raw cow's milk

Cows are cool. They can walk up a staircase but not down. They have no pupils so their peripheral vision is 100%. If your goal in life is to sneak up on a cow, get another goal. If mama has twins, and they are a boy and girl, there's a 90% chance the girl is sterile. They have four stomachs, one of which is slightly smaller than a five-gallon bucket. Cows can jump! They're usually too happy to ever need it, but they can easily clear four-foot fences if they have to. Cows are cool.

I got the above in an email from K.J., who takes care of our cow. Yes -- we, who live in the middle of Denver, have a cow. Actually, we have a cow-share and K.J. owns and operates the dairy and cow-share operation. So that we can drink clean, fresh, raw cow's milk in keeping with our efforts to eat and live locally.

Honestly, until we bought the cow share, I avoided milk as I didn't like the taste -- this from the daughter of a farmer/rancher. But then I started reading more and more about the benefits of raw milk and cheese from pastured cows and we took the plunge. We use it for drinking, in recipes, and making lattes. Sometimes I make yogurt and I've made kefir. I'd like to make cheese but just an itty-bitty mound of mozzarella takes a whole half-gallon.

I pick up our milk on Wednesdays and after I got home yesterday I saw several headlines about the situation with the food supply in Japan. The Fukushima region in Japan is a major source of milk and vegetables. According to The New York Times, the nuclear crisis is hitting farms up to 90 miles away from the nuclear power plants via high levels of radioactivity in milk and spinach. When the cows ingest radioactive grass and water, their milk is affected. And then when humans ingest the radioactive milk, they are affected.

I am still hoping for clean food and water for all.

rosehip dyeing

Around the time of the last new moon, I noticed some rosehips left on an Eglantine rose bush, Rosa rubiginosa. I'd just read that Eglantine is a good variety to use for dyeing. The rosehips were dried up but I thought it was worth a try as the skins still looked quite red.

Silk organza was layered with the broken-up rosehips and then misted with vinegar.

It was rolled up tightly and fastened with a rubberband, then placed in a sealed plastic bag for two weeks.

When it was unrolled, I brushed the plant matter off and ironed the silk immediately thinking the heat would set any color. Then it was rinsed and dried. The mottled color was a total surprise, so soft and muted. It reminds me of latte art.

Here it is beside the same silk organza dyed with onion skins. I think it's lovely. Just imagine using rosehips in the autumn when they are fresh -- I can't wait to see what color they transfer then! Does anyone know?

Now, I'm going upstairs to make myself a latte!

tamari egg

                                                                                                  tamari egg

Have you ever seen a tamari egg? Well, it's not an obscure breed of chicken! but rather a hard-boiled egg, peeled and coated with tamari sauce. And it is delicious. The tamari gives it enough seasoning that I don't need to hold a salt shaker in the other hand like I normally do. When sliced over a salad, it's perfectly seasoned, just like that.

I'd eaten tamari almonds, tamari pumpkin seeds, tamari sunflower seeds, etc. -- had never even dreamed of using it on hard-boiled eggs. But again Mark Sisson came up with something new (for me) in The Primal Blueprint Cookbook that I picked up at the library a few weeks ago.

After hard-boiling and peeling some eggs, just heat up a spoonful of tamari in a pan until it starts foaming, then roll the eggs around until they're coated. So easy. Who knew?

Do you have any tamari secrets?

Also posted at Food Renegade.

leafing out moonday

Things are beginning to leaf out in Nature. Same for my boro'd Gap boot-cuts, the last patch. That's the checkered chain stitch down the middle where you use two different colored threads on the needle that take turns making the chain -- it's pretty fun. I'm not sure what's next stitch-wise on the leaf patch, but odds are it'll be black and white. It's on the upper thigh area and I don't really want to attract attention there, if you know what I mean.

Today is a waning moonday in the light and airy sign of Aquarius. Because Aquarius increases mental activity, our minds may work a mile a minute and mightn't want to stop for, must less tolerate, any obstacles. Aquarius rules issues of the lower legs like muscle cramps and varicose veins, so it's also a good day to avoid having to stand in one place for too long. If you can, put your feet up. In other words, let your mind do the walking today. 

If you do have problems with your calves, you could try massaging comfrey salve or oil onto the area. As soon as my garden comfrey gets going again, I'll be making up a new batch of comfrey oil as we are nearly out of salve.

Comfrey Oil: Harvest and tear or cut up enough fresh unwashed comfrey leaves* to fill right up to the shoulder of a jar. It should be loosely packed and perfectly dry. Moisture in the jar or on the leaves can ruin the entire batch. Then fill the jar to the top with olive oil, stir around with a chopstick to get the oil evenly distributed and remove any air pockets. Screw the lid on the jar and set in a cool, dark cupboard on a protected surface as it may ooze. After 2-4 weeks and making sure there is no mold and it doesn't smell funky, strain the plant material from the oil, putting the oil into a clean dry jar. Label and store in a cool, dark place, should be good for one year. This oil is for external use only -- it can be applied as is or used as the base for a healing salve or cream.

*I always use fresh leaves for my oil -- I've tried using fresh root but it always comes out smelling "off" -- if you'd like to use comfrey root, then buy some dried -- it works great, too.

india block printing

I loved this video by West Elm -- the sounds alone put me into a trance. Notice the body paint on the elephant in the beginning . . .

amazing ficus

I'm itching to start digging and planting full-force in the garden, but it's a tad too soon here in Colorado. That's OK though because there's still plenty to do indoors with the Green Nation. My houseplants can definitely use a little TLC about now --  each one needs a shower in the kitchen sink, a haircut, a top-dressing with new soil, and a few dog food nuggets snuggled down a few inches in the soil. Yes, dog food -- as it decays, it releases its nutrients -- just make sure your dog doesn't see you do it! Or you could use diluted fish emulsion, but dog food doesn't smell.

This was a recent houseplant project. The goal was to root these ficus cuttings from a friend and pot them close enough to braid as they grow. I started out with four in case one didn't take.

Some people evidently don't use rooting hormone with ficus, but I had never rooted it before so figured I needed all the help I could get, plus we already had some. Moistened each cutting and dipped it into the rooting hormone.

Poked holes in the potting soil with a pencil and placed the powdered stems in the holes. Then I watered the whole business and placed it in a low-light situation. And forgot about it except when I watered it along with other plants. No special treatment whatsoever.

Six weeks later, I noticed new growth. So out came the fourth cutting and the first braid was begun. Amazing ficus!

Do you feed houseplants anything unusual? I'm collecting ideas.

giveaway: this old project #4

Continuing on the pledge to resolve unfinished projects, this time up is a bead-knit watermelon bag

This was begun back in the day -- see the fancy instruction sheet with kid-scribbling all over it! A hank of tiny black glass beads, teflon-type needle & thread for the beads, thread for knitting (DMC Cebelia Cotton, Made in France), knitting needles (one is bent), and basically no directions. I think I was meaning to knit two identical pieces with one a bit longer to be a flap-closure. Or a clasp could be attached, too.

I know for a fact that I'll never finish this. If anyone would like this, I'll mail it to you next Wednesday. Just let me know if you're interested, and if there's more than one beader or knitter out there who would take it, we'll have a draw.

And I'll type up the "directions" for you, too!