I’ve only been here a week but this whole experience is already a complete dream come true for me! Here’s ten (of the very many) reasons why:

1. In our first class, a herb walk, our teacher Mark asked us, “so who here believes in fairies?” The answer was a resounding yes!
“Do you?” we asked.
“Of course! I wouldn’t ask that question if I didn’t.”

 

2. In just one week we got to harvest calendula, wood betony, lemon balm, meadowsweet, red clover, chickweed, grindelias and California poppy. We harvested a record breaking 1000lb of California poppies in one day! Harvested, washed and placed on the drying racks!

 

3. We have our own personal herbal dispensary in the kitchen!

 

4. On Saturday we foraged for nettles, amaranth, purslane, lamb’s quarters and sexy succulent raspberries from around the house and the farm for brunch the next day!

5. This evening I was out in the medicine shed making St. John’s Wort oil and tincture and when I came back in to the house there was a full on dance party going on in the kitchen!

6. Oh yes! We have a medicine shed! It is completely stocked with jars, drying racks, alcohol, weighing scales, beeswax and oils, everything you could want for making herbal medicines!!

7. Regular dinner conversation includes things like:

“Are you more witch or fairy?”

“I think I’m more fairy…”

“Oh girl, I’m completely witch!”

“Can I be both? I’m maybe 60% witch, 40% fairy”.

8. Our communal list of shopping staples includes things like apple cider vinegar, quinoa, coconut oil, chia seeds, raw cacao, watermelon and aaaalll the greens!!

9. This is our house:

And our garden: (can you spot the deer?)

And our library!!!

10. The farm and the woods and the kitchen are our classroom. We learn so much while at work Monday to Thursday but we also have official classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and all day Friday and Saturday. We walked around the woods while we learnt about botany, we heard stories about plantain and dandelion and yellow dock while we strolled around the fields and we made hydrosols, infusions and decoctions together in the kitchen. And this was just week one!

I’m so excited for what the rest of this programme will bring! And I can’t wait for work in the morning! I’m impatiently anticipating what we’ll harvest, what we’ll learn, what the plants will share and reveal to us. And I’m so grateful and so happy that I get to experience it all with my fellow fairy witches!