After spending last weekend traveling to visit friends in Tennessee, this weekend was double the work - with piles of tomatoes to work through, and the fridge stuffed full with corn, green beans, and okra. When the bounty of the summer garden arrives, it arrives with a vengeance!

I always forget how productive certain crops (i.e. tomatoes) can be until another summer rolls around and they are rotting in piles on the counter, as well as under the plants in the garden. I thought I had sufficiently scaled down my tomato planting this year, but apparently not quite far enough!

Anyway, we canned our first batch of tomatoes this weekend, and froze some as well - along with a number of other food preservation tasks.

Below is a quick list of what I was up to this weekend in the homestead kitchen - along with some pictures of the bounty, and a quick run-down of our tomato canning process...

We all know that exercise is good for us. Not only does regular exercise help us to stay in shape, avoid injury, maintain a healthy weight, and prolong our lives, it is also linked to a reduced risk of almost every modern disease.

So why do so few of us get enough of it?

While there are many factors that contribute to our lack of exercise as a society, one of the main reasons is that we're just so darned *busy.* With dozens of demands on our time every day, we tend to prioritize the things that are urgent and the things that we enjoy the most - neither of which applies to exercise for most people.

With a full-time job, family responsibilities, social activities, and hobbies to juggle, going to the gym for an hour or so 3-4 times per week is often at the bottom of the priorities list. This is bad news for our health as a nation, and we can see the results in our worsening health and increasing waistlines.

The good news is, getting enough exercise to stay healthy may take a lot less time than you think...

According to scientific studies, researchers have discovered that as little as 30 minutes of exercise per week may improve health and longevity rather significantly.

BUT - it all depends on the type of exercise you're doing...

If you're interested in becoming more self-sufficient and learning how to take control of your health and become more in touch with your body's health needs, I believe there is nothing more valuable that you can do then to learn to make your own natural medicines.

While the mainstream medical industry would have you believe they know everything there is to know about health, in fact, they have only been around for the past century or so, while humans have been making natural remedies and medicinal preparations at home for thousands of years! There certainly have been some valuable advances in medical technology over the past century, but that doesn't mean that our previous thousands of years of experience are no longer valid.

With a combined approach, you can learn to treat minor issues at home where appropriate, and rely on the more advanced technologies of our medical institutions when medically necessary for more serious illnesses and injuries. By taking this approach, not only will you save money, but you will also learn to be more self-sufficient, and develop a deeper connection with your own body and a better understanding of its needs - two things which are practically priceless.

Unfortunately, much of the knowledge of ancient medicinal remedies which used to be passed down to from generation to generation has been lost from memory over the past century, and few people in today's modern world know how to make home medicines or medicinal preparations. The good news is, for the information that has survived, the internet makes it easier than ever for people to re-learn these lost skills.

If you are interested in learning the art and science of making your own medicines using natural and effective ingredients, I would like to invite you to attend this inspiring 4-part video series that is coming up in the next few days, which will teach you how to confidently heal the 12 most common ailments using natural, homemade medicines.

Register Here for the FREE Video Series, or learn more below...