A Week of Autumn

At last: sweaters, gloves, warm pants, hot tea all day, egg nog, fuzzy socks, frantic knitting, snoozy dogs, cold rain, space heaters humming, cold sheets, silly Christmas movies.

I brewed up some chai this morning with these spices.

 However, my new favorite tea is my herbal tea with lemon juice and lots of honey. I picked more herbs this week, probably the last of the year before they die back.

lemon balm, mint, tarragon -- lots of flavor!

 I hope I have enough to last the winter.

Until we can buy a new AC/heating unit (the mini-split system) we're using our space heaters like last year. They are cozy.

 

I took the old handmade wreath from the front door, removed the dead decorations, spray painted it a little bit red, and added new Christmas flare. It's rather plain and rustic, but I'm no good at interior decor, that's for sure!

I also picked plantain, yarrow, and dandelion leaves and made some more Healing Herb Ointment. I get such good reports on this product!

 Around here, we just call it "green goo."

I've been knitting a la Miss Marple lately ... in other words,  a lot!! This bulky infinity scarf is actually a bright gem blue.

 And this one's a nice pine green. Camera color is crazy!

 They'll both go to the market tomorrow for sale, along with the ointment.
I finally started a new weave this morning. Crazy yarn.

 I haven't gotten very far. My back is achy and I need a nap :) 

 Years ago a friend gave me some nice yarn. The pink yarn in this weave is some of it. She'd started some little baby booties but not finished them. I thought, "Why not unravel those booties and put that yarn right onto my warp?" So I did.

 What am I reading now? I finished Elizabeth Goudge's autobiography and have moved on to a favorite of hers, The Little White Horse. It's very good, very fun, a delightful children's story. 

 I've seen the Moonacre movie (which I regret). It's not a bad movie, but I can tell already it's woefully inferior to the book and takes great liberties. If you have a choice, go for the book.

It's nap time. Then it's knitting time. Then it's dinner time. 

 The October days have sped by much too fast, and my favorite month is nearly over. I've also been singing more and playing the piano more, since I'm back in the community chorus this semester. And I have a second piano student now! Yay! It's a good thing I'm not working a regular job!

Nearly forgot -- for anybody that didn't see the video I made of the little jewelry pouch:

Here's the youtube video:

Love to all! Enjoy these last October days!

Nurturing Peace

I spent much time today in my studio, enjoying the quiet.

 

This fine fellow appeared at my bird feeder in early evening. I have several pairs of cardinals who frequent our back yard. 

I shared this apple blossom before. God's handiwork is perfect.

I didn't intend to duplicate His art, but to involve myself in its beauty -- to paint it is to participate in it, to study its beauty more closely than just to observe it.
I left the flower white and began with the background.

I liked it at this stage, but like most of my watercoloring, it seemed pale an insipid.

So I outlined it using colored pencils. I think I did not improve it at all, rather the reverse.

Our church is having a Seder Supper this week (Thursday, 6:00, all are invited), and today Adam made the matzos -- the unleavened bread served with this special meal. I did a video of the cooking.

I had a couple of them with my dinner of pasta and red sauce -- made from my canned tomatoes from last summer, and with herbs snipped from the garden this evening.

When I returned from a friend's house, Trixie was so excited to see me that she gave me a little scratch. It reddened and swelled up. Scratches from pets' claws often itch and feel irritated.

Immediately I applied some of my Healing Herb Ointment. I like to experiment on myself, haha :) 

the scratch at 4:15,
immediately after scratched

the scratch at 5:15, an hour later

Below, the scratch at 7:00. The swelling is gone, and the redness nearly gone. 

I'm very pleased with it. I gave a tub of it to an elderly friend with a bad skin rash that the doctors have been unable to treat. He enthusiastically told me that it has relieved the itch and improved his skin. That makes me happy too. I'm betting by tomorrow morning my scratch will have disappeared.
(Update, the next morning:

I also made a Youtube video today while I combed and dizzed some alpaca fiber, just combing and chatting. I'm not sure if these videos are appealing or not, but if they're only good so that Adam can listen to my voice after I'm dead and gone, it's okay. I enjoy listening to a lady Youtuber who combs fleece, so maybe others will enjoy this video too: "Combing Fleece, Talking Peace"

I stay in my studio some days because it's peaceful. Peace of the body, peace of the mind, peace of the spirit -- I think they are intertwined in complex ways. Combing fleece doesn't give a peaceful spirit, but it's a little step. It gives me time --  to think, to pray, to consider others and their needs, to consider God and His plans, to remember my own life, my choices, the successes and mistakes. When I'm busy with activities that stress and deplete me, the thinking doesn't happen and the peace doesn't come.

Peace to you, dear friends.

Herbal Tea

I often long for a warm drink in the evenings but don't want caffeine. Last night I visited the herb garden and concocted a tea of my own. And I lived to tell about it!

The four herbs I chose were (bottom to top) lemon balm, mint, hyssop, chamomile.

Reading in my rather new herb book, The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Spices, I learned about the properties of these four plants.
lemon balm: lowers blood pressure, relieves insomnia, treats colds and flu and indigestion
mint: relieves tension and insomnia, aids with digestive disorders, has a lovely flavor
hyssop: treats coughs and sore throats, used as an expectorant
chamomile: tea is refreshing, digestive and mildly sedative, reduces inflammation

The tea tasted faintly of mint and was delicious. I would like to drink teas like this in the evening to help me sleep, relax, and digest well after dinner.

As I picked these herbs and brought them inside, rinsed them and put them in the tea pot, I found in myself the slightest hesitation. "What am I doing?" I thought. "I don't really know what these plants might do to me. What if they're too strong? What if they make me ill?" And I had to laugh at myself ... because honestly, most people think of homemade herbal "remedies" as little more than hocus-pocus. We act like there's nothing in them, and those who use them are silly and misguided. Why concoct balms and salves and tinctures at home when you can pick something up at the pharmacy?

And of course that's even scarier. We seem to trust anything a pharmaceutical company might proffer and take it with a glass of water without batting an eye. But when some herbs from our back yard, boiled in tea, are offered to our lips? We flinch, just a little. I know I did.

That's because we've been conditioned, I think. I firmly believe we should be more cautious about how many OTC  laboratory-produced chemicals we pop every day, and be more willing to look at nature around us for some solutions. They're right under our noses, and yet from ignorance we miss the help they could give.

Lately I've tried a simple one, after Adam's altercation with poison ivy recently. When I get a mild skin abrasion or irritation on the farm, I pick a few leaves of plantain, tear and crush them, and rub them vigorously on the irritated spot (usually a run-in with a vine or other prickly plant). Both times I've done this, the itch immediately disappears. Plantain is a natural skin healer. It may not work 100% of the time; you may sometimes need a bottle of something from the drug store. But much of the time it'll be perfectly adequate, quick, immediate, and free. All you have to know is how to identify it. And that's not hard to learn.

 I'm looking forward to learning more of these natural remedies in years to come. Our grandmothers and their mothers knew them. We've just lost this knowledge along the way.

What's Growin' on the Farm?

Blue Lake Beans at last!

Golden Wax Beans
Peppers

Cucumbers
Squash

Sweet Peas
Broccoli

Potatoes

Tomatoes

 I think the above photo is spinach ...
And the below photo is kale. The labels faded and we are left wondering.

 Collards

 Buttercrunch Lettuce
Garlic

In the herb bed:
I have lovely basil.

 And mountains of oregano.

And two parsley types, dill, cilantro, sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, lovage, borage, hyssop, chamomile, and chervil. I'm expanding my herb choices. Adam eventually wants an herb bed devoted exclusively to tea herbs.
And I'm thrilled to say that our yard is abundant in plantain! I use it to make a healing salve for burns and skin abrasions. It's wonderful stuff, and now I have my own plantain at hand! I'm even growing my own plantain patch in the shade:

Plantain looks like this:

This is the narrow variety; there's also regular plantain that has wider leaves. The seed stalk looks like this:

Again, I think the regular variety looks different; its seed heads are longer.
Here's a photo of a nice, healthy plantain plant.

My dear sister-in-law Anne gave me several plants about a month ago, and they're doing so well! The yarrow is thriving.

And the hosta is quite large.

My artemisia is growing like mad and making a nice mound. The clumps below are over two feet across.

My other shade bed with lambs' ears, astilbes, and hostas is looking lovely.

This is all quite exciting because I've never had much of a green thumb. My mother is the gardener, and plants just seem to grow to make her happy. I gardened in Iowa, but anybody could grow anything in that soil. Not only the good response of the plants, but also my enjoyment in this hobby, is surprising to me. May it continue!