It's Honeysuckle Time!

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Birdsong Cottage today! It is a beautiful, sunny day today, following a nice, soaking rain yesterday. The garden (and weeds) is growing nicely, and we've already been harvesting a few radishes and lettuce. We hope that we'll be harvesting peas before long (barring unforeseen chicken attacks)!

Here's Frankie sampling the radishes~

We are blessed to have a little woodlot with a stream in it behind our home, and we are excited to have the honeysuckle bushes coming into bloom. If every family in the area harvested honeysuckle blossoms in the spring to enjoy in their homes, they wouldn't be so invasive!

We think the blossoms look like fairy dancers!

 

We have been experimenting with using honeysuckle medicinally, and harvested enough almost-opened buds to make a jar of honeysuckle glycerin (we're out of honey, or we would use it, too). We're going to dry some for les tisanes, as well. It takes a LOT of blossoms to fill a jar!.

The buds fit in so well with the "English Cottage" look~

 

 

According to the book Backyard Medicine, "Honeysuckle is good for treating heat conditions (hot flashes, fevers, sunstroke, and urinary tract infections), spasms in the respiratory system in such conditions as asthma, croup, and bronchitis, and it is antiseptic and effective against many microorganisms, reinforcing its value for sore throats and respiratory ailments." James Duke rates honeysuckle second only to eucalyptus for sore throats.

 Another thing we were excited to find in the woods is Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata). Sweet Cicely is a licorice-scented plant that resembles deadly hemlock, so you have to be very careful when identifying it. Its leaves and flowers are good in salads, and the stems make a good "nibble".

 The leaves of the species of Sweet Cicely that grows near us have bright, shiny undersides, with the veins on the leaves going to the tips of the "teeth", instead of the valleys, like hemlock. Again, be very, very careful if you want to use any member of the carrot or parsley family! It is better to not use them at all, if there is any doubt.

The rain droplets on the false solomon seal looked so beautiful in the morning sun, we couldn't resist taking a picture of him, too!

 

May you have a magical day of exploring today.

Love,

Marqueta

 The Honeysuckle

  I PLUCKED a honeysuckle where
The hedge on high is quick with thorn,
And climbing for the prize, was torn,
And fouled my feet in quag-water;
And by the thorns and by the wind
The blossom that I took was thinn'd,
And yet I found it sweet and fair.
Thence to a richer growth I came,
Where, nursed in mellow intercourse,
The honeysuckles sprang by scores,
Not harried like my single stem,
All virgin lamps of scent and dew.

     So from my hand that first I threw,

      Yet plucked not any more of them.  

                      ~Dante Gabriel Rosseti