Interesting Information: June 6, 2016
Here’s a really nice piece by Karta Purkh Khalsa that walks one through common herbs that are also quite medicinal–especially if you know when to use them.
Here’s a quote:
Food has been the medicine of humanity since the dawn of time. Many herbs that we associate only with seasoning our food are, in fact, potent herbal medicines.
Enjoy!
Source: Your Medicine is in Your Pantry | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry
Turkey Tracks: June 6, 2016
We had pea soup fog yesterday…
I love the grass when it gets this high. Soon it will by cut and made into hay.
Note that you cannot see the woods beyond the barn.
I love these “soft” days.
And in the night, a drenching and must-needed rain. We are hoping for more tonight.
I dashed up to Belfast for groceries and dog food. Then, I sewed.
Mina’s quilt is half done–on the long arm.
I finished a quilt-let. This one”sings” to me. Look at that pieced center!!!
Very cool to work on these blocks…
And I finished another Farmer’s Wife block. No. 42. This one was actually pretty easy. Six more to do for this month.
Interesting Information: June 5, 2016
We love our pets so much.
We want to do the best we can for them.
As with our own health, since health care is now an industry, we must be careful to whom we listen. We must research.
This video shows the problems and links to a web site with information.
I could also point you to Ted Kerasote’s book PUKKA’S PROMISE, in which he discusses his considerable research on how to make the best decisions for your beloved pet. There are blog entries here on this book
I can also tell you that when I was little, the house dogs ate table scraps as dried dog food had not been invented, did not have vaccines beyond rabies, and lived to ripe and healthy old ages.
Here’s a blurb that begins to describe the video:
Allergies, skin problems, behavior changes, autoimmune disease, seizures, injection-site cancers — these are just a few of the well-documented adverse vaccine reactions in dogs and cats. Pet vaccination is much more harmful than most people underastand.
Source: The Dark Side of Pet Vaccination
Interesting Information: June 5, 2016
Here’s a lovely piece: food for thought, for sure…
If it is one thing the discovery of the microbiome is revealing, it’s that we all have very different workings inside, depending upon the health of our microbiome and the chemistry of each of our particular systems at the moment.
There is no ONE SIZE FITS ALL way to eat as a result.
So, what’s behind the attempt to control what everyone else eats? Fear, maybe, fear of not being in good health, of loss of control in other areas of life, of risk of something new, etc.
I personally believe there are some foods that fuel most of us in healthy ways, but I also recognize that the healthy food spectrum that works best for individuals is long and wide. And I believe that fake foods, tainted foods, and sugar-based foods will cause disease.
Dr. Kelly Brogan is someone to whom I pay attention. Here’s the start to her very thoughtful piece:
“Too many of us blindly put faith into different authorities, but when it comes to personal health and diet, your self knowledge and gut intuition should be your guide.”
Source: On Being Right and Eating Animals | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry
Turkey Tracks: June 4, 2016
I made a run to Alewives on Friday.
And I fell in love with this sample quilt:
I love everything about it. The color palette, a way to use small pieces of fabrics (my crumbs, my crumbs), the quilting, the graphic nature of the quilt. I could go on…
There’s a pattern, of course. You can see it pinned to the quilt. And Alewives is easy to contact, and they ship.
Maybe I have to go back…
I finished another “quilt-let.” (Katja Marek’s quilt-along project–and I am slowly catching up.) There is a hexagon at the center of this one. I’m wishing I’d done it in the lime green of the fabric… Oh well.
Here’s block 41 of the Farmer’s Wives blocks. I’m trying to keep the pace of two a week going. So, I need to make another one for this week, and I’ve almost finished it. this one is called “Granny” I think. Simple, but complex too. That’s a good Granny.
I wish that I could send you the perfume that is filling my yard. Lilac, petunia, and much more that is fragrant. It’s a spectacular lilac year this year.
Spectacular.
Interesting Information: June 4, 2016
Whenever I hear Donald Trump say he is going to build a wall between the US and Mexico, my mind jumps to the Maginot Line in France.
That “wall” didn’t work so well.
Nor did the Great Wall of China.
Nor did, really, the Berlin Wall.
People find ways around walls…
How many human efforts to create literal walls have worked?
Of course, there is a history of walls out there. (History isn’t Donald Trump’s long suit. Inciting peoples’ anger is.)
There are some really pretty pictures in this article. Of walls…
Source: What History Teaches Us About Walls – The New York Times
Turkey Tracks: June 4, 2016
We are (again) being promised rain for later tonight and tomorrow.
So far, my rain dances have not worked. Maybe this time.
Anyway, I mowed last Friday, so I knew I had to mow before we got soaking rain that might take several days. Often, that means a third day for my grass to dry out enough to mow.
So…
Yep. I needed to mow TODAY.
At first we had overcast cool, then, suddenly, in the way weather happens in Maine, the skies cleared and the sun came out and it started getting warm enough to dry up the morning dew.
First though, I fixed myself a “Saturday Breakfast.” Normally I don’t get hungry until nearly noon. But today I needed to be mowing around noon, AND I am having dinner early evening with friends at Chez Michel’s in Lincolnville, Maine–just up the road from Camden and across from Lincolnville beach. Somehow, I’ve never been to this restaurant, so when friends discovered I had not, an outing was organized. (I have great friends.)
Over a cup of tea, I pondered what to eat for breakfast.
My tea: I get the most extraordinary Irish tea from our local coops. It’s from a Vermont company and comes in little grains. It makes a “bold” cup of tea.
I heat the water in my copper kettle, and say what you will, water heated in that kettle tastes gorgeous–very unlike water heated in another pot. I’ve had it for 25 or so years now and love it to pieces.
I pour hot water over the loose tea through a basket thingy
that fits over my cup.
This tea can take a second pour over too, which I usually do sometime during the day.
Of course I add LOCAL raw WHOLE milk from Jersey cows (Milkhouse milk) and about a tablespoon of raw, UNHEATED local honey–which I get in big jars once a year from my local beekeeper, Sparky’s Honey. I take him the jars, and he fills them.
On the refill, I don’t add the honey.
OK, chives are in full bloom, so I snipped some and brought in one of the lavender chive blooms to crumble into my eggs.
Over the years, the chives have spread in my garden. And look at the stand of tarragon to the right of the big clump of chives. Along this path I have several types of sage, several types of thyme, my grandmother’s mint (which I’ve had for over 40 years), some garlic chive (blooms in August), lavender, and some rosemary. I LOVE it when I have herbs in the garden.
I recently learned that one can trim the chives back to to or three inches in mid-summer, and they will grow back up and, often, bloom again.
I put a big pat of local raw butter in the pan and heated it until it sizzled. Threw in the chives and dropped in two eggs. While they set a bit, I hit them with local sea salt and some black pepper.
I just take a fork and run it through eggs to scramble them. If I were to add cheese, it would be just as they are broken but still runny.
I had some gluten-free bread from HootinTootin bakery out of, I think, Belfast. I get it at the Belfast Coop. AND some homemade blackberry jam. (This year will be a blackberry year. Last year the patch had to be cut down to allow it to regenerate without so many weeds.)
Delicious! And the mowing seemed really easy after this good start.
Interesting Information: June 1, 2016
In this article, Dr. Joseph Mercola analyzes the 2015-2020 USDA Dietary Guidelines.
Here’s how the article starts:
On January 7, 2016, the U.S. government released its 2015 to 2020 dietary guidelines 1,2,3,4,5 many of which are steps in the right direction. Perhaps one of the most promising changes is a shift away from focusing on specific nutrients toward a general focus on eating real food.
Gone are dietary taboos against dietary cholesterol.
But, the saturated fat myth remains.
Going back on both of these failed dietary recommendations in the same year was probably too much for the panel to own up to…
Mercola includes an extended discussion of the dangers of taking statin drugs.
He concludes with some dietary recommendations, which include eating more dietary fiber found in veggies.
It’s a good article…
Turkey Tracks: June 1, 2016
Several friends and I have undertaken this summer to make “parts department” blocks, the idea taken from Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran in their book COLLABORATIVE QUILTING –and to see if these blocks can be developed into a quilt for each of us. I, of course, will also look to my Bonnie Hunter stash management system to see what I can use to make blocks.
This is an improvisational version of a round robin project in ways.
And this kind of improvisational quilt is coming out of the “modern” quilt movement.
Here’s one example in process, made by Becca Babb-Brott from a pattern (“Gypsy Wife”) by designer Jen Kingwell.
Another would be to start with a medallion and build rows around it.
Or, to make a “row” quilt.
Who knows what will happen…
We specified low-volume fabrics and “brights” and “make at least multiples of four,” and left it at that.
The three others are working on funky house blocks, tree blocks, log cabins, star blocks and the like.
What would I do?
Well, this picture came across the screen of blocks Bonnie Hunter found forgotten in one of her quilt boxes.
![20160524_115539[3]](https://louisaenright.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20160524_1155393.jpg?w=840)
Hmmmm, I thought.
I pulled out orange strips from the 1 1/2-inch bin, and then I thought maybe I’d try to draw a foundation piece pattern–after looking at foundation-
pieced pumpkin patterns in EQ7.
That was fun, and as you can tell from the next picture, the pattern evolved as I learned how what I had drawn might actually look when executed.
I didn’t want to get too far from “funky” or too large, but I do like the rounded pumpkin top and the whimsical bottom strip and the placement of the pumpkin within the light fabrics rather than letting it run to the edge. This block is 8 1/2 inches so will finish at 8. That’s large for our project, but it can take a few large blocks I think. And, we don’t have to use everything we get from each other.
These blocks will go into the “parts department” pile to be shared, and I have new-found respect for foundation-pieced designers.
Here are some ideas made from fabrics I pulled from my “stash bins” of cut-up squares and rectangles. These blocks are meant to be “filler” blocks.
Pinwheels, made by cutting 2 1/2-inch squares diagonally, resewing them, and sliver trimming them to 2 inches:
Flying Geese made from 2 by 3 1/2 rectangles and 2-inch squares. The little bitty 2-inch blocks are sewn from the trimmed triangles and sliver trimmed. These tiny blocks could be surrounded by another layer of strips to make a slightly larger square. Probably colored strips…
This block is made from a 3 1/2-inch square by sewing 2 1/2 inch squares to the corners (opposite corners first) and trimming out the excess–which also make small triangles. Hmmm. This small pinwheel could take some low-volume strips to enlarge the square and highlight the center too…
The project is affording me a bit of play each day, a bit of rummaging through stash bins first.
We’ll see what happens…
Turkey Tracks: June 1, 2016
I went to see Rose a few days ago to have a coffee and visit with her and to see our baby chicks’ growth.
It had been about a week since I had last seen them.
They are getting SO BIG. And Rose has them in the big hen house now–with a heat lamp when needed.
Remember, these are our special Blue Wheaten Americanas. Can you tell which ones might be roosters yet?
We can’t… Though we have some lively guessing going on.
I’m wondering if the ones with blacker wings might be???
We are worried about this one. S/he is away from the others and just does not look “right.”
Rose picked up some adorable chicks that are meant to be hens the other day–excess ones the hardware store wanted to place. They are two different breeds, and we can’t wait to see their feather colors when they grow up. I forget their fancy names at the moment. One of these will wind up being gold. She’s in the front, to the left. I think… See the gold on her little face?
It’s really hard to resist baby chicks. And I miss my chickens’ antics and good humor.
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