Return To Our Roots
Welcome to the outdoor Apothecary
The Outdoor Apothecary inspires naturally minded people to live with the seasons, become self-reliant, connect with nature, and protect their health through herbal living. We love celebrating “the old ways” of living to bring blessings to ourselves, our families, communities and to Mother Earth. We offer articles, tips, recipes and ideas on practical self-reliance, simple herbal remedies, foraging, gardening and reconnecting ourselves to our natural world and sacred ancestral traditions.
About Me: Barbi
I’m a bookish “earth mother” who loves to read and walk in the woods. I’m a wildcrafter & herbalist, avid gardener, collector of nature specimens, and field guide enthusiast.
I spent most of my childhood exploring our natural world and I’m now devoted to reviving the ancestral wisdom of plants as medicine and healers. I love spending hours outside tending to my gardens, gathering plants and herbs, being in nature,and learning skills of self-reliance like homemade soapmaking.
I give deep thanks and gratitude to my Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck family for inspiring me to honor our Mother Earth by dedicating myself to studying and sharing ancient lifeways and reviving the wonderous arts of plant medicine and nature connectedness. I sincerely hope you’ll join me on this journey.
Rewild Your Life
Connecting with nature is more than a walk through the woods. It’s about being conscious of seasonal changes, becoming intuned with the plants around us, and relearning the nature-language we’ve forgotten through our modern lives. We believe that incorporating the “old ways” of doing things, growing and harvesting our own food, and having a do-it-yourself spirit, promotes self-sufficiency and is an important part of leading a healthier lifestyle, closer to nature.
We hope to provide you with a foundation to rewild yourself through aligning with the cycles of the seasons and to help you in discovering the energies of the seasonal cycles.
Nourish Yourself with Nature
Free 29-page Guidebook to Celebrating the Seasons
A Guided Workbook to help you celebrate nature’s seasonal cycles with mindfulness and meaningful intentions – our gift to you! Learn how to live a mindful nature-connected life.
Recent Posts
A Surprising and Delightful Dessert Recipe with Yellow Squash
This surprising and delicious dessert recipe with yellow squash is our favorite way to eat this summer vegetable. With a creamy custard texture and vanilla flavor, it is sure to impress. Even picky eaters will love it!
The Amazing Health Benefits and the Uses of Turmeric
In this article, we’ll review the potential health benefits and the uses of turmeric and how it can help support your health.
Old Fashioned Pickled Beets: The Best Way To Preserve Beets
With sweet, tangy and spiced flavors, these old fashioned pickled beets are so good that they’ll win over just about everyone in your house.
How to Easily Grow Zucchini and Yellow Squash from Seed
Learn the basics of growing Zucchini and Yellow Squash including information on spacing, planting depth, and weather conditions.
How to Make Kimchi: An Easy and Customizable Recipe
Learn how to make kimchi with this simple, customizable recipe to power up your gut with good bacteria.
Valuable Homesteading skills: Cold Process Soap Making
Are you trying to build up your homesteading skills? Learning the art of soapmaking is a traditional skill that all homesteaders should have.
Make Your Own Effective St. John’s Wort Tincture
St. John’s Wort tincture is a potent herbal medicine for depression, anxiety and insomnia that you can make at home.
Caring for Baby Chicks: Essential Tips for Success
Caring for baby chicks is fun, educational, and is one of the most rewarding things you will do! It can also be heartbreaking. Check out these tips to get started.
The Magical Wheel of the Year: 8 Sabbats For Seasonal Living
Explore the eight pagan sabbats that make up the Wheel of the Year, celebrating nature’s seasonal shifts.
Easy Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe
This easy microwave bread and butter pickles recipe will become your favorite way to preserve some of your abundant cucumber harvests.
Easy Small Batch Huckleberry Jam Recipe
Learn how to make this simple delicious small batch huckleberry jam recipe from your freshly picked wild huckleberries!
Identifying and Foraging for Wild Huckleberry
Learn how to forage and identify black huckleberry. So go pick some wild huckleberries and make that sweet summer treat.
Celebrating Harvest Season and the Festival of First Fruits
Lughnasadh honours the first grains of the harvest season and is a time of joy and gratitude for the crops.
How To Identify, Harvest, and Pick Wild Blueberries: The Ultimate Guide
Learn how to find, identify and pick wild blueberries! I will teach you the basics of foraging these sweet summer fruits and explain some of the best places to look as well as how to tell them apart from other berries. We will also discuss safety concerns, harvesting, and storage practices.
Blueberry Shortcake: The Most Amazing Blueberry Dessert
A new twist on traditional blueberry shortcake. Impress your guests with this super easy and delicious blueberry dessert.
Easy 30 Minute Shortcake Biscuits
This recipe for shortcake biscuits is simple to make and yields the perfect biscuit for shortcake. They take just 30 minutes from start to finish.
5 Amazing Environmental Benefits of Raising Chickens
Raising chickens is not only fun but is also sustainable and has many environmental benefits.
9 Amazing Ideas for Celebrating Summer: Connecting With Friends and Nature
As we enter the start of Summer and the season of Litha, I thought I’d share what I’ll be focusing on this season and how I will be celebrating summer.
Easy Steps to Creating A Food Forest In Your Backyard
The Food Forest is an innovative new way of eating that combines organic farming with permaculture principles. Learn more about its benefits!
Lughnasadh and Lammas: Celebrating The First Harvest
Celebrate Lugnasadh and the first harvest as a way of honoring nature’s incredible fertile energy at this time of year, and as a way to connect with our natural world on a deeper, more meaningful level.
Amazing Plantain Weed: Nature’s Wonder Herb
Here’s everything you need to know about plantain weed, including how to identify and use this edible and medicinal herb.
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