quote

"Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers
Is faded all - a hope that blossomed free
And hath been once no more shall ever be."
John Clare, from The Mores

quote for the first mild March day - a month late

"It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door..."
- William Wordsworth

quote

All Nature seems at work. Slugs have their lair -

The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -

And Winter, slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

quote

"There is hope for herbalism and natural healing in the 20th century. Everywhere a revival of interest and a new spirit of inquiry are evident... The debt to plants as the original sources of valuable modern medicines is today more readily acknowledged... The current revival of interest in the values, properties, and uses of nature's products gives hope that thousands of years of accumulated knowledge will not be completely buried in the stampede so dubiously named progress."
- John Lust, The Herb Book

quote

From an old copy of the Gilded Herb (a Canadian magazine):
"Spring is the season of hope and emerging new green life. Its promise has served to cheer many a winter-weary Canadian - even in centuries past. Here is a quote from Catherine Parr Traill, a pioneer of the 1800's. Emigrating from England, she found a hard life awaiting her in the forests here, but left us with a written legacy of her thoughts. In April, 1888, from Peterborough, Ontario, she wrote a letter to her daughter, Annie Atwood. In it she notes that "the cold winds still prevail" and that she "longs for sunny mild days". Then she says:
"I long for air and pottering about the garden and the sight of green things is life to me."

quote

"If you've never started seeds, don't worry too much about it. Remember, nature has designed them to want to grow. You and the garden seeds have exactly the same goal ... what could be more reassuring?"
- Ruth Page in Over The Hedge

quote

"Flowers sweeten the air,
rejoice the eye,
link you with nature
and innocence
and are something to love.

If they cannot
love you in return,
they cannot
utter hateful words
even if neglected; for
though they are all beauty
they possess no vanity; and
living as they do
to do you good
and afford you pleasure
how can you neglect them!"
- Leigh Hunt

quote

"A man of knowledge like a rich soil feeds

if not a world of corn, a world of weeds."

- Benjamin Franklin

quote

"But pleasure are like poppies spread,

You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white - then melts forever"

- Robert Burns, from Tam O'Shanter

quote

"The wisest, happiest, of our kind are they

That ever walk content with Nature's way,

God's goodness - measuring bounty as it may"

- William Wordsworth

quote

"This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towad the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men ... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your vey flesh shall be a great poem."

- Walt Whitman

quote

"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.

If you want me again, look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless."

- Walt Whitman

quote

"To laugh often and much,

To win the respect of intelligent people

And the affection of children,

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

And endure the betrayal of false friends,

To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,

To leave the world a bit better,

Whether by a healthy child,

A garden patch, or a redeemed social condition,

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

early crocuses

"We must learn to look on plants not as mere points of color, but as old friends on whose coming we can rely; and who, returning with the recurring seasons, bring back with them pleasant memories of past years."

Henry Bright

The Tommies are blooming.

More Signs of Spring:
Tim, across the street, starting his riding mower.  Ahem, every time I go out the door.

Meijers parking lot - the appearance of huge mounds of plastic bound mulch and bales of soil.

All the cr@p people have thrown from their cars (who raised them?) over the past 4 or 5 months is not yet hidden by new weed growth.

I stepped on my first slug of the year this morning.

And, the Tommies are blooming!

"My house is the one with the cloud over it"

I ran across that line when I was Googling "skunk spray vinyl siding cleaning"...

Yes, a few days ago MY backyard was blessed by the presence of a dying skunk.
When I woke up Monday, there was the faint scent of skunk migration in the air, a familiar Sign of Spring.
But when I came home from my walk, and walked up the driveway, I sensed something was awry.
The "Cloud".

I went through the house to the patio, and stood there, wondering why the acrid smell wasn't dissipating; it was seeming to get worse every minute...
Because there, next to the south facing, sun-warmed house wall, was a dying skunk. Poor animal.

We often get groggy wild animals coming up to the protected, gravel lined southern el of the house in the early spring - opossums, skunks, feral cats. Our adopted feral cat PeeWee used to nurse her baby, Little Cat, there on a clump of Opuntia pads. But this skunk came to die in a warm untroubled spot. Poor animal.

I felt bad for him, in my better self I'd try to honor his slow death ... but the smell was infiltrating the house. I had to do something. I needed a Death Panel. So I called a local humane trapper - $85 to set the trap (which the skunk would have to rise from his deathbed to enter) and $50 to haul away. Remember I told you my budget is squeaking?

I called County Animal Control. No dice - they pick up pets only. But the nice public servant advised, after I mentioned the R word (Rabies, not Retard!), that in some communities the P.D. will send out a cop to shoot nuisance wild animals.
Great idea!

Grand Blanc Township Police sent out a policewoman within 10 minutes or so. Pretty impressive response time for a non-crime call. (Kudos to the GBPD!) In dismaying contrast, when my 2 year old granddaughter's bedroom door was being kicked in by a robber, it took Flint Police 3 hours to respond to the 911 call.

Of course, when all was said and done, the death panel decided we should wait until second shift before proceeding. The coppette told me the skunk probably didn't have rabies because it wasn't foaming and making the right noises. But to keep the cats indoors. And the angle of the coup de grace shot by her service revolver was too close to the house - siding, footing, perhaps the sewer pipe? could be compromised.
How did the situation resolve?
Herb came home. He took care of it.
A Day in The Life.

quote

"Nobody sees a flower, really - it is so small - we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."

- Georgia O'Keefe

quote

"The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size."
- Gertrude S. Wister

quote

At this time of year I begin to think Winter will never end. My need to dig and plant is almost an overwhelming anxiety... but rest assured, it won't be long before the joyful color of early spring flowers, the living scent of the earth after a gentle rain, the peace of an evening walk in the herb garden will become reality!
There is something about memory of springs past that tugs at the heart, and sprouts anticipation for the magic of another season! The yearly renewed celebration of life.

Rose Hip - Ginger Cordial

This ought to be a fun, tasty and efficacious herbal cordial.

In response to an opening question by Linda Conroy on "how do people use rose hips", the following recipe was posted on Facebook by Heather Nic An Fhleisdeir, who makes a low alcohol tincture of rosehips and fresh gingerroot. She wrote this on Feb. 26:
 "(Fill) a jar one third the way full of dried deseeded rosehips, pouring just enough hot water over them to reconstitute and let cool. Fill with 40% alcohol (I like scotch whisky) and let steep three weeks. It has a nice body to it and since it is low in alcohol it extracts a nice amount of the nutrients. I like to mix it with my fresh ginger tincture, mmm"

Linda Conroy had posted: "Rose hips, fresh harvested from the wild contain between 1500-2500 grams of Vitamin C per 100 grams of weight. This is 47 times more than an orange. which contains around 53 mgs of Vitamin C per 100 grams of weight."
Of course it is easier to eat an orange... but rose hips are local, free, wildcrafted or cultivated food (uncontaminated with pesticides), and when you pick and process your own roses' hips, you become a personal part of the process of nourishing life.

I wrote: (I make) "Rose hip jam, but I always wonder if I'm destroying the Vit C by cooking? It does taste good, though."
Linda responded: "I do believe that some of the vitmain C is lost in each step of processing. The ultimate way to prepare roseship for optimal vitamin C is to prepare them fresh and not heating or drying them. This is why I like to steep them in honey or vinegar when they are fresh. But there are other nutrients that roseships offer when cooked, such as carotenes. (And since carotenes are fat soluable, roseship pie or cheese cake as mentioned above is ideal!)

Next year - rose hip honey, for sure!

Well, with all of that fresh knowledge, I decided to tincture some of my dried rose hips and in three week I'll add them to some ginger root honey I made.
Here is my method:

My Version Rose hip and Ginger root Cordial

March 11, 2010

1/2 cup dehydrated rose hips
1/2 cup hot, not boiling water
Cover rose hips with water, allow to cool. Then add:
1/2 cup Jack Daniels (43 percent Alc. by vol.= 86 proof)
Cover and allow to tincture for 3 weeks in a cupboard, shaking the bottle every day.
At the end of 3 weeks,stir in ginger honey, made by infusing 1/2 cup honey and peeled sliced gingerroot.

I'm not sure if I'll bother straining out the healthful solids to get a clear cordial - I'll try to keep this updated. However, rest assured, the rose hips and ginger won't go to waste.

quote

"the highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it."

- John Howard