Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Burdock Flowers


I spent several hours digging up the root from this plant. It is VERY large, about a foot long in some cases. My research shows that it has many medicinal properties ( what doesn't ) but I have yet to make the root well, ahem, palatable. I am working on a lotion- like balm but so far it smells like the cat box. Not a good marketing edge !!
TBC .....the neophyte wildcrafter herbalist...

Friday, August 22, 2008

Wildcrafting and other fun beyond worrying about how old you are


Well, since I've managed to survive from 50 to 51 without feeling much different, I think it is time to move beyond the age issue and focus on good stuff like herbs! Wild Herb harvesting , digging, planting and growing! This summer in Llano Largo has been prolific and green.More wild plants have sprouted and thrived on a daily basis than I have EVER witnessed in NM, albeit my time here has been four summers and various holidays.
Some of these herbs/ wild plants( ie weeds) I have harvested this summer are:

burdock
mullein
yarrow
mint
beebalm ( ??)
flax
vervain
red clover
rose hips ( the size of cherries!)


oh and APRICOTS! Oh my....what a harvest...what a dream...oooohhhhh


So I'm in the learning process of how to preserve these bounties.I have made tinctures with cheeeeaapp vodka from the Indian store and attempted infused oil with the burdock root ( that stuff is narly, stinky and GIANT) .So....you three readers of this blog ( you know who you are ) please help! What do I do with these wonderful things , besides irritate my easily irritated husband with piles of "rotting leaves".

Help!!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Road To Llano


Our home in New Mexico is located in a fertile valley which used to be a swamp area 100 years ago. Thanks to over forestation and global warming, we are able to live in what I believe is one of the most spectacular places on earth. I wrote this poem when I was snow shoeing up the hillside in March. The Taos Horsefly, a left wing local rag, was planning to publish it in the June issue. Then they decided to discontinue the poetry section due to "the paper shrinking".

Road to Llano

Foraging the coyote trail to Llano
my boots sink into deep snow, thigh-deep.
Winter skies pale against translucent snow.

The pine leaves drop tiny blessings
like wishes or holy water,
they transform into dew as I hike.

An icy paw print
then bloody rib cage
leads to the half eaten beast.

I gasp
a hoof, then a gnarled furry leg
a horse’s head is frozen in ice.

Who could do this
Who could do this
Who could do this

My body is still with sadness
softness of quiet snow buffers my heartbeat
there is no witness to this outrage.

I will bridle you with golden rope
we will fly like winged conquistadors
above frozen hayfields

And when we glide far beyond
trout rivers and raspberry banks
we will sing

the broken song of the crow.
Wildly galloping through air
our bodies will become whole again.

Christine Wagner

Christine Wagner lives part time in Llano Largo near Penasco. She dreams of life there year round with an array of farm animals and fruit trees.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Bicycle Crash


OK, so I did it. It's that sort of thing that every triathlete or cyclist fears might happen one day. Most of us have had an accident or two, or three, but I pride myself on being careful Of course REALLY careful would be not to ride at all, but I mean watchful, vigilant and smart about riding in the city. So I was doing intervals on Spicewood Springs Road. 3 mins on, 3 mins recovery. This sort of entails looking at the Garmin like kid glued to the ipod. At least I wasn't hooked up to my ipod! So I have finished about 5 of these drills and I'm headed home. This means I have to cross 360, a notoriously busy highway with wide shoulders. Cyclists ride out there all of the time, despite cars whizzing by at 60+ . So I thought I'd just add a couple more reps and turned up 360 going south. There's are beautiful Korean or Chinese Temple there on the right hand side of the road with a strikingly large eye catching golden Buddha. I was admiring the Buddha when I looked up and saw to my shock, a car about 10 feet directly in front of me. There wasn't time to do much of anything except try to slow down and brace for the impact. Yikes! Slam! Fortunately or unfortunately, my rather large Bucky Beaver front teeth took a lot of the impact. Wham, my hands jammed into the back of the car knocking me over on the pavement. I was a bit stunned. My right foot was still locked into my pedal. Man. Who parks on 360? I thought I might be ready to get chewed out, but no one came out of the car. It was apparently stalled and abandoned. I stood up gingerly. Everything hurt, but I was in one piece. managed to get myself back on the bike and slowly glided on the shoulder back towards home. I felt my lip was cut and my right front tooth was pushed down about 4m lower than the others. IT was numb. Then I noticed my little finger was swelling bigger than my glove. It was starting to throb. I managed to get home and this is what I saw in the mirror. Humm, and nobody even stopped to help. Wow.
What a bad week to quit heroin!

Friday, May 9, 2008

Saturday, May 3, 2008

So what CAN they eat?

Ike REALLY likes walnuts and we use them as a reward food.

Yahoo! Answers - My dog likes eating walnuts. Is this safe?
Grapes and Raisins: Grapes and raisins can cause kidney failure in dogs. As little as a single serving of raisins can kill a dog.

Onions: Onions destroy red blood cells and can cause anemia.

Chocolate: Chocolate can cause seizures, coma and death. Baker’s chocolate is the most dangerous. A dog can consume milk chocolate and appear to be fine because it is not as concentrated, but it is still dangerous.

Coffee, Coffee grounds, tea and tea bags: Drinks/foods containing caffeine cause many of the same symptoms chocolate causes.

Macadamia Nuts: Macadamia nuts can cause weakness, muscle tremor and paralysis.

Animal fat and fried foods: Excessive fat can cause pancreatitis.

Bones: Bones can splinter and damage a dog’s internal organs.

Tomatoes: Tomatoes can cause tremors and heart arrhythmias. Tomatoe plants and the most toxic, but tomatoes themselves are also unsafe.

Avocados: The fruit, pit and plant are all toxic. They can cause difficulty breathing and fluid accumulation in the chest, abdomen and heart.

Nutmeg: Nutmeg can cause tremors, seizures and death.

Apples, Cherries, Peaches and similar fruit: The seeds of these fruits contain cyanide, which is poisonous to dogs as well as humans. Unlike humans, dogs do not know to stop eating at the core/pit and easily ingest them.

Raw eggs: Raw eggs can cause salmonella poisoning in dogs. Dogs have a shorter digestive tract than humans and are not as likely to suffer from food poisoning, but it is still possible.

Salt: Excessive salt intake can cause kidney problems.

Food that most dogs can eat:

Some “human” foods are good for dogs. Most of these are healthier than the boxed treats you buy in the grocery store. This is just a small list of examples of foods dogs can eat, not a list of every food they should eat. Dogs won’t necessarily get all the nutrients they need if they eat these foods exclusively, so check with your veterinarian if you are interested in feeding your dog a home cooked diet.
Any food that causes stomach upsets or digestive problems in your dogs should be avoided. Like people, some dogs cannot tolerate certain foods

Meats:
Meats should be boneless and it’s best if the skin is removed. I don’t consider raw meat a good idea because of the small risk of food poisoning and parasites.
Skinless, boneless chicken breast
Skinless, boneless turkey breast
Boneless fish

Vegetables:
Dogs have shorter digestive tracts than humans and cannot digest most vegeta- bles whole or in large chunks. It’s best to put them through a food processor be- fore giving them to your dog
Carrots
Green Beans
Lettuce
Potatoes
Yams

Grains:
Grains should not be given in large amounts or make up a large part of a dog’s diet, but these foods are generally safe in small amounts
Rice
Bread

Dairy products:
Use caution with dairy products as they are high in fat and can cause pancreati- tis, gas and diarrhea. Usually,
nonfat plain yogurt is safe in small amounts





Other potential dangers
Pear pips, the kernels of plums, peaches and apricots, apple core pips (contain
cyanogenic glycosides resulting in cyanide posioning)

Potato peelings and green looking potatoes

Rhubarb leaves

Mouldy/spoiled foods

Alcohol

Yeast dough

Coffee grounds, beans & tea (caffeine)

Hops (used in home brewing)

Tomato leaves & stems (green parts)

Broccoli (in large amounts)

Raisins and grapes

Cigarettes, tobacco, cigars

Nuts

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Stop the senseless beating of baby seals for fur.

Protect Seals | Save Baby Seals | Stop the Canadian Seal Hunt

Powered by ScribeFire.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

DNA test for dogs


Identify Mixed Breed Dogs by DNA: Genetic Tests Available to Detect Your Mutt's Composition

This is sort of like knowing if your baby is a boy or a girl, except your baby is a dog. There appear to be two tests on the market, the Canine Heritage Test
for $75 and the Mars Wisdom Panel™ MX Mixed Breed Analysis test
only done through a vet's office and $100 or so. It tests for over 130 breeds and has 99% accuracy, while the other test is only currently including 38 breeds but can be done at home with a saliva swab.
Hummm. If the stock market weren't currently tanking, I might seriously look at this as an answer for the ongoing question, 'What kind of dog is that?" .


Powered by ScribeFire.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Sound waves snuff fire

WTF ?

In 2004 Dmitriy Plaks and several of his fellow students at the
University of West Georgia tested whether sound waves can douse fires
in hopes of using sound to extinguish flames in a spacecraft. They
placed a candle in a large topless chamber with three bass speakers
attached to the walls. The candle was lit and the Canadian rock band
Nickelback's "How you remind me" was pumped through the subwoofers.
Within roughly 10 seconds, once the song hit a low note, the flame was
out, according to results published in 2005 in The Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America.

Sound waves snuff fire - Boing Boing


But the BIG question is, what if they played the Rolling Stones "Devil's Banquet" ?

Glad I'm not that guy in the photo!



Work It Out: More Activity = Slower Aging: Scientific American

New study links exercise to greater longevity

By Lisa Stein

AGING FAST: A new study shows that lack of exercise may speed the aging process.
iStockPhoto

Warning, couch potatoes: resting on your laurels may be hazardous to your health, not to mention make you old before your time.

"A sedentary lifestyle increases the propensity to aging-related disease and premature death," researchers at King's College London report today in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. "Inactivity may diminish life expectancy not only by predisposing to aging-related diseases but also because it may influence the aging process itself."

Researcher Lynn Cherkas and colleagues reached their conclusions by examining the genetic material extracted from blood samples of some 2,400 twins. They specifically studied the length of telomeres (repeated DNA sequences) on the ends of chromosomes in leukocytes (white blood cells); the protective caps are believed to be markers of biological aging, because they shrink over time.

Their findings: the telomeres of subjects who exercised the most (an average of 199 minutes weekly) were longer than those of volunteers who worked out the least (a mere 16 minutes or less a week). The discrepancy was enough, researchers wrote, to suggest that the exercise mavens were on average as much as a decade biologically younger than the slackers.

"Such a relationship between leukocyte telomere length and physical activity level remained significant after adjustment for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity at work," the authors report. "The mean difference in leukocyte telomere length between the most active and least active subjects was 200 nucleotides (chemical structural units of DNA and RNA), which means that the most active subjects had telomeres the same length as sedentary individuals up to 10 years younger, on average."

The scientists speculate that stress, inflammation and oxidative stress (cell damage caused by oxygen exposure) may be responsible for shortened telomeres in physically inactive people. Exercise is among the factors found to help alleviate stress. Previous research has linked regular workouts to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, obesity and osteoporosis.

The researchers note that their findings support U.S. guidelines calling for individuals to exercise moderately for 30 minutes at least five days a week. "Our results. . . show that adults who partake in regular physical activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals," they say. "This conclusion provides a powerful message that could be used by clinicians to promote the potential anti-aging effect of regular exercise."


Powered by ScribeFire.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Society and Solitude

"Made by hand, the craft object bears the fingerprints, real or metaphorical, of the person who fashioned it. These fingerprints are not the equivalent of the artist’s signature, for they are not a name."
- Octavio Paz (b. 1914)

Octavio Paz’s route was his own, not mine, but behind that route a path is traceable, and in that path I recognize an invaluable lesson: society and solitude — how to make these two compatible? His answer was to live life in full, alone and with others. To make oneself present by tracing one’s past and betting on the future.
Ilan Stavans

Monday, January 28, 2008

So people die

The most famous feature on the Devils Thumb is its unclimbed Northwest Face, which rises 6,700 feet from the Witches Cauldron at its base to the summit, at an average angle of 67 degrees. This is unparalleled steepness for a face this size in North America. Unfortunately, the conditions prevalent on this face make it into perhaps the most dangerous climbing proposition on the continent as well.

Climbing history

The first ascent of the Devils Thumb was a landmark in North American mountaineering. Fred Beckey, along with Clifford Schmidtke, and Bob Craig, climbed the East Ridge, a route that combined technical difficulty equal to anything ever climbed on the continent to that time with great remoteness and terrible weather conditions.

The infamous Northwest Face has seen only failed attempts starting in 1977 (possibly earlier), through the present; at least three teams have died on the face.

Early August, 1977: Peter Cole,Nichols Rouner, and Rainsford Rouner. Finding the wall virtually devoid of snow or ice and with no obvious lines up the apparently rotten rock, the trio opted for a line heading to the west buttress, along the couloir that forms the right-hand margin of the face. Starting on an adjacent buttress below the Witches’ Tits, they continued across a hanging glacier.While the three were soloing, tragedy struck: Nichols died from rockfall.

He was almost 6'6", strong as lightening with a kind and quiet face, remarkably patient with her teenage moodiness. He flew in from Seattle that August of 1975 still smelling of mountains, crusty rocks, mossy green craggy holds. But mostly he came with a dare to dream, the dare to dream that you can only get from having parents who love you so much that they want your dreams to live .They hold you safely and let you go , they smile at your cleverness and delight in your charmed movements. They even encourage you to climb. And climb he did. Often and well. Beyond well, spectacularly well . But more significant than that, he discovered that climbing brought him close to God , wholeness , life and death. He pursues it like fire, relentlessly, without doubt, with his whole physique, with his soul.

Climbing is his world within and the world without , without loss. He cannot possibly lose while racing the sunset, holing up against searing winds and sleet , sleeping tied to the icy bare rock with only ice ax as companion. This is a sharp, dangerous world, but that this is the ONLY real world that he wants to exist in. Now and forever.

There's was a quick summer romance between teenagers. She was the long distance blond girl with the Texas drawl who liked to sing and play guitar.He was the Boston bred poet athlete. They were just about happiness , discovery and flying across the country on a whim. She was moody and often sad, he was in love with grace of thought and heart. Over the distance and months they lost touch. The melancholy summer romance girl continues to study and dream her life in Texas . Sometimes wishing to be a poet, a healer, a songwriter, a teacher .Seasons and years go by .She sees struggles, disappointment, moderate success and sometimes achieves true self expression. She doesn't think often of the August nights thirty one years ago when she was 18 and he was 17. She remembers more the vibrant aliveness during those hikes in Colorado sleeping in thunderstorms, hiding in drenched tents, hiking in open meadows with the blossoming columbine, being certain that life held good things. Missing that cedar scent of promise mostly. One day many many years later, she thinks of looking him up. She does a search and discovers that he died in 1977 perhaps just a year or two after their summer, on a mountain in Alaska. Her heart is broken for him and even more for his family. No one had bothered to tell her. She understands this. So thirty one years after, she writes for him.

True to yourself
you fell
backwards
in white hot sunshine
face upwards toward the reddened sky

Never once regretting
the fall
not from life
but toward light

your mother , the poet,
cried out in her sleep
what have you done?

without reservation
you answer

I have lived
I have lived

Friday, January 18, 2008

beautifly written , on positive emotions



PEPLab - Introduction
You have -- within you -- the fuel to thrive and to flourish,
and to leave this world in better shape than you found it.
Sometimes you tap into this fuel – other times you don’t.
But the sad fact is that most people have no idea
how to tap into this fuel or even recognize it when they do.
Where is this fuel within you?

You tap into it whenever you feel energized and excited by new ideas.
You tap into it whenever you feel at one with your surroundings, at peace.
You tap into it whenever you feel playful, creative, or silly.
You tap into it whenever you feel your soul stirred by the sheer beauty of existence.
You tap into it whenever you feel connected to others and loved.
In short, you tap into it whenever positive emotions resonate within you.

-----


Powered by ScribeFire.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Bottled water is VERY bad for the environment



FilterForGood: Home

Duh! I've been trying to find a good water filter that doesn't take a nucleur physicist to install.


Powered by ScribeFire.