I am up in the night doing the wash. Just as Papa and I were going to sleep last night, I said to him, "Honey, do I have a clean work shirt for you to wear tomorrow?"
And Jim says, "No, but I can wear the same one. It isnt dirty." Why do men always say that stuff?
I said, "No, I will get up early and wash your shirt." So I am up in the night doin' the wash.
My Mom was having tests at the hospital yesterday so I was there most of the day. I was really tired when I got home.
It was so cold yesterday. I wanted to fix Jim a nice supper and I know Annie will laugh when I say what I made. Annie says I like to throw milk and eggs on anything. Well, I had this potato cheese boxed mix? Jim loves potatoes, even those kind. Anyway, the box has these dried potatoes and the cheese mix and you are to just add a tablespoon of butter and 3 cups of milk. Well, this is what I did to make it a Super Deluxe Meal. I put in more milk and butter and about a fourth cup of flour. A half pound of cooked hamburger, eggs, a can of drained green beans, and a bunch of dried herbs. It was really good.
Jim doesn't eat all day and waits to get home from work to eat, so I like to have something nice and hearty for him. A few days ago, I had to be on the phone with Mom at the hospital when wild man got home from work. He will come in the door and wave a silent wave and get right to the kitchen to look in the stove to see "whats cookin'."
Last night it was to get down to freezing but I sure hope it didn't get that cold, as we won't have any fruit on our trees if it froze. The fruit trees are blooming and, if the frost hits the blooms, then they can't set and grow fruit. It's dark outside right now but as soon as its light, I will be lookin' out the window to see if the frost hit the trees. The house doesn't seem very cold, so maybe the temperature didn't fall that low last night. I hope not!!!
Our big garden at the back of the yard, I hope to make a perennial garden out of this. That's a garden I would never have to plant again, as it will be full of plants that come up each year. So far down in this garden, we have rhubarb, red raspberries, and horseradish. We planted strawberries down there just lately. And my friend Jill C. wants give me some more strawberry plants from her garden, as she cleaned hers out. A Mother's Garden could never have too many strawberries, ya know. Soon I hope to plant asparagas, too, and it will come up each year.
And, ya know, a lot of folks don't like rhubarb but it is one of our favorite fruits. Danny's favorite is Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. Our children used to go through a whole batch of that jam in about a month. They ate it on bread, pancakes and biscuits. We love to eat rhubarb sauce, too. Just cut up the rhubarb in a pan and cook it up with sugar.
Often, in the old days in the spring, the cupboards at my house would get very bare. One year, I was without fruit for the children just as the rhubarb started to grow. I was so happy to have the fresh rhubarb to feed the children. I made a sauce out of it and fixed it in little bowls for the table for breakfast. Then I made the pies and jam with it.
Rhubarb is so easy to freeze. Just wash it and cut it up and put it in a ziplock bag with about a half cup of sugar to preserve it. Rhubarb takes a lot of sugar. That's the only problem with this fruit. One thing I used to do, so I didn't have to use quite so much sugar, is I would make pies with it using half apples. Or you could use peaches, too. Just some sort of a more bland fruit or berries.
My herb garden is doing well, it seems. I have many herbs in it, but one herb that I am especially interested in is gingerroot. I think it must take a lot of patience to grow this herb. You have to be careful not to dig it up to use it too quick. My ginger is a year old now but I think I need to let it alone for another year.
MOTHER'S HERB MEDICINES
Well, I just put wild man's shirt in the dryer. God only knows where he put his shirt he wore yesterday ... the dirty one? He probably has it in the bedroom and I can't get in there and stir about or I will wake him up. God knows I keep that man awake enough in the night, anyway.
Ya know, when I first planted my red raspberry plants, I wasn't wanting the fruit as much as the raspberry leaves. The leaves made into tea are a wonderful remedy for menstral cramps. Also to use for when you are pregnant to keep your uterus firm and in place.
When I was young and having my time of the month, I would drink this tea all day, cup after cup of it, as I did my housework. It really works. I would take a quart glass canning jar and make tea in it and just sip it all day. I would drink at least a quart or more. With any natural remedy like this, you have to use a lot of it. Herbs from your garden aren't like from the health store. Your fresh garden herbs are more gentle but work good, too.
I used to dry the raspberry leaves also for the winter. I would just cut long branches from the bush and put them in a tall paper grocery bag and let them dry. After the leaves dry on the branches, you can just scrape the leaves off into the sack and put leaves in a dry jar to use for winter teas.
You can grow valerian, too, if ya need something to calm ya down. I grew some one year but used it too quick and the plant died. Some of these herbs take a few years to get going and ladies like me use them too quick and the plant dies.
Also with feverfew, you can get a good plant goin' if ya leave it alone for a few years. Feverfew works good for headaches. I used to chew the leaves in with a stick of spearmint gum. I need to get busy and grow some more of that and valerian, too.
I guess you can grow St. John's wort, too. I mean, some folks can. Jim has bought me several plants of this and I always manage to kill it.
With any of these herbs, you can just make teas out of the leaves. With the valerain you are to use the roots, I know, but I used the leaves and this worked well for tea. Actually, I drank more valerian tea then I should have and Papa came home form work to a very strange wife. Stranger than usual?
Yarrow is another good herb to use for colds or viruses. I have a lot of yarrow. It is a beautiful flowered herb. Mine is purple and comes up each year. But you are more woman than me if you can stand to drink yarrow tea! Well, I guess with enough honey, anything is possible. But once you drink some, you don't want another cup for at least five years. I grow a blue flowering catnip beside the purple yarrow and it is very pretty as they grow together.
I am not good at growing lavender.
One of my favorite herbs, also, is my bushes of rose hips. Rose Hip Tea has more vitamin C than orange juice. It is a valuable herb to have. The hips come on after the roses have bloomed and fallen off. The berries or rose hips are easly dried for winter use. I just cut off branches and put them in baskets. They dry over time and look pretty while they do so.
Of course, I don't use any poison sprays in my yard to kill weeds. Most of the weeds that folks kill are herbs. That little fern like stuff in your sidewalk crack may be chamomile. It has a little yellow bud on it and when you sqeeze it, it smells apple like. You can make chamomile tea out of this. My chamomile used to grow in the drive-way. My children knew when they had gotten to me, as they said I would make "Driveway Tea" to settle down.
But ya know, it's just plain good "horse sense"to learn the art of using herbs for cooking and medicine. You may never have to use your herbs but then again, maybe you will.
PAPA'S ROSE OF SHARON
As I have written in the night about herbs for healing, it's as though I can smell the fragrance of fresh herbs as I write.
I have been a little sick lately and I sense the Lord's presence to heal me as I write about natural healing. His fragrance is so sweet ... like wild purple violets in the spring. He is present to heal me and to give me joy as I write about the herbs. About Nature's Medicine and the fragrance of Christ.
Papa ... oh, Papa keeps planting for me each year the Rose of Sharon. About 10 years ago, Papa planted about seven bushes of wine colored roses of Sharon down by the back garden. They were tall bushes and so breathtaking as they bloomed in the summer. Papa knows I want to be secluded n our back yard to hang up the clothes on the clothes line and to do my garden duties. But as the years went on, the tall branches died because of the hard Iowa winters. The bushes weren't secluded enough. So last year, Papa got some more Rose of Sharon bushes and planted them by the side of the house. They will have white blooms and will bloom this year.
Oh my dear old Darling ... he never gives up. Sometimes I want to give up but I see Papa planting again and again, no matter what dies he never gives up. And he plants trees and gardens as though we will live forever here ... Jim at 64 and me at 58. It seems that we don't know how to roll over and play dead. We would like to but we always sense a newness in the spring. A time to get back up after a hard winter and start planting again. We are such gamblers and will keep planting, even though life looks hopeless sometimes.
Last week, when we went to the Amish villiage, Jim bought me some hay for my gardern. As Papa and me went a-riding down a country road to home, the hay smelled so bad we had to open all the windows in the car. I wanted old hay, as it's better for the garden. I looked at Papa and thanked him for the hay. I had a smile on my face that couldn't be taken off with a chisel. I said, "Papa, honestly, I would rather have three bales of hay then a new outfit or new shoes or anything." I said I wished that folks would just give me hay for Christmas instead of all those gift certificates. And Papa understood me and he is the only one who would.
And I know I sound crazy, wanting hay for Christmas. But I had looked and looked for it around the garden shops and couldn't find any, except the really expensive kind. If I have hay for my garden, I can grow wonderful things. Hay organizes me in my garden. And I can throw kitchen waste under it and recycle it. As the summer goes on, I will add grass clippings to the hay. All of this replenishes the soil.
I have just a small kitchen garden up by the house. My little 7 Sister Roses grow in the back of my kitchen garden. Papa offered to lay my hay down on my garden but I said, "No, I want to do it." I have some special herbs back there that I wont want covered. And I want to make sure my Sister Roses are all tucked in good, as they will be starting to bud soon.
Well, ya know, I better get back to bed. Papa's shirt is washed and dried and laying on his chair for morning.
This writing tells such a story of hope and to not give up, but just keep planting seeds of faith and hope. And even though the cold winter winds blow and kill some of your plants ... spring always comes again. "We can always plant again, right Papa?"
And if we don't give up, we will see His glory.
