The Jewelweed Plant

All summer long I have been struggling with an invasive plant which has been growing in the bushes under my kitchen window.  Every now and then, I go out and pull out big bundles of this plant. They pull out super easy with a shallow root system, but I had to stomp down the bushes to get to some of them.  I never inquired as to what this plant was.  I just knew it grew everywhere.  It did have a pretty little flower which I liked, but I couldn't confine these plants to a certain area so I pulled them out.  They gave the term "wild flower" a new meaning.

Some of you may know what this is, but I did not.

I discovered this plant is a Jewelweed or a Touch Me Not plant.  It is a great plant that has value.  I had no idea.  It can be made into a salve or a tincture to treat poison ivy, nettles and bug bites.  It is called Touch Me Not, not because is shouldn't be touched, but by what happens when you touch the seed pod.

Here is a seed pod to the left of the flower.

There are five main modes of seed dispersal in plants.  They are gravity, wind, water, by animals and ballistic.  The way this plant spreads its seeds is "ballistic".  The seed pod is sensitive to the touch of your fingers or when an insect or animal brushes past.  It explodes when it is touched.  The pod is made up of five valves fused together.  When touched they twist away from each other and fling out the seeds inside.  No wonder the plant is called invasive if the seeds disperse that easily. 

Through some research, I learned how to make the salve.  Here is how I did it.

I went outside and gathered a bundle of plants.  Fortunately I haven't destroyed all of the plants.  I have been pulling these plants out for years, and they always return in abundance.

These are growing in the compost pile where I threw the dead
plants (or so I thought they were dead).

I cut the roots off and chopped up the stems and leaves.  I kept about six or seven cups, and put them in a saucepan.

To these chopped up plants, I added two cups of olive oil.  I read you can use coconut oil as well.  I then heated this to a simmer and let it cook for an hour or so.

After an hour, I turned off the heat, put a lid on the saucepan and let it cool overnight in the oil.  Then in the morning, I put a coffee filter into a fine metal sieve.  I put the cooked, steeped leaves still in the oil into the coffee filter.  I let it drain into a measuring cup until all the liquid had drained.

At this point, I put the oily liquid back in the saucepan and added one cup of beeswax beads.  I heated it until the wax was melted.  Then I put in ten drops each of lavender, tea tree and sweet orange essential oil.  I let is cool for a short time and poured the liquid into containers.  This is where I didn't plan ahead well enough.  I had some little metal Altoids boxes.  I thought that would be perfect.  I forgot there is a hinge half way up, and I filled them too full.  I had wax all over the cutting board.  Fortunately it scraped off quite easily.  Then I had to find containers for all the rest of the liquid.  I filled all the little containers I could find.  If I do this again, I will have to order some metal tins to store this salve in.

This was an experiment, and I am not even sure if the stuff works.  I am not going outside to find a bee to sting me or pull out a nettles plant just to see if it works.  When my sister visited she got into some unknown plant or was bitten by an insect.  It caused a lot of discomfort and itching.  It took a long time to heal.  I wonder if this salve would work on something like that.  I am sure that in time we will be able to test it on some bite or reaction.  Until then, it actually is a good moisturizer for the hands.  While cleaning up my mess, I was able to test it out.  Right now I have the skin of a frog.  Water just rolls right off.  Maybe I should apply some to my back so my feelings won't get hurt.  It will just roll right off my back as the saying goes.

Have You Heard Of A Product Called Drug Buster?

I think we can all agree that a lot of problems in society are created by drug abuse.  Theft in homes and robbery from people is on the news every single day.  Sometimes it results in violence and murder.  In our area they are having heroin summits to make the public aware of what addiction can do to people.  They will stop at nothing to get money to buy more drugs.  Addicts will watch the obituaries to see what a person died from and where they died.  Then they watch for the time of a funeral service.  They take this opportunity to break into peoples homes to look for drugs.  They know what drugs are used for cancer pain and other painful diseases.  This blog isn't going to be an editorial as to why there are so many addicted people, although in my experience medical doctors are very quick to write prescriptions.  I learned something new during my dad's hospice experience.  In the past we have taken our unused or unfinished prescriptions to drug drop off spots.  Every now and then the local hospital collects unwanted over the counter and prescription drugs.  They always have a police officer on hand in case someone thinks this is an easy place to get drugs.  The trouble with this is that you have to hold on to things until they offer this service.  Hospice was fine but it wasn't exactly what I thought it would be.  They prescribed a number of drugs to control pain.  They want to keep the patient comfortable, so they prepare for all scenarios.  When dad died, we had bottles of stuff I did not want in my house.  I was worried about all the things I mentioned.  I asked the nurse if she could take the excess or what I should do with all of it.  I didn't want to put it in our septic system or throw them out in the woods to get in the water supply.  The nurse thought about it and said she had something we could do.  She brought in this bottle.

It is a bottle of a solution made out of biodegradable safe products.  We opened the bottle and dumped all the pills we had in the house that weren't needed or necessary.  Then we put the cover on and turned it over a few times.  The drugs dissolve in the liquid and neutralize them into an indigestible product.  If someone thinks they can drink the solution, it will just make them violently throw up.  I don't know why this product isn't readily available or maybe it is and I haven't come across it.  Here is the website with more information.  http://www.drug-buster.com/

I checked with a person from our city to make sure it was safe to throw in the garbage.  He had never heard of it, but all testimonials say it can be put in the landfill.  The whole bottle with the solution can be tossed or you can pour out the liquid and recycle the bottle. 

Is Today's Education Better...It's Hard To Say

The schools in our area started yesterday, September 2.  Some schools around the country wait until after Labor Day, but all the kids will be back soon.  Things have changed so much.  I was getting a haircut the other day and my hairdresser was saying that third graders don't have spelling lists anymore.  Even with spellchecker, you have to get the word slightly correct or it will change it to a whole new word.  Even if you spell a word right, it sometimes gets changed anyway.  I don't know the logic behind no spelling lists, but I'm sure someone studied it and determined that it didn't make for better spellers. 

My grandson Ewan started kindergarten.

These days kindergartners go to school for the whole day.  My daughter told me they didn't need to have a nap mat because they don't have nap time anymore.  They don't teach handwriting and by the end of the year, they have to be able to read a chapter book with several sentences on each page.  They need to know the title, author, parts of a book and be able to answer questions to prove comprehension.  I guess Ewan is fine with it though.  His teacher told my daughter that Ewan had the best question of the day.  He raised his hand and asked if they were going to learn to read today.  He can't wait to read big hardcover books like his brother and his parents.

 When my daughters attended kindergarten they went half a day and learned a letter a week.  I think the only expectation was to write their name by the end of the year.  When I went to kindergarten, I don't think we learned anything.  It was so long ago I don't remember much.  I do remember wetting my pants so I could get sent home.  Why do we remember those things but not the happy things?  I know I didn't learn to read.  My husband didn't even go to kindergarten, so I guess basically we both started school for real in 1st grade.

My Aunt Agnes in 1928 when she got out of Normal School.

My mother's oldest sister Agnes was a teacher.  She taught grades 1-8 in a country school without indoor plumbing and a woodstove for heat.  She taught many of her brothers and sisters.  Mom used to say she was so hard on all of them because she didn't want anyone to think she favored her family.  I recently found her planning book from 1940.  It was interesting to read.  There was no kindergarten.  In first grade students began the year with a pre-primer called We, Look and See.  These were called Dick and Jane books and they came out about 1930.  I imagine they were the new innovative reading program.  They studied vocabulary words like oh, see, look and run.  By the end of the year Agnes wrote "drill on phonetic development and read with expression".  I learned phonics drills and had Dick and Jane books.  I remember them to this day.  Who knows what is best?  I do have to say that by 8th grade Aunt Aggie's students knew the classics, talked about current events each day, did exercises in punctuation, learned posture and manners, and did extensive drills on County and State government.  All grades had spelling lists and practiced handwriting. 

Pray Wisconsin schoolhouse

Mom's sister Agnes, the teacher, with the striped shirt in the top row, my mom in the middle with the blonde curls and her brother Eugene in the lower right corner.  My mom never did like to have her picture taken.  She always looked serious.

 It's a different world now for good or bad.  The old way probably wouldn't work now, although students were taught a lot of useful life lessons.  Things have changed so quickly.  Twenty five years ago my daughter went to college with a small computer and no portable cell phone.  I went with a typewriter and a dime to call on the pay phone.  Now small little babies can use an ipad and use a cell phone.  Imagine what the next twenty five years will bring.  I can't even begin to imagine.