About Us
We are an Orthodox Christian homeschooling family, who, dissatisfied with just going with the the status quo, moved onto our homestead in 2022. We wanted to provide somewhere where our children could grow up surrounded by and taking care of God's bountiful creation. In spending time with our animals, we found a quiet echo of Eden. We were already homeschooling long before we moved here, but this land and the animals it supports have given us a beautiful, peace-filled backdrop for our studies, and for our "little church."
I said on the home page that there's a long story to our name. If you can't handle gross stories, skip the next couple lines. Before any of this began, you need to know that in November 2020, late at night, after our youngest children were in bed (or should have been, maybe they weren't), sewage began spewing out of out downstairs toilet. It flooded that bathroom, our laundry room, into the kitchen and our music room. I was pregnant, too. It was fun, let me tell you. Fast forward through clean up, remediating and replacing a ton of stuff (everything except fixing the clean out problem at the street, so the next owner can do it all again). A year to the day later, we moved out of that house and onto our next adventure. Our moving company moved our washer and dryer for us after we left. They didn't shut off the water. We were already a state away, so we found out later after the house's first showing. Everything that we had repaired was ruined all over again, and we questioned whether insurance would really pick up back to back water claims. You can imagine how we felt. It happened at this time that the Kursk Root Icon was visiting a parish not too far away. We made the trek to venerate the beloved icon, and after I completed my prayers for friends and family, I just asked the Theotokos - through all my exhaustion and stress - to just please sell our house. We hadn't driven more than 30 minutes when we got our one and only offer on the house. She sold it that very night.
Where does the masala chai fit in? I believe that while western medicine should have some small corner to occupy, God gave us everything we need for health and wellness. This is deeply theological. As Orthodox Christians we speak of God's energies. It is my own belief as a trained herbalist that, as herbalism speaks of plant energetics, these are a weakened infusion of God's uncreated energies. Why wouldn't plants have a sort of echo of God's energies? They are God's creation, given life from His energies. Imbalances in our own physiological "ecosystems" respond to and are brought back into balance by properly harnessing a plant's energetics, matched to our own constitutions. A good masala chai is more than just black tea and cinnamon. It is chock full of herbs that can lift our mood, and gently enhance immunity and digestion.
The masala chai I sell locally and offer here is more than just a bag of tea. It is something I make with our children and share with friends. Sometimes it is the drink we share around our kitchen table while I am working with our littles on their lessons. I love making a stock pot full of it when we have company on cool fall days. It really does connect people. I can't drink it without remembering the woman who taught me to make it. She was a friend and a sort of "work mom" to me in the early 2000's. I am offering it to you here so you can enjoy it as we do, share it with your children and friends, and make your own memories to cherish and recall with thanksgiving. Glory to God for all things!