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Planting Sunflowers: Resilience, Hope, & Gratitude
Discover how embracing the natural cycles of the seasons can transform your daily rhythm and reconnect you to the earth’s wisdom. This blog post weaves heartfelt stories and practical insights from the homestead to inspire your own journey of becoming—inviting you to slow down, nurture your creative spirit, and live in harmony with the spiral of life.
Sunflowers, a Seasonal Reflection Rooted in Change
Choosing to live more in harmony with the natural world and its cycles has changed me in ways I never anticipated. It began with questions, imperfect plans, and an instinct to follow the moon, but these experiences have come to reshapre me entirely. I am different as a result of walking this path, down to how I grieve, hope, and begin again. I’ve written before about the need to choose participation over perfection, sometimes starting a project with little more than a vision and trusting where the journey takes you.
Back in April of this year, I faced a day I had dreaded for over a decade. I said goodbye to my best friend, a 13-year-old rough collie named Reggie. I brought Reggie home the day after my senior prom in April of 2012, and he was a central figure in my life from that moment until we said goodbye, almost exactly thirteen years later. I was 18 then, now I’m 31. He had been with me for my whole adult life.
When I reflect on that time, I am awed by how carefully I was handled. I was blessed to be in a position to spend his last days with him, and to say goodbye in the comfort and safety of his favorite place; the back yard of our homestead.
That blessing, though, was bittersweet. The aching silence after he was carried off, so lovingly and respectfully, was a chasm in our normally bustling homestead. I cried a lot. I had a hard time knowing what to do with myself. But as is so often the case, it was in the shadow of this goodbye that I was able to recognize some of the ways living this way has changed me.
I noticed how the wisteria was blooming and the honeybees were out foraging in earnest as I sat out back with my best friend. I noticed how kind the receptionists from the vet's office were, how understanding my coworkers had been about my sudden absence, how lucky I had been to get not only thirteen amazing years with him, but the chance to say goodbye. After spending years dreading how the story would end, I found myself marveling in gratitude at the ways we had both been lovingly cared for throughout our time together.
Reggie on our last day together.
Planting through Grief
The next morning, desperate for a distraction from the quiet house, I opened my binder of seeds. I knew the moon was in Leo and I knew I had a bounty of various sunflower seeds saved up. Since Leo said to be the sun's home, I thought it felt like a poignant and appropriate time to sow them, and a meaningful tribute I could pay to the indescribable impact that Reggie had on me during his thirteen years on earth. I have learned that burying my hands in the soil can be an effective way to deal with many of life's challenges. The Earth always seems to know what to do with everything, given enough time. As I tucked the seeds into soil, I listened to music. I remembered the many versions of Reggie's and my life together. I thought about our many moves together during my college years, how many storms we weathered, how much I learned in all those years while caring for him. I looked out at the empty yard, still littered with the occasional stray tuft of hair I had lovingly brushed from him during our last few days together, and I felt so thankful that we spent his last five years here. After all that uncertainty and change in those early years, we had found our big back yard and put down roots.
Just as the rain on the fallen seeds makes way for the coming sprouts, I knew that my grief for the beautiful chapter of my life that had just ended would somehow make way for whatever comes next. As hard as the moment after was, it felt natural to me to move forward by plunging my hands and my hope into the dirt and simply trusting time to deliver flowers.
My sunflower garden was a reminder to myself that the darkest nights before the new moon inevitably give way to the swell of the full moon's silver light. This time in my life was certainly a dark moon period. A withdrawal. A separation from a soul tie that had seen me through some of my hardest challenges and many of the lessons that made me who I am today. My best friend taught me so much, and he was such an important part of my story. However hard it was for me to see it when my food, my bed, my home all reminded me of grief, I planted as a way to remind myself and to guarantee that there was some beauty still ahead.
I think of the sun as the life-giver. The constant, unchanging force from which all else grows. The changing moon reflects his light back to us in cycles, but the sun burns on.
Weathering Storms
A few weeks after I sowed the sunflowers, tragedy found us again. A neighbor's two dogs escaped their yard one night and obliterated our poultry pens. We lost 34 birds - chickens, ducks, turkeys, and quails. The carnage was hard to process, but in my raw state following such a personal loss, I did not shed a tear. My young sunflower sprouts, growing along the back of our quail aviary, took damage during the attack.
After we cleaned up the scene and made our repairs and reinforcements, I straightened out the sunflower seedlings that could be salvaged. As I watered them in, I allowed my deep and complicated feelings to catch up to me. We had not experienced empty bird pens since our first months as homesteaders. As cliché as it sounds, the silence was deafening. Outside of the joy of their presence and company, our birds are foundational to many of the systems on our homestead. Losing them so suddenly and violently was a shock to our daily lives in many ways, and a troubling reminder not to take anything for granted.
The next day, I loaded up three incubators with every egg we had. I remember thinking how glad I was that I had fallen behind on washing them, since it meant I had plenty of fresh ones at room temperature that would be good for incubating. I marked my calendars and waited for the sun to do its work.
Birds are amazing in many ways, but the egg as a life-giving vessel is among the most incredible things about them as far as I am concerned. Although we lost almost all of our hard work over 5 years of raising poultry, their eggs meant that we were not starting from scratch. Their last gift to us was an opportunity to begin again.
Blooming & Seeding
As I am sharing all this, the sun has found his way to his home in Leo. Indeed, the sun has not let me down. The sunflower seeds from April have bloomed their brilliance, gracing us with over a month of their vibrant colors and the abundance of local life they bring to our garden. They grew tall and proud, towering far over the six foot roof of the aviary, and they saw the coops fill back up with life. We hatched twenty-two chickens, five turkeys, and nine quail from the eggs of my birds lost in the dog attack. The attack's only survivors, a male and female muscovy duck pair named Roosevelt & Wednesday, hatched their own five ducklings this past month. Watching all these birds grow, and seeing in them the colors and personalities of the parents I also raised, has been a welcome opportunity to reconnect with why we do all this. It is about always laying the foundation for a slightly better tomorrow. It is a vote for hope.
Almost all of the spent sunflower heads have been pulled down by hungry squirrels and birds, leaving plenty of seeds for me to gather for the fall garden. They have already provided us with a summer's worth of bouquets to gift and display in our home. In the coming weeks and months, fates allowing, we will begin to collect eggs from those baby birds I was hatching in May. The old adage April showers bring May flowers worked out fairly literally for us this year.
Lessons from the Soil
Homesteading is not just raw food, it is raw life. There is no hiding from the hard parts, and there is often no outsourcing what needs to be done. The lessons are won through experience and, most importantly, failure. Sometimes, even death. The reward for a life comprised of systems is a life that both sustains you and needs you. It is a built in reason to keep going. It is a community in and of itself. It is a mindset that keeps you connected to gratitude, hope, and resilience. The animals still need watering. The garden still needs tending. The homestead still needs you. I'll be honest, mine has looked a little more unkempt this year than usual. The struggle of dragging yourself to the task may not feel much like medicine but, in my experience, your hands in the dirt often does.
I'll remember Reggie as fierce and tuned in. He pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me turn a new city full of strangers into my home, a community I have laid deep roots in. The seasons we spent together have informed so much of my life today. He was an integral part of my first experiences in creating a life for myself that was totally my own, and he taught me to be more present in it.
Each sunny day will eventually give way to storms, but every cloud must be broken up by sunlight. Life is all about learning to engage with an appreciate the cycle with trust that renewal is always ahead. Appreciating what is to be found in each moment has been life changing for me. What seeds have you planted in your own seasons of grief and transformation? What systems do you lean on when your world is shifting? I'd love to hear what engaging with hope has taught you.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Summer Apothecary Restock: A New Season of Herbal Offerings
With summer in full sway, the shelves at Lunation have been quietly replenished—each item steeped in intention, tradition, and Florida sun. This season’s apothecary line speaks to resilience, restoration, and everyday ritual, featuring tinctures, sprays, balms, and lotion bars crafted slowly by hand.
Whether you're tending transitions with mimosa or grounding with ginseng, this collection was made to support you wherever you are in your cycle.
✨ What’s New in the Apothecary
🌿 Herbal Tinctures
Double-extracted for full-spectrum care—alcohol and water-soluble compounds preserved in balance. This season’s lineup includes:
Yarrow – Energetic boundary support & wound care
Corn Silk – Gentle urinary support
Rabbit Tobacco – Respiratory and ancestral tending
Goldenrod – Transition ease & sinus support
Usnea – Immune and respiratory resilience
Echinacea – Frontline immune activation
St. John’s Wort – Emotional balance & nervous system support
Mimosa – Heart-lifting & grief companion
Ginseng – Vitality, stamina, and rooted energy
Each herb was wildcrafted, sustainably sourced, or grown with care, extracted in rhythm with the seasons, and aligned with Lunation’s core values of regenerative living and informed use.
🧴 Sprays & Body Care
Magnesium Spray (Lavender + Unscented): for tension, sleep, and steadying
Beautyberry Bug Spray: DEET-free protection for outdoor rituals
Lip Balms & Lotion Bars: botanical comfort for daily cycles, travel, and sun-touched skin
All offerings were created in small batches from our North Florida homestead. Every bottle, balm, and spray is a small part of a larger conversation about regenerative care—and you’re invited in.
Thank you for supporting slow, seasonal living 🌒🌻
May this collection meet you where you are.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Homesteading as a Mindset
Scraps to Systems: A Dream in Motion
Every now and then, I find myself in a moment that really illustrates how far we have come as homesteaders. Just before midnight recently, as I finished a long day of picking and washing tomatoes and blueberries, extracting honey, rendering wax, bottling kombucha, and baking sourdough, it occurred to me: all this used to be a distant vision. Something we hoped to one day be capable of doing.
Words on a grocery list that felt so disconnected from the bush, the yeast, the honeybee. Now, they are all parts of the living systems we have built on our homestead.
The Depth of Doing
For as long as I can remember, I have been the kind of person who likes to dive deep. I don’t know how to do anything halfway, and throughout my life, I have often chased absolutes and perfection in a way that can make sharing feel impossible. I never feel ready. I am never confident that I know enough.
Sometimes, I think, we can be so caught up in what we are doing that we forget to notice how far we have come - and how much an earlier version of us could have benefitted from the knowledge that we now have.
Over the years, as I have immersed myself further and further into this way of life, many people have come to me with questions. I often hear some version of “how do you have time?” or “how do you even get started with all that?”
The truth is, it has all felt very natural to me. My advice is to follow your interests. Don’t get me wrong - things escalated quickly - but it was all through natural accumulation in pursuit of things that piqued my curiosity, leveled up my existing projects, or just plain made sense for us.
Before we owned property, starting looked like replacing store bought cleaning supplies with cheap, minimal-ingredient alternatives to save money towards our future home. Regrowing herbs or vegetables from scraps and cuttings. Joining groups to connect with like-minded people and learn about the animals and garden we hoped to one day steward. Once we had our land, though, I could not get chickens fast enough.
We started with chickens because it was exciting to us. In hindsight, if I were to design the perfect system, I don’t know if I would make the same choices. I didn’t design the perfect system, though, and I think that’s fine! The chickens got us started in a way that was exciting, hands on, and so, so rewarding in our first year. That momentum is worth so much more than getting it right every step of the way.
Once you start, the momentum naturally builds. As you gain experience, you will find yourself facing a variety of new challenges and problems to solve. Now, the challenge becomes managing the system you are creating on your farm in ways that won’t burn you out or bankrupt you. This is where the mindset comes in - the key to understanding my approach to learning and evolving on our homestead is in systems.
How Systems Set Us Free
We didn’t get here by mastering every skill, carefully following blueprints, or having all the answers. Where we are now is the natural result of constantly examining what we had (often scraps, problems, and mistakes) and asking: Could this feed something else? Can we engineer our approach in a way that helps us make more with less?
In sustainability circles, closing the loop refers to maximizing resources and reducing waste by finding use for the byproducts of a process elsewhere. The natural world is the grandest example; everything has a purpose and a part to play. The natural world continues with or without human interference because its systems are closely interconnected, evolved together over countless iterations. I think the secret to living sustainably with minimal burnout is primarily in taking lessons from the greatest teacher we all share. Resourcefulness and resilience are the way of the natural world.
As a biology student, I was taught about the cycles of life’s various building blocks - carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, water. I had a hard time wrapping my head around them then. I could pass the tests, but getting to know these systems practically has immensely deepened my wonder and appreciation for the natural world.
Let me give you an example of one of the central loops on our homestead, which evolved over our first few years as chicken tenders:
A Loop in Motion
Household waste in the form of paper and kitchen scraps (“browns”/carbon) are diverted from landfills into our chicken coop
The chickens produce eggs, but also manure (“greens”/nitrogen)
Their bedding (deep litter: leaves, clippings, shredded paper) composts in place all season with regular turning by the chickens, keeping our labor to a minimum and providing warmth in the colder months
Each Spring, we shovel all that composted bedding into our three bin composter to finish breaking down
The aged compost gets compiled with our home-grown worm castings, wood ash, and other organic materials to make garden soil
The garden gives us food, herbs, and medicine
When we weed, prune, or peel? Those scraps go right back to the chicken coop.
This system saves us money and labor by intentionally directing waste we are already producing into sustainable systems; high output, low input is always the goal. We didn’t invent this, we simply learned how to participate. We did our research, picked a place to start, and learned as we went by asking questions and creatively solving problems as they arose. Leveraging the collective wisdom of the community has saved the day more than once, so don’t wait to start engaging with like minded people.
Building a Life that Feeds Itself
That same thinking shapes so many of the things we do on our homestead. It’s not always Instagram-worthy, and certainly we sometimes get it wrong, but every small change compounds into a more sustainable, mindful, and connected approach to living. Closing loops allows us to lay down deep roots while continuing to invest our time, energy, and resources, into the next iteration of our dream.
Whether you find yourself with five acres or five pots on a balcony, there are countless opportunities to live more in rhythm. Perfection is not the goal and you don’t need all the answers. The will to join in and make a change is more than enough to make a difference. The mindset is the foundation. When you start to notice the systems around you, it becomes more and more natural to close the loops in your own life.
Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Let’s build a life that feeds itself, step by step, together.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Why We Homestead: Our Journey into Closed-Loop Living
Tracing the Roots
Although a quick look through my family tree will tell you farming is in my blood, I didn't grow up this way. I was raised in suburbia and many who knew me back then have told me they were surprised when I dove headfirst into this lifestyle. Before 2019, my only real experience with anything farming adjacent could be summed up as the few years I spent horseback riding as a pre-teen and some desperately thirsty basil and mint plants on the balcony of my college apartment.
I think the signs were always there, though. After all, I spent most of undergrad studying biology. Three semesters in a row, I registered for the Medicinal Botany course at my university only for it to be canceled due to low registration numbers. When my Positive Psychology professor asked us to design our future lives, a small, sustainable farm was my plan C. The signs were there, but I had other lessons to learn before I was ready.
Building Intention from Scratch
Life has a way of getting you where you need to be. Over the years, as I explored my interests and hobbies, I circled closer and closer to homestead life. I fell in love with the idea of a more simple way of living. The more I paid attention, the more I noticed the waste in the world and the more called I felt to do something about it in my own life.
When my husband and I met and began building our life together, sustainability came up often. We dreamed of having space, chickens, a garden. Back then, it was a far off dream, and one that felt basically unattainable. I knew the power of nurtured intention even then, though, so I decided to start where I was and with what I had. I joined some frugal and small space homesteading Facebook groups, my first taste of what I now view as my tried and true crash course method for learning anything. I started checking Zillow with semi-regularity for listings over an acre in our area and learning about how to buy a home.
Growing with the Garden
At the end of 2019, the stars aligned for us. We closed on our 5.86 acre piece of heaven the day before Christmas Eve. In our first year, we added three raised beds, seven chickens, and five ducks. We said our vows in our backyard homestead wedding in October 2020.
Five years later, we are balancing over 15 raised beds, chickens, ducks, turkeys, quails, rabbits, honeybees, a garden we plant mostly from seed, a composting system that keeps our garden filled and nourished, a small apothecary operation, a burgeoning mushroom farm, and any number of miscellaneous creative homestead projects, depending on the day. We have built, hatched, brooded, fermented, seed started, baked, harvested, tinctured, extracted, and improvised our way into a more connected and sustainable way of living.
None of this happened overnight. We started as complete novices and we learned by getting our hands dirty and letting our curiosity get the better of us more often than not. Along the way, I have learned a lot about myself, about life, and about what is important to me. I have ridden the elation of a long-sought dream attained, and I have nursed the bitter disappointment of failure time and time again.
Rooted in Rhythm
Underneath it all, I think, the lesson I have learned most often is about gratitude and living in harmony within systems. The best systems I have found are the ones that draw on the boundless wisdom of the natural world. Cycles, not straight lines.
Closed-loop living is rarely about perfection or aesthetics; it is about approaching our limited time on earth with gratitude, respect, and resourcefulness. It is about drawing on the wisdom of the world and people around you as well as the technology and opportunity the present moment affords.
Here, I’ll be sharing essays and reflections from our homestead in North Florida - what we try, what we learn, and how we grow. You can expect to find motivation, tools, and resources for sustainable living and starting or planning your own homestead journey.
My path as a homesteader has taken me in many unexpected directions, from hurricane losses in our first year to our backyard homestead wedding to constructing the workshop of our dreams. I look forward to sharing some of those stories and hopefully to being a small part of the unfolding of yours.
A lunation is a moment in a cycle; it can be a bright full moon or a dark, balsamic night. Thank you for being here as the cycles unfold. Together, may we grow closer to life as nature intended; a little slower, a little closer to the earth, and a lot more connected.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Rehydrating your starter (Recipe included)
Sourdough bread has been a hot topic for the last few years, and for good reason! Often touted as a healthier alternative to regular store-bought white bread, sourdough owes its good reputation to a process called fermentation. Fermented foods leverage the biological processes of beneficial bacteria to increase the bio-availability of nutrients in our foods - essentially reducing the amount of work the body must do to extract vitamins and other beneficial compounds from the things we eat. More and more, science is learning and understanding the importance of a healthy gut biome on all types of wellness, and fermented foods are a relatively easy and often delicious way we can support our own digestive systems. Fermentation has been a part of human society for centuries, and some even believe the fermentation process itself helped us on our path to sentience! (I highly recommend Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life if that sentence piqued your interest.)
Whether you are an experienced fermenter, a sourdough enthusiast looking to cut costs, or just someone who wants to try baking bread, sourdough baking can be a fun and rewarding skill to add to your arsenal. Tending to your starter is an easy way to stay connected to and intentional about your food, no matter what size space you are in or what your situation looks like. I love to think of my starter as a friend who helps me bake endless loaves of tasty and nutritious bread for the people in my life, and I always feel a sense of pride when someone asks if I’ll be bringing bread to the function.
One way my sourdough starter keeps on giving is by allowing me to offer dried starter for others who are interested in learning this age old skill. Dried starter in my shop is sold in 35 gram pouches; one pouch is enough for multiple starters using the instructions below, so I encourage you to save some for a backup or share with friends and family! At the bottom, I’ve also included my favorite sourdough sandwich bread recipe. I hope you enjoy, and please share photos of your beautiful sourdough loaves!
Rehydrating Your Starter
You will need:
Dried starter
Filtered or purified water
Unbleached flour (All Purpose or Bread Flour)
Directions:
Day 1: In a bowl, soak 1 ½ tsp dried starter in 1 Tbsp warm filtered water for a few minutes to soften. Stir in 1 Tbsp unbleached all-purpose or bread flour. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.
Day 2: Stir in 1 Tbsp of flour and 2 tsp of water and let sit, covered, for another 24 hours.
Day 3: Stir in 1 Tbsp of flour and just 1 tsp of water. Within 12-24 hours you should see bubbling from fermentation. Note that ambient temperature will impact fermentation; starter will be more active in a warm environment. Transfer your activated starter to a jar with plenty of empty space.
To feed: Stir in 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup of water. Mark the level on the jar with a rubber band. Within about 12 hours, you should have a lively, spongy starter.
Feed daily if kept at room temperature, weekly if stored in fridge. To use active starter in recipes, feed several hours before you intend to bake. Use when starter has doubled in size (typically 2-4 hours after feeding.)
Sourdough Sandwich Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
400g all purpose flour
200g filtered water
100g active starter
20g honey
20g olive oil
8g salt
Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a bowl and knead until soft, smooth dough forms.
Cover & let rest 1 hour.
Do 1 set of stretch and folds, rest 1 hour (repeat 2 times)
Stretch dough onto floured counter to rectangular shape
Roll into cylinder and place in greased bread pan
Cover & let double in size
Place in fridge for 2-3 hours
Preheat oven to 375F. While oven is preheating, allow dough to rest on counter.
Bake for ~40 min or until golden brown (Optional: Brush bread with butter or olive oil after removing)
Let the bread cool before serving
Beekeeping, failure, & community
In homesteading, you have to be willing to fail at things. It’s easy to forget that every successful gardener picked up their skill by failing - learning what did not work, then trying again until they figured out what does. Still, it’s our nature to want to be good at things we try. I’ve done my share of failing, but we’ve been relatively successful in our first few years of shifting our lifestyle as homesteaders. I’ve gone from no gardening knowledge to still not much, but enough to grow baskets full of food each year. Most of our birds are a few years old now, happy and healthy, and still producing more eggs than we can eat. Beekeeping was a totally different story.
This venture was a long time in the making. I first decided I wanted to keep bees while I was studying biology in undergrad, when mass die-offs of bees were a hot topic and I was educated for the first time about how important pollinators such as honeybees are for food production. I was in no position in 2014 to keep bees, I seemed to change apartments and roommates every 6 months, so I folded that dream up & tucked it away.
Last year at Christmas time, when my husband asked me what I wanted, I pulled it back out and told him I wanted a beehive. Seeing it sitting around the house, I thought, would be the push I needed to make it happen. He got me the beehive; he put it together and I was giddy at the sight of it under our tree.
Keeping honeybees is definitely the most complicated and high-stakes endeavor I have taken on thus far. There is so much to know, and even the most trusted books and speakers’ advice can let you down because, as they say, “the bees don’t read the books.” I did read the books, however, and the books all suggested finding a local association with which to get started. Serendipitously, around the same time in January, an acquaintance shared a Facebook post about a free beginners’ beekeeping class hosted by the local beekeeping supply store. When I called the number on the post, a friendly, chatty Southern man answered the phone. He was excited to talk about bees and signed me up for one of his upcoming classes. The class was maybe two hours long, and I remember it was a cold and windy day sitting behind the store with the older couple who picked the same day to take it. I took plenty of notes. At the end of the class, the host (who I now know is named Greg) invited us to attend the local beekeepers association meetings. He gave us the date and let us know we still had a few months before he would have nucs - small starter bee colonies. Another problem solved! I had not really been sure where to get bees or how to even know what you’re looking for.
My husband Esten and I attended our first beekeepers’ association meeting that month, and we continue to attend them monthly. I took more notes, and we joined the other association members for a hive inspection day out at Greg’s property. I ordered 2 nucs to be delivered in April, and the clock had started on our preparations. Esten spent many hours chopping and digging and clearing the corner of our property for the hives. I buried myself in bee books every night before bed, trying to make sense of all the new terminology.
On April 13th, it was time to pick up our colonies. We arrived at the rural property about 15 minutes north of ours just after dark and joined line of trucks that had formed waiting for their bees. It was such a novel experience for me, driving up to the pallets stacked high with nuc boxes, watching them be loaded one by one into truck beds by men in full bee suits. They took our tickets, loaded up our nucs, and wished us luck.
Esten had to work the next day, so I was on my own for the installation. I was nervous. Something I haven’t mentioned yet: I found out after already committing that both my dad and my half-brother are moderately allergic. Dr. Google says bee venom allergies are typically not hereditary. To bee on the safe side, I spoke with my doctor, who wrote me a prescription for a couple of epipens to keep on hand, just in case I or anyone else should need them.
We dealt with some challenges in our first few months. One of the hives was stronger than the other, and the weaker hive appeared to have lost its queen about six weeks after I installed them. They became extremely defensive, and we both received more than our fair share of stings during the couple of weeks they were queenless. During one inspection, I removed the top cover to be greeted by a thick cloud of angry bees, which came at me so aggressively that it took me a few minutes to be able to see well enough to walk into the woods and shake them off.
Greg had become our mentor, so we followed his advice to give them some time and let the bees work it out. When he and his wife Joan came to help inspect the hive, he said he had never seen bees act as aggressive as mine. They taught me that you can walk into the thick branches of red cedar trees to deter the bees and clear them off you more quickly. The hive raised themselves a new queen and got right back to work, drawing comb, collecting pollen and nectar, and making honey. At the same inspection where I found out the weaker hive had re-queened itself, the stronger hive had filled their first super (the shallow box used to collect honey) and were starting to work on their second. After that visit, we got about two weeks of nonstop rain, followed by about a six week drought with real-feel temperatures hovering between 100-110. It was way too hot to put on a bee suit, and my experience with defensive bees was enough to convince me not to risk going without. I tried to find the shadiest times of the day to do my inspections, but I went two or three weeks without going in the hive between the rain and high heat, and in that time things started to unravel.
It was around mid-July when I opened the first hive to find it had failed. Dead bees, wax moths, and small bugs and larvae had ruined what had been a booming and beautiful bee colony just a few weeks before. I was relieved when the association members surmised that the bees had absconded, or left - at least I didn’t kill them. Still, the failure stung and I was heartbroken over the loss of what had been my strongest hive. The second hive fell not long after. Nearly two full supers of honey were robbed completely dry over the course of a few days, apparently by my own bees who had scoped out a new home and then come back for their things. Insult, meet injury.
Beekeeping is not something you learn on your own. Like I said earlier, you can read all the books and know all the vocabulary words, but the bees are going to be bees. Regional differences in seasonal timing, local flora, pests, and weather patterns make it an intensely specific hobby, and being successful often depends on your willingness to engage with more experienced keepers in your area. As my hives were failing, I consulted with the community of beekeepers I had been welcomed into. Greg’s wife Joan gave me tons of good advice on how to try and save them, and how to move forward once it was clear both hives had gone. The other beekeepers encouraged me. They shared their stories of failure and told me not to give up, this was part of the process. I resolved to try again next year.
This story has a twist, though, and it has really gotten me thinking. Throughout the month of August, I worked to decontaminate the frames and render the wax I’d collected. In that funny way that often happens, for some reason I had been dragging my feet on this task, which meant I still had some frames full of drawn comb when Greg called me up one random Thursday evening. He had too many bees, he said, after an association member had given up and gifted him several hives. He asked if we wanted one. They were gentle bees, much different from what he had seen us dealing with on his last visit. He said he had seen how hard I tried to save our hives, that I was doing everything I could, and he did not want us to give up.
I was over the moon. I dropped everything to get our site ready for a second round of bees. I spent that Friday mowing, clearing, and putting down landscape fabric to deter pests and control weeds, something I had regretted not doing on the first try. Esten jumped in to help me as soon as he finished with work. We picked the box of bees up at eight o’clock the next evening. I had never planned on giving up, but I can’t overstate how much it meant to me that this more experienced beekeeper had seen me showing up, doing the work, and thought I deserved another chance. If I had not sought out this community, I most likely would have failed a lot faster and started next season with much less hope. Time will tell how this next attempt plays out for me. I hope to be successful, but I know the value of the whole experience outweighs any failures along the way.
All of this has been going on throughout the same period where I decided to revive my wire wrapping hobby and create this website, which brought me back into contact with another local business I had a long history with - the crystal shop downtown that always keeps the wire I like in stock. Returning to that familiar place after a few years away from the hobby took me right back to a different community I had found along my path. Similarly, I was not amazing at wire wrapping when I began, but the people in my life supported and encouraged my progress. I found friends with similar interests to keep me accountable and I got better. These experiences got me thinking, and the impact of community became obvious to me. It is easy for us humans to be hard on ourselves, to resent our failures and feel as though we are an island; community, though, is where skills are nurtured and success is born.
When you decide to do something different, some people love to tell you how hard it will be. It won’t make sense to everyone. It’s often true that it will be hard, but at the end of the day what do you want to say you did with your life? The things that are meaningful to you are never a waste of time. It is 100% okay if some, or even most of the people in your life don’t understand the journey you are on. I’ve found that a full and happy life often blossoms at the intersection of many different communities, sewn together by the unique thread of each individual person’s life path. Bees are an excellent lesson in community - they exist to support the survival of the hive, and an individual’s potential pales in comparison to the intricately constructed communities, teeming with life, that they belong to. Bees know how important it is to have a community you can depend on, and each of them works actively, every day, to make that community the best it can be. They show up with the same mission and they find a way to carry it through, reaping the sweet and golden rewards of effective collaboration. I hope I can learn from the bees, and I hope you can, too. If you are sitting on passions that you feel afraid to explore, I hope this story will encourage you to take the leap and find your people. I promise there are communities out there who want the same things as you and will help you along the way, you only have to be brave enough to seek them out. Before you know it, it will be your turn to invest in those who come after you and you will be proud of everything you learned, most of which will likely come from failure.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. There is so much more I could say about beekeeping, about the many blessings in my life and the wonderful people who have pushed and pulled me along the way to where I am now, but I think I’ve said more than enough for today. I’ll leave you with a quote I found:
“He is not worthy of the honey-comb
That shuns the hives because the bees have stings.”
Love & Light,
Lauren
Initium
Welcome, greetings and blessings. Thank you for lending me your attention; it is your most precious gift to give in this life and I am grateful to hold it for now - I hope you will find it valuably spent. If you are interested in homesteading, gardening, astrology, sustainability, synchronicity, esoteric learning… you may have found your space here. Make yourself comfortable as we get to know each other.
I learned long ago that marking the passing of time with ritual and gratitude is a way to keep myself centered. Along the way, there were many breadcrumbs I followed into the forest where I now dwell. Life has been an exercise in remembering and realizing. I can look back and clearly see the seeds of today's flowers planted in my early life. Maybe it is the same for you, maybe not. The beauty is we are all on our own journeys, shifting together in the kaleidoscope of creation.
Today, I am a 4th-year homesteader and 11th-year student of astrology. I am almost 30, fresh off my first Saturn return and in my 2nd year of graduate school. I am now studying education, but my undergraduate studies were in psychology and biology. I am a wife, a daughter, a leader, a creator, a human being! It can be a lot to keep up with, all the titles and labels. It can also be tricky - how do you know when it is okay to use a new one? Was I a homesteader when I made my first cleaning supplies, when I bought my land, when I started raising chickens, when I picked my first vegetables? I am in my 4th month of an apothecary fellowship - am I an herbalist? Who knows. What matters is I am showing up.
Many of us grew up with an awareness that our world needed help. As I got older, entered college, and began to really look around at the world, it became evident to me that I was not going to be able to save the world. Not by myself. There is very little I have control over as a woman of modest resources, but I can always control my choices, and I can use my choices to make things better. I have two eyes and two hands and a functioning brain, and I can make these faculties work for me in whatever way I want. So can you! Even if you feel limited, it is still possible to make an unimaginable difference. Perception is reality; if you believe you can help, you can.
I know it can be overwhelming. I'm here to share what I've learned in hopes that it can benefit you. Little by little, we can work to live in reciprocity with our mother Earth and to create systems in our life that make sense and do as little harm as possible. Most likely, you will not go from dreaming your dream to living it overnight. I sure didn't, and I'm still on my path, but I've come a long, long way and I am working towards it every day. I hope I can make you believe that you can do the same. You do not have to jump the chasm tomorrow, you just need to lay the first brick for your bridge! Going back to our roots and finding ways to live more sustainably, in harmony with life's cycles, is a love letter to creation. My words are my gift, and my intention is to allow them to weave good things into reality.
Something has brought you here, there are no accidents under the sun. May we learn and grow together to make this life a more harmonious experience for each of us.
Love & Light,
Lauren