Wild Water in Ojai California...

The vid says it all -

HERE is the link from Findaspring.com

Harvesting our own water, fruit, nuts, greens...

growing as much of our own as possible...

the self-reliance is getting closer.

If only we could power the car up to the spring with our own energy!

EdibleGoddess.com

(blue manna icy! WHAAAT?????)

Im putting a big shout-out to Bethanne Wanamaker

of the great site EdibleGoddess.com.

I met Bethanne at the Longevity Now Conference a few months

ago and her radiating kindness was felt by everyone.

She has a wonderful Ebook out titled Superfood Beauty Elixirs -

HERE are three free recipes from that book.

She is a wonderful soul and if you can support her mission in any way,

myself and everyone at Blackbird would really appreciate it.

Her site has so many goodies on it -

check out this insanely good pumpkin pie recipe that we made a couple

weeks ago for the holidays! TOTAL FRIGGIN HIT!

We love you B!!! Keep up the lightwork!!!

-Anthony and the Ladies of Blackbird Naturals

Hardcore Chickens

These little feathered dinosaurs roam our desert food forest...

The black one above ate a fatty scorpion the other day as we

were building our vegetable patch.

I lifted up a large rock and saw so many little critters underneath it.

I grabbed one of the girls and brought her over to the scene and pointed

at the bugs for her...little did I know that I was also pointing at a

really plump bark scorpion that was overwintering under that rock.

She ignored the little bugs and started attacking the scorpion.

Two hard pecks - one to the tail and one to the back put the scorpion

out but it was still wriggling in her mouth as she was walking away from

the scene...I was so worried that it was going to sting her.

Then she just tilted her head back and swallowed the whole thing.

She is still alive and very well...I swear they are feathered dinosaurs.

So....scorpion eats little critters.

Chicken eats scorpion.

Chicken lays eggs from nutrients of said scorpion.

We eat those wonderfully golden eggs.

We crumble up the shells and feed them back to the chickens.

Chicken poops out scorpion and we use it on our gardens for nutrients.

Loving it all...

More on this wonderful veggie patch soon!!!!

From Alexandra

From Alexandra...more to come - this is from the Replant Paradise community on Ning.

On Christmas Day we began the construction of our fenced in veggie garden!

We have had some frosts in AZ lately, so we are VERY excited to begin planting the garden this weekend.

We hope to be completely self-sufficient in 1-2 months.

Because of the recent death in our family, what was once a passion is now also very much a NECESSITY. Thank goodness for our beautiful chickens! They have been loving their time free-ranging every day in the garden, foraging for delicious bugs!

So eggs, veg, and fruit are taken care of now! Wow - the grocery bills are shrinking BIG TIME!!

Anthony, Andrea and I will film the planting of the garden. It is 16 feet by 16 feet....almost everyone can fit this into their backyard...we are also planting a few containers on the back patio. These are great for anyone who lives in an apartment.

We love it because this way we can plant up on our patios where critters wont find our delicious treats :)

Last but not least - We have been doing some major foraging lately! We found some grapefruit trees behind my bank the other day so we went back with our picker and gathered a few boxes worth. We have been juicing and mixing with our Ormus Greens and Vitamineral Green....yummm

AND Olives!!

Buckets of fresh olives from trees around the neighborhood!

We made a simple brine and placed them in the corner to ferment for a month or two...our last batch is delicious!

Yay for free food!!!

Much love to all of you here...we will pick a recipient for seeds tonight so stay posted!

XOXO

My apologies...

Been away far too long, and Ill explain why later on.

A sudden death in the family has rocked everyone here at Blackbird

and we are trying to make sense of the situation we now find ourselves in.

But above all...more clarity and purpose has shown through.

Growing our food is no longer a hobby but a necessity.

Here is a message from Max, a brother who has been inspired

to take Replanting Paradise into his own hands...

"I just want to let you know that you are living the vision which I am manifesting.

I realized from from the little teaser video that a lot of what drove you

in this direction is the same as what is driving me. I too have decided to fold on the

deck which is based on fear and frustration with the government, and to come at this from love.

I'm going to study permaculture and live on an eco village for 5 months in less than a month,

and I am really excited to come back with a wealth of knowledge to create an extension to this paradise.

How did you come into the knowledge yourself?

How did you decide where to get land, how to structure everything, etc?

It seems like you've been planning things out and doing so much yourself.

I'm really in awe and inspired.

I know we have lots of mutual friends,

and I look forward to the day we get to chat in person.

All blessing and love to you."

And 6 months later....

"Anthony! I wanted to give you an update.

I have a little over a month left of the permaculture course now.

The past few days have climaxed into this magnitude of realization of how much I learned...

the whole coming full circle thing...and it happened with two day intensives about food forests.

We watched the Geoff Lawton videos, and my mind has been blown out to new

proportions of what is possible. THEN I revisited your videos and realized how much you know.

I'm really amazed by everything that you're doing...

you've been touched by the light of knowledge and life.

When I get back to NY in mid-February, it looks likely that I will be able to take over a small suburban house property and start experimenting with a mini-scale food forest.

(I need time to figure out where I want to buy land for a bigger one,

but I want to get started right now!!).

Seeing what you're doing -even in colder weather-

gives me the strength of mind to know I can do it.

Thank you. Again & again."

Here is the reason why we must always aim for paradise.

No matter what happens in LIFE, our utmost goal on

the planet should be Paradise Restoration.