Home Remedies...It's Cold And Flu Season.

These are the home remedies I used while I was sick last week. They really work!



Thank you for watching. If you enjoy it, please click the "Thumbs up" button on You Tube, and please subscribe to my channel. No politics, just cooking, canning, stocking up, preparedness, foraging, nature lore, and How To! :-)  Maybe a little reenacting, cottage industry, and letterpress thrown in. :-)



Thanks so much and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all. May 2015 be a wonderful year full of happy adventures for all of us!

How To Make An Easy Backyard Wildlife Habitat

This video is one I made in our yard, showing the different elements of wildlife habitat available within it.  I don't agree with everything the National Wildlife Federation does (sadly, they have really bought in to the Global Warming aka "Climate Change" propaganda - so crazy, since of all people the NWF should know that CO2 is not a pollutant but the air plants breathe!), but I have always appreciated their work to encourage micro habitats. I have seen the difference this can make in local wildlife populations and health - it really works when individuals create habitats in their own little areas.

So I went through their certification process for our yard. Believe it or not, this was made easier by the fact that I did no yard work other than mow this year! These items are within reach of almost anyone, and nearly everything they recommend can be done without spending any money.

The certification comes with a subscription to their magazine, but it costs nothing to follow the steps of their program and know you are doing good for God's littler creatures that share our beautiful world. :-)

Heart Shaped Leaves of Spring

Spring is my favorite time of year. The whole world shows the promise of new life. It's a joy to walk outside each morning and see what has changed since the day before: the dawn breaks earlier, new birds sing, the peach tree blooms....

This vase is filled with heart-shaped wild flowers: Shepherd's Purse seed pods are heart shaped, and the budding leaves of the Redbud Tree are nature's valentines.

I know it is sappy, but everything really is beautiful, "robed in the blooming garb of Spring."

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranchette....

....Normal Life goes on for the authorette at Pecan Corner. 

Our tiny rural town has never had a sewer system - everyone used septic tanks. Until now, when we are all being connected to the new waste water treatment facility. YAY!!!  We had been told when we bought our house that we'd have sewer "by next summer". Although we weren't having any problems, the two septic tanks have been inconvenient in that there are things we wanted to do with our yard that had to wait for this municiple project to be completed first.

We are nearly there. Our house has been connected to the sewer system and soon they will return to remediate the old septic tanks. A wooden deck (that existed to protect the top of one septic tank) and a large unusable rock patio have been removed. Couple those with the loss of most of our lawn last summer to "Saint Augustine Decline (SAD)" disease, the loss of other plants to the drought, and we have an opportunity to remake our backyard landscape.

Our yard is already wildlife friendly, and we have a lot of native plants (the photo of the butterfly on a wild coreopsis is from 2009). Many birds of various species come here: cardinals nest here every year, and
woodpeckers, wrens, mockingbirds, dove, hummingbirds, swallows, jays, and others come to visit, get a drink, or have a bite to eat. Squirrels chase each other around, lizards and geckos dart here and there, butterflies and other beneficial insects do their thing.

We also have vegetable garden plots in our back yard, and these need to be maintained because the fencing keeps the deer from coming in and eating up all the Swiss Chard. Paul has gotten more excited about growing our own food, and made the wise recommendation that we put our limited space and energy into raising things that either are not available in the stores (like Swiss Chard or Delicata squash), or are too expensive to buy fresh when out of season (like bell peppers at a dollar apiece!).

Fresh flowers in the house are one of my joys in life, and I am eager to create a cutting garden as well as plant more things that bloom at various times of year. A four-season garden in Texas is not only possible, but, as we have seen in the difference between this lovely temperate winter and last winter's frigid cold, almost a necessity.

Texas has some great resources to help with planning urban and rural landscapes for the animals around us, and one such is the Texas Wildscapes Interactive Habitat Planning DVD. Produced by Texas Parks and Wildlife, the full title is actually "Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife, An Interactive Guide to Creating Vibrant and Beautiful Wildlife Habitat". It is well worth the $5.00 to order it (the $5.00 covers costs of copying and mailing) and you can share it or make copies freely so long as it's not sold. While it is designed mostly for people with acreage, there's a lot that is useful to homeowners in town.

For great native landscaping ideas, next time you are in Austin (isn't everyone in Austin once in a while?), by all means, visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. It's in South Austin, easy to get to, and a nice way to spend a free afternoon or a couple of hours between meetings (or have a walking meeting - what better way to get to know your coworkers?).  From micro habitats to birdseye views, from stately trees to bonsai, the grounds are beautiful, the sculpture is whimsical, and there's nearly always something blooming.

The center also hosts internet resources, such as the Native Plant Database. The How-To articles are full of good ideas, and step-by-step guides even include craft projects such as homemade paper and seed balls, as well as how to prune a tree and propagate cactus.

The National Wilflife Federation also has a certified habitat program that can provide lots of help and encouragement to enhance wildlife opportunities through food, water and shelter. Even a tiny yard or a balcony can become an oasis.

I don't know that we will want to "certify" our yard - this is our home. We will put our own happiness first, and local conditions in nature are never the same from one place to the next. If I want to let the little seedling  mimosa tree on the south side of the house continue to grow, I won't worry about whether it is native, naturalized or "invasive": it's here already, it came up by itself, mimosas are true to the history of my house, and it won't hurt anything.

New landscaping will be a lot of work, but we are excited to be starting on the project so that we can enjoy the outdoors more right outside our own door.

Healing the Burns: References For Wildfire & Drought Recovery Plantings

Every landscape contains some plants that will not grow unless they have gone through fire. These seed lay dormant, awaiting their call to action - awaiting the moment God created them for - and burst into life on burnt ground in due time.

But some locations, such as steep slopes that burned with a kiln-hot blaze, may need a little help. Especially, those prone to erosion may benefit from an extra supply of native grasses (pdf link here) mirroring those in place before the burn, so that the root systems can hold the soil in place.

One of Texas' native plant suppliers, "Native American Seed"aka SeedSource.com, has created a Wildfire Reference Guide that provides information, links to resources, tips and seed recommendations.  This company has loads of information about effective use of native grasses in landscaping and in prairie restoration.

Another excellent website is "Firewise", sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association. Lots and lots of information, not only for professionals, but also excellent resources for homeowners. One full page is dedicated to tips for wildfire readiness & evacuation. Another shares plant lists provided by various State Extension Services.

The NFPA's preparedness efforts include "Ready, Set, Go!" Most of these readiness habits are important for any emergency evacuation, so it's worth reading even if you don't live in a wildfire-prone area.
 
We're "not out of the woods yet", but the future calls. Time to get to work on a Texas landscape that's on the mend, that will overcome the continuing drought. Although this drought that affects the entire states of Texas & Oklahoma, much of New Mexico, and even part of Louisiana,  is not expected to end for another year, the Good Lord sends us rain to tide us over until the fullness of time in this natural cycle.

So now, in time for fall and winter moisture, is a good time for scattering locally-native wild seed.

We have not had major fires in our area this year. Our ecology suffers from the lack of moisture, heat and dehydration. As the rest of my St Augustine lawn dies under heavy water rationing, as have 2 mature apricot trees, a young apple tree, three young grapes, asparagus, herbs, and several perennials, I'm starting to think how to reconstruct our yard once the drought ends. And what I'm thinking is wild.

In addition to the resources mentioned above, the always-remarkable Texas Parks & Wildlife department has a great program for increasing our backyard & urban habitats called "Texas Wildscapes".

Last but not in any way least, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has a Drought Resource Center that is especially inspiring and hope-filling right now.

The one nice thing about this summer has been not having to mow - normally a 3-hour-a-week job. What if, when I put out those new fruit trees on our extra lot,  instead of being blanketed with grass that has to be cut, they were surrounded by permanent paths and un-mown, non-irrigated patches of native meadow and lovely wildflowers, like these from our visit to the Lady Bird Johnston Wildflower Center in Austin:

That could be an unexpected blessing indeed!


P.S. Tuesday, Oct 4th, is when Texas hosts National Night Out, and in our town, with no police force, our local Volunteer Fire Department is having open house - yours probably is, too. Drive over to the fire station and visit, shake  hands with these uncommon young men in your community. Chances are they've spent many hours fighting or preventing fires this summer.

Redbud Blossoms on the Table

The Redbud trees are blooming now. Their shocking magenta blossoms cover the branches, visible from far away in their little spots tucked in among the oak and mesquite. Later, after the leaves come on, these little understory trees will melt into the background until their pretty leaves turn yellow in the fall.

Unlike the mesquite trees, redbuds are native here. It's Oklahoma's state tree, and is plentiful in Texas as well, roughly following the "blackjack belt" through the state from east to west. The "blackjack belt" is named for the Blackjack Oak tree - very similar to the Post Oak, with slight differences. Both are small (as the name indicates) deciduous oaks that grow near each other.

The ferns in the vase with the redbud branches are asparagus that got away from me! Less than a week since I checked on the asparagus bed and the first shoots went from invisible to 3 foot tall ferns. This is the first year we can gather shoots since we planted the crowns three years ago so we are looking forward to our own homegrown asparagus.

Redbud blossoms are edible too, in small amounts,and make a pretty addition to salads (well, salad for luncheons. Don't feed it to the kids or they will grow up and tell stories about the weird food you forced on them). My copy of "Texas Trees" also says the young seed pods are also edible sauted in butter for a bit but I have not tried them before. Maybe this year I'll remember to gather some before they have matured, and we'll see if I live to tell the tale. ;-) That is a joke, but it is wise to remember that many wild plants with pea-like leaves and pods are poisonous (some deadly so - see last paragraph of opening article here: Pea Family) , so be certain to verify edibility and confirm identification with experts (& I am not an expert outside my own family) before experimenting with these things.

At any rate, Redbuds make a lovely specimen tree in town too, and are recommended by the Native Plant Society of Texas. With their small size and glossy, heart-shaped leaves all summer, they fit nicely into an ordinary sized yard and require little care. And of course, make very nice bouquets in the Spring: which encourages me to leave the peach blossoms on the tree so they can turn into fruit I KNOW we will eat!

Consider the Lilies of the Field...

The Words of our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ:

Matthew 6:27-34 (King James Version)

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Ain't That America? Pat Austin Takes A Daydream of a Southern Road Trip

Go on over to And So It Goes In Shreveport, and feel the tension disappear. Feel the world right itself again, and remember how it feels to go home in America.

Imagine walking down the railroad tracks, and exploring abandoned old stores and still-full-every-Sunday frame churches with their steeples standing in fields of verdant and wild green.

Imagine the flowering of industry sprouting up as drilling rigs for gas wells, and the pride of place when everyone benefits from a real thriving economy that meets the needs of little Coushatta, Louisiana, and of the mighty Nation she does her part to support.

Imagine bushel baskets overflowing with the freshest of home grown produce, imagine sitting in the backyard in the cool of the evening shelling purple hull peas.

Imagine all that in warm fresh air saturated with the fragrance of peaches...

What are you waiting for? Go! Go see her post and photos for yourself!

Victorian Bible Verse Cards "You Are My Friends"

These lovely calling cards with bible verses were popular during the Victorian era up through the Edwardian. This one probably dates from the turn of the last century, 1900 or so. It pictures a little girl dressed in pink among pink roses. Roses meant "Beauty" in the language of flowers, and they still do today, don't you think?

The verse on the card is the words of our Lord from John 15: 14 (King James Version)

"12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

" 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

" 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. "

What a beautiful day this Sunday is.

The Naturalist's Vintage Calendar

This page for the week of January 10 through 16 from the 1926 John Burrough's Calendar reads

"The apples that cling to the trees, the pods that hang to the lowest branches, and the seeds that the various weeds and grasses hold above the deepest snows, alone make it possible for many birds to pass the winter among us." From "Signs and Seasons"

Autumn Colors: Wooden Book Bindings

I had intended to write a post about autumn-themed book bindings. Time is short, the leaves are falling, but these pretty wood-bound books have a special place in any collection or library. They can also inspire us today, as we look to our own neighborhood for the things we want in our lives.

Most popular during WWII and the post-war period of the 1940s into the 1950s, this kind of binding gave heft to small editions of poetry and recipes. The wood was usually thin plywood, sanded smooth and given a coat of varnish or orange shellac (I love orange shellac) in the home workshop. As you can tell from the pictured examples, the hinges ranged from carefully worked copper to leather cord to metal rings. Covers would be decorated in a variety of methods, including wood burning, paint, stencil, and silk-screen.

The pages were often printed on a mimeograph or duplicating machine. In other cases, the printing was genuine letterpress - again frequently from a home print shop: either a hobby press, a home business, or perhaps a local printer whose main work would have been printing everything the town needed, including business cards and forms, stationery, books by local authors, and personalized Christmas cards.

"Geese Flying South" is a volume of poems by a local author from May, Texas. "Here's How" is a souvenier book of bartender's recipes from Asheville NC, and "Welcome Stranger" is a recipe book that was given out to newcomers who had just moved to Pompano Beach Florida.


The open book is a bound notebook that Mama made for my birthday. She and I had learned to sew these books together during one of my visits to her home. After she made the book, she pasted pressed flowers onto each page. The flowers were wild flowers she had gathered on a walk we took together when she was here visiting. Leafing through the book takes me through a full year of memories with her.


Whether it was a self-published book of poems, a small printer who printed and bound in his printshop on weekends, or the church cookbook that local craftsmen put together, this is just one more way in which people used to - and still can - rely on themselves and their neighbors to produce the things they needed, or wanted.

Imagine the possibilities if we stop wanting uniformity and recover our delight in our own handiwork and that of our neighbors!

Cochineal Dye and Prickly Pear Cactus

What is white and cottony and lives on cactus and makes lipstick rosy, embroidery carmine, and fruit punch red?

There's a little bug that makes a beautiful red dye. It is the Cochineal bug, and it is still today the safest red food coloring there is. While other, artificial red dyes were found to be hazardous and carcinogenic, this ancient natural product of Mexico is something we can use without worry. Fruit punch is often colored with it (although I bet you won't find "little critter" in the list of ingredients)! If you are an artist, this is the basis for "carmine" in your paints.


These little bugs live on Prickly Pear plants. They make cotton to hide in, and you can spot the little tufts of cotton even from the road. They don't move about at all, once they are in their little cottony blankets. I think they must live whereever Prickly Pear cactus lives, because I have seen them everywhere.


They are grown commercially, raised on cactus plantations in South and Central America and the Canary Islands. They are harvested and dried, and that is pretty much it - they don't require much processing.

In fact if you mash them you will have water-soluble carmine dye suitable for use in anything you wish to turn red.




They may need a fixative when used for dyeing fabric or yarn, to reduce fading and running, although they will never be completely dye-fast. If you've ever taken socks out of the washer and found they had turned pink, you may have washed something with them that had been dyed with cochineal.


Cochineal is the main reason that we "wash reds separately"!

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 3

Be sure the see the first post (How to find and gather) and the second post (how to prepare the fruit and juice).

If you have not made jelly before, please do the safe thing and read up on specific canning methods, with up-to-date instructions before making this. The National Center for Home Food Preservation (linked from my sidebar) is a good place to go to start learning. If you have a dear one who knows how to can, call them and enlist their advice. Call your mom anyway, just for general principles.

Jelly is one of the easiest and safest home-canned foods you can make. I follow the instructions that come in the package of Sure-Jell, which is the brand of powdered pectin I usually use. For this batch I used Can-Jel, which is Kroger's brand, and it came out just fine. "Pectin" is a naturally occuring substance that causes fruit juice to gel when it is cooked with sugar. Apples, especially the peelings, have a great lot of it.

I always add extra pectin to my jellies and jams. I don't use liquid pectin, only the powdered type. However, my recipes all call for powdered pectin - be sure to use the type that your recipe calls for. It does make a difference!

Gather your jars, wash them and sterilize them with boiling water: either put the jars (jars only NOT the lids) in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes (use canning tongs to remove them), or run them through your dishwasher's "sterilize" cycle. I always sterilize one extra jar just in case I need it.

Set them on an old towel in a handy location so that you will be able to easily ladle the hot liquid jelly into them when the time comes. Right next to the stove works best for me, and is safest. You do not want to be carrying a pot full or even a jar-full of boiling liquid jelly. The towel under the jars is to catch spills.

The Prickly Pear Jelly recipe I use is very similar to recipes for elderberry jelly. It makes about 11 half-pints. Since this recipe calls for 2 boxes of pectin, you could half it but do not double it.
If you need more, make 2 batches. Use only sugar for this recipe - do not reduce the amount of sugar and do not use sugar substitutes.

Only make jelly when you can give it your full attention from start to finish. It won't take long for the actual cooking and putting up but you cannot leave it once you start. So get everything else done in advance, but make sure you have an hour of uninterrupted time and turn the phone off before you turn the stove on.

You will need:
6 cups of prepared Prickly Pear Juice
1/4 cup lemon juice (either fresh or bottled)
9 cups of sugar
2 boxes of powdered pectin
1/2 tsp of butter or margarine (to reduce foaming)

Put your jar lids (the seal part) into a sauce pan of water and heat to boiling. Turn the fire down and keep warm.

Measure the sugar into a large bowl and set aside.

Measure 6 cups of prepared juice into a large spaghetti pot and add 1/4 cup lemon juice. Add both packages of pectin and whisk or stir well. Add 1/2 tsp butter - this will help keep the foam down once the jelly starts boiling hard.

Cook on high heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

While stirring, pour all of the sugar in all at once, and keep stirring over high heat until it comes back to a full rolling boil.

Don't take your eyes off it at this point.

Once it is at a full rolling boil, boil it hard for one full minute - this is important, use your timer if you can.

Turn the stove off and remove from hear and keep stirring until the boil dies down. If there is foam on the top, use a metal spoon to skim it off and discard it (I put it into a bowl and use it as my first taste after all the jars are sealed, but you shouldn't have much foam if you put the butter in).

Ladle the jelly into jars to within 1/8" from the top. When they are all filled, wipe off the rims with a wet cloth.

One at a time, get the lids out of the hot water with tongs and put lid and ring onto the jar. Tighten as tight as you can and set back down on a level surface away from drafts.


Repeat with all the jars, setting them close together so they will cool slowly. In about half an hour to an hour you should start hearing the sweet sound of lids popping as they seal.

Don't disturb them til the next day, then you can set them into a sink of clean water and finish getting the jelly off the outside, dry off and label. If they have sealed, they will keep for years.

If the seal didn't tighten they will still keep a long time, but you could either refrigerate those or process them in a boiling water bath if you want (per the recommendations of the NCHFP). Until recently -- oh sometime last week I'm sure -- we sealed jelly with paraffin wax and kept it until we used it up!

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 2

The first post told how to find and gather the ripe prickly pears. You might want to refer back to it if you just arrived. This post is part 2: making the juice. Part 3 will explain how to make the jelly.

Preparing the prickly pears: I always singe (pronounced "sinj") the pears before I do anything with them. This helps assure that all those spines are gone. If you have a gas stove, you can do this over a burner. Otherwise, rev up the grill and do it there. You need flames to burn off the spines.

Hold each pear by tongs or a long fork and hold especially the blossom end into the fire, until it stops sparking, then turn and flame the other side, until all sides and top and bottom have been singed. Don't worry about overdoing it - for some reason the skins just never char, so you can keep them in the fire quite a long time if necessary. Set aside into a bowl and flame the next one until all are done.

Next, get a cutting board, sharp knife, your gloves, and tongs or a fork.

They can be eaten raw and you might like the flavor. To eat them that way, singe them and cut off the ends. Using a paring knife, hold the pear with a fork and cut away the peeling and discard. Then, cut the peeled pear in half and, with a spoon, scoop out the seeds - they are
hard and inedible. What is left is tasty raw fruit! You could prepare them this way, then candy them if you like, but I always make jelly.

To make juice so you can make jelly, there is no need to peel them nor to remove the seeds. Just cut the pear into 2 or 3 pieces and drop into a large cooking pot.

When they are all in the pot, add water until the pears are completely covered and an inch or two under water, depending on how many pears you have and how strong you want your juice.

Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for about half an hour. This will give you the juice for your jelly. Strain it into a pot or pitcher, and discard the pulp of the pears (which will have lost their color into the water).

If you need more juice, and there is still a lot of color in the pears, you can add a little more fresh water to them and simmer again to get the last of the flavor from them. (The photo above shows the pears before they have been cooked. The juice is a much richer magenta color after cooking).

You can either make jelly right away or freeze the juice to use later.

Monday's post will have the jelly recipe.

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 1

One of my favorite things to make for Christmas gifts for many years was Prickly Pear Jelly. Devin asked me last year to make some, and Alvina mentioned it last week, so it is in my mind to make some this year. This article will be done in several parts, to cover the process from start to finish: from collecting the ripe prickly pears to beautiful jars of jelly.

The first part is finding the pears (or "tuna" as they are called in Spanish). I usually keep my eyes open throughout the year for sizeable prickly pear patches along county roads or waste places that might be ok to gather in. You can also ask friends with acreage if they have prickly pear cactus on their land, and if they would let you gather some.

We can't pick anything in State Parks or along state highways, but there's no need, really, because in the southwest, even up into Oklahoma, cactus is pretty common.

Once you have located a likely patch, keep your eyes open. Starting in late August or early September, the pears will begin ripening. You know they are ripe when they turn reddish purple. They ripen over time, with different plants turning red at different times Even in the same patch, some fruits will be ripe while others are still green. They will last a long time on the plant if they are not eaten by animals, so you have a little leeway, usually, to gather them.

CAUTION: THEY HAVE THORNS AND HORRIBLE LITTLE HAIR-LIKE SPINES on them, even on the pears!!!! I use a set of tongs to pull them so that I do not have to touch them at all - those little hair spines can get into gloves and are bad news!

I just grasp each ripe pear firmly with the tongs and twist and pull. They come right off. The riper the pear, the easier it will come loose. If your tongs are not strong, you can use them to hold the pear and a long knife to cut them at the base. Either way works fine. Just stay on strong footing and don't even think about trying to get pears from the middle of the patch. Leave those, and only collect the ones you can reach without reaching!!!

Drop them into a heavy paper sack (paper so the spines won't come thru and so you can throw it away when done. Do not reuse the bag as it will have invisible spines in it.

They will keep like this for several days until you are ready to use them. No need to refrigerate at this point.

Tomorrow's post will tell how to prepare them for eating and how to make juice for the jelly.  The third post tells how to make the jelly itself.

The Kind of September

Many local wild plants are putting on berries right now. The first two photos show briars andthe third is a wild annual I haven't id'ed yet. You cannot eat either of them! Edible berries ripening now will be in a separate post (Safe Food Handling, you know). Others are blooming for their final hoorah.

The butterflies are going nuts! They will not sit still for a minute, so no pics of them. I saw a little orange one the other day chasing a larger green insect - maybe a grasshopper or a dragonfly - it looked like a sparrow chasing a hawk! The butterfly chased the larger creature into a tree, then turned around and flew back the way it came. It was a sight to see!


A couple of years ago, at Nick's, during the season when his Live Oak tree was blooming, we saw another episode of butterfly behavior. The tree was filled with bees and with butterflies. Not sure what kind of bees but I assume they were honeybees. The butterflies looked a lot like the Hackberry Emperors that come to fruit and melon rinds.

Anyway, the tree was so full of both of these that it was humming. And here's the thing: the butterflies were battling with the bees, but the bees weren't stinging. The butterflies were wrestling with the bees: jumping on them and knocking them out of the tree and wrestling
with them on the ground. The bees, on the other hand, were docile and just trying to get back up to the blossoms. It was the most unusual thing. Have you ever heard of such?


Don't forget that now is the time to plant bulbs and fruit trees! I ordered hyacinth, saffron crocus and grape hyacynth bulbs. I planted bulbs last year for the first time and OH MY! They are the best thing since sliced bread. They are easy: just dig a hole and put them in. You can even put different kinds in the same hole, at different depths.

Then in the dreary depths of winter, happy green leaves pop up, followed by flowers that last a long long time. The fragrance of the hyacinths in a vase fills the whole room. It's better than a room full of roses!

Find the Leaf that Moves

This katydid sat still and let me take his picture from several angles.




His leaf camoflage is pretty good, even tho he is sitting on heart shaped leaves of this wild morning glory.

Today's post is short, lots of work this week. But I gathered Prickly Pears the other day and plan to make jelly from them and post about that later in the week. :-)

Toadstools Not Mushrooms

I love collecting wild foods, and knowing which weeds are edible and how to use them. In the process of this, it is important also to know which plants are dangerous and need to be left alone. I've generally tended to follow the principle that if a good thing has a poisonous look-alike, it's better for me to leave that one alone. There are plenty of good things that are easy to identify and 100% safe to eat.

Toadstools fall into that "leave it alone" category. I don't live in morel country so the only wld mushroom that is reasonably safe isn't something I have access to. The rest of them all have dangerous twins. So we buy ALL our mushrooms in the grocery store.


And that is how I referred to them when the children were little and learning that "sheep shire" (sorrel) and pepper grass were good to eat. They learned that "toadstools" grow in the yard, and "mushrooms" come from the grocery store.


Referring to them by different names prevented any possible confusion on the part of young minds. The kids then learned easily that even though toadstools and mushrooms might look alike, they are not the same, and the safe way to know which is which, is in knowing where they came from. A trusted source, as it were.

The top three photos were taken in South Carolina earlier this summer. The last one, I took today while I was out gathering ripe prickly pears, about which there will be a post later in the week.

Prickly and Purple and Not a Thistle

Roadside Flowers of Texas names it simply Eryngo, and eNature goes a step further with "Leavenworth's Eryngo". It's sooo tempting to call it a thistle but it isn't. It is in the carrot family but you can't eat it. Aren't they beautful? I took these pictures on a lane near my home recently.





They start out a blueish green and then when fully developed, they begin turning purple. Eventually, the entire plant will be purple. These are easily recognized from the road, even when driving past at highway speeds.

Bees on the Sumac

In a couple of months, I'll be posting pictures of the beautiful Sumac leaves when they turn red in the fall. But right now, they are blooming and boy the bees sure are happy about that! I stopped by a roadside the other day and watched these bees for a few minutes. Check out their saddlebags, full of pollen!