monday inspiration

Brian and I would like to buy a few acres of land, on which we will build a barn, a fruit/wine cellar, a garden, a home, a farm. Ideally, the land will be an hour or so west of Portland, towards the coastal mountains. There will be several colonies of bees, chickens to roast and chickens to lay, ducks (if we have a pond), goats, possibly sheep or angora rabbits or some other livestock. With this in mind, Hardworkinghippy's blog "La Ferme de Sourrou" serves as an inspirational blog, filled with photos and notes from her lovely French homestead. She writes, "I find physical work profoundly energising and the exercise helps us get rid of stress and prepares us to live as warriors and not as victims." They are off-the-grid and sustainable, using renewable energy, growing their own food, and raising animals, all things we'd like to incorporate onto our own land. She also has a flickr account filled with photos such as the one above of stevia being propagated.

Julie over at "Towards Sustainability" has set the goal of harvesting, photographing, and posting about at least one item from her garden every day. I love people who set hefty, slightly crazy goals for themselves like that.

Here's an article on growing strawberries by Gayla Trail. I'm also loving Grow Great Grub and would recommend it to any level of gardener because of the surplus of great gardening ideas and eye-catching photos. Here's an interview about the process of creating this book.  


For the arts, I'm loving the slightly whimsical, slightly eerie work of Tamya Mayers. She reminds me a bit of Tim Burton, a little bit fairy tale, a little bit gothic. Plus, there's a little bee!

I do like to cross stitch, and in the past year, I've designed and stitched two of my own pieces, with the itch to design some more of my own and an eye out for some ideas. I like some of stitchnotion's cross-stitching on Etsy, including this adorable sampler with little honeybees.