Herbs - November 24, 2025

In the sewing room, the embroidery machine is stitching out some gift tags for a friend.  They're felt tags, with metal eyelets for ribbons.  This is the second batch I've made; I sort of screwed up the eyelets on the first batch, so I'm trying again, being a little wiser this time.  

In the new planter, greens are coming up like crazy.  So far, nothing has dug in the dirt, but there are strange humps raised up, here and there.  I can't figure out what's making them, for I smoothed the dirt evenly when I finished planting.  Now that I think about it, though, there are some potato peelings (and other kitchen scraps) between the dirt and the leaves.  If those humps are the result of potatoes trying to sprout, I'm going to be kind of pissed, for I did not put them in there to make plants and grow potatoes.  

Walking around in the yard for the past couple of weeks, I spied all sorts of green growth on the ground.  Weeds, you know.  I finally decided to research these weeds and discovered that almost all of them have some medicinal benefits.  There's a phenomenal patch of chickweed growing in one of the flower beds.  I've been letting it grow simply because it's kind of pretty (if I'd planted it on purpose, I'd be proud of it).  Come to find out, the stuff is good to eat and good for topical applications.  The yard is full of "dead nettle."  It, too, is good for medicine.  Yesterday, I cut some and started a tincture to include in some salve I intend to make.

I haven't yet done anything with the cherry bark that I peeled last week.  

But I have cute tins to put salve in . . . if I ever make any.

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It's a dreary, rainy, somewhat chilly day.  At 1:00, I braved the elements to run errands.  First on my list was to mail a package to a friend.  When I got to the shipping store, I found that I'd left out the Christmas card I'd intended to include in the package.  Oh, well, I'll whack a stamp on it and put it in the mail tomorrow.  The second errand was to pick up The Husband's drugstore prescription.  When I got home and opened the bag, I discovered that they'd given me the wrong prescription, some nausea suppositories for my son, whose first name is the same as The Husband's and who lives across the road from us.  Little Miss at the counter didn't pay attention to the street number I gave her.  Next stop, the post office to buy stamps for the Christmas cards I've painted.  The clerk at the counter - the same one I wanted to shank the last time I visited the post office - barely had time to help me because of her conversation with someone around the corner.  When the postal display gave me the "how did we do?" choice of a frowny face, a meh face, or a smiley face, I chose the meh face.  And considered it a generosity.

Final stop, the grocery store, to get Bisquick for the chicken & dumplings I intend to make for dinner.  I hadn't had lunch and wanted everything I saw, so the Bisquick ended up costing me $33.00.