New Hand Lotion

Yesterday I worked on labeling hand lotion. This is a new product for Carmel Lavender. Many of you have asked for a lotion in a pump. I was able to mix up a batch last week and bottle it. They just needed labels before releasing. Of course, each and every label is hand stamped, and bears the seal carved for me by that craftsman in Shanghi (see August article: Hand-crafted Seals and Hand-stamped Labels).

The lotion is an Aloe Vera base scented with a lavender I distilled last December (see December 2008 article: Winter Oil). It is from Provence lavender, and adds a very nice scent. During testing, one customer said that she would use it on her hands in the evening so she could smell the lavender all night. That should help with sleep too.

They are bottled in 4 oz blue cobalt class bottles with a black pump.

If you would like to try my new Carmel Lavender hand lotion, send me a note. The price is $11. If you live locally on the Monterey Peninsula, send me your order before the end of the month and I can arrange to bring it to town for you, and I'll even give you 20% off.

How's Chix?

They're all doing well. You can see however they aren't really chicks any more. They have actually grown quite large. And the different colors are quite beautiful. Not as large as some of the the Cornish X Chickenzillas I wound up with by mistake, but that is another story....

Still no eggs, and I don't expect eggs for another couple of months. I have heard from some of you about interest in CSA shares. As soon as they start producing, I'll get that going. If you do have interest, send me a note.

Interesting little note, if you crow like rooster, they all simultaneously shake their heads and ruffle their neck feathers. It is actually quite entertaining to watch all forty of them shake their head at the exact same time like that. Of course, you have to learn to crow like a rooster if you want to indulge! I wonder which the oak trees find more amusing, the chickens or the farmer? :)

Travel Well Joyous Heart

Today the farm embraces a major transition. My daughter leaves the farm to go overseas to study. We will miss her here but I hope that she takes a piece of Lavender Hill with her on her journey. With joy, I send her off with this thought:

Travel Well Joyous Heart
by John Russo

Joy does travel
In the Heart
Set aloft for adventure.

Preparations
Voyage far
The Trip and Journey come now.

Travel days end
Journey more
A lifetime, remember well.

The plane of Youth
Turns the World
Under its wings the future.

Passangers sing
Laughter, Hope, Joy
All that promise Tomorrow

A better way
Than those songs
Sung yesterday by the source.

New Lady soon
To return
Her I welcome home today.

Reducing Plastics Use on the Farm

I like to consider the footprint I leave in every aspect of farming. One particular issue I keep a close watch on, is my use of plastics. Plastics and agriculture have in many ways become integrated with each other. Plastic mulch, plastic drip lines, feed buckets, containers. It all adds up. Where ever I can, I try to use alternatives, even if the cost is higher.

In my packaging, I make sure to use glass or metal bottles for my essential oils and hydrosols. However, when distilling, I have the problem of where to store the gallons of hydrosol I produce before bottling. For the oil, I use bulk glass bottles. But I must admit, in addition to glass carboys, I have used plastic buckets for the hydrosol. But I decided last year to stop that practise. I acquired a 55 gallon stainless steel drum from a local wine maker. It has been sitting outside, next to the distillery for about 6 months. Preparing for a distillation job next week, I noticed I was out of plastic buckets. Now is the time to make the transition.

One of the reasons the barrel has sat for 6 months, is because I needed a way to fill and empty the hydrosol once it is in the barrel. Completely full, it will be quite heavy. I had planned to rig it up with some stainless spigots and a sight tube, but the additional cost was discouraging.

So I came up with a rolling stand idea. I would make a wooden stand to hold the barrel horizontal, and I would put wheels on the top of the stand, in contact with the cylindrical barrel. Then I could fill from the middle port used in wine making, and when I wanted to take some of the hydrosol, I could simply roll the barrel over and pour out what I needed.

So I built this simple stand. To the right is a picture of the partially assembled stand. The picture at the top shows the barrel mounted on the fully completed stand. I washed out the barrel, and rolled it in the sun to dry out.

I am looking forward to my next distilling run, and placing the fresh hydrosol into the stainless drum, rather than those plastic buckets. Plastic, yuck! And maybe someday, I will find an alternative to those plastic drip lines.

Pheromones and a Wild Bee Swarm

Over the last few months, while preparing my blog, I have often regretted being constrained to still and silent pictures. The farm is such a sensual experience. There are sights, sounds, smells. And yes, tastes too. All of this makes life here special. Dimensions that can not be completely shared through words and still pictures.



I got an el cheapo video camera the other day. I wanted to experiment with moving pictures on the farm. I feel they could help tell the a rich story. So today, I took the camera out with the intent to film my experiences working my bee hives. I took the camera, suited up, and headed out to open a hive up and film the experience.

Halfway to the hive, I noticed something special. A wild bee swarm! Now I had just written about a wild swarm this month. Well, apparently they were not happy with the location I had put them. Fair enough. They are wild and have a mind of their own. In fact, they had come to almost the same spot where I caught them the last time, just one tree over. This is an opportunity for me and my new camera. I can now hive the swarm, and catch it all on camera!

This first video is some footage of me standing in the swarm. While I was watching them, I was happy that the bees are so healthy this year, and thinking about what a difficult year it was last summer. The fire and smoke from the Basin Complex really caused hardships for the bees. But this year, they seem to be flourishing, and for this I am grateful. But I couldn't help also thinking about the things we Man do that also make the lives of bees so difficult.

In this video, aside from just delighting in the swarm, I talk a bit about insect pheromones, how they use them to communicate, pesticides, and new pheromone based pesticides. Please watch this first attempt to film life on the farm, and let me know what you think!

Terra Cotta Diffusers You Can Wear

If you have noticed, in many of the photos of me, I am wearing a pendant around my neck. This is more than jewelry, this pendant is a wearable lavender essential oil diffuser.

I often get asked how to use essential oil. Where the uses are virtually limitless. But one of the most important uses of lavender essential oil is to bring balance to our lives.

Lavender brings calm. It eases anxiety. And in this modern world with our modern problems, serenity and relaxation are precious commodities. Really, I wear lavender scent for my well-being and my health.

Of course you can just dab it on your skin, but the terra cotta diffuser is a much better means of releasing the scent during the day. There are different designs, from hearts to moon goddesses, to flowers, to mine which is the kokopeli man. I usually put a drop or two of oil once or twice a day. There are about a 100 drops in a 5ml vial, so depending on personal preference, one 5 ml vial will last 50 to 100 days. For the price of $10, that's about 10 cents a day. Not bad for much needed balance in our lives. Certainly cheaper than western medicine.

If you would like to try a terra cotta pendant, we can set you up with a gift pack, which includes a vial of essential oil and a pendant for only $20. Just send me a note via our contact page, and I can let you know which pendant designs we have available.

Peace.

Hand-crafted Seals and Hand-stamped Labels

I made a decision in the beginning to farm my lavender with my own hands. I felt it was important to carry this philosophy all the way through the product. This means the packaging too.

As a result, I vowed not to use computers or computer printers to generate the labels for my products. Therefore each and every product bears a label that has been meticulously hand crafted and stamped.

In the photo to the right, you can see the block printing in progress. The blocks are redwood blocks that I milled from wood I had laying around the farm. Then I hand carved the Carmel Lavender name into them. I use several blocks to print background patterns, then the label on each and every label. Die punches are used to punch each tag from the paper strips.

Many of the products also bear the Carmel Lavender seal. This seal was created for me by hand by an artisan I met while traveling in China. Before my trip, I had been talking with a friend of mine, Susan, about block printing. My wood carving skill lacked precision to realize the ideas I had for the essential oils, which are small vials with not much area for carving. She suggested on my trip to try to find a "chop" carver who could do this for me. For those who do not know what "chops" are, they are the seals used to stamp signatures in China. There are many carvers there. So she recommended to draw my design and then talk to the carvers and find one who could do it.

I designed the seal on the plane over. I went to every chop carver from Bejing to Shanghi, showing them my design and asking if they could do it. No, it was too complicated they told me. Finally, I was about to give up, and our last stop in Shanghi, I found myself in front of the City Buddhist temple. There was a chop carver just outside the temple. I showed him my design, and he said he could do it.

It took him hours. I waited, watched, visited the temple, watched some more. Walked the streets of Shanghi, came back and watched some more. He worked so diligently. At last he was done. He took out his own book of all the chops he had designed, and stamped it. Carmel Lavender is now in his book. He showed it to me. Ahhh, Perfect. Now each and every bottle of lavender oil from my farm bears the seal that he carved for me by hand. Just as I farm.

Many have told me that this is too much work. But I feel that the energy in every aspect of the product must be consistent. Must reinforce what it is about. This is not just a commercial enterprise. It is a passion. And that passion is carried in every drop of oil, and every mark of ink on every bottle. That is how it has to be.

If you would like to own a 5ml work of art, you can order from our On-line Lavender Shoppe.