As most of you know, we offer various classes, mostly here on the farm. And we LOVE doing so! We keep thinking about a way to offer classes online to our many wonderful customers across the world...but have yet to come up with a great plan to do so. (There are only so many hours in the day unfortunately!) HOWEVER, we do get lots of emails from our (inter)national customers about classes, so I thought I'd post about a few options here.

Our friends Tina and Maryanne, of The Essential Herbal and Lancaster Soapworks, are offering a REALLY spectacular-sounding online soapmaking class! Check out the details here on Tina's blog - they are limiting the class to a certain number of students, so I highly recommend signing up very soon if you are interested.

We are teaching a class here on the farm about Homemade Natural Cleansers. The class draws heavily on an article I wrote for the Herb Quarterly in the Summer 2008 issue. (Did you guys know that I write a monthly column for that magazine, as well as feature articles??) Anyway - it does have some really great recipes in it, if you can find a copy at your local library I'd highly recommend it. Otherwise you can order a copy from their website. I also recommend 2 books on this subject:

The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier is my favorite - it's packed with great recipes that really work.

Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan is also great!

We also have a great recipe for homemade laundry soap on our website,and we DO plan to add more natural home cleanser recipes to our website soon, so stay tuned.....


Last, but not least - we do offer several natural dyeing classes here on the farm - we haven't yet offered one on rust-dyeing, but I *did* write a tutorial for Hobby Farm Home magazine on how to rust-dye fabrics. It's easy, fun, and a great way to turn rusty "junk" into art. Here are a few items that are dyed with rust (all of these can be found in my etsy store, by the way...)

We got a lovely product review from The Gerber Babies Blog - check it out!

A few housekeeping notes: The Soleil limited edition perfume is sold out!


We still have 2 spaces left in our November Soapmaking 101 class, and several slots in each in our Natural Dyeing and Natural Cleansers classes.

We are being blessed with a GORGEOUS fall. I guess we deserve it, after such a wet/hot/miserable spring and summer.

The harvest is in full swing here. The still is running every day, weather permitting. I've distilled the season's tender herbs - lemon verbena, eucalyptus, lemongrass - the more tropical herbs that grow here as annuals. Now I'll concentrate on the hardier herbs - peppermint, comfrey, mountain mint, etc. We had a crop failure of several herbs - lemon balm and chocolate mint. Which is bizarre, as normally they grow REALLY well here. go figure.

I'm also drying herbs, and making smudge sticks. The picture above shows sweetgrass, mountain mint, and white sage, just cut. I bundle some of each together and tie it with a rubber band, as shown below:


These are hung in our drying shed, until they're dry, but not TOO crispy/crunchy.
Then we remove the rubber band, tie the smudge together with natural-fiber (cotton or hemp) string, and they are done!

Here's another online tutorial about making smudge.

I've posted this recipe before, but it's so damn good I'm gonna post it again. I'm making it tonight, but, instead of sage, I used some leftover pesto (I had a pesto-making spree last night, and turned a laundry basket full of basil into delicious pesto in my freezer).

Enjoy!

Sage and Shallot Foccacia Bread

1 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp. dry yeast
2 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. good olive oil
2 tsp. salt
about 12 shallots, roughly chopped
3 tbsp. chopped fresh sage leaves (or 3 tsp. dried crushed sage leaves)
1/2 cup grated asiago cheese
1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
3 1/2 cups flour (I used a mixture of white and wheat)

Combine water, yeast, and sugar into a large bowl, and let sit while you grate the cheese and chop the shallots, grate the cheese, and chop the sage.

Add oil, salt, shallots, sage, pepper, cheese and 1 cup flour to the yeast mixture, and stir until completely blended. Gradually add the rest of the flour until dough gathers into a ball. Knead for 4 or 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Coat dough with olive oil, and let rise until double. Punch down, then place on a greased cookie sheet or pizza pan - pat dough down into whatever shape you like, as long as it's about 1/2 inch thick. Let rise again, for about half an hour or 45 minutes.

Dimple the dough very deelpy with your fingers. Sprinkle the top of the bread with coarse sea salt. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Love to support your local farmers, AND eat great foods? Head to southern Iowa this Sunday, October 5th for a fantastic Farm Crawl! "Crawl" across six miles of countryside to visit six independently owned farms, and taste cheese, wine, fresh apples, see racing pigs, enjoy a corn maze, and SO much more!

As promised, here are some of the pictures from last week's Sample Sunday (Our big 10th birthday party).


Here is Mary DouBrava doing reiki - she kindly came out and offered free mini reiki sessions to anyone who wanted them!

Our friend Ryan and his uncle were selling their gorgeous hand-turned pens.


And our friend Nikki had her amazing handmade sterling silver jewelry for sale!


Here is Kristi, showing off some of her paper beads that she used making recycled junk mail - they are so gorgeous, you wouldn't believe they were just paper and glue!

Sally Kilkenny was selling her amazing handmade jams.

And Rachels wonderful stand of handmade jewelry!

More pictures to come......

My friend Tina has a REALLY great post about making your own elderberry tincture. If any of you have ripe elderberries, now is the time to make this wonderful and delicious herbal medicine. If it's not elderberry season where you live, I suggest reading this post anyway, because it is a really excellent tutoral for making your own herbal tintures. I know it seems like a very mystical thing, but making your own herbal medicines simply could NOT be easier. Truly, the ease and simplicity is one of my favorite parts of learning about herbal medicine. No special equpment is needed - it's very hands-on, forgiving, and down to earth.

For any of you interested in learning more about making your own herbal medicine, I highly recommend these books:

ANYTHING written by Rosemary Gladstar
Healing Wise by Susun Weed
The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A home manual, by James Green

This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the great books out there - these are simply some tried-and-true ones to get your started on your journey of making your own salves, tinctures, teas, decoctions, compresses and more.

We'll be at the Downtown Des Moines Farmer's Market this Saturday - the weather promises to be gorgeous, and we look forward to a fantastic morning of Java Joe's latte's and people watching. :) If you'd like us to bring anything in particular, PLEASE do call or email us and let us know! We bring a wide variety of items, but it's very random....it's whatever we throw in the van late Friday afternoon.

In other news - we have NINE soleil perfumes left, and TWO Verbena Sunshine Soaps - so if you want one...grab 'em, as they're going fast!! :)

There are FOUR spots available for the Saturday, November 8th Soapmaking 101 class, and we are thinking of closing the Shea Butter Moisturizers class...we could perhaps take one or two more, but that's it, it's very close to full. So if you're interested in those, please sign up ASAP! We still have room in Natural Dyeing and Natural Home Cleansers.

Fall is here!

A customer forwarded us some of her favorite delicious fall recipes, and they sounded so great I'm posting them here for your enjoyment:

Roasted Corn Chowder
Cornmeal Pumpkin Muffins


And my friend Jill forwarded me this GREAT recipe for mini cornbread puddings. Oh, man, do these sound wonderful, or what? I make my own sour cream (it's very, VERY easy to do) using Jersey cream from our neighbors at Picket Fence Creamery, and use amazing organic cornmeal from Paul's Grains. They both make a HUGE difference in any recipe I use them in. Local and organic just *tastes* good, you know?

Mini Cornbread Puddings

We called these cornbread puddings -- not muffins -- because they're far moister and more tender than what you might expect, thanks to sour cream in the batter.

Makes 24

Butter, room temperature, for pan

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups sour cream

1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn kernels, thawed and patted dry

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, with rack in upper third. Butter 24 mini muffin cups; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

Make a well in center of flour mixture. In well, whisk together egg, sour cream, and corn. Mix with flour mixture just until incorporated (do not overmix).

Dividing evenly, spoon batter into prepared muffin pan. Bake until tops have browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 10 to 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes in pan; turn out onto a cooling rack. Serve, or cool completely and store at room temperature in an airtight container, up to 2 days.

WOW. we had an AMAZING 10th birthday party here on the farm on Sunday. I mean....WOW.

I'll have pics, and blog more fully about it soon - meanwhile we have approximately nine million orders to pack and send. (give or take a few).

Check out this amazing tutorial on how to make your own natural fruit soda at home.

OH! And, we have about FIVE BARS of the Luxury Soap of the MOnth left. If you want them, grab them NOW. :)

Sunday, September 21st, 12-5 PM 10th BIRTHDAY BASH!

It's been TEN YEARS since we opened our doors. Help us celebrate with a FANTASTIC and action-packed 10 th Birthday Sample Sunday!

10% OFF ALL PURCHASES!!!

Guest Vendors:

Funkie Organics – funky hemp and stone jewelry (funkieorganics.com)

Kristi Poole – handmade paper beads

Nikki's Designs – handmade sterling silver jewelry

Sally Kilkenny – handmade jams & jellies

Mary DouBrava – Reiki sessions

Jill Beebout will be having free, 15 minute STORYTELLING at the top of every hour, beginning at 1 PM! Fun for the entire family.

HERBAL COOKING CONTEST

Are you a great cook? Bring your best dish and join us for a cooking contest and potluck on Sunday, Sept 21! Judging begins at 4 PM.

3 Categories: Herbal Breads, Herbal Desserts, Herbal Dish or Beverage.

Prizes given in each category:

1 st Place - $25.00 Prairieland Herbs Gift Certificate

2 nd Place - $15.00 Prairieland Herbs Gift Certificate

3 rd Place - $10.00 Prairieland Herbs Gift Certificate

Stay afterwards to share and sample the herbal delights!

Last week we had a group of 80 (!!!!!!) homeschool kids/parents visit our farm. it was a MADHOUSE for about and hour, then...whoosh.....they were gone. Mostly, the kids liked the dogs. I tried to get a picture of the mass pandemonium. :)


I don't recall there being a calico cat for sale on our website, but someone must have ordered one. :) Here is Violet being extremely cute, in a flat-rate priority mailbox. ;)

Here is our beloved "Crazy", aka Karla the Crazy Soapmaker, who makes the majority of soaps here at Prairieland Herbs. She's been making soaps professionally for 8 or 9 years, and is REALLY knowledgeable about what she does. A few times a year, she teaches really rockin soapmaking classes on our farm, and we're lucky she's going to teach not one but TWO soapmaking classes this fall!
Students make and take home their own 2 lb. batch of real, cold-process handmade soap. Soapmaking is amazing - it's art, science, and alchemy all in one procedure. You take fats, oils, and lye, and end up with this amazing bar of bubbly wonderful handmade soap! Magic!Students work in pairs, and class size is strictly limited to six participants, so Karla can ensure the best learning experience for everyone. Lye safety is emphasized. The recipe you use is easy to duplicate at home - no hard-to-find or expensive oils or ingredients are used.

The first class is already halfway full, so Karla's offering a second class in November. These classes truly do fill up quickly so please register soon! (We do not charge your card until the day of the class, just FYI.)

Our friend Fae at Faerie Made Soaps has some great pictures of the soapmaking process on her blog - check it out!

And now, for the listing of events happening this Sample Sunday (Sept. 21st, from 12-5) at Picket Fence Creamery!

They will be sampling: Caramel apple ice cream, cheese ball, elk sticks, fresh peanut butter, Two Sisters breads and salads, fresh local salsa, caramel apple pecan butter, fresh cheese curds, Iowa wines, and of course, "the best chocolate milk this side of the Milky Way!".

*5th Anniversary $5 lunch! Brats, fixin's, chips, milk or water, and ice cream! (Kids' meal is $3.)

*For the kids - pony rides in the pasture, see the calves, hay maze, FREE kittens, pencils, and posters!

*FREE! Picket Fence Creamery 5th Anniversary commemorative gift with your
purchase!

*Guest vendors - Penoach Winery, Prairie Moon Winery, Russ 'n' Franks BBQ, Watkins, and handmade snuggle blankets and wool scarves!


Super Deals: Fresh cheese curds, $3 a bag; 90% lean ground beef $3.49 lb. with 10 lb.
purchase; any large Pasquale's pizza, $4.99; fresh 1 1/2 lb. ham loaf, $5.99; fresh apple crisp and
quart ice cream, $10; 5 lb. bag local McIntosh apples for $5; and more in-store bargains!

Browse our store full of local foods from 90 Iowa families! Chemical free onions, tomatoes, garlic, pears, peaches,apples, zucchini and more!

It's our 10th BIRTHDAY in just one week. Can we say - WOW??

So, of course, we are having a fantastic all-out party, in conjunction with our September Sample Sunday, Sept. 21st from 12-5. Northern Praire Chevre and Picket Fence Creamery, our 2 neighboring farms, are also joining us, so this week several of myblog posts will detail what is going on for this great event. Today, we'll talk about what is happening at Northern Prairie Chevre.
Dance Arabesque from Des Moines and Benu Dance Troupe will perform in the front yard.

The Atlantean from Des Moines will have a variety of ethnic merchandise for sale.

Snus Hill Winery, Tassel Ridge Winery, La Vida Loca Winery and
Olde Main Brewery will give out samples of their wonderful wines and beers.

Relax with Shannon, Massage Therapist, is offering chair massages - $10/10 min.

Milton from Sheeder Farms will be grilling steak sandwiches for just $6!!

Mary Boyvey, Hoopnotica Certified instructor will be offering free classes on the hour, and have hoops available for all ages to try and/or purchase.

Pat from Randol Honey will be sampling hercreamed honey.

SALE: Creamy goat milk and honey soaps 2/$6! NEW- Dog Shampoo Bars and Canus – excellent for dry coats & flees!!

NEW – Just arrived – jewelry from Sun Creek Jewelry; beautiful and affordable. Delicious baked goods from Corn Crib Catering in Madrid. Stock up Sheeder Farms meats and eggs & variouscuts
of elk from Skeeter Creek Elk. Salad dressings, Vinaigrettes, Honey Mustard, Cape Cod Caviar, Chipotle Bleu Cheese dip from Appalachian Naturals. New products have arrived! Kids – enjoy the swings and sand box in the front yard.

Not many babies left, but they’re looking for your loving and hugs!! Tours of the barn to visit the girls thatmake this whole business possible! (Don’t forget the best guard dogs in the whole state too!!!)Come on into Miss Tillie’s for samples of our cheese and MUCH MORE!

Sorry gang - we won't be able to go to the Downtown Farmer's Market tomorrow - there is just TOO much rain predicted! :( See you there on the 27th!

Quiet day here. Humid - storms coming in tonight.

Doing a bit more painting - which really means: Move displays (involving grunting, swearing, and sometimes dropping things and breaking them. whoops). Stand a goggle and how DUSTY it is behind displays, and count how many lip balms have, over the years, rolled underneath them. (answer: many more than you would believe). Clean up dust, throw away old lip balms, wipe cobwebs off walls. Get ready to paint. Paint. Let dry. Paint again. Let dry. Clean off entire display, mop floor. Move display back (more swearing and grunting).

As you can see, it's a fairly involved process.

This afternoon, I'm bottling hair vinegars. I've made samples of the Red Rose and Lemon Balm, and the Rosemary and Lavender. If you're ordering in the next day or two, and want to try one of those, just let us know; we'll add it to your order, no charge. :)

There are 4 dogs alseep here in the shop, on the floor (each on their own blankie), and 3 cats.

Last Saturday, Donna and Maggie hosted a bus tour of 52 folks from Oskaloosa, IA. We actually did lots of these tours throughout the summer - I'm not sure how many, but at least a dozen.
The huge tour buses always look a little surreal, parked out in the middle of the country!!!


Donna usually leads the groups on a garden tour, then Maggie helps them in the shop and answers questions. Corralling 50 people is pretty much impossible, so basically they end up doing what they want. They're nearly always kind and polite, and enjoy the dogs (you can see in these pictures that the dogs sure enjoy all the company). Then they all get back on the bus and head off to the next farm to visit!

NEW SOAPS! We have a new soapmaker, the wonderful Terri, owner of "Biscuit's Boutique Soaps". (Biscuit is her cat's name - isn't that cute?). She is from Des Moines, and makes wonderful essential-oil blend soaps. Now, nobody panic - Karla is not going anywhere! She's still making her amazing soaps and shampoo bars for us. She's just being kept very, VERY busy keeping you all in soap! So Terri is going to make a few new varities for us as well. I promise you'll love her soaps. They smell great, have cute labels, and have huge lather!

Speaking of cuteness. Here is the view from the front door of the shop, taken the other day. Donna lets her mini horses out to graze every morning for a few hours. They pretty much wander anywhere they want, and don't *usually* go too far. This day they decided the grass right outside the front door of the shop was pretty tasty. In this picture we see Contessa (the white one), Baron (the smaller brown with white markings), and Dutchess (Baron's mom).

Delilah is the oldest baby, she is a RIOT. She is SO inquisitive - she loves to investigate everything, and often does so by tasting things. (She loves to nibble - EVERYTHING). She has been known to pick up tools or items and just...carry them off. Why? We don't know. I think she is part puppy. Anyway, all the rest of the herd calmly grazed near the shop, paying no attention to the open door. Not Delilah. She looked up, saw the door, and walked right on in. What a funny girl! (She didn't stay long, just long enough for me to get this quick picture).