Cursed is the Ground

There are times when I want to be like a weed -- those times when I want to never give up, never give up, never give up.

Mags Bennett of Harlan County, Ky.: there's a woman knew a thing or two about weed but she drank the apple pie and leaned back to die.

http://youtu.be/LVEfATF9xU0

My gosh, I was just looking at my back yard today and bemoaning the fact that the weeds have taken over. I have a narrow path to the compost heap that I traverse as carefully as I can to keep the stickers from attaching themselves to me....the thistles and those nasty burrs are running rampant. The Mexican sage has run amok with the wild Peruvian lillies popping up in its midst like crazy. ...beautiful, but really, some pruning is in order...and the jasmine runs through the sage, spreading runners all across the patio. I have to step over the jasmine to get on my little path....if it can even be called a path...hah...but I do manage to get to the compost. ...now...what to do...I've put out a plea to borrow a weed whacker, so hopefully someone will lend me theirs. I admit that the dandelions are very pretty to look at and their greens are tasty...but I'd happily do without.
 
The yard has reached this state because  I haven't had time to spend on it and besides, I don't like gardening, so I avoid it as much as possible. I do try to keep up with the weeds in my three half wine barrels that are the homes to my citrus trees...one lime and two mandarins...but that's about it....so now it's caught up with me and I have some heavy duty yard work ahead of me. Next week,...it'll have to wait until then when I'll have some time off.

Things that happened lately that I haven't bothered to tell you about?
Well, the other grown up in the place had one of those undignified old person procedures today which pretty much shot the weekend and resulted in a snoozy day.

I was awakened by a knock upon the door. It was House Guest and a very pretty woman whom he claims to have run off and married.
"I feel like I know you," she said during an intense hug.
Which was true and if you've never been hugged by a woman slightly shorter than yourself with a stirring four pound chihuahua in the front pocket of her hoodie... it's worth the wait.
 

Weed means more than just the misplaced plant in the yard,be they bind weed, creeping charlie,or puncture weed, many have medicinal uses,some magical uses. But the word means so much more, there are widow's weeds and an weedy herb you smoke until your folks or the police find out, some say it gives them wings. This gives one pause to wonder the lineage of the word. I would think survival plays into it since pulling,hoeing, and spraying does not ensure success. Found out today that the seeds of puncture weed can survive twenty years. Perhaps they should be called everlasting.

Hello, Lady J~
I wonder if the Politically Correct Police will find a way of making it illegal to discriminate against weeds. Long time ago, I took a walk down a country lane with an old lady. She had sons, no daughters and wanted to pass on woman wisdom. She showed me the weeds in the hedgerows and told me the medicinal use of them. Long live weeds!

Here in Idaho is a "Declared" weed called Knapweed. I believe it was brought in as a pretty flower - purple in color and damn hearty. Now, the forest service spends millions of dollars trying to eradicate it, counties send letters out to homeowners demanding one sprays or pulls it out of the ground.
A couple of years ago, I found an old copper press engraving form of this much hated plant. I also found an old book on herbal medicines and knapweed was in it.
In trying to find my own way to define a weed, I came up with this:
If I can plant it, it's might be a weed
If I can kill it, it's not a of that seed
If it can survive my rather brown thumb
It's surely a weed and should not belong
but like things in nature that learn to survive
The weed has it's reason for being alive!

As I have traveled in my many versions of Steinbeck's Rocinante, a few fierce flora come to mind; near Atlanta, the intrepid kudzu, the vine that ate the south, and as ventured through the West, the tumbin' tumbleweed, and the mean and scary Scotch Thistle of the Northeast. Like the mighty cockroach and the skeeter, a few topics to chat about with the Creator and ask "what's that all about?"

Slightly  off   topic:   I  arrived  unfashionably  late  yesterday  around  8:00  PM  Eastern  US  time,  but  WOW.....you  guys  had  one  heck  of  a  thoughtful  &  focused  discussion,  and  you  did  it  all  without  me.....Bravo! Weeds  are often  beautiful,  I  think  they  shouldn't  be  penalized merely  for  mutating  into  extreme  hardiness.   Have  a  weed  with  a  beautiful  single  flower  poking  it's  head  out  of  a  crack  in  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  my   favorite  restaurant  in  Ripley,  Ohio.  It  would  frame  nicely,  need  to  get  back  &  take  a   cell  phone  picture,  before  some  obsessive  compulsive  jerk  thoughtlessly  "weeds  it  out"...... lol

I think Hazel has touched on an important point.  All those weeds to which we pay scant attention except to eradicate are plants with medicinal and food qualities.  I think we have lost and are losing a lot of plant knowledge, particularly medicinal.  After all, the old American Indian cure for a headache was to chew the inner bark of a willow tree - which happens to have a lot of acetylsalicylic acid - and is where aspirin comes from.  Our ancestors ate the first shoots of the ferns in the early spring, the fiddle-head ferns, and were grateful for the greens after a long winter.  I know that dandelion greens are good, but only if picked before the flowers appear.  And folks used to eat sorrel - there's a good Jewish recipe for sorrel soup - and I'm not sure I would recognize it.  It's enough to drive one to a botany class.

Idaho, we have a similar conundrum here in the form of tansy. South Dakota has declared it one of five noxious weeds that are illegal to have growing and every effort must be made to get rid of it. Yet just a quick glance online shows that it's been used for centuries as a medicinal plant, as a prized tea, and as an ingredient in cooking.

The Beauty's roses, planted exactly where and how the grower recommended, struggle by mostly on benign neglect fertilizing and dusting having proved futile but we can grow state fair weeds tall, fast and in funny places.

In the last ten days, we have seen two persons at the Farmer's Market who, not so long ago, where on death watch; one nice old widower has been taken in by family down south and two men that I care about have married to nice ladies
In fact, Guest's new wife, Ellen, brought a video and some photos of events that I had been forced to miss and never thought that I would see.
I'm not used to things rounding off that nicely but I'm looking forward to more... maybe things really do kind of average out before it's over.

I have to wear gloves to pull weeds to avoid a certain and irksome rash... sometimes, I can't find them.

Lynn830:  I  for  a  moment  read  "sorrel"  as  "squirrel,"   and  sleepily  said  to  myself:   "Funny,  I  never  figured  this  guy  to  ALSO  reside  in  the  foothills  of  the  Appalachian  Mountains."    Squirrel  is  still  thought  of  as  food  by  certain  folk  in  our  diverse  country.....usually  done  up  as  stew,  somewhat  like  rabbit.

A friend recently sent me one of those e-mails that you circulate around.  It's a conversation between God and St. Francis titled "God and Lawn Care."  It starts off with questioning 'Frank' on what has happened to the perfect creation that had been.  (The dandelions, milkwees,violets, etc offering perfect ground cover, nectar, growth in any soil, profusion of color, drought resistant.) The conversation gives one pause as it elaborates on the disruption of natural planning and then the overcompensation necessary .....if anyone would like it, or care to post it here I'd be happy to share it if they PM me...........

Merriam  Webster's  online  dictionary  definition  1(C)  of  "weed"  categorizes  this  noun  (also  a  verb,  see  definiition  #2)  as  a  "tobacco  product,"  and  cites  marijuana  as  an  example.    Can't  freely  walk  in  some  of  my  favorite  rural  State  &  Federal  Parks  any  more,  the  cultivators  are  quite  finicky  about  being  detected  &  arrested  or  about  having  their  high-dollar  crop  stolen.   Trip  wires  hook  up  to  spring  guns,  and  I  can  only  imagine  how  bad  of  a  day  I'd  have,  if  a  shotgun  (concealed  by,  ironically,  other  weeds...lol)  blew  off  my  leg  just  above  the  ankle.....   Weed  is  likely  the  largest  cash  crop  in  many  rural  counties,  especially  poor  sparsely  settled  ones  where  the  terrain  is  often  not  tillable  for  much  else.   The  politics  of  drug  policy  &  interdiction?  Complicated,  contradictory,  sad,  and  fascinating.... 

When I was a kid, I used to walk round the garden with my pet rabbit. She was excellent at identifying good to eat weeds. Yes, Lynn~ I still eat sorrel and dandelion and a weed called land cress and things called pig nuts which are the tuber of a prolific weed, I make soup of new-grown nettle tops, and naughty old hippie that I am, among my tomatos there grows a few of THE weed, which I find more effective than prescription painkillers or sleeping pills.
The dandelions round here were amazing this year. The flowerheads make a nice country wine, crisp, white and flavoursome. The leaves are good in salads and soothe kidney diseases. The French call them Dent de Lion (Lion's teeth) for the shape of the leaves, but also Piss Lit (Wet the bed) as the white sap is a powerful diuretic. The plants grown in English cottage gardens are pretty, but usually are tamed weeds grown for medicinal use. Lynn, for example, would benefit from Periwinkle, which helps to control diabetes.

One of the pleasures of international travel is to find that what we either throw out or classify a a weed in the US, can make a very tasty meal for someone. The medicinal properties are always being "discovered" today, but our ancestors used many of these plants to treat illness and diseases, without the side effects of many of our current drugs. Chinese medicine has a 4000-5000 year history of herbal medicines. Alas, in the western world, much of the 'literature" was lost or went completely underground in the middle ages when healers, mostly women, were burned or condemned as witches.

Hazel, hope your vacation was restful.

Stoney, glad to hear all are well in your household, and congrats to Houseguest and his bride.

A topic near and dear to my heart,

Many decades ago, I graduated college with a major in Biology and a double concentration in Pre- med and Botany. The plan was to enter the relatively new field (at that time) of Pharmacognosy. Many modern drugs are based on traditional folk medicine's herbs. I would have traveled the world, the Amazon, Siberia etc, interviewing traditional healers, shamans and the like, gathering information, collecting specimens etc in an attempt to isolate active ingredients and their all important( and often ignored) cofactors.

 Well, life got in the way, and all these years later, I find that field still interests me more than any other. In fact, at this late age, as our daughter will enter college herself Lord willing in two years, I am preparing to go back to school. I am torn between a master's degree and an R.N. (way to late for medical school, LOL).

My gardens are filled with as many traditional (and some nontraditional) herbs as I can find.

One of my heroes; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhart_Fuchs

I own a reprint copy of this groundbreaking "The New Herbal of 1543".

 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia2Kmcwc-CY

 
 
 
 
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/oct2002.html

 'there is nothing in this life pleasanter and more delightful than to wander over woods, mountains, plains, garlanded and adorned with flowerlets and plants of various sorts, and most elegant to boot, and to gaze intently on them. But it increases that pleasure and delight not a little, if there be added an acquaintance with the virtues and powers of these same plants'
L.Fuchs
 

Miss Blue, do, do, do go back to school.

Fulfill your dream.

Always fulfill your dream.

Then your dream will be with you always.

One of the pleasures of moving to Maine was leaving the concept of "The Lawn" behind. While we resided in various other states I dutifully followed the swoop and destroy method of keeping anything not regularly thought of in each climate as lawn and garden-worthy under control.

Here, mowing and an occaisional haircut around shrubs and sprawling Nature seeded flowerbeds suffice. I did wage war for two years on a zombie-esque Morning Glory vine that threatened to kill everything in it's path including my beloved lilacs and wisteria. I tugged more sprouts from that vine than dandelions from my manicured yard in Dallas. It still crops up. Funny that I always dreamed of a cottage covered in it, never realizing that it could cover a 3 1/2 story house in one season.

I'm amazed Shakespeare quoted from Genesis 3:17-19. And in the NIV too. Forward thinking man, Shakespeare. ;)

A lady on our side of town, prepared a weedy poultice, except because our street had its own language, it was known as "A pumice."
Maybe it sounded friendlier... I don't know. We also set the garbage out on: "the curve," and some people: "worshed up in the zinc."
The purpose of her treatment was to draw out the poison of bites and stings.
A tomboy girl, Gloria, had one applied on her lower back... south of the elastic you might say. It left a lattice-looking welt like a summer camp pot holder.
On the bright side, she was more than willing to take you under the bridal wreath, pull down her shorts and let you see it: "No touching and don't breathe on me!"

Hey, Blue ~
Nice clips.

JaxZ na Stoney, good AM.

I see you and raise you.....

Genesis1:29-30

and we were all vegetarians until after the flood...?

Miss Blue (everyone) good morning to you too!

You're right, that's what it says. Until we got kicked out of Eden anyway. I think the flood involved a lot of other things besides meat getting on the menu.

Weeds? We didn't have to yank them out except for meals. Even the animals (how else would you get that lion peacefully next to that lamb?). All those nouvelle cuisine restaurants trying to reinvent the wheel.... sheesh....

 
 
 
 
JazZ, you have a point; maybe the lion ate lambsquarters.....     : )
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah
 
 
 
 
humans can't seem to keep these 7, much less10.

Or Stachys byzantina, Lamb's Ear? Baaaaaaaaaah.......

 
 
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcndxAyNDYw

If you Yahoo search today's topic "Cursed is the Ground" The Eye comes up #2. Good search engine placement JP. :)

Oh. My. Gosh. Miss Blue they look so YOUNG!

Interesting this topic on weeds which led to herbs and soon might even get to cooking.
Might I also add that it is the 14th of June and FLAG DAY.

Queen Anne's lace is a weed by some definitions. It is in bloom now.

Blue Flag day?

http://www.easywildflowers.com/quality/iri.virgi.htm

 cattail flour pancakes?

Thank you Giraffe (Good morning!), I just made sure mine was hanging correctly after a windy night.

Another weed reference: Widow's weeds; Clothes worn by a widow during a period of mourning for her husband - (from the Old English "Waed" meaning "garment")

Miss Blue that reminds me of one of my childhood favorite books "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George. Sam talks about having to cook some of the tubers before making flour to make them non-poisonous.

I've actually been contemplating making stuffed grape leaves (dolmas) with the leaves of the fox grape plants, climbing up the trees along our creek bluff. I plan on making several fillings, vegetarian and chicken or lamb This just might be the day to do it, as the young leaves will soon become too tough.

http://gnowfglins.com/2006/12/22/stuffed-grape-leaves-dolmas-with-pictures/

Willie,

 those Queen Anne's Lace umbels look lovely with the wild Day Lily flowers blooming along side in the ditch.

Wild milkweed and cardinal flower are other favorites of mine. Funny thing, they thrive in the ditches and along the field edges yet defy cultivation....sorta like some kids I know.

I have some weeding and some cooking to do....i am off for a while...
xoxoxox
all!
 

XO Miss Blue, I can make the daylilies work by my personal roadside, but havwen't yet managed the QAL...

I'm fond of the conversation in Master & Commander between the captain and the doctor, as they discuss how the captain saved the doctor's life:

Doc: I fear you may have burdened me with a debt I can never repay.

Capt: Tosh. Name a shrub after me. Something prickly and hard to eradicate.

Doc: A shrub? Nonsense. I'll name a great tortoise after you.

Hazel, I guess it is amazing what we miss.  I am always telling myself to get the dandelion greens early enough.  I've had them from later in the summer and they are bitter and unpalatable.  Periwinkle for diabetes?  Fascinating.  And Bert, I would not mind trying squirrel.  I had a neighbor in Lansing who filled the larder year round with what he hunted, in season or not.  He would get a deer and use everything, even tanned the hide for moccasins.  He gave me possum and raccoon to try.  I liked both.  Good grief, most Americans now haven't even had rabbit and that is wonderful.  And I'll eat venison any time.  Or elk or antelope.  And I am amazed that in the D.C. area we have not seen beefalo or buffalo.  There's some dude in Maryland raising ostriches now for meat.  It's okay, not great and way over-priced.  Anybody had snake?  I've heard rattler is very good.  Had some snake in China a couple years ago.  Chicken-like.  We are limited to what the food industry wants us to eat, including tomatoes that are durable but have no flavor.  And eggs that are pale and have no flavor.  And must they put sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in everything, even things that shouldn't be sweetened (like humus)?

The Giraffe ~
Thanks for that...

http://www.petermanseye.com/photos/539321

Lynn830

I understand wild ass is always in season in and around D.C.; best served with wild oats.

I won't go near the squirrel comment.

Yes, giraffe, thank you!

Back to work.

Miss Blue,
In regards to being too old for medicine, just think of Sachel Paige (spelling in question). "If you didn't know how old you were, how old would you be?" Followed by my Beloved's indisputable logic "How old will you be in eight years if you don't go to med school?" Please don't limit yourself with such an arbitrary yardstick. Think like a weed and just grow.

Go for it, Miss Blue!

Ode to Weeds- [this Neruda poem is untitled...Neruda would prolly smack me, but he's dead so I feel safe suggesting one...]
 
 
You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.

You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.

You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.

That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.    --Neruda
 
 
 
 

 He's dead? Nobody told...

Miss  Blue,  with  all  due  respect,  you're  NEVER  too  old  to  reach  out  for  your  dreams.....

My grandfather always said that weed was just a flower in the wrong place. Not that this prevented him from setting his kids and grandkids to removing the misplaced flowers when they wanted to share quarters with his vegetable and rose gardens.
 
I have to say that when it comes to what the landscapers and lawn service folks call "lawn weeds" I prefer to have our two acres of yard covered in clover, violets, buttercups, and all the different whildflowers (yes, even dandelions) rather than turn it into a putting green by way of chemicals and extreme mowing. Hopefully, the city council won't create an ordinance restricting the type of plants we can grow in our lawns any time soon.
 
The excessive rains we had this spring messed things up for getting my young dandelion greens but our neighbor who collects mushrooms has been in ecstacy.
 
Its been a long day, and I think when I get home (if it doesn't start raining) I'm going to go out into my wildflower covered back yard, toss out an old blanket and relax with a good book until it's time to make dinner.
 
Cheers!
 
 

Flag day. Mine flys always. There is a lite at the bottom of my deck stairs so it is always lite. 24, 7, 365.

We celebrate not only Flag Day today ... but by happenstance and the movement of the Calendar, this is also the 236th. Birthday of the U.S. ARMY ...
 
May God Bless the ARMY, and all other Branches of the Military too !!!
 
They ALL Fight for us, they all Watch for us ... so that we'll be Safe and can enjoy Life ...
 
HAPPY  BIRTHDAY  ARMY !!!!!!! Congratulations on finally getting rid of that effeminate, Franco-Faggot Beret !!!

Jewelweed soap.  I use it to clear up the rash from poison ivy.  It will
fix you up in no time.  

And for a parting salute...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De1Gvcc2eZc
 
This is a non partisan video. Do not take it as an endorsement of Mitt
Romney or any other Mormon running for office.
I almost said moron, but I didn't.  I didn't.

I've had my flag flying all da--right over the weedy yard.....

I'm sorry, I don't know how to post links, but if you need a smile, check out Bill and Ben The Flowerpot Men - an old BBC TV children's programmme. The female interest was Little Weed, who grew behind the flower pots. Bill and Ben speak Gobbledegook, but the narrator speaks posh old-fashioned BBC English. I'd forgotten how funny it is. If you can get the page up, the side salads to stuff like Andy Pandy are equally amusing.

Pablo Neruda on weeds is like Ludivigne Sagnier on auto repair.
Wrong.
Wrong I tell ya!
That's gotta leave a mark!

http://youtu.be/DW95ayqhuCE

I think weeds got a bad rap.... Something deep onside me says i was conditioned to not appreciate them sa much as i was conditioned to appreciate their hoity-toitu cousins, the flowers.

The poor weed has been labeled as being invasive. I say they were suppressed and concquered by the evil consortium that invented lawns and lawn mowers..... Pprobably so the could see things from inside that were approaching from the outside befote those creatures on the outside could sneak up on them and have their way, whatever their way might have been back then.

After all, not every household could afford to install a draw bridge and dig a moat.

Weeds are usually pointed at as being responsible for most allergies even though flowers, trees and bushes are equally guilty. When i dissembark from an airplane in Phoenix, my sinuses and eyes can immedietely determine if the olive trees are in bloom.

Mad scientist and evil botonists have been playing god with flowers, mixing and matching at will.....creating new hybrid species that are coloured differenly or changing/eliminating their scent. They love naming these new Frankenflowers after themselves to gain some sort of immortality.

Meanwhile, the humle but hardy weed 'keeps on a tickin' and doesn't take a lickin' from man or beast...... They have even learned to survive all man's introduction of new and improved weed killers tnat won't harm your lawns........ But they always come back.

Remember when you were small and it was such a big compliment to be told you were growing up health and strong.... Just like a weed.

If there is ever an 'invasion of the body snatchers'....... I'll bet the pods come from flowers, not weeds.... Just saying.......

er, LUDIVINE  ... luudy to her pals, whereas I am luddy to my pals.

Sorry about the typos.... Fat fingers strike strike too small keys again........

Mr. Peterman quotes from the Bard in today's lead-in post. But in this case, the best retort for the Bard comes from the Bard himself: in the soliloquy of Friar Lawrence, the apothecary, in "Romeo and Juliet:"

"I must upfill this ossier cage of ours
with baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers....

O mickle
is the powerful grace that lies
in plants, herbs, stones,
and their true qualities.

For naught so vile on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give."

Tremendous find in Gastonia-Nick's where having a superb steak- a copper ale- while watching Rome Adventure with Troy Donahue on the big screen was made better by a cutie pie server who worked impeccably while in the weeds, a term any one around the restaurant biz would understand.

Jalopkin, my Airborn Father, Uncle, Father-in-law, and Beloved Husband all loved their berets and those still living are quite happy the LEGs have returned to patrol caps at least in the field. Should you ever come across a Ranger, Special Forces or just Airborn soldier calling their beret a "Franco Fagot" beret could lead to a conversation I certainly would not want to have. Trivia information for those unfamiliar with folks who willing jump out of perfectly good airplanes, LEG is considered an insult and directed at those who walk to war. I told them if I walked slow enough maybe they would have it over by the time this LEG got there.