educating myself on the various wild edible & medicinal plants in the woods around us. love going for hikes and know the basic plants — ferns, blackberry, huckleberry, salal and oregon grape. want to learn more and see if i can prepare and use some natural products to replace the chemical ones in my house. plan on collecting nettles this weekend and reading up on how to dry wild plants.

Here’s what I’ve found: cut plants as low to the ground as you can and bundle with a rubber band about 1-2 inches from the cut ends. if they are very dirty, gently rinse. find a dark, dry place to hang upside down until totally dried. after they are dry, remove the leaves/flowers and store in a glass jar in a cool, dark area. be sure to label with the name and date collected. paper bags can also be used to dry them if hanging upside down doesn’t seem to work.

to make a cold infusion tea: suspend herb in cloth bag in room temperature water overnight. remove herb.

to make standard infusion tea: steep herb in hot water for 1 hour, strain.

to make strong decoction: boil herb in water for 10 minutes. cool and strain.

pictures of our nettle collecting trip to post in the next few days.

Picked up our first CSA share at the farm yesterday. Mounds of fresh wonderful greens! Amazing to have such a harvest so early here in Oregon. Researched a bit how to keep everything since our little family can’t eat this much in 1 or even 2 days. Seems the best suggestions are to wash everything thoroughly, wrap or layer with paper towels and keep in the fridge. Instead of paper towels, I’m using kitchen towels and keeping in the vegetable drawer which has humidity control. Our bounty includes (from top left) spinach, garlic scapes, herb bundle, radishes & their greens, 2 heads of lettuce, arugula, mizuna greens, and (not pictured) broccoli raab.

Cooked the broccoli raab last night for dinner with some garlic scape. Sauteed some garlic, added garlic scape, then the broccoli raab. Added a bit of the no-salt organic seasoning from Costco. Topped with some shredded raw milk cheddar. It was gone before I could get a picture, so maybe next week!

This is an easy salad. In the picture, I made it with red quinoa, but the yellow works just as well. Delicious, healthy salad packed full of super foods!

1 head broccoli, steamed & cooled
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 cup quinoa cooked & cooled
juice from 1 or 2 lemons
olive oil
salt to taste
dried cranberries

combine all. add more lemon or salt to taste.

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Just finished reading Slow Death by Rubber Duck. What a fascinating book! A little scary about all the chemicals in plastics and as we know plastics are everywhere! Have been slowly switching to ceramic and glass in the kitchen, but as the research by these authors shows it’s impossible to get away from plastics. Some of the results of exposure to these toxic chemicals are pretty bad, so how can we protect our kids and still live a modern life? The book includes a few handy practical suggestions:

get rid of air fresheners
avoid bath products that have a lot of artificial fragrance/perfumes
throw away non-stick frying pans
don’t eat microwave popcorn (the bag is coated with chemicals)
choose hardwood floors instead of carpets
if you eat fish, choose small fish (like the flake tuna instead of larger cuts) as the smaller fish are younger and absorb less toxic chemicals
don’t use antibacterial products that include microban, triclosan, etc…
use vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to clean your kitchen (is just as effective as the harsh chemicals)
replace your lawn with native meadow/plants
don’t microwave in plastic
don’t drink bottled water

went to a class this past week by one of the staff at TrackersNW. It was a short class that only covered 3 plants, but whetted my curiosity for more. The ones discussed and their possible uses were:

Oregon Grape (mahonia) Apparently has antimicrobial properties in the root (and I guess the leaves and berries as well) since it’s from berberine which creates the bitter taste, so is probably in the whole plant. A digestive tincture or in glycerin for skin problems.

Dandelion – steam the greens

Western Red Cedar – crush the needles, put in a french press and make a tea. good for respiratory and allergy problems.

NOTE: not intended as medical advice and whatever other disclaimers are necessary

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just read a book about the paleo diet. hadn’t heard about this concept until a friend mentioned it on facebook. the book has some interesting idea. basically the concept is: lean meat, fruit, vegetables all okay. grains and dairy not okay. there’s discussion about the acid vs alkaline levels in food. supposedly the imbalance is our current modern diets is what causes a lot of the chronic diseases we see today. makes a lot of sense on it’s own, but when taken together with what i’ve read from michael pollan and jonathan safran foer it doesn’t provide a comprehensive system of thinking about food. working through what makes sense for me. vegetarianism is common sense with all the factory farming. processed food is bad, salt is bad, but what about good food. raw food is a great idea in concept, but how is it practical?

We got a new tv, it’s obscenely huge. I was almost embarrassed to bring it in the house. Can’t believe how we survived on a small 24″ tv for all those years. setup all the high-def, home audio and needed some extra hdmi to hdmi cables. Found great quality cables at trianglecable.com and the shipping was fast. love the prices. the people at Triangle Cables helped get us all setup so it really was just plug and play. it’s important to get the right high quality cables to take advantage of all the high def features in my tv, so these cables were just right. Checkout their deals on hdmi cables.

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