen later.

VitalVulva Wild Yam Salve

This weeks topic on Menopause Moment with MoonMaid Botanicals will be vaginal dryness and related issues.  You can listen @ 7 PM ET @ this link live or later at your convenience.

Comfrey in Bloom


This is the herb that gives VitalVulva the lovely green color

                                           http://bit.ly/XarboU 

         

Wild yam vine @ MoonMaid's gardens



Wild Yam is the main component in both Vital and
ProMeno Wild Yam Cream.

January 28 2013

It is hard to believe that January is almost over.  Fully into this new year!! I think when the first month of a new year ends, we are furious to enlist ourselves in either going forward with our "resolutions" or we give them up!!.  

Where are you at?  I, struggle, to maintain resolutions, as we all do.  One I have firmly in place is to drink less coffee and enjoy Green Smoothies each day.  Since I have been asked to be part of the upcoming publication of What Do Raw Fooders Eat by Nomi Shannon, Raw Gourmet Chef, I have to put together a week long food diary.  Taking shots of my method of making this smoothie is part of the project.  I thought I'd share this info with you!!!

Green Smoothies have become a very popular "drink" among vegetarians and other natural foodies.  I use to think of them as juice with spirulina powder or blue green algae powder added.  However, I found out I had one notion of the green drink....but truely a "green smoothie" is juice with spinach, kale, or romaine lettuce blended into the juice.  I started getting more serious about this "breakfast of champions" at the beginning of 2012 and it has now become a stable in my life and dietary routine. 

 Here are the beginning ingredients.  Lots of greens stuffed tightly into a narrow mouth mason jar.

Did you know that your Oster Blender Blade would fit on this narrow mouth Mason Jar? A most interesting technique.

These are some other ingredients I like to add!!!  I blend the juice, green, and any other additions  together.  After this is blended well I will add some frozen fruit like banana's, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, strawberries, raspberries etc. and blend again. You get the idea!!!  This has become my staple breakfast and lunch!!!  

Remember to peel your banana's before freezing!!  Enjoy!!  Perhaps this can become your breakfast of Champions.

Podcasting

Podcasting begins this week!!! 

A year ago I started a podcast on BlogTalk Radio called Women of A Certain Age and.....    In the daily business of MoonMaid Botanicals, I have been making products and talking with menopausal women for the last 15 years.  Podcasting gave me an opportunity to share information and reach a broader audience in another way.  I really enjoy doing the show.  I had a "secret desire" to be a DJ at one point in my life, but as sometimes happens, I went on to other employment and careers.  And, as I said, as happens, life got in the way of the regularity of this Podcast and it fell by the wayside.  I am "back on track in 2013 with a full year of  topics and experts who will share their wisdom on a many variety of subjects including yoga, community activism, creativity and more.   The show will air once a month on the 4th Tuesday @ 7 PM ET.  You can find a schedule @ this link http://my.blogtalkradio.com/host/segments.aspx  as well as links to past shows.

This month, on January 22 @ 7 PM ET, my guest is Morgana Rae, Life Coach, author, speaker and mentor.  She is a thought leader on the topics of wealth and relationships.  Her motto is "make money by putting love first."  She has and interesting technique of "finding you money Honey" and getting rid of your "money monster."  She is launching the publication of her book Financial Alchemy - Twelve Months of Magic and Manifestation.  It is a guidebook to help you with the techniques mentioned above to bring more "Abundance" into your life.

MoonMaid's show with Morgana airs on Tuesday, January 22 @ 7 PM ET.  You can listen to the show here

http://bit.ly/UWwGZ6 

where you can participate via chat or you can call 646-200-0217

and be part of the conversation. This will be an exciting broadcast.  Morgana is fun and engaging and I look forward to sharing her information with you. 

Also this week I will be a guest on Big Blend Magazine's BlogTalk Radio Show this Thursday January 24 @ 7 PM ET.  Mother and Daughter team Nancy Reid and Lisa Smith, offer tons of  information on all kinds of subjects.  This broadcast will focus on health.  MoonMaid's topic is Herbs for Colds and Flu.  Listen, chat or call in.  Get the information @  http://bit.ly/UAXwVV

Check out all of their magazines @ http://www.bigblendmagazines.com/

 In addition to preparing for the podcasts, I have noted that Spring has Sprung here @ MoonMaid Botanicals' Gardens.  I have been enjoying walking with the dogs and enjoying the changes.  I'll have daffodils and crocus blooming this week.  Chickweed is everywhere and I noticed the Virginia Bluebells just barely poking their heads up in the woods.   

It is amazing how fast the seasons shift.  Just when it seemed like we might not have any winter at all.....the snow came in swiftly and suddenly Thursday afternoon.  Just as quickly the storm blew out and we have been enjoying sunshine all day today.  As well as very comfortable temperatures.

I am immensely grateful to live on these five acres.  The wonderment of nature abounds and I await with anticipation the "show that is just about to begin" with Spring just around the corner.

January 7, 2013

It is time to start posting here regularly.  These last several days I have been settling into the routine of a new year.  As always I am fervent with goals, new ideas, stuff I absolutely get finished as well as personal goals, places I want to get to...things I want to do. 

I have the monthly discounts for January posted on Facebook.  You can find them @ http://on.fb.me/MCjyX7

 I've also been working on flower creams.  In general this past year, I have completely changed the way I blend creams.  It has made for much a much more elegant product. In addition, I have found a wonderful new rosewater and rose absolute that have improved the scent and feel of the RadiantRose cream beyond my wildest imagination.  

RoseOil infusing with Alkanet

Ready to pour

Lovely!!

Finished product.

CalendulaFlowerCream from start to finish.
Always fun to work in my kitchen!!  Hope you have enjoyed the photos. I'll be back posting more soon.
Have a Great Week!!!