More About Our Biodynamic Preparations

We handcraft the highest quality Biodynamic Preparations on our certified organic, 100% grass-fed dairy farm, Callie’s Creamery.  Almost all of the materials in our Preparations (500 – 508) are sourced on our farm or are locally harvested.

We learned about biodynamics when we were in our twenties, at that time Robin was a beekeeper and we enjoyed gardening.  Once we married in 1983, careers and family required much of us and our passions for growing and beekeeping balanced us.  In 2001 Shelley took the Biodynamic Certificate Course at the Pfeiffer Institute (Sunbridge College) with Gunther Hauk; Robin took this course some years later.  We also learned more about making and using the preparations at the Josephine Porter Institute.  Since the turn of the century we have been dedicated biodynamic practitioners on our dairy farm and in our home gardens. 

Making the preparations is a creative endeavor and a labor of love.  We pick chamomile and dandelions from our fields and gardens, dry them, and make Preparations 503 and 506 in the autumn, using appropriate parts from one of our cows to contain them. Then they are buried in the earth for their winter journey and harvested in spring for use.  In early summer Valerian flowers, for Preparation 507, are picked and the liquid pressed, fermented and stored.  Stinging Nettle (BD 504) plants are also harvested in the summer, wilted briefly in the sun, and then buried in a bed of peat. White oak bark is carefully taken from nearby trees, ground and placed in cow skulls in the fall then buried near a moving stream all winter, making Preparation 505.  Preparation 502 is made from yarrow flowers picked, dried, stuffed into stag bladders, hung in the summer sun, then buried for the winter.  Equisetum (BD 508) is picked in the summer from our hillsides and dried and stored for use as a field spray.  Our Horn Manure (BD 500) is made from our cow’s summer grass diet.  Ground silica (BD 501) is put in cow horns and buried through the summer, then placed in jars warmed by the sun.  We also make Barrel Compost, known also as Biodynamic Compound Preparation and BC, which one can think of as a concentration of the Compost Preparations into a super energized compost application.

Our experience as farmers convinces us that making Biodynamic Preparations on a working farm infuses them with a vitality that is unmatched.  Milking cows, farm chores, making yogurt, and tending our gardens and bees are all part of our farm rhythm and making the Preparations are woven into and enrich that rhythm.  It is with happiness that we now share them with you.  May your farm or gardens be healed and enlivened as you use them.