Bike ride finds

I thought this was a nice picture of red clover and red raspberry leaves drying on the cattail mat. I love the vibrant color of the red clover blossoms. We tried the infusion today for the first time. We found it to be mild and pleasant. It takes a lot of dried blossoms to reach the one ounce of plant material required for one quart of infusion though. We scavenged these blossoms from the farm and also along our new favorite bike route. The blossoms were along a road, but it seems like the road is seldom used so we risked it.

The other exciting find from our bike trips was yarrow. It is one of my most utilized herbs. We dried some for tea (mostly in the event of a tension headache for me but there are many other possible uses including if you feel a cold coming on). We also put some in an alcohol based tincture. It is an excellent bug repellant in this form, and it can also be used to stop bleeding or in any situation you would use neosporin. Tincturing it in vinegar is our new experiment. I've tried drinking alcohol tincture for headaches before and it does help, but if I'm already feeling nauseous then the alcohol is too much. Supposedly the vinegar will draw out the alkaloids just as well and hopefully not upset my stomach. The final experiment is yarrow in oil. Yarrow is pain relieving and antiinflammatory so I may try it topically for sore muscles. It also may be a nice choice for wounds when I don't want to deal with the sting of alcohol. If anyone wants reports on how well the different menstrums(sp?) work... Let me know!

Ok short blog this week. Maybe I'll have more pictures to motivate my writing next week...

De-hydrate, de-hydrate, de-hydrate

This week's theme is dehydration. We have harvested lots of yummy things and now we are drying them out for later use.

St. John's Wort drying out for future use as teas. I could have also used it fresh to make an oil infusion for sunscreen or a tincture (more potent that the teas). The flower is so beautiful, have any of you seen it before?

Comfrey (or as the ancient ones called it, "bone-knit") is being dried for herbal infusions. Comfrey has been used to heal broken bones, sprains, and tears.

Dried nettle for infusions (mostly), and also for soups or to be ground and added to gamasio

Cattails... Drying for mat making :) we ate the shoots at my herbal apprenticeship on Monday

My first attempt at mat making... Looks ok to me. Read the directions after I started though... Oops!

Mat looks nice and tight right after it is finished.

Mat is much looser now that it dried. Next time I will dehydrate the cattail, rehydrate it, and then make the mat to see if that helps. Raspberry leaves drying here for an astringent, nourishing tea 

And lastly, just for fun, we have the chiogga beets that are finally big enough to see the ring pattern when cut. Pretty and delicious... And also pretty delicious

New life and new eats

This hen was broody so we got three fertilized eggs from a neighbor. She hatched the first one today...more pics later when she is not hanging out under mama hen all day.

We think one of our new birds started laying eggs today. It was not in a nest box and is so much smaller than the other eggs.

We are still waiting for Catherine's Linden tree to bloom. The flower and bract can be dried to make a delicious herbal infusion with anti-inflammatory qualities.

Butter making kit we received for Christmas.

Washing out the extra buttermilk so the butter keeps longer.

Buttermilk... For the original buttermilk pancakes or ranch dressing. We just drank it straight. Yum!

Little butterbell for storage.

Neal is headed to a permaculture course this week, and We are hoping he can post about that experience and also about making a hugelkultur garden bed when he gets back.