Two Kinds of Quiet

The harvest is in. The rows are cut back, the barn smells like drying bundles instead of fresh ones, and for the first time since May there is nothing urgent waiting outside the door.

I always forget how much I look forward to this part. Not the quiet itself, exactly, but what the quiet makes room for. The kitchen gets used again. The evenings get long enough to notice. And I start thinking about what I want the house to smell like for the next three months.

This year that turned into two different answers, so we made two different boxes. And then we decided to keep going.

Autumn on the stove

The first one starts in the kitchen. There is a particular smell to a cold morning when something warm is going, and this fall I wanted to bottle it. We took our own lavender and blended it with real chai spice: cinnamon bark, cardamom, clove, nutmeg, anise, and vanilla. Not a fragrance oil made to smell like chai. The actual spices.

The Chai Harvest Box has seven pieces in it. Body wash and lotion for morning and evening, a roller for the hours in between, a lip balm for the wind, a room spray for the sheets and the front room, a candle for after dark, and a tea for the hour before bed.

Two of those did not come from us. The tea is from Amy Frost at Everyday Herbal, blended with our lavender and chai spice. The candle is from Lindsay McDonald at Lighthearted Candle Company, poured in the same scent. Both of them are neighbors, and both of them made something I could not have made on my own. That is my favorite part of this box.

Three of the seven pieces, the candle, the oil roller, and the room spray, are made only for this box. We are making 100 this season. When they are gone, they are gone until next fall.

Pre-order the Chai Harvest Box

Four boxes, four seasons

Here is the part I am most excited about. We are not going to stop at fall.

Every season we are going to build a new box around a new scent, made once and not repeated. The chai will be gone by winter. Whatever comes next will be gone by spring. That is on purpose. I want opening one of these to feel like the season actually changed.

The Seasonal Box sends you one automatically, four times a year, at $72 a box instead of $80. You do not have to remember to order, and you do not have to worry about the hundred selling out before you get to it.

This fall it is the Chai box. Winter comes in December, and I am not telling you what is in it yet.

Subscribe to The Seasonal Box

The evening kind

The other feeling shows up later, after supper, when the house finally goes still. That hour has always been harder for some people than others, and it gets harder this time of year, when it is dark by six and the clocks are about to change.

My husband Greg is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. He spent years watching people try to wind down and not manage it, and Silent Night Sleep Spray came out of that. It is the piece of our line I am asked about most.

The Quiet Hours Box builds the rest of the evening around it. The sleep spray, our Soft Night Lip Balm in lavender and chamomile, and a magnesium cream in a 9 oz size we make only for this box. That last one matters more than it sounds. The standard jar is 4 oz, which is fine for occasional use. Nine ounces is enough to actually make it part of your night, every night, for a month.

This one is not a seasonal box. It stays on the shelf year round. But autumn is when people start asking about it, so autumn is when we built it.

You can take one box for $72, or three months for $177, which works out to $59 a box and saves you $39.

Pre-order the Quiet Hours Box

All of it opens today

Pre-order either box, or subscribe, starting now. Everything ships and is ready for pickup at the apothecary on September 22, the first day of fall.

We wanted to give you time to think about it, and honestly we wanted a little more time ourselves. Lindsay is still pouring candles.

Marion