Yogurt for long life

I was a child when Americans started eating yogurt.  People used to get their yogurt at the health food store, I think.  I remember an advertisement on TV sometime around 1979 -1981, an ad about yogurt and how the oldest people in the world eat yogurt.  So, yogurt gives long life.  I want a long life; I'll eat a lot of yogurt.  One day recently, I was daydreaming and I had this idea, What If It Wasn't Just the Yogurt?

What if their longevity had to do with living at high elevation?  Less oxygen, less decay, unchanging...  So how tall are those mountains where the oldest people live?  Soviet Georgia in 1980 - maybe it was a very quiet place?  I don't know what held that country together, nor why they had a war recently.  I am thinking about medical mysteries a lot these days.  I am sure the yogurt helped with longevity, anyway.

Maybe the yogurt helped them keep a healthy appendix.  I read a new theory that the appendix  has an important job.  Everybody used to think that the appendix was an unnecessary body part.  Now, the new idea is that the appendix stores healthy gut flora, and helps the good flora repopulate whenever you lose them to illness (right, I did not want to say, lose them to diarrhea.). It is so cool to learn new things about anatomy.  I thought there wasn't anything new to learn about the human body.

I thought that subject was pretty much entirely known.  But this summer there was news of the discovery of lymph nodes/ lymph somethings in the brain.  Ok, I don't know anything about it.  But when I read about the discovery, I went straight away to Wikipedia.  I checked, there was a picture of the lymph system, and it only went up to the neck, not the brain.  All the anatomy textbooks must be revised, how often does that happen?

So, I spent months thinking about lymph nodes (lymph passages?) in the brain.  We know the human brain needs a lot of food, lots of glucose.  But, there has to be waste products from all that food.  How does the waste get cleaned out?  Wish that I knew this subject better.  Anyway, I started checking regularly for news relating to the brain.  Because I Want To Be Okay.  I want to be healthy not crazy.  I can accept that I may have to take antidepressant medication for the rest of my life.  But, I still feel crazed often.  And, I am worried about the children, how to prevent craziness in the next generation?

Elecampane

Inula helenium, Elecampane just may have a really amazing history.  I am not going to write it all now, after midnight.

But here are a few thoughts:  it was named elf wort or elf weed for a good reason.  I suspect it is something to do with absinthe.

Why the name of the plant is associated with Helen of Troy...?  Could Helen of Troy have a connection to ancient religious ideas?  I noticed a story where they used elecampane to bring the Wild Man back to life in a mummer's Christmas play.  It is from the book, Santa Claus - Last of the Wild Men...

Dung

Humorous humus, funny shit:

If men were believers, learned, religious, then, rather than laughing at socialism, as they do, they would profess the doctrine of circulus with respect and veneration. Each would religiously collect his dung to give it to the state, that is, to the tax-collector, by way of an impost or personal contribution. Agricultural production would instantly be doubled, and poverty would vanish from the globe.

I copied this from Wikipedia:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulus_(theory)

I don't know what else to say about this.  It's funny what you can find out by reading about fertilizers...

Is Mullein poison or medicine?

Verbascom thapsus, called Mullein, is a beautiful weed with furry leaves.  I pulled out a truck load of weeds from a new garden.  The garden owner allowed me to save the mulleins.  I explained that this plant contains rotenone,  a natural insect repellant.

I have been doing some reading about mulleins.  I learned that rotenone use may be phased out due to concerns that the insecticide could be a cause of Parkingson's Disease (ok, I was surfing the web and fooling around on Wikipedia.). It seems to me that in future, people will say that there is no safe minimum dose of rotenone.  Very tiny amounts of the stuff may cause disease... Kind of like a biological plutonium.  I certainly don't want to go near the bag of rotenone for sale at the local Agway store.

On the other hand, there are records of mullein used as medicine for thousands of years.  It sounds like herbalists of the past valued this plant a great deal.  I am sure there is no danger in allowing mulleins to colonize my customer's garden.  If we get lucky, maybe the plant will repel mosquitoes, although no one has suggested that yet.  My client just wants to be free of mosquitoes but I can not promise that.

What worries me is my farm friends at DACRES.  They keep a jar of dried mullein in the kitchen for herbal tea.  I think it is not safe.  Never mind the thousand years of medicinal use, I say that tea is not safe.  Why ingest rotenone when you do not have to?  There are other herbs that you could use.  And my friends were using the mullein tea when they were not even sick!  I should go have a talk with them.

For me, the most interesting part of all this was finding 4 leaf clovers beside the mulleins.  There were a lot of 4 leaf clovers -and I was always finding them quite close to a mullein plant.  I suspect that the mullein has a chemical capable of driving away competing plants.  In fact, my guess is not just one chemical but a mixture of 3 or more chemicals.  I have forgotten the name for this effect, the ability to fight the neighboring plants with chemicals at the roots.  This is the same thing that the walnut trees do, causing bare spots in the lawn under walnut trees...

It was so fun for me to predict the location of the 4 leaf clovers.  I am usually not at all magical.  I had a magical moment with my daughter.  But sometime soon I will have to tell my garden client that the lovely mulleins probably do not repel mosquitoes.  I really hope they will allow the plants to stay. I need time to find out which insects the mullein can repel.

Bosworth's New Spinning Wheel

Jonathon Bosworth had a new type of spinning wheel on display last weekend (8 August 2015) at Fiber Revival.  Next to the spinning wheel was a big bright sign that said, "New design.  Please try it and let us know what you think."

I sat at this new wheel at the end of the day, just before they were going to pack it up.  I'm new to hand spinning so I asked, "What's different about this wheel?"  So while Mr. Bosworth was explaining the similarity between this mechanism and the movement of a steam locomotive...  Abby Frankmont came by, sat down and tried the wheel.  She declared it a success for three reasons -which I can't remember, but one was that it would relieve her tendonitis.  It was only when I noticed that she took off her shoes that I realized that she might be the famous author of the book, Respect The Spindle.

I failed to take off my shoes -really a faux pas, since it was a truly wonderful spinning wheel.  I am just not ready for an accelerator.  I asked the price of his book charka, but it was too much for me right now.  Maybe I am not ready to spin cotton anyway.  I asked if his spinning wheels could be set to spin very slowly, and I was disappointed to learn that a book chakra must spin fast & has an accelerator wheel.

I had a close encounter with a live cicada, my first ever.  I always wanted to see where the sound of summer comes from.  I made it home in two hours with lots of new ideas, mainly about growing flax. I hope to grow a linen shirt someday.

So it seems that I have met two of the three fates.  I met Habetrot, and saw Abby Frankmont... Who will be the third spinner?

Acidic foods turn sweet...

I found something interesting on Wikipedia.  Miraculin - a fruit that changes your taste buds so that for a while, everything acidic tastes sweet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculin

I had to laugh when I read the part about how this fruit was prevented from coming to market.  Such skullduggery!  Wow, it's criminal that somehow they got away with it.  I should be outraged, but unfortunately I'm not much of a cook so I don't care.  Maybe somebody else will get mad about this:

[Copied from the Wikipedia page about this fruit.]

"Miraculin was never approved for use as a sweetener by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the 1970s the Miralin Company planned on bringing miraculin to market and was founded with investments by Reynolds Metals, Barclays, and Prudential. Legal advice and contact with the FDA indicated that miraculin would be approved as generally recognized as safe (GRAS) as the berries had been eaten for centuries in Africa with no reports of adverse reactions (substances used in food prior to January 1, 1958, through either scientific procedures or through experience based on common use in food can be designated GRAS). However, on the eve of the product's launch in 1974 the FDA determined that miraculin would be considered a food additive and thus require years of further testing. At that point the company's investment capital could not sustain it and Miralin folded. Afterward, Miralin requested the FDA documents under the freedom of information act. The documents were nearly completely blacked out, and the rationale for the sudden change in regulation was not revealed.^{[17][18][19]"}

Firfletting - is it sprang?

Firfletting is a rare textile technique from Norway.  I found this when Katherine Johnson sent me a link to a video from the Norsk Folkemuseum.  It is so exciting to find something new that I can do with my huge stash of yarn and string.

I am writing about firfletting without much knowledge.  I have only just found it this week.  I think it is a kind of braiding, but it looks a lot like sprang.  Looks like bobbin lace, too.  Somebody defined sprang as braiding on stretched warp threads.  But firfletting appears to be sprang worked with loose ends - the warp threads not stretched nor secured...  I wish Peter Collingwood were alive.  He would be able to say whether firfletting is a kind of sprang or not.

I saw a Wikipedia enrty (which one?  Maybe it was the page about sprang?) that gave a definition of braiding.  It pointed out the difference between braiding and weaving...  I think it said that weaving needs separate warp and weft threads, but in braiding, the threads can...  I forget.

I started collecting pictures of firfletting on my Pinterest page.  There is an old magazine article from the 1980's - maybe my library could get it for me.  The title was something like, "Firfletting - Fringe Braiding From Norway."  Many of the examples of firfletting that I found on Pinterest are complex fringed linen towels.  They could have been woven in pairs so that the fringe might be worked as sprang.  But, in the video, there is a woman doing firfletting on one towel  -so not sprang...?

There are a bunch of really old movies from the Norsk Folkemuseum.  I'm hoping to find more lost arts in those videos.

Poison Ivy

I feel ichy.  I have a big bad poison ivy rash.  The rash would be gone if I stopped scratching.  Surely it will end soon since it started about a month ago.  I don't need sympathy, it's fine really.

I got into the poison ivy because I wanted to remove it from my daughter's school.  The ball field is surrounded by poison ivy.  I'm thinking of buying a goat.  The goat will eat the poison ivy, and the children will not get itchy when their soccer balls roll off the field.

So, yesterday I went to work in a beautiful new garden beside the lake.  Brand new,,freshly set out garden, fabulous view of lake and mountains, fine new house AND poison ivy.  I felt the need to remove the weeds.  But this time, I'm going to try coating the plant with something to contain the poison oil.

Last time, I coated my skin with a heavy grease.  It worked.  Except that I did not coat my knees since I thought my pants sufficient protection.  Poison ivy must have a volatile oil because it went right through my pants, leaving nice black spots.  I am quite proud of those jeans now.  The poison washed away with only one laundering.  But the black ink spots remained.  I would so love to meet India Flint and tell her about this.  I bet there is a way to use poison ivy to make fantastic textile art.

The missing information is how to use the poison ivy without suffering from the contact dermatitis.  We know how to make black ink from poison ivy, but not how to get rid of the poison oil.  I'm going to try pressing fabric and poison ivy in a flower press.  Should be possible to use the leaves to print on Yemeni fabric for scarves.

Just suppose they boiled away the poison in the old days...?  It could carried away by the steam, if it really is volatile.  You would start a camp fire, and stand way back when the water.eventually starts to boil.  Maybe that would explain why they use steam to process lacquer made from a poison ivy relative in Asia.  I tried to find information about this lacquer but I can not read the Japanese web sites.  But I have seen the lacquer and it is excellent.  I would like to be brave and reinvent the lacquer.  Everyone thinks I am crazy and obsessed with something dangerous.

Nalbinding

I taught nalbinding at the Massachusetts Sheep & Woolcraft Fair, 23 - 24 May 2015.  Here is the video that I recommend to all who learn nalbinding with me:  http://www.vajanto.net/gradu/

The video of Suomeksi Stitch helped me when I learned nalbinding.  I teach people this stitch because it is easier to see what to do next -this one holds his shape and does not turn into a tangled spaghetti readily.  I tell people that they can learn the simpler stitches from YouTube videos, but I do not teach York stitch, Oslo stitch, etc. because they do not hold their shape well.

And here is the phrase I repeated while teaching Suomeksi Stitch:  "Oldest loop from the front, next older loop from the back, turn left, and go under everything."  After saying this a million times, I shortened it to:  "One from the front, one from the back, turn left, and go under everything."

I felt that I was a fairly successful teacher (but there's room for improvement.). One person needed to learn left-handed which was very difficult for me.  I was surprised how much better I understood it when I figured out how to do it in the opposite way to what I was used to doing.  Hurray for left-handed people!

Knitted flower fabric

I am still trying to figure out how they knit it without buying the pattern.  I think I've figured out how "Tensfield" hat pattern works.  It was a three day struggle.  I really must buy a pattern from Martina Behm -so much knitting innovation.

I am currently trying to figure out how to knit that garter stitch fabric with square holes throughout.  It seems to be done without cutting the yarn.  I think there's something about dropping down and knitting back up while covering a trailing yarn...

Light bulb:  I just had an idea.  What if I knit a long narrow tape, loop it around in a circle, and then pass the end stitches through the beginning stitches...?  I could do this in the middle of a plain knit fabric.  Afterwards, I could draw up one side of the tape: knitted flower fabric.  I love draw-strings.  I've used them in everything I make.

Chigirsky Tea, on Wikipedia

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бадан_толстолистный
This is the source of the information about the tea.

Bergenia makes excellent tea.  Photo by Abeer Al Zahrani, 5 May 2015.

Chigirsky Tea from Bergenia

Bergenia cordifolia, known to gardeners as Pig Squeek makes a great tea.
Here is what I found on Wikipedia (in Russian, translated with Google Translate):

"used for landscaping in stone gardens, shrubs and trees arrays. Gardeners brought several forms of flowers of different colors. The plant prefers partial shade and shady places with moderately dry, fertile soil. Propagated by dividing the bush in autumn.

The plant is in the first row of the world tannins (content tanidov 2 times greater than willow or spruce bark, and 4 times greater than in oak bark), it is used for the sole tannage and yufti and nets and tarps impregnation.

Gives a black and brown paint.

Soaked in water and washed from tannins rhizomes are edible, and overwintered, blackened leaves are used to flavor tea - Mongolian tea [5], or chigirsky tea."

I received a jar of tea from the botanical garden on Solenetsky Island in the region of Archangelisk, Russia.  I have been wondering what's in it for years.  But it's really good tea, and I suspected it might be Bergenia because of the photo on the tea box.  Finally today, I thought to look up the plant on Wikipedia.  I was surprised to find more information on the Russian language version of the page about this plant.  Maybe Google Translate can help me learn more Russian herbal knowledge.

I am so excited to discover the high tannin content of this plant!  I hope to start printing on fabric using homemade ink.  This is going to be so wonderful!  India Flint - here's to you!  I need to buy her book of natural dyes and art projects.

The Bergenia tea tastes like orange pekoe black tea but without the caffeine.  I bet that I can find a nice big patch of Pig Squeak, and gather some leaves today.

Shepard's Cloak

Shag Sweater Wanted.
I must make/buy a long fringe wooly vest at once.  I added some 20 more photos to my Pinterest.com board, "Shepard's Cloak."

It started years ago in an antique store located in GaziAntep, Turkey.  At the time (almost 20 years ago) I was on my first visit to the Wild East.  I thought it the most far out, exotic place ever.  There was this marvelous kepenek:  a wearable tent-like cloak made of heavy wool felt.  Turkish shepards could brave the weather for weeks in such a cloak.

My own version should be light weight, fun, and fashionable.  I am not trying to look like Chewebacca nor like an Ewok from Star Wars.  I want some soft wooly fringe about my shoulders, essentially a fake fur made of real wool, real silk, real alpaca, etc.  Absolutely no lambs were hurt in the making of this film...

*****