quote flowers

"For myself, I like having flowers to smell when I walk in the garden, flowers to cut for the house, flowers to share with friends. Having these in abundance proves the methods of my madness to be working well, and well worthwhile."
- Susan Urshel

More heat than light

The worst thing about having all of this pile of useless outdated information is that most of it is not properly sourced. Mea culpa. If you want to claim something, write and convince me it's original.

The saving grace is that my blogging is completely worthless, so go ahead, sue me if you want to hire a lawyer and can prove damages. Do I sound cynical? Well, if irony died with Bush, optimism is dying with Obama ... at least round these parts.

The following crucial piece of herb craft is the lazy man's alternative to my previous post on those Christmas-y pine cone fire starters... This is a great project for using up the stripped, or as we say in the herb world, "garbled", woody stems left over from making nice piles of dried tea, culinary, medicinal, or otherwise useful herb leaves and flowers. For the frugally inclined among us.

Fireplace Fragrance Bags

Fill small paper bags with dried aromatic herbs and tie closed with raffia or twine. Fill a basket to put next to the fireplace (stored safely away from flame) and toss one on the fire when you start a fire.

Suggested Herbs: lavender, lemon balm, rosemary, sage, thyme, eucalyptus.

Dried pine, cedar, and juniper tips.

Whole spices: cloves, allspice, star anise, crushed cinnamon sticks.

the power of herbs

"Above all others, the fragrances of green growing herbs, not gaudy or showy, but comfortable and homey, have the power to cast a spell over us so that we recall only the pleasant past, with all the sharp hard corners of grief and sadness softened."
-- Rosetta Clarkson