A Weed a Week

Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at identifying common plants, trees, and flowers in my neighborhood.  Usually the girls or Jeff will turn to me and ask "What is that bush over there called?"  and nine times out of ten, I'll know ... as long as it's something you would find in a seed catalog or greenhouse.  Years of perusing catalogs and web sites when the spring fever bug bites has resulted in a wealth of knowledge. 

What I DON'T know about are common weeds.  Other than dandelions, I know very little about the hundreds of plants I see every day on the roadside and creeping surreptitiously into my yard.  So, I'm doing some investigation and learning about at least one new weed each week. 

Today's weed is the Garlic Mustard.  This thing is growing like crazy at the back of my yard up on a hill where it's hard to get to.  It has four-petaled white flowers borne in clusters at the end of the stem.  It's leaves are opposite, veined, and heartshaped with toothed edges. 

I had a devil of a time trying to identify this thing.  The breakthrough came when I identified it as a member of the mustard family thanks to this site, which divides plants into their families based on common characteristics.  One of the key identifying features of a mustard is that the flower has 6 stamens, 4 tall and two short.  And so did the sample I pulled out of my yard.  Once I knew it was a mustard type, I went to another site that showed lots of pictures of the various mustards and I was able to identify my mystery plant as probably being a garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata).  Then I looked up garlic mustard on Wikipedia and learned that it has a thin white taproot that smells like horseradish.  Bingo!  When I crushed the root and sniffed it, it DID smell like horseradish. 

Further research showed that this plant is a biennial that grows a small low cluster of leaves the first year and then the tall flowering plant in the second year.  (So they've been growing in my yard for TWO years?)

 

Although it's characterized as an invasive weed (and I can attest to its invasive properties), it can also be useful.  The root can be used in the same way as horseradish, as a spicy flavoring, and the leaves are garlicy and taste good chopped up in a salad.  I tried them and they were pretty good.  Garlic mustard greens are very nutritional, and contain Vitamins A, C, E and some of the B vitamins, potassium, calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and magnese. 

As a medicine, garlic mustard leaves are supposed to be good for bronchitis and asthma if taken internally and they supposedly relieve the itching of insect bites if rubbed on the skin.  I can't vouch for either of those, but it's interesting.  :) 

Finally, the entire plant can be used to produce a yellow dye.  Who knew? 

It's so useful that I almost hate to get rid of it.  Almost.

In other news, I took myself for a hike this morning and enjoyed the spring wildflowers (that's the name for weeds in their natural habitat and not in my yard).  Several years ago the boyscouts created a nature trail near my house and I've just never gotten around to checking it out.  This morning, I finally got there.  Good job, boys!  The trail was lovely, well marked, well maintained and had convenient benches and bird houses all along it. Here are some pictures I got with my phone.  If Annette reads this, maybe she can identify some of the plants for me.  I'm done identifying for the day!

Honeysuckle bushes





May Apple -- my Mom loved these



These were very large shelf like fungus of some type





Giant shelf fungus, part deux

Wild phlox?

Wild phlox, pink?

This is definitely something -- it's just not in bloom right now.

These lovelies were all over the forest.

This looks like a woodruff type thing ...

Somebody's been putting big holes in this tree.  Too big for a woodpecker?

Beautiful blue flowers

Sort of a yellow daisy shaped flower

Even the mosses were getting in on the spring action with their fruiting bodies.



The beautiful trail.



Oh!  One last thing.  I was looking for places to hide letterboxes along the trail and approached a tree that had been knocked over and appeared to have a hollow place at the top of the stump.  The stump was about eye level high, so I had to get on my tiptoes to look in and I saw what looked like a four inch black worm moving around at the back of the hollow and then it disappeared into a hole.  Shortly afterward I heard a slight sound to the left of the stump and I saw the head of a large black snake peering at me across the roots. The four inch "worm" was apparently the end of his disappearing tail.  

The black part in the middle of the frame with a white chin (?) is the snake.

This is the snake's home, apparently. 

 I looked at him and he looked at me.  Then he came a little closer to see me better and smelled me with his tongue.  He didn't really seem to be afraid, just curious.  He climbed a couple of feet up the trunk and then turned and went back into the hollow stump.  I tried to get some pictures, but they all came out blurry.  He didn't seem to have a triangular head at all -- more of a rounded head -- and he was shiny black and about four feet long.   Anybody know anything about snakes?  Could he be a racer?  I didn't see any stripes or markings, just black and his underside might have been pale. 

Unexpected Treasures

Yesterday, my friends and I went on a treasure hunt.  It's called "letterboxing" and we heard about it through the Lime & Violet podcast, alas now extinct.  Anyway, it's sort of like low tech geocaching, if you know what that is.  :)   With geocaching, you look for gps coordinates where someone has hidden a small prize.  You take the prize and leave one in its place for the next finder.

Instead of gps coordinates, letterboxing uses verbal clues to lead you to the location of a hidden notebook.  Each notebook has a special stamp -- preferably handmade.  You take with you your own personal stamp and stamp it in the found notebook with the date of your find.  Then you use their stamp to stamp in your personal notebook as a record of the find. 

My handmade stamp is "Bad Penny," for obvious reasons.  Lynne's is an "e" symbol because she always has to explain to people that her name is Lynne, with an "e."  Kerry's stamp was a lovely tree.  For my notebook, I'm using a handmade journal that Judy Dominic made. It's so beautiful, perfect for this special use.

Although I tried one time, I never found anything, so all three of us were letterboxing virgins yesterday.  It was a lovely day and letterboxing was a great excuse to be outdoors in it! 


  For our first adventure we chose "N.L. Central," which apparently stands for National League Central. Who knew?  There were six letterboxes with a baseball theme all located within Highland Cemetary in Ft. Mitchell.   We followed the clues and found every one of them!  Yay us! 

Kerry puts the notebook back into its waterproof container



Lynne makes another find



Lynne stamps into a notebook



Not only that, but I found two other treasures.  Near one of the finds, just laying in the grass, I found a shed antler.  I've never found anything like that before.  It looks like the fellow who lost it was a six point buck.  It has an amazing feel to it -- different than anything else -- heavy and smooth and wild. 



A little later on, I saw a piece of paper on the ground and picked it up.  It was a cancelled check from 1991 belonging to a woman in Henryville, Indiana, where fierce tornadoes levelled the town last week.  The storm carried that bit of paper 100 miles away from her house to land in Ft. Mitchell, KY.  Her address is on the check, so I'm going to send it back to her and tell her where it was found.  I hope she still has a house at that address. 



So, we had an eventful time and I hope we do it again soon.  We're already planning to plant our own letterboxes -- I think we're hooked!





Behold My Sock Drawer ... and Despair!

Yes, it's true.  You will never have a sock drawer this magnificent.  Some may aspire, only to fail.  I only post it to demonstrate that it can be done.  By me.  Alone. 

Note the socks separated by color into black, brown, and navy.  Note the organized bed socks and athletic socks lining the sides.  And -- le coup de grace -- twelve pairs of neatly rolled hand knitted socks of varying patterns and colors.  This is truly the acme of sockdom. 

Speaking of socks, I finished the knee socks I was making for Kate this weekend.  She seemed to like them and I think they're really cute.  They're plain in the front and have a lace pattern of hearts running up the back of the leg.  They might have been cuter in red, pink, or white, but this blue is a favorite color of Kate's. 

Last -- and maybe least -- I wanted to post a warning.  When traveling through Florida and/or Georgia do not under any circumstances be tempted by the frequent roadside signs offering boiled peanuts as if it were a treat.  I succumbed to curiosity while driving home from Florida and actually consumed some of these.  This local delicacy, much touted along the road, has the consistency of wet cardboard and tastes sort of like the bean part of green beans.  Just looking at them should have been enough of a warning, but I was living on the wild side.  I can't say they're unfit for human consumption -- I suppose they have some nutritive value and they didn't actually make me sick -- but they were not the taste treat I expected from the saturation signage.   

A Wandering Minstrel, I

Last Friday, I flew down to Florida to retrieve the old car we left down there for the winter to avoid the ridiculous rental car fees.  Unlike my husband, who is inclined to glue his butt to the driver's seat and drive non-stop to his final destination -- I prefer the scenic route.  After I landed in Orlando, I picked up the car and drove an hour and a half to Crystal River, Florida and checked in at an inexpensive hotel. 

Some of you may know that Crystal River is the product of about 300 hot springs that flow ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico.  Even in February, the water temperature is in the low 70s and here lies the crux of my tale.  As warm-blooded animals most closely related to the elephant, manatees don't like their water any colder than 68 degrees, so they congregate in the winter at Crystal River to enjoy the warm springs.  Where the manatees go, people follow, and in a unique and rare opportunity -- and under carefully monitored conditions -- you are allowed to actually swim with the manatees and interact with this endangered species.  It's so COOL!  

Here I am in my wet suit

I donned a wet suit and was given a snorkel and a whole boatload of us took the 10 minute trip up the Crystal River to where the "Three Sisters" springs enter the river.  I had done this tour before about 10 years ago, so I was prepared with a disposable underwater camera.  I didn't get any great pictures, but I did get to pet the manatees.  Four of them approached me at one point and one of them had his face about a foot from mine.  They allowed me to pet them and scratch their backs.  On my trip 10 years ago, one of the manatees even rolled over and wanted me to rub his belly.  It's amazing that such a large endangered wild animal is so curious and gentle with humans.  It was a wonderful experience.  



Lots of humans in the water looking for manatees



The Crystal River is aptly named -- very clear water

A manatee passes under me

Two manatees swim by

I swam up a narrow channel with very strong current to reach the source of the springs.  The narrow channel opened out into a small bay with amazingly clear water and you could see the warm water bubbling up from deep holes in the bottom.  It was an idyllic place. 

We had a cold wet ride back to the dock and it was great to get back in dry clothes.  I dropped off my camera at Walgreens to be developed and checked out the local thrift shops for an hour or so.  Then I hopped in the car and headed up the road to my next stop:  Stone Mountain, Georgia, near Atlanta. 

When I was a child, we went to Stone Mountain several times and camped out.  It was a very happy memory.  I can't believe I've never taken my girls there.  Visiting as an adult and having been to Ayres Rock in Australia, I was amazed at how similar the two huge rocks are.  There are at least two different ways to enjoy Stone Mountain.  First, it's a natural wonder -- a huge granite boulder with a circumference of five miles.  It's also surrounded by acres and acres of parkland with paved walking trails and enormous old growth pine forest.  It's lovely. 


The second and, to me, less attractive focus is Stone Mountain as a Civil War Memorial.  In the face of the granite a huge carving has been made of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson, all on horseback. Although the carving is actually much bigger than Mount Rushmore, it looks miniscule on the face of the huge granite boulder.  In my opinion, it mars the natural beauty of the stone.   Nevertheless, I couldn't help but be inspired by the story of Helen Plane, the confederate widow who set the memorial in motion. 

"Helen Plane was born into an affluent family, received a college education and married an attorney with a prominent career.  She inherited plantations and enjoyed the status of wealth and privilege afforded the planter class.  But by the middle of the Civil War, she was a widow, raising her infant son and her half-brother's two orphaned children.  She kept three plantations operating.  She contributed to the war effort by making clothes for her husband's infantry company and selling handmade shawls to raise money for the troops.  She wrote of this time:  ' Think of a woman as patriot, planter, manager, financier, treasurer, druggist, chemist, doctor, florist, spiritual comforter, teacher, muse, seamstress, weaver, shoe-maker, and sometimes artist and musician, all at once, and you have a true picture of a Southern woman on a plantation during the war.'"  

Helen's husband, William, was shot in the chest as he attempted to pull a wounded soldier out of the line of fire. He was taken to a makeshift hospital at a farmhouse and wrote one last note to his wife:

After the war, Helen moved to Atlanta and spent her time lobbying for a war memorial dedicated to preserving the memory of the confederate soldiers who died.  And she succeeded.  

 It's a story of love and bravery and fortitude.  And, frankly, I think William got the better deal.  Helen was left alone to rebuild her world and support three children.  

After going through the museum and walking around the grounds a little, I rode the skylift up to the top of the mountain.  Unlike Ayres Rock, which is deemed sacred so people aren't supposed to touch it, Stone Mountain has always been a tourist attraction.  The top of it looks like the surface of the moon and it's pocked with shallow depressions that fill with water and support small ecosystems.  The view is lovely and you can easily see the Atlanta skyline in the distance. 



The surface of the moon?



The Atlanta skyline

These kids made up their own game



A pool of water on top of the mountain



After spending the day hiking around the park, I hopped back in the car and headed for Danville, Ky.  I had received a call from Kate.  Surprise!  She has mono.  I spent the night in Danville, checked in with the campus infirmary, spoke with the dean of student affairs, and scooped Kate up and brought her home.  Back to the real world.  My wandering days are over for the time being.  But I had a great time.  

Miscellaneous

There's a lot going on around here.  Dad is getting re-married tomorrow and getting him pulled together and off on his honeymoon is going to be the challenge of the next 48 hours.  I'm sure I'll be posting some wedding pictures in the near future.

That being said, I don't want to talk about that right now.  Instead, I'd like to share some images of other things in my life.

 

I bought this little key ring at a craft fair a couple of weeks ago in Sebastian, Florida.  The man who makes them takes thick pieces of plexiglass and draws on them with a dremel drill.  The tree limbs are on both sides of the plexiglass to give a 3D effect.  It's really remarkable art.  He said he learned how to do it from his Mom, who learned from her Dad, who learned from a man in Hawaii while he was stationed at Pearl Harbor.  They practiced on the plexiglass windows of the airplanes at the base during WWII. 

 I love the little cardinal at the bottom right of the tree and all the exquisite detail of the plants around the trunk. 

This is a great deal I got at Cinci Estate Sales. I check their site every now and then.  It's an online auction, like eBay, but local and you have to go across town and pick up any merchandise you buy.  This is a pewter coffee set made by Woodbury. I picked it up for $16 and the coffee pot, alone, lists for $287.50.  The cream and sugar list for $112 and the tray for $190.  Of course, these are not new items and they can use a good polishing, but they're lovely and worth a lot more than $16.  I was particularly pleased get them because it resolved a potential conflict.  When we were going through Mom's things last weekend, I was happy to let Kathryn have Mom's pewter coffee set because I had gotten this one.  Good karma?

This is a comparison of two eggs.  The one on the right came from Kroger and the one on the left came from Kathryn's chickens.  I'm amazed at how different they are.  Kathryn's chickens are happy chickens who are allowed to run around and scrounge for themselves in addition to being fed chicken food and table scraps.  The yolk of their eggs is darker and much harder to break.  I don't know whether that's due to their living conditions or just a difference in the breed of chicken or maybe the freshness of the eggs, but Kathryn's chickens are very cool (and useful!).

My orchid is actually blooming AGAIN!  This is the first orchid I've ever tried to grow, but I remember when I was little Mom tried to grow an orchid in the bathroom.  It just sat there.  For years.  It didn't die, but it didn't bloom.  It was just green and completely unimpressive.  So, I concluded that orchids were too hard. Last summer, Kathryn, however, went to some sort of lecture where she was told all about orchid care and she pulled an orchid out from under the porch where she had abandoned it, brought it in and made it bloom.  So, I decided I'd try one.  I think this is a moth orchid and Southern Living magazine says they're the easiest to grow.  Last summer, it gave me a glorious show for months -- it just kept adding new buds to the end and adding new flowers.  When it finally petered out, I was ready for a long -- if not permanent -- dormancy.  A few weeks ago, though, I noticed a shoot coming up.  I wasn't sure whether it was a flower stem or an errant root, but I tied it to a support and it shot up and produced buds.  Now three of those buds have blossomed!  Success!

In other plant news, my heirloom tulip magnolia cutting on the windowsill has come from the grave like Lazarus.  You may remember that I had 13 cuttings from Kathryn's tulip magnolia that came from Mom and Dad's tulip magnolia in Lexington that came from my grandmother's tulip magnolia on the old family farm in NC.  Well, almost all of the cuttings either failed to sprout or died.  I only had two left, so I planted one of them outdoors to see if it could brave the winter and put one on my kitchen windowsill.  The one on the windowsill soon dropped its leaves and apparently died. In denial, I continued to water it  and, lo and behold, it sprouted some new leaves and it may live after all.  As Jeff Goldblum says in "Jurassic Park," "life will find a way." 

The View From Vero Beach

 This is the view from my window this morning.  Jeff and I have been down in Florida since the day after Christmas.  The girls were with us the first week and then they had to go back to college -- Ally, in fact, went all the way to Greece where she's taking a class this term. 

The time away from home has given me a chance to relax without the stress of everyday life.  I haven't really accomplished much -- I've done a little knitting, fooled around with Photoshop, read a little, watched the ocean, cruised the Internet, hit the area thrift shops, and just generally vegged out.  While I'm here, no one really expects me to accomplish anything and that's a good feeling. 

I'm about ready to go home though.  I've been away long enough.  I want my dog and my bunnies.  I need to get to work on all the things that went undone while I was trying to work a 40 hour week. 

Now that I'm liberated from that, I can get my house in order.  I hope.  By nature I'm a very orderly person, but you'd never know it from the way my house looks.  It would be such a joy to have a place for everything and everything in its place -- not in a rigid German way, but in a peaceful zen way.   I know you can never win against the entropy, but it would feel really great to get a leg up on it.  And if it takes a week devoted to each room in my house, that's only about 10 weeks.  I would gladly give three months to have an orderly house at last.

  ... And, then, there are the storage units to tackle. 

Well, I can dream, can't I?