How I spent my summer (and a flower essence story)

Off the internet, that's how I spent it!

And wow .. I highly recommend it. But more on that later.

First, a nifty, and just a little spooky, story about a flower ...

Gardens have their own plans

There are sunchokes coming up in my monarda patch.

The monarda patch itself is obligingly moving eastward to give the sunchokes the space they seem to think they're owed.

The motherwort plants - 2 of them are gigantic already - have produced litters of babies amongst the sedums.

Yellow dock? Don't talk to me about yellow dock. It's in the lawn. It's also in the monarda patch. It's .. well, it's everywhere you'd expect to see a dandelion, and if you think it's tough to get a dandelion out of the ground you oughta try yellow dock. The leaves slide off if you try to just yank it, exuding this slippery mucilaginous stuff (good medicine, no doubt) that makes a second attempt laughable. Only a big digging fork going down a foot or more (at least) and getting to the root is going to even half way discourage those buggers.

But on the other hand ..

2 large plastic bins, 1 plunger, an assortment of basins and one big laugh

I didn't get where I am today without learning to be resourceful in the face of challenge!

Here's the story - thanks to the ongoing Great Flood of 2019, and 1/3 of our village being under waist-high water (and looking to stay that way for a few more weeks), our wastewater treatment plant is rather taxed at the moment and on April 29th we were asked to limit what goes down our drains.

Okay then. It certainly seems a reasonable thing to do under the (apocalyptic) circumstances.

Shit hits fan - the rant.

This is the Cheneaux Dam, on the Ottawa river, just downstream from us. Believe it or not, there is only one gate open, the one in the background, at the far end of the bridge. This is not a normal spring.

Up and down the Ottawa river - and all its tributaries - the twice as much as normal snowfall of the past winter is swelling rivers to unprecedented levels. Two years ago, we had a "100 year" flood. This is much, much worse.

Using fresh stinging nettles in the kitchen .. and elsewhere

Allow me, please, to open with a small rant -

You'd think I would be pleased to hear that stinging nettles are now commercially available at farmers' markets and even some 'foodie' outlets and yeah, it is 'great', in a way.

But deep down, I'm kinda saddened to hear it.

Here's why: The true nourishment of nettles, their Medicine, their meaning in the grander scheme of things, is to be found in the gathering. 

It's in the hunt.

It's in the way the heartbeat quickens just a little when we discern just the right shade of green (with a blush of red or purple when they're really young) nestled amongst the golds and browns of the old grasses of last year. It's in the pink cheeks from the biting wind and spitting rain of a spring day, and the squelch of the still wet ground we likely have to cross to get to where nettles are wont to be the most plentiful. The best nettles, in my neck of the woods at least, always seem to be the least accessible ones.

It's in the first stings that bring cold benumbed fingers back to fiery life.

It's in their wildness, their downright orneriness. That orneriness is matched by our own as we're so willing, eager even, to set comfort aside just for a taste of something so genuinely fresh after a winter of imported food.

That's nettles.

But nettles aren't (alas) that for everyone, for some they're just a novel - and very, very nutritious -vegetable that can be a little daunting to deal with in the kitchen. It's not yet nettle season where I live - it's a good month away yet - but I've already heard from folks in warmer climes that they've got themselves a bag or two from the market and they don't quite know how to deal with them. Can I help? Sure, I'll be glad to.

Now that my little rant is (mostly, but I'm not guaranteeing completely) out of the way, read on for how I've learned to prep and cook nettles.

Hands on, how to - alder infused oil; the good, the bad and the ugly

Dammit!!
click to embiggen

We'll start with the bad and the ugly, since that's where the story begins.

I went to refill my trusty little bottle of alder oil and discovered this ----------------------------------->>>>>

My backup jar of alder oil was moldy, throughout!

See now, this is the kind of lesson one learns over and over and over when one is lazy or forgetful. You can leave herbs (almost) indefinitely in vodka, but not in oil. No sir. Normally I would have strained this - heaven knows why I didn't - and I would have put some coarse salt in the bottom of the jar of strained oil, too. Salt pulls any excess water to itself and keeps the oil from going off. Like that. Yuck.

Bad girl, wildcucumber, bad, bad!!

Thrifty apothecary experimentations

I guess you could say we're snowed in ..

At least it's clean snow. For now.

That snowbank on the front lawn is taller than I am. It's several blizzards' worth, mind you. I'm starting to suspect the village has run out of money for snow clearing, because up til recently they were taking those monsters away every few days. Or maybe there's just no place to put it any more?

Yep.