Ahem. Anyway. Gordon Lightfoot is something one can never forget...
What I was MEANING to say is that on Day 6, Saturday, we went to Fort Christmas for a church picnic, arriving at 10:00 AM and staying for most of the day.
We. Had. A. BLAST.
Spanish moss, a-hanging down Sweeter than a sycamore I've found Spanish moss Keeps on following my thoughts around
Ahem. Anyway. Gordon Lightfoot is something one can never forget... What I was MEANING to say is that on Day 6, Saturday, we went to Fort Christmas for a church picnic, arriving at 10:00 AM and staying for most of the day. We. Had. A. BLAST.
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Ahh, Wednesday...a day of infamy and desperation, a day which shall go down in history forever. (Actually, it won't. 'Infamy and desperation' just sounds vaguer and more sinister than 'we had a blast'. XD)
Actually this is Part 1 of Day 1...I took SO many pictures that I'm going to try to post them in bite-sized chunks. I thought about posting pictures of the trip down, but 18 hours of looking at scenery and snapping the occasional uninteresting picture gets kinda boring...so consider the landscape photos struck from this particular post. XD Isaac and I arrived at the Stone's around 4:00 AM, so I crashed in the 'bunkhouse' without really paying attention to my surroundings.
They flow past at breakneck speed, tearing the innocent foliage and limbs from the banks beside them. The tiny trees and houses next to the waters have no hope as they are swept away... Er...swept...away... Okay, I kid, I kid. This is really our ditch/creek in the front yard after a rain. But they really do rush past at breakneck speed. Well, if you're an ant they're breakneck. But I digress. Argh, an untweaked picture...this is our little stone bridge. Sometimes if there's been a LOT of rain, the water is up to 8 inches over the bridge. That's always fun.
Reminds me of the days when we kids would take a big, blue, 500 gallon stock tank (something like this tank), and pole our way up and down the creek. Now that was FUN. We didn't have a plug for the hole in the side, so we would find an old corn cob and use that for a makeshift plug so our 'boat' wouldn't sink. We still got very, very wet on those days...it was a blast. (The big blue tub also doubled as a swimming pool, 'hamster wheel' (we'd balance it on its edge and try to walk around the yard without the tub falling over), hiding place, seat, sword-fighting ring, and makeshift sauna. We had a lot of fun with that old tub.) Goodness. Here I am talking about blue tubs and boating...time to change the subject methinks. So, the upcoming schedule (as far as I can see) is we leave on Friday for Branson, spend the night at the college, and then Saturday Isaac and I will drive back to Florida. *pumps fist* I don't know what goes on past that. XD I do know that I woke up around 3:00 this morning thinking about random things like what I needed to pack...I need to find a way to shut my brain off at night. Sigh. Oh! Last night Mike and I went shopping...it was fun. :D He insisted on buying me a couple of spring-y looking tops (granted, I picked them out, but it was at his insistence XD)...when I tried them on he said that they were cute, and you know what that means, right? I probably will wear these things until they're falling apart in shreds, just because he said they were cute. It's the peculiar effect that his approval has on my mind. Although I AM glad that I have said tops, because I was lamenting just yesterday afternoon that all I have are tank tops (black and grey solids), a few t-shirts, and maybe two button-up shirts in my closet...and said button-ups are rather 'business-like' in nature. *headdesk* Anyway. Enough about clothes... We talked a lot too...he thinks that I ought to go to college. Like, away-from-home college, just to 'get the experience'. I'm...not sure that I agree. Perhaps I'm a minority, but I don't like leaving home (except in a few cases) and from what I've seen a lot of people my age don't know what they want to do in college anyway. They take classes, get a degree, and then end up doing something totally different. And I do NOT want to spend a bunch of money and waste a bunch of time working half-heartedly towards something that I'm not even sure that I want, ya know? Argh...I'd talk more, but I have to go clean a house in a little while and the horses still haven't been fed. Siiiigh... Your hostess, The Fox In my last post I showed off pictures of the comfrey salve that I made yesterday. But for some reason my brain was operating under the temporary assumption that EVERYONE knows what comfrey salve is, and therefore I completely left out any explanation as to what it's for or why I made it. This followup post is an attempt to rectify any misunderstandings. Also, a quick disclaimer: I am an amateur when it comes to herbs, and everything I know is what I've read, researched, or experienced first-hand (the latter is admittedly little). Therefore, just because I say something doesn't mean it's Gospel truth--feel free to double-check what I say. This is also my personal way of making this salve--there are many different ways to experiment with it, and the ingredients here are just what I had on hand. There. Now that that's out of the way a small introduction to comfrey salve is needed. I use this stuff in lieu of antibiotic ointment and liniment for people and animals. I even went through a phase where I was putting it on dry hands (while it did work my skin was VERY greasy for hours, so I don't recommend it unless you have very dry, cracked skin). I've used it for everything from minor scratches to a gaping tear on one of the horses--more on that later--and I have to say that it never disappoints. So! Without any further ado, here is how to make comfrey salve! First off, the cast of characters from left to right: beeswax, plantain oil, comfrey oil, vitamin E oil, sandalwood, and tea tree oil. The sandalwood and tea tree are in dark bottles, but the liquid inside is a very pale clear gold color and very, VERY strong. I'll tell you what each ingredient does later on. I made the plantain oil by harvesting the respective plants (leaves in this case), giving them a rough chop and filling a quart jar, covering the leaves with olive oil, and letting them sit in the sun for about two weeks (with a lid, of course). I shook the jar every day or so, and by the end of two weeks the olive oil had turned a dark green. I strained the leaves out, re-bottled the oil, and popped it in the fridge. It keeps very well--this particular batch has been in the fridge for almost a year now. The comfrey oil was done nearly the same way, but before I chopped the leaves I let them dry a little for about a day. (It was explained to me why at the time, but for the life of me I can't remember. *headdesk*) Then I chopped 'em up, made the infusion in olive oil, and refrigerated like the plantain. Here's what each ingredient does: Plantain--astringent qualities and promotes healing Comfrey--promotes healing and help regrow tissue (also known as 'knitbone') Vitamin E--A preservative Sandalwood--Uh...it smelled good... XD It's mostly used for perfume, so I added it for the smell Tea Tree Oil--Antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral Beeswax--Binds it all together, and gives that 'salve' feel To begin with, I took down a saucepan and put 1/2 cup plantain oil and 1/2 cup comfrey oil together, turned the burner on 'low', and let it start warming up. It never reached boiling temperature--it just needed to be hot enough to melt the beeswax. I added 20 drops of the vitamin E, sandalwood, and tea tree oil to the comfrey/plantain mixture, and let them sit for a minute. (By the way: tea tree oil is very, very, VERY flammable. Don't ask me how I found this out. But trust me when I say that you don't want some to somehow splash down the outside of your saucepan because there will be flames and it will be scary. XD) A note on the saucepan, by the way: I used my mom's nonstick Pampered Chef pan (with her permission) because it wasn't too hard to scrub it out later. But cheap pans will retain the flavor of the salve, so I'd advise not using the pan for food later. According to my herb book the ratio of oil to beeswax should be 1 cup to 1/4 cup. I whittled little bits of beeswax off of my chunk (I bought a 2-lb chunk of light beeswax* from Dadants, a local beekeeping business) and added it to the slowly heating oil, stirred until it was all melted, and then to see if the consistency was right I took a spoonful of the mixture and placed it in the freezer for about two minutes**. Somehow I got it right on the first try, so then it was a piece of cake to spoon the hot salve into the tins. I put them in the fridge for about twenty minutes, put the lids back on the tins, and voila! 14 tins of comfrey salve, finished in about twenty minutes of labor. *You can get 'dark' or 'light' beeswax straight from a beekeeping/honey processing establishment--the main difference is that the 'dark' wax has impurities and is therefore less desireable for making salves or creams.
**Putting a bit of salve in the freezer gives the end consistency: if it's too liquidy, more beeswax is needed. Too firm, more oil. I was looking up different kinds of plantain online, and here was a very interesting page that has the varieties of plantain in a pictoral reference: http://www.shammelle.com/HelpfulStuff/Plantain/tabid/71/Default.aspx I've never heard of using it on brown recluse bites, but I'm not going to immediately doubt it. I HAVE used it on normal bug bites, and it does work. Anyway, enjoy this little block of information, and feel free to ask me about whatever crosses your mind. I love talking about herbs. :D Your hostess, The Fox Yesterday we had a missionary from Nepal come and speak at our church, and in honor of his visit we had an 'international foods' night. Check out this bread: This is some AMAZING pita bread that a wonderful lady we call 'Miss Debbie' (she's married, but 'miss' sounds more natural than 'missus') made. She's my mom's best friend, her husband is our farrier, and her kids and me and my brothers all grew up together--we go back a long way. :D The bread was so pretty that I took another picture, just for the heck of it. XD Oh, and THIS is a Greek dessert called baklava. It's phyllo dough, chopped nuts, honey, LOTS of butter, and cinnamon sugar. It makes my heart race just to look at it. Isn't that just gorgeous? *drools* For the dinner I made orange chicken (it turned out to be one of the most popular foods that evening--I was kinda surprised) and there were a TON of other dishes from Hungary, Sudan, Japan, Thailand...the list goes on. Suffice to say there was a LOT of food and lots that I had never heard of before. I believe there were about 50 people there...we had seating for 50, anyway. I hauled the tables courtesy of my horse trailer (there's a bit of a story behind that too XD) and instead of pews at church we had these really nice, soft chairs, so for seating it was just a matter of moving the chairs around. It was a pretty lengthy evening (I moved tables at 10 AM, came home, and was back at the church from 4:30 to 8:00 last evening), but an enjoyable one. The missionary was from Nepal, and his talk about the culture, people, and conditions of the country was very interesting to listen to. Here's the missionary: he's a very nice youngish fellow with two kids under the age of 7. The table he's standing in front of has some ethnic-related paraphernilia and little business cards on it. After we ate he spoke for about forty-five minutes, mostly about the people and the difficulties and stories that come along with being a missionary. (This morning we had another set of missionaries from India, and one of them was trying to get me to go into the missionary field. Let's just say that while I have a great deal of respect for the people who DO go into that field, I'm not sure if I'm meant for that line of work. I dunno, I was thinking about it after church and decided to throw my half-formed train of thought up here.) Last set of food shots, I promise. These are canolli--I wish that I had had more of an appetite (alas, due to munching earlier in the afternoon I could hardly eat), but unfortunately I cannot tell you what these tasted like. They looked very good, though. :D Oh yes, this is our pastor's son. He's adorable from a distance, but the only time he spoke to me was to inform me and my friend that we were 'going DOWN'. After that I had to resist the urge to clothesline the little stinker every time he ran past. (Pastor Chris? If you're reading this I'm just kidding on that last bit. He's too short to clothesline anyway.) (I'M JOKING, OKAY??) Right. On to other things. Yesterday Will (the one in the center XD) spent the whole day at at a Solo and Ensemble competition. When he came to church, these two young ladies were with him. Smile, everyone!
Incidentally, Will got first in the competition in a room of 27 people. This, my dear anonymous blog friends, is very good. He also got the lead in the school play of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'. (Have I mentioned this already? If so, I apologize.) (I watched 'Seven Brides' last night, by the by. It's just as corny as I remember. *shudder*) In closing, last evening was very enjoyable. I didn't eat much due to the aforementioned munching earlier in the day, but I got to talk with friends, take pictures, and generally act like a goofball. XD Your hostess, The Fox Yesterday I snapped a TON of pictures. A few of them were taken using either my 'macro' setting or zooming in on faraway objects, and I have them put in an album on Picasa. This is just a few of them--go and take a look at the rest and descriptions here: http://picasaweb.google.com/molly.nolden/MacroAlbum# Oh, and because I'm a dweeb and couldn't resist doing this, I took the stereotypical self-portrait-in-a-reflection picture. And because I was so pleased with the first one I took another. And another. I have no excuses for this idiocy...I would apologize but I'm not really sorry, so you're stuck with my unrepentent self. XD
Last topic: today was the first day that I rode Colletta this year. She was understandably excited, so much so that she was gawking at EVERYTHING and weaving so badly that she would make a drunk look like a steady, calm, reliable citizen. *shakes head* Oy. Last-last subject: tomorrow I'm hauling tables in my horse trailer to church for a dinner. And I'm making Orange Chicken. I've been a busy person, in other words. And now, without any further ado, I shall let you dear people go back to your normal lives. Your uncommonly gracious hostess (not really, I just like to say that), The Fox I'm serious, people. I don't think I've ever been this stupid.
So the story to date: I've been getting my Etsy account up and running in the past few weeks. Part of the process involves getting a Paypal account and linking my Paypal and bank account, blah blah. All very simple stuff to work through. In theory. When I tried to log into my bank account to get everything in sync, I kept getting an error message saying that my 'username was invalid'. Weird, I thought, so I called the bank and inquired as to this error. They gave me a temporary password for resetting, and I tried again after getting off the phone. Same error. I didn't feel like continuing this saga more than necessary, so I figured that I'd try again the next day. Same error. This continued on and off for almost a WEEK, people. Finally I got so frustrated that I called the bank again and unloaded my woes (in the nicest way possible, of course XD). The lady on the other end, bless her heart ((ACK. Attack of the mom-ism!)), was very nice and patient with me and did her best to help me out. Around this time I noticed something weird: the website I had been futiley (is that a word?) trying to log into had a picture of the state of Texas. ...I live in Illinois. In a flash things suddenly became clear: not only had I tried to log into the TEXAS version of my bank branch, but I had spent a WEEK and not even noticed that darned picture. Can we say ditzy? Blonde? Absent-minded? Yes, yes, and YES. I started laughing in embarrassment, explained to the lady on the phone my mistake, and scuttled over to the correct site with my tail between my legs. My mom heard the whole thing, and I don't think she'll ever let me live that down. Your absent-minded hostess, The Fox (P.S. I have never used the mom-ism 'bless her heart' ever before...this is vaguely disturbing.) 1. This chocolate is AMAZING. It may be milk chocolate, but DANG, it's GOOD milk chocolate. (A note about the price: there's a store locally that takes semi-truck-loads of foodstuffs and sells them for ultra-cheap prices. The truck loads are from trucks that are over their weight limit for shipping for whatever reason, and the food would go to waste otherwise.) Each little gold foil thingy has six squares--I've taken to eating two squares after dinner (or lunch, or breakfast... XD) Looky, looky--there's the almonds, and that little dark round thing is a dried blueberry. At least, it'd BETTER be a dried blueberry. After the almonds-in-a-tube incident I have become distrustful of food that comes in a packet. *looks around shifty-eyed* 2. I have started another fingerless glove set, whoop de doo. XD One is finished, the second one has yet to be started. This is a 'spiral' pattern, and the other glove will spiral in the opposite direction. My knitting time for these things is becoming shorter and shorter--this one only took me maybe 4 1/2 hours to knit. It used to take me much longer. How much longer? Sorry, that information is classified. Suffice to say, it was a long time. XD Rawr, fear my fist of rage! (Ooh, I have fingernails now! Finally stopped biting the darned things, and they look halfway decent if I say so myself!) 3. I have started a watercolor self-portrait. It's...coming along. I need to work on it when I'm done here. 4. I found this picture a while back. I drew this six years ago, when I was 12...I believe it was for 4-H that year. Anyway, it's always interesting to see my old work and see how far I've come along. (This was the 'best' picture I had done that year--all the other ones are supremely embarrassing in their lack of basic knowledge, art-wise).
Off to paint, Your hostess, The Fox |
Molly Rose
Multifacted obsessionist and all-around randomosity generator Journal
March 2011
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