Today’s post is by Howling Hill.

The Alternative Medicine Cabinet: Hundreds of Ways to Take Charge of Your Health. Naturally. by Kathy Gruver, MS, LMT, RM, NHC Doctorate in Traditional Naturopathy is a slim book, 150 pages. The book is comprised of a variety of different articles and essays the authoress wrote as required by her masters degree program. Because the articles were independent of each other, there’s a lot of crossover and repetition. This isn’t bad because it reinforces her teachings. For instance, Vit C is good; however, the body can only absorb so much at one time so the rest of the Vit C goes to waste in the form of diarrhea. Knowing this information is really enlightening.

Gruver really pushes the idea of alternative therapies such as Bach Flower Essences, reiki, nutrition, and herbal remedies, massage, acupuncture and acupressure. She wants the reader to understand Western medicine parcels out the body and tries to cover up side effects of pharmaceuticals with more pharmaceuticals. She wholeheartedly believes the body can heal itself if given the right tools: good food, exercise, love, and laughter. Read more…

The newest offering from New York Times best selling author Josh Kilmer-Purcell takes us to upstate New York where we vicariously share in Josh’s joy at starting a vegetable garden on Beekman Farm. Kilmer-Purcell and his partner Brent Ridge fall in love-at-first-sight with the 200-year-old Beekman Mansion on their drive back from a weekend retreat in The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir. The two executives, one an advertising executive and the other a doctor and a vice president with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, set about on a whirlwind adventure in all things rural when they buy the (thankfully renovated) Beekman Mansion and set about to turn it into a working farm again. Though Josh has some experience from a childhood spent in rural Wisconsin, the boys find a friend in a gentle man known only as Farmer John and his beloved herd of goats. The story reveals the complications of living between their hectic professional lives in New York and what they hoped would be a weekend hobby farm. Kilmer-Purcell lets us in on the tensions between him and Brent as the bounty of their farm transforms from an idea, to a small industry and then a national lifestyle brand. Read more…