Hi friends,
I’m glad you enjoyed the fire-starting tips last week. Thank you, Karl, for writing and letting me know that steel wool is also a simple and flammable item to help get a fire started.
Today I went outside to snap a few pictures of garden weeds that are actually pretty nutritious and many people usually throw out.
Turns out that waiting until the end of May to address my garden is a big mistake. Waist-high thistles have taken over an entire eight foot garden bed. Yuck!!
I guess I’m actually growing weeds this year unless I can get the family out for a few work projects outside. 🙂
So, what about those valuable weeds? There are a few, but the one I was able to snap a pic of today is Chickweed!
Chickweed
You might already have Chickweed growing in your landscaping, lawn or garden bed. It can be used to easily add a nice crunch and extra nutrition to your next salad. Full of vitamins like C, D, and B-complex, the weed also has calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, beta carotene, biotin, and more.
1. Identification:
(A caution here: Always make sure you know how to positively identify wild plants, especially ones that may look similar but be dangerous or even poisonous – like how poison hemlock can look a bit like carrots)
Chickweed is a thin, stringy plant that usually spreads along the ground with small leaves and even tinier flowers. If you get close, the flowers actually have five petals that are split down the center so it looks like there are ten.
The leaves are little, teardrop shapes with a point at the tip. They grow opposite each other coming directly out of the stem.
A fun characteristic you’ll want to look for is called a ‘mohawk’. There is a single line of fuzzy hairs that runs along only one side of the length of the stem. This is pretty unusual, so paired with the correct flowers and leaves, you can be positive you have the right plant.
2. Timing:
Chickweed usually grows in spring and fall, dying when it gets down to the teens or up into the hot summer temps.
3. Uses:
Just eat it! Raw, it goes well in salads and pesto. Cooked, it can be added to stir-fries, soups, stews and pretty much anything you would toss in a handful of spinach.
And don’t forget it’s herbal uses. It goes well in salves to help soothe irritated skin and rashes. So grab a bit extra, tie it in a bundle and let it dry somewhere cool, and you’ll have another ingredient to add to your next ointment.
With spring here, I’d love to include more info about herbs we find growing wild around us. If you like to wildcraft, let me know what your favorites are!
Enjoy nature out there!
Take care!
______________________
Misty’s Writing Update:
Another cover update: I got the revised cover back and . . . wow! So much better!
I still gave them a list of minor changes to make some of the elements stand out from others a bit better, but it is such a better cover.
I’ll have to do a newsletter showing you the before and after once we get things finalized.
And in other fun news, I just did an interview with Edwin Rydberg, the host of the Alternate Futures podcast. We had fun discussing what kind of a prepper I consider myself, what the future may hold as well as a few side jaunts into the life of an indie writer and my different series.
Overall a fun experience, and I’ll make sure to grab the link for you when it goes live which will be some time next month, I think?
And the best news of all . . . I wrote the first chapter of book 2 this week and totally loved getting back into it. I still have a laundry list of magic spells to design, how exactly his beast companion will gain abilities, the future of my main character’s magic, etc.
But I just wanted to write, so I may keep winging it and just have to go back and tweak things after the fact. lol.
You’ll find many authors disagree on this process. Some write with no idea where the story is going and claim it adds mystery and the thrill of discover to their stories. Others map out every step in detail, claiming they can organize a better experience, plan out the surprises and foreshadowing, etc.
I’m somewhere in the middle, a mix of the creative and the planning.
Enjoy reading this week and thanks so much for your kind notes. I love getting them!
— Misty 🙂
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