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Saturday, May 31, 2008

Honeygar and my cold

Awhile ago I read about something called honeygar. It's basically a mixed of honey and vinegar that you mix into water and drink. It's said to be helpful for colds and flu. A little while later I read that someone infused her honey with onion and garlic, so that her honeygar would have that extra antibacterial punch. So I decided to try. I filled a jar with honey, chopped up some garlic and onion and allowed it to sit for awhile. You can read about that here if you missed it.

Well this week I got a cold, probably from spending hours in doctor's office waiting rooms lately. By Wednesday I was laying on the couch, snuggled up under an afghan with all the throw pillows fussing at people who dared to walk in front of the TV :) Then I remember my honey.

I hadn't actually mixed the honey and apple cider vinegar together into the honeygar yet, and I didn't really remember the ratio and I didn't feel like going to find my notes on the subject so I did what I thought might be the right ratio. Which was 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon garlic and onion honey into 1 large glass of water.

That, by the way, is not the correct formula. (The correct recipe is at the bottom of the post)It was not very tasty. I couldn't make myself drink the whole thing. I took large gulps to get it over with as soon as possible and got down maybe half the glass.

But even though it wasn't mixed exactly right, my bedtime that night I was feeling tons better. And the next day? Completely cured except for my voice which still sounded a little horse.

I don't know if the cold had run it's course or if the honeygar worked, but I'm definitely going to try it again next time.

Random bits of information:

  • garlic is antiviral
  • Lymph nodes swell during illness because they're filtering out and therefore filling with the poisons from your body. Apple cider vinegar works as a lymphic cleanser.
  • Some foods help form mucus and should be avoided during a cold, raw dairy, like cheeses, sweets, raw veggies and salads (your body has to heat them up before they can be digested taking energy away from the army fighting whatever bug you have in your system)

Recipe for Honeygar
2 parts apple cider vinegar
1 part honey
Mixed into one glass warm water.

The honey and the vinegar can be infused with herbs if you'd like.



Monday, May 12, 2008

A few more identified

If you remember this post, I promised to post more pictures as I identified them. Well here they are. I'm no expert, yet, but I referenced several books and website for my identification and then checked the list of vascular plants that the part provides. Here is what I came up with.

These are MayApple (Podophyllum peltatum)

May Apple
May Apple
The flowers hide under the leaves.

I believe this is a Mockernut Hickory tree (Carya alba)
Mockernut Hickory  Carya alba


This one, the only one I saw all day, is Catsby's Trillium (Trillium catesbaei)
Catesby's Trillium (Trillium catesbaei)
A better view of the flower
Catesby's Trillium (Trillium catesbaei)

and last but not least, I think this one is a Yellow Morel (Morchella)
Yellow Morel?




Built like a brick . . .

More Knittingness . . .

I didn't really have the cash to buy Mother's Day presents for my mom and grand mom so I decided to make them some dishcloths. Last time I was at Mom's house she said something about grandma wanting some so I thought 'What the heck?' Hi Mom *waves*

I made one for myself first to try out the pattern. I don't have a picture of it since I started using it as soon as it was finished :P But it's blue "bricks" with lighter blue between.

I really like this pattern. It's easy, it works up quickly, (I think I averaged 2 hours per cloth, watching tv) and the pattern is pretty easy to memorize so you don't have to keep count of rows and keep referring to the pattern. Plus I like the way the cotton feels in my hand.

Dishcloths

I used size 7 needles and a total of 7 colors of Lily's Sugar 'n cream (Citrus Fruits, Sunshine, Rose Pink, Soft Ecru, Sage Green, Hot Blue, and Faded Denim if you're into that)

If you're from Ravelry my project link is here
For everyone else the pattern is available here

I think I like the ones where the bricks are the darker color. I love that you can use a very small amount of one of the yarns at a time. It's a great way to use up small bits! Yes some of the yarn used to make these came from the colorful bag monstrosity:P Waste not want no don'tcha know.








Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Everlasting Bagstopper

I haven't posted any knittingness lately so, here ya go :) I've been thinking of knitting a market bag for awhile now. I searched through Ravelry and downloaded and printed a few versions that I thought I'd try. Most of them ask for cotton or hemp yarn and all I had in the stash was small bits of cotton left over from dishcloths and soap socks. So I decided to use up those small bits and make a stripy bag. It started out well, but then I got bored with the stitch pattern and just started garter stitching all the way around.

Here it is
DSC02469

Lovely huh? I think I'm scared of that much color :P It's completely shapeless and the handle is waaay too long. It was spacious though :P I ripped it all out and now have little balls of dishcloth material again.

So, since I still wanted a bag and since I wanted one John would carry at the Farmer's Market and since I had a skein of plain light brown acrylic I decided to go with that. This time I followed the pattern, well almost, it's really hard for my knitting rebel side to follow all the directions, and came out with a lovely bag.

DSC02467

The pattern is called The Everlasting Bagstopper I really like it, it has a sturdy, flat, bottom with a few rows of smaller stitches to keep things from falling through. Samantha used it to haul her load of books back to the library and to haul the new ones home and it preformed well. So well, in fact, that I haven't seen it since. I'm going to have to go rescue it from her room soon. Perhaps I'll make her one of her own.

By the way, those two bags are holding the same things, a reusable water bottle, a copy of Stephen King's IT, and a skien of Paton's Merino.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

South Mountains State Park

This is where I spent my day yesterday. South Mountains State Park. http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/somo/main.php

That is the Jacob’s Fork River. I love sitting out on the big rocks in the middle of the river and hearing nothing but the water rushing by and the wind. There was a squirrel who felt the need to fuss at me from his tree every so often though.

There is a lovely waterfall to see if you hike up the mountain. I didn’t hike up there today though, so no pictures. You can see it at their website linked above if you’d like.

I took lots of pictures of plants while we walked around. I don’t know what most of them are yet. I really need to work on my identification skills, but here are a few I recognize.

This is a Pawpaw tree (Asimina). You can see the dark purple flowers here. They’ll turn into fruits soon.

PawPaw

This is Dog Hobble (Leucothoe D. Don) I’ve heard it’s called this because a hunter’s dog will try to run through it when on the chase only to get all tangled up in the stems.

Dog Hobble

Dog Hobble

There was loads of Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia L.) Although they weren’t flowering quiet yet.

Mountain Laurel

There were also quite a few dogwoods (Cornus) along the river bank. So lovely, you don’t see the branches at first so they just look like white flowers floating in the air.

DogWood

There were lots of Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron) trees as well. Here is a flower and some leaves that the tree decided to drop onto my lunch plate.

Tulip Poplar Leaves and Flower

And lots of Rhododendron (Rhododendron L.) Which I’m not particularly fond of: P

Rhodedendron

UpClose Rhodedendron

I'll post the rest of the pics as I identify them.

Oh one more thing. After a rest I picked my backpack up from the ground and there was a caterpillar on it. I let it crawl onto my hand and took it over to the plants to release it. I held it near a leaf expecting it to crawl from my hand onto the leaf. Instead it sat on my hand and began eating the leaf! LoL it was amazing. I gently pulled away from the leaf and released it onto a stem of that plant instead. Crazy bugs.