While strolling the Menomonie Farmers Market and the Eau Claire Artists Market this year, keep an eye out for the booth of Beloved Sisters, a local business featuring natural remedies, body care products, and home-sewn goods. Owner Veronika Zazovsky says her motto “Living Life the Way Nature Intended” was first articulated by her beloved sister Natalia, who died in 2012 from a rare brain tumor. Veronika runs the business as a legacy to her sister.
Zazovsky notes: “We always lived very simply: both parents were teachers, and we could not afford to buy many fruits and vegetables, so we grew everything in our garden. Making all the compost, plant food, and insect repellant by ourselves was the only way to get it—we could not afford to buy it. Later in life we realized the true value of our childhood. Natalia once attended a class that cost $70 to learn how to butcher a chicken, clean it, and make a soup. After the class, she was upset and said that it was EVERYTHING our grandma would do—what we already knew! Then we came to value our holistic practices and our childhood experience, to express joy and pride in it, and to use it in making the products. I collect wild herbs and flowers to make remedies,and I teach how to cook just the way we used to in my childhood.”
Her Holistic Homemaking classes, based on “Whole Family and Whole House,” include cooking, cleaning, gardening, composting, sewing, and making teas and body-care products. Zazovsky adds, “Our mission is to generate awareness, education, and support for holistic homemaking and green living by providing nurturing, open-minded, and respectful local community classes that encourage residents of the Menomonie area to share these principles and learn from each other.”
For more information on products and classes, see www.facebook.com/BelovedSisters2014 and www.etsy.com/shop/BelovedSisters or call 715-235-0131
Comments