I had such glorious plans for yesterday. Plan number one was to pick strawberries and make jam. Well you would have thought I was the wicked witch. The looks my family gave me when I showed off my bounty of fresh picked gems and told them it was time to be jammin'... you would have thought I was going to make liver and onions. I was quickly put in my place and told that a better use would be strawberry shortcake. My daughter even volunteered to bake the angel food cake. Okay, fine. The season did just start.
Plan number two was to harvest some of my plethora of plantain for use in an herbal salve. But my day ran amuck and I ran out of time. (Good thing I didn't try to make jam.) So today I made it a point to make sure to harvest plantain. Which brings me to my read and write subject: My current reading and reason why I'm learning that what my husband considers a blight on his lawn is indeed a blessing.
The new copy of Mother Earth Living (Natural Home and Healthy Life) hit the shelves of my local library and I quickly snatched it up. It's a good read but by far the best article in the July/August 2013 issue is Backyard Bounty: 8 Healing Weeds. Dandelion, Chickweed, Sheep Sorrel, Yellow Dock, Plantain (not the banana) Chicory, Burdock and Clover are all covered in the article along with pictures. It was this article that made me realize all of our "fat grass" as my four year-old calls it is actually plantain and plantain is useful! Score! I also realized that a "grass", for lack of a better word, that I and the kids had noticed was sheep sorrel, also useful. Of course we have dandelions and clover but we also have chicory in the "back 40". The only things missing, or I haven't found yet, are burdock and yellow dock.
I also obtained the latest issue of Mary Jane's Farm at the library as well as two books. One on the writing life called Pen on Fire. And the newly released 1st novel of Bee Ridgway called The River of No Return.
What are you reading? What are you writing? What is growing wild on your little piece of the planet?
My harvested plantain
One of many plantain plants growing on our property.
My plantain drying overnight
Chickweed
Sheep Sorel
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