One Sew Sweet

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Scootering

The kids got scooters a while ago and I must say they've been one of the best purchases we've made for them. This week, Alanna had dance camp (so cool!), so one day we scootered over there. I pushed the jogging stroller just in case my little 4 year old couldn't make it all the way. Turns out I've got a big 4 year old, and I pushed the stroller merely for my own delight and exercise. I was so proud of both kids!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Silly Little Birds

Those silly little house finches – a couple built a nest in my hanging basket.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Mullein

I'm pretty much a modern hippie, as I've mentioned before. Frying up some extremely delicious dandelion fritters for dinner last week (seriously, they were sooooo good) certainly qualifies me for true hippiedom, especially since they were wild crafted by hand while my children ran around unsupervised, though I did insist on shoes and sunscreen. But anyway. I just wanted an excuse to talk about those fritters again because they were exceptional nuggets of delectable delight. Like totally.

But I'm also an amateur herbalist (which ties right in to my original point about hippieness). I've recently learned about mullein, a plant I was familiar with as a mountain girl with an interest in botany and wildflower identification, but it turns out this large, prolific plant is also a heavyweight in the herbal world, with helpful properties such as promoting lung health, healing coughs and respiratory infections, and fighting ear infections. I enjoyed wildcrafting the dandelions so much I've been on the lookout for more herbs I might be able to collect on my own... And mullein fit the bill. It grows beautifully between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, although I think it's even more widespread. It was easy to find many wild areas with mullein growing around Los Alamos.

They like sandy, disturbed soils, and the Las Conchas fire burned though here just a couple of years ago.

Ladybugs like mullein, too.

And I harvested plenty.

And, as I learned from Wikipedia, mullein wards off curses and evil spirits... So it's even more useful than I thought!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Ski Hill

For our nature hike this week, we spent a couple of gorgeous hours at the ski hill. We all enjoyed it immensely, and we may go back there again next week. I found several patches of wild strawberries that are just now blooming or starting to set fruit, so we'll have to go back to take advantage of the yumminess in the next couple of weeks!

I believe this is a seed pod from the aspens. They were covered in purple flowers

Piles of pika (marmot?) poo covered this rock. A lovely place to poo, I guess!

Alann requested a photo of herself looking exactly like is. She described it beforehand, climbed up to this spot on the poo rock, and posed, just like she said she was going to.

I harvested scads of dandelion heads, and the bees were busy too. We had dandelion fritters for dinner, and oh my goodness!!! They were sooooo good!

We saw lots of tent caterpillars crawling around, but couldn't find any of their tents.

Flower Press

A million years ago, my darling daddy made me a flower press, which I have utilized off and on for... dear lord... probably 25 years (jeez.... Since when can I talk about anything I terms of multiple decades?). Anyway, the kids are really getting into collecting things on our hikes, so I dug the press out yet again for use in preserving leaves and flowers. There were some dried aspen leaves in it that must have been at least a few years old, but since I vaguely remember putting them in there, they must not be 10 or more years old. Even though they're a bit faded, I can see why I saved them: they have a remarkable mixture of green and red that rarely seen in a single leaf, even aspen.

So- we've got some leaves and flowers, squashed away in the press, up in Rhys's closet. I read not long ago that the best and proper way to press flowers is to put them in a press, or a big dictionary (which I've also done), stash it somewhere "safe" and promptly forget about the whole thing. Then when you find them after a while, it's a pleasant, unexpected surprise, which brings back memories and provides a good afternoon of entertainment. Any other method for pressing is absolutely

unsatisfactory.

Works for me.

Rhys was pretty excited about it, so we sent this photo to my dad, along with Father's Day wishes, since after all, he was the one who enabled me to save so many memories starting so many years ago.