Lives Forever

Although this is considered a wild plant, I have never run across it in the wild, but I did run across it in my own front yard a few years ago ( planted from a cutting made from a friend's plant ) This plant is so easy to propagate. Anyways, I almost forgot I had it and then remembered that I used it last year all summer long in salads.  It is very crispy while being very juicy too, succulent like.  It's leaves remind me of cactus, minus the spikes.  With a little research I found it had numerous medicinal uses as well.

wood ears

I gathered these little gems last year and dried them for future use.  They are wood ear mushrooms.  I reconstituted them in chicken broth, took them out and chopped them up and threw them back in the broth for an excellent egg drop soup.  Yum

Make your Easter salad pretty

Did you know that you can eat the flower of the redbud tree?  I throw a bunch of them on my salads... along with violet blossoms at this time of year.  So pretty!

Paw Paw

As I was looking through photos that I uploaded and meant to publish, I ran across this pic of paw paws which are a native fruit to Oklahoma.  They are hard to find and when you do, if you are lucky, there will be a few left for you.  They taste a little like a banana and a mango to me.  The uglier and squishier they are, the better.

Gathering curly dock seeds

I gathered these seeds earlier in the fall and planted some for micro greens just because I had so much and wanted to experiment.  So far, so good.  They are growing and I still have a lot left over for flour.

A Home Made Christmas

 I had a lot of fun making hand lotion and deodorant the other day.  I found some easy recipes on the internet and put my own spin on them by combining a few that I liked with the ingredients that I had on hand.  They turned out great and I never have to worry about adding strange chemicals to my body.  Oh, and they work great too.  Along with that I took the Sage that Scott trimmed out this fall and added a little lavender to it to make some great little smudge sticks.  Then..... I took my jars of dried tea fixin's and made tea.  That included fig and mulberry leaves, lemon grass and passion flower vine all gathered from my back yard.  The tea was delish, by the way.  Merry Christmas from me to friends and family.

Smudge Sticks

It was time to trim everything back in the garden and I was happy to make use of the Russian Sage and Lavender.  I thought the two of them together might make a nice smudge stick.... and it did!