Dandelion woodstove enchiladas

This is a delicious way to eat dandelion greens. Pick the dandelion greens, wash and blanch for 5 minutes then discard the water.

Sautee peppers, onion, and garlic in olive oil. Add greens and a little broth and cook 5 more minutes or until most of the liquid is gone.

Grate about 2 cups of pepper jack cheese or whatever cheese strikes your fancy.

Soften corn tortillas on a dry skillet for about 10 seconds on one side and 8 seconds on the other.

Put home made or store bought enchilada sauce in the bottom of a dutch oven cast iron pot. Make sure the bottom is completely covered, be generous. Lay 2 corn tortillas in the bottom of the dutch oven on top of the sauce. They will over lap in the middle and they will not completely cover the bottom of the pot on the sides.

Layer with dandelion mixture, cheese and more tortillas until you are out of ingredients. I'm typically out after about 3 1/2 to 4 inches high. Put a layer of cheese on last. Put the lid on.

Place on the top of your wood heat stove. The top of our woodstove is flat cast iron. There is no precise cooking time for the woodstove and things will not burn within minutes like a traditional stove. After about an hour I check to see if it's bubbly. I typically will leave it on for longer than that but after several hours, the bottom layer will get hard. It's delicious!

Mineral Rich Vinegar

I notice more and more how herbs and wild plants feel in my body. It's an experience you don't get with vitamins. They've entered my dreams with their roots moving through the muscles and organs and their flowers blooming from the skin. When eating freshly picked wild Dandelion simmered in a soup, the leaf melts on your teeth like chocolate, coating your them with a microscopic yumminess that my teeth craved for 3 more days after the first time. My gall-bladder makes this little squirt noise that feels so nice and my stomach and colon chime in with happy gurgles when I'm eating a nutritious soup.

This photo by Missouri artist Virginia Harold represents to me what it feels like when the roots of the plant "grow" inside you and their energy, their fire lap out.


More than masking symptoms or artificially propping you up, creating dependency; using herbs and wild plants restore and build up the body. It's part of the human - plant experience that should not be missed.

People have used Vinegar to extract and preserve nutrients from herbs for thousands of years. "Those of the ancient world quickly learned to combine vinegar with beneficial plants for maximum medicinal value. "

"Infused vinegar is mineral rich, due to its ability to extract the minerals from plants Not only is the vinegar transformed into a mineral rich liquid, but because vinegar can increase calcium and other mineral absorption by as much as 1/3, the minerals from the plants become more bio-available. One tablespoon of an herbal vinegar.. can deliver 300 mg or more of easily absorbed calcium. "

My favorite mineral rich vinegar right now is Self-heal (Prunella Vulgaris). It's loaded with minerals, especially calcium. For a drink that helps kick start my day, I put 2 tsps of Self-heal vinegar in a glass of water with a little sprinkle of Tumeric and a spoon coated with molasses. Here is a nice article about the benefits of herbal vinegars and how easy it is to make them by Prodigal Gardens. Another great way to use vinegar is in salad dressings, cooking beans or how ever you'd normally use vinegar in your cooking.

Self heal is a common herb (weed) and easy to identify. Check out these links and maybe you have some growing in your yard. Pick the self-heal flowers from an area that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides and isn't near cars or the road. The links above show how easy it is to make a vinegar but it's basically chop herb, put in a jar, fill with vinegar, let it sit 6 weeks, shaking daily and strain.

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PRVU
http://www.altnature.com/gallery/healall.htm

Here is another site on Dandelion vinegar:
http://crowsdaughtersherbs.blogspot.com/2008/01/dandelion-has-been-potent-ally-of-mine.html

The earthen roof that will cover the earth-bermed house that we are going to build this Spring will be covered in low maintenance and highly beneficial herbs such as dandelion, plantain, chickweed, and self heal. It will be so fun to pick the greens and flowers by walking out of the kitchen door and onto the green roof sloping to the ground.

I imagine the North side of the house to look like a Hobbit House, but am having great difficulty drawing it. The elevations and floor plans that are done with ruler and on graph paper look good, but the North side is giving me fits. There aren't many drawings of Hobbit houses online that I can find and with the berm being most of that side, I find that the soft lines in my imagination aren't coming across on paper.

If you like to draw Hobbit houses and might want to help for fun or trade, please contact me.

Menopause Summit 2009

"Free teleseminar series with the best and brightest experts in menopause, middle-age and transitioning life in positive ways! Starting in October, hold on to your hot flash, we're going to have some fun!

The Menopause Summit 2009 will present exciting speakers, teachers and mentors who may help you gain great insight, tips and guidance in making this the best time of your life!

We have a great opportunity in menopause. Thoughts affect our hormones and our hormones change drastically when we begin the menopause journey. Our emotions are the guidance we need to grow, change and become centered, healthy and whole. The emotions that feel good are guiding us toward health, peace and connection with Spirit, while the emotions that feel bad are getting our attention in order for us to change either our perceptions or our behaviors."

http://www.nicotinesolutions.com/summit09/index.html

The new Crooked Creek

Here is a photo of the creek at the new property. After a good bit of rain, the creek was nice and full. We sat by the creek while we ate our lunch and it sounds so beautiful. We've been working hard to make an area for the old RV to arrive and next will be the outdoor kitchen. We found replacement BBQ grates on clearance and there are plenty of rocks on the property to build with.

Check out the new site for Little Mama's Herbals:

www.littlemamasherbals.blogspot.com

Revenge of the chigger king & the new homestead

I spent a few days with my family in Galveston this summer. My niece and I were at the beach together at sunset and she made this beautiful drawing for me.

My last post was brought to the attention of the Chigger King. He was very displeased by such disregard - claiming that with casual effort, I could thwart his teaming army. Looking for property hours and hours from home didn't lend itself to a shower within 4 hours of being outside. So I was attacked over and over, it was bad. When out picking herbs here at the house I really got sick of showering after coming in, so many days I'd convince myself that it wasn't necessary. I was wrong. I did find that a dry rag or bandanna for a dry scrub helped a lot. Then I found out about Sulfur Powder.

Combining the dry skin scrub when not near a shower (or just not wanting to shower) along with Sulfur powder was the magic key. Sulfur powder, or Flowers of Sulfur or Elemental Sulfur, is an old time solution to not only chigger problems but also for things like lice, ticks, and mites. Some old timers used to burn a pan of it when moving into a new house to clear out the bugs and would sprinkle sulfur powder around the base of the house. Sort like a bug bomb I'd guess. Some used to take a spoon of it mixed with molasses to "clean out what ails ya", though I'm not sure I'd go that far. Some people even ate dried fruit with Sulfur Powder on it for keeping ticks off. I can't find anything bad about Sulfur powder yet and it is a natural product. The books I've checked say to not use kitchen utensils for mixing and to wash your hands after use, so I don't think I'll be ingesting any soon.

In a mixing bowl, combine sulfur powder and talcum powder, about 1/2 and 1/2. Scoop this into an old sock. I found an old flour scoop worked well for this. Then pat your feet, socks, legs, cuffs, boots, waist line etc with the powder as a great chigger and tick repellent. I keep the sock in a zip lock back on the porch and usually pat my feet and lower legs down before I go out. Without the talcum powder, the "chunky" sulfur powder will not go through the sock fibers. It also doesn't work with pantyhose, tried it. When we were looking for property, we had to walk through chest high fallow fields and thick woods in the heat of the summer. Using the Sulfur Powder reduced my average bites per field trip from 20-40 down to 1 (and sometimes zero).

Pharmacies used to carry Sulfur Powder for treating acne and other skin problems, but I found it difficult to locate one that didn't say "We used to carry it, but we don't anymore." I found the local feed store carried it in 50lb bags for around $25.

Since we grow organically, the 50 pounds of the powder will come in handy. Not only for pest control, but to lower the Ph of the soil if it needs it. In "Growing Edge" by Tom Alexander, Amy Knutson, Matt Harrington; they recommend Sulfur Powder as an effective preventative fungicide for dipping corms and bulbs before storage. Here are some sites that show additional uses for sulfur powder:

www.oisat.org/control_methods/other_substances/sulfur.html
http://organicgardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/kill_spider_mites_in_the_garden
http://www.a-garden-diary.com/organic.htm

If you have used sulfur powder, let me know!




We finally bought land in Missouri. It took 9 months of looking and driving to pick one. The photo is the small bottom pasture with a little cleared. Ultimately we found the best deals, and the best land, was advertised as big acreage such as 200-300 acres. When we called, many of them said they would break out a 20-30 acre parcel for us and this is how we found the property that was ultimately purchased. There is a year round creek, a small bottom land pasture with great looking soil, a small south facing hill that we'll build on top of and a bigger pasture on top of the small hill. There is a big wooded hill that provides a nice buffer between us and the road and it's one property away from a National Forest. I've spotted some herbs there already, but look forward to really getting out there and looking for more.

The land closed on Tuesday and we started to work yesterday clearing the massive debris pile left behind years ago by the prior owner. We bought an old RV to live in while we built in NY and thankfully the old gal made it to Missouri. It broke down on the move here and is being stored about 30 minutes from the property, boy is that handy. So with a little effort, it'll make it to the property next week and we can avoid the 2 1/2 hour commute from the rent house. We'll probably stay out there a few days a week till it gets too cold to work.

The first project is going to be a root cellar so we'll have somewhere safe in case of a weather event and then the outdoor kitchen. We cleared a spot for each already. The weather is great for this kind of work and we're so happy to get going after such a long delay.

This summer hasn't been a waste though. The property at the rent house has provided medicinal herbs in abundance and I've been making salves, herbal oils, elixirs and extracts. When I first started making salve by eyeballing it, it was nice and soft. Then I started using recipes, like the one I posted last time (6 parts oil to 1 part wax) and haven't been very happy with that lately. The last batch of Plantain salve that I made I ended up adding 10 additional ounces of oil to the already 16 ounces and it still wasn't as nice and soft as those first few batches. When you are making salve, test it by putting some on a spoon and setting that on a plate in the freezer for a few minutes. Then if it's too stiff, just add more oil. If it's too soft, add more wax (though that has never happened, it can't be too soft for me).

My mother-in-law Judy has moved in and it's been wonderful. Sometimes we'd get back so late at night after looking at land all day. The animals were all taken care of and she usually had something ready for us to eat. If any dirty dishes were left in the rush to get out the door for the long road trip, more often than not, they'd be washed. We're all sharing expenses and labor. Our animals are all getting along after a bit of a bumpy start and Rufus the pig has decided it's OK for her to brush him. He does take a while to warm up to someone.

Join me at the Traditions in Western Herbalism conference September 17-19, 2010.
http://traditionsinwesternherbalism.org/

Chicks and Tiggers

We didn't buy that property we came to see the last time I posted. There were topography and creek issues. We did just move to Missouri though a few weeks ago and are renting a house w/ gorgeous woods and pastures. The heat was pretty extreme the first week and there was no A.C. but that's been fixed. The woods have ticks and chiggers and I guess anyone that has woods and tall grasses are feeling their bite this time of year.

Having ticks is new to me, I didn't have them at my place in Texas. It was hard not to freak out when I saw the first tick on my skin. Now I keep a cup of soapy water and tweasers at the door to pull ticks off the dogs. It's easy to catch the ticks on us before they bite and they go right into the toilet if possible. When I come in from being outside I just really check closely and pick them off with my fingers. There haven't been that many and it's almost getting rare to find one.

Texas had a ton of chiggers though and my first experience with them I had over 200 bites just on my legs and my nephew got eaten up as well. He missed almost a week of school and I was so sick. I felt horrible and guilty, so I read everything I could about chiggers.

I read that they take 4 hours to locate a spot to bite but I can't find that link again. Since I've gone under that assumption however, along with some basic treatment that I'll tell you about later, chiggers don't bother me anymore. I guess everyone knows by now it's not the chigger under your skin that itches. Once you start to itch, the chigger is gone. What causes the itch is the little tube that is left under your skin formed by their saliva that liquefies your tissue and your body's reaction to the saliva by hardening the surrounding area. The itch from this bite can last for weeks and after constant scratching can become infected. I used to use finger nail polish, chiger-rid, the pink stuff, oatmeal baths and anything else I could find to relieve the itching. There is a much better way.

First, the obvious prevention (which I don't really follow anymore unless I'm going deep into the woods) is tucking your pants into your socks (some even add a rubber band around the sock line), wearing mud boots sprayed with Off and spraying your pant legs with off. I don't really bother with that too much anymore.

The trick is the shower. I used to keep several sets of work clothes in the bathroom and would come in every 3-4 hours, throw my possible chigger infested clothes right into the washing machine, and head for the shower. Scrub well with a soapy rag focusing on areas where there were clothes fit tighter like waist, sock, underwear and bra bands and really scrub the belly. That will get rid of most of the problem right there. If you are in a remote location with no access to water, I've read that you can use a dry cloth and scrub down. I usually wear loose fitting clothes, as few tight fitting articles of clothing possible and don't wear socks; that is, again, if I'm not going deep in the woods.

We have gotten a few bites since we've been here but most are from when we first arrived, walked the woods and then just began unpacking the moving truck. I didn't shower till it was too late. I don't think I've gotten any new bites since I make sure to shower after being outside. After the shower I apply Plaintain (Plantago major) salve to any existing chigger bites. That's it, the chigger bites don't itch, they don't get infected and I don't think about them for hours and hours, sometimes all day. When I can feel the bite "waking up", I just put on some more and that's it. I had to fly to NY to pick up the car we left behind and couldn't take the salve with me. The bites didn't itch till the next day and it wasn't even bad! If you've ever had bad chigger bites and tried all the over the counter stuff, this stuff seems truly magical. I made the salve for my dog and had it handy when we first got here. I tried it, but knowing how badly chigger bites itch, I didn't really think it would work. It's almost instant and I haven't had even one episode of crazy itch that chigger bites have always put me through even with all the over the counter remedies.

I had two other bites from when we first arrived, I think fire ant and a giant mosquito or spider bite on my forehead. The salve didn't work as magically on them, but quelled the itching some and all the bites are very tiny now and almost completely healed. I ended up using a poultice on the big bite on my forehead and that fixed it right up.

The salve is very easy and fun to make. It's good to keep on hand not only for chigger bites, but cuts, scratches, aches, burns and I could just go on and on. You almost certainly have Plantain growing nearby. For the bites that the plantain didn't work as well on, a poultice of plantain did work. There are many websites written by people much more qualified than me about salves, oils and poultices. So if you have any interest, do a little research and you'll find so much information.

Here is what I did though. First locate the plantain (Plantago)not the banana looking fruit. It will be where you walk a lot and it's nick name is "white man's walk". Don't pick plantain that has been sprayed with pesticides, near the road or has possibly had a car parked over it. When I've pointed it out to people they almost always say something like "that's just yard junk" or "that's just a weed." It's one of the easiest plants to identify. In most photos of it online, the plant is big with a seed stalk. However if you mow your yard, the leaf will be much smaller. This is a nice plantain patch at our new rent house.



Make an infused Oil -
Pick the leaves on a dry day and don't wash. If there is dirt, you can scrub off with a brush. If you just have to wash, you can get a shallow bowl and lightly swish the leaf in it a bit, but that's not preferred. I've read to semi-dry the herb and I've read to put it in the oil fresh. I like to leave it out for a day or two on a towel, but I think I won't do that next time. Coarsely chop it up and put in a completely dry glass jar, I use a quart mason jar. Poke it down (I use a chop stick) and add olive oil to the top. Label it and let it sit room temp for 6 weeks. Write on the label when the 6 weeks are up. Strain small batches through a cotton cloth and squeeze to extract any oil. Let the oil sit a few days and see if there is any water separated from the oil. If so, carefully pour the oil into another container and discard the water. You can use the oil at this point. Store in a cool room.

Salve
Warm (plantain infused)oil to 150 in a double boiler. To approx 6 parts oil, add 1 parts beeswax. You can also add 5 parts vegetable glycerin, but I haven't done that yet. It takes quite a bit of heat to melt beeswax and I did it on the woodstove. When the beeswax has melted into the oil, pour into your container (I use short glass wide mouth jars) and let it sit to cool. When I've put it near an open window to cool quickly, the center tends to cave in (which is fine, but a gift I didn't like the appearance). After it cools, if it's not stiff enough, heat it up again and add more beeswax. If it's too stiff, heat again and add more oil.

Poultice
For the bites that the salve wouldn't work on (or if you don't have salve), the poultice did work wonderfully. Find the plantain, chew it, spit it out onto your hands, put it on the bite or sore, and cover with a band aid or somethign to keep it from falling off. The first time I did it, of course I had to wash the plant and barely chewed it with my front teeth thinking it would be gross. I waited for the gross taste to kick in and it never did. It was good, like salad, and I ate some more just for the heck of it. A wet, well chewed gob makes the best poultice. You might think having green spit on you is disgusting, but when you get total relief from a bite that is driving you crazy from a plant that tastes like salad; it's not so disgusting anymore. Stop buying that pink stuff.

~~~~~~~~
In the evening, the babies and I have been sitting outside in some shade. The tail gate of the truck makes a nice bench to see a patch of phlox and tiger lilies in full bloom growing near by. The kittens run up and down the trees and when the sun is setting they try to catch the fireflies. Dorothy the Queen cat perches royally nearby on the trailer observing all the nonsensical play, but lately she's just happened to sit in the grass close to the kittens who have included her in their play. I think she must be enjoying herself, but would never admit it. Lucille, Lollipop, Barney, Vincent and the neighbor's dog John John that we are babysitting, sit in the shade with me watching the kittens play and sometime Lolli just can't help herself and will run after them stopping short before they whack her.

Rufus the pig sleeps under the deck in a cool bed of sand with some straw placed where he wants it. It's right under our bedroom window though and he snores. So that's been funny on some nights.

Since we've been here, very close up I've seen a fox who paused on the path to look at me and a falcon that swooped down. It's so beautiful here.

On a sad note, my most special cat companion Mazie Grace died the week before we moved. She was hit by a car. Her death has been the hardest to cope with and I'm still in the "it's not fair" and "why her?!" mode. She was my walking buddy and I imagined her and I walking the woods at our new place to find plants . When I go walking the other animals come, but it's just not the same without her. She would sit behind me in the evening and "groom" this spot on my head that always feels weird and would bury her face in my hair. Her twin brother Eicky is a constant reminder that she's not here.

Heading out

We may have found a place in Missouri and it's time to go see it and finalize the contract. This weekend we had a garage sale and are packing as much as we can into our vehicles so we can head out on another long road trip. We're going to leave what we take in storage until we get back next month for the official move. Unless this place has wild zombies roaming freely and toxic waste bubbling up from the ground, I think we'll take it.

We brought back 2 kittens with us from South Carolina that needed a home. They have extra toes! Their names are Bin and Bon.