Do Reindeer Really Fly?

This picture from EQUITOURS website,

a travel agency offering horseback riding tours worldwide

Above is a picture of one of the deer stones which can be found in Mongolia. These stones date from the bronze age (2500-3000 years ago) and are decorated with reindeer, some of which seem to fly over the sun and moon.

You can see more photos and read more about the the deer stones on Don Croner’s World Wide Wanders blog.

The meaning of these stones is still a mystery to all who encounter them - except, perhaps, Santa.

Anticiparcelation

Anticiparcelation (n.) The state of being in anticipation of a parcel.

I didn't make make the word up, though I wish I had because it's awfully clever. To put it poetically:

I could never

be that clever

The word actually comes from a piece in Reader's Digest Magazine that I read many years ago. It was written by a woman who played a game with her daughter over the years of making words up. One day as they waited on their front step for a parcel to arrive from the postman, they came up with anticiparcelation.

I think it's a good word to use at this time of year. I just sent off all of my holiday parcels to friends and family, and now I await theirs in a happy state of anticiparcelation. Some will be a card with news and well wishes for the season, some will be actual parcels with gifts for the family, and some may even be just an email wishing us a joyous season.

So maybe I'm even awaiting all of these things with anticijoyillation - the state of being in anticipation of a joyous season!

In any event, I wish you a wonderful season of anticiparcelation.

Teas to help ease colds and flu

I found this tea at a local health food store, but now I've also noticed it in the grocery store:

This is what's in it (click on the image to see it closer):

My husband came down with a nasty cold about a month and a half ago. He is not a tea drinker and tends to look upon my attempts at herbal remedies with disdain. I convinced him to try a cup of this tea one evening because he was so miserable with his cold. The next morning he said, "Oh, um, if you have any more of that tea, I'd like a cup." Which meant that it helped him feel better.

But I added a little something to it. I chopped up one little piece of elecampane root and added it to the brew. I had ordered the elecampane from Mountain Rose Herbs a few months ago:

When my daughter came down with the same cold, I gave her the same stuff and she happily drank it three times a day, which meant it worked for her too because it's not the tastiest tea (although the licorice root helps loads).

They had both complained of a sore throat first, before the cold hit. So when that "off" feeling hit me a few days later - you know the feeling, your insides feel like something's coming on - and my throat had an inkling of hurt, I wanted to take preventative measures.

I remembered a bush tea that I had bought on a trip to the Virgin Islands. It was supposed to ease a sore throat. I dug that out of the back of my cupboard:

I had some lemon balm which I'd harvested from a wild stand I found in the woodsy part of my back yard earlier in the year. I had dried it and put it away for later. Lemon balm is supposed to have mild antiviral properties. I have no doubts that my wild stand escaped from someone's garden round abouts.:

And I had my trusty elecampane - good for respiration, and it has antiviral properties too.

So I made my own brew with the bay rum, the lemon balm, and a small piece of dried elecampane root, chopped. I drank it three times a day for two days and came down with nary a sniffle.

Did I really fend off a nasty cold? Or did I just feel "off" for a day and nothing more. I don't know, but when I feel as though something is coming on again, I'll be drinking my tea.

The bay rum bush tea will have to be replenished. They do have a website, but their web-store doesn't seem to work. It does have contact information on the site so that you can call to order, or mail an order to them. Click here to go to their site. I would highly recommend bay rum bush tea. It's yummy smelling with a spicy, almost clovey scent and taste, and it does wonders on a sore throat.

And, as you can tell from the photo above, my lemon balm is running low. I did save a great many seeds, though, which I'm hoping to sew in the garden come springtime.

Choosing a Yule Log from the Forest

Here is a lovely guest post on the Cottage Smallholder blog about choosing a Yule Log and Yuletide.

Grooming - a guest post by Strider

Hi, I'm Strider and I'm guest blogging today.

A handsome russet and white border collie by the name of Basil, way over in the UK, was wondering how to keep his equally handsome russet and white coat looking good. Hey, we russet and whites have to stick together - solidarity in the face of all of those black and whites!

Anyway, here's what my humans use on me:

My guest post is finished. I will now fix my stare on the sliding glass door until I am let outside.

Treacle Crunch, a.k.a. Chocolatey covered candy honeycomb

My last post dealt with making the center part for my chocolatey covered Treacle Crunch. In the picture below you can see what the aftermath of dipping, letting dry, and bagging the candies looks like:


I now have 13 bags of Treacle Crunch to send away with gifts:


Some gifts I made earlier are herbal salves - goldenrod and calendula. I packaged them up with a little pamphlet I made about the herbs in the salves:

Here are the herbal salves with the caramels I made earlier in the week:

I wish I had enough to share with everyone who comes to visit my blog! But I do have a holiday gift for you so that you don't go away empty handed. It's a little Christmas story I wrote. You can download it for free - it's my holiday gift to you!

Just click on the book cover in the upper right corner of my blog page, then select "Download for free."

Happy Holidays!

Making Candy Honeycomb

I've documented my candy honeycomb making. It's not real honeycomb, the candy is light and has a lot of air holes in it, so it's called candy honeycomb. If you've ever eaten a Crunchie bar or a Violet Crumble bar, then you've eaten candy honeycomb. Those bars are covered with chocolate. Mine will be too when it's all said and done. But first, the honeycomb.

It's really very easy to make. I double the recipe that I have, so I put 1/2 cup water, 3 cups sugar, and 1/2 cup golden syrup in the pan:


The recipe really calls for corn syrup, not golden syrup, but I use golden syrup and then I can call my concoction Treacle Crunch:


Stir ingredients together just to mix, and then bring to a boil without stirring:

Continue boiling until candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees F. Wipe down any sugar crystals that accumulate on side of pan with a damp pastry brush:

When 300 degrees is reached, remove from heat and whisk in 2 Tablespoons sifted baking soda. Here is a video clip of the process, I don't say anything so you don't have to turn your volume up (nothing happens in the middle of the clip for about a minute while I'm pouring, but then I show the candy after it's been poured in the pans):

Then pour out on parchment lined pans and let cool without disturbing for at least 20 minutes:

When the honeycomb is cool, break it up into pieces and enjoy as is, crumble over ice cream, or dip in chocolate to make your own homemade Crunchie bars.

Use undipped honeycomb right away, or you can keep it in airtight containers for a few days at most. Dipped honeycomb must also be stored in airtight containers or ziplock bags. It will stay good for a little bit longer than the undipped.

You can cut the above recipe in half with no problems.

I wish I could share some candy with you during this month of celebration, but since I can't, please don't forget to leave with the gift I can share with you - a short little Christmas story I wrote that you can download for free.

To get it, click on the book cover in the upper right of my blog page and then select "Download for free."

Happy Holidays!

Bagged in the nick of time!

Whew! The caramels are cut, wrapped and bagged with 1/2 hour to spare before I have to go pick our growing and newly spayed kitten up from the vet.

The process below ~

Cutting the caramels:

Wrapping:

All wrapped and waiting to be bagged:

Fifteen 8 0z. bags ready for gift giving. The labels are what I came up with for my farmer's market experience when I sold candies under the "Castle Door Candies" name:

Now a quick clean-up and then off to rescue Freki from the horrible clutches of the vet.

Wrapping caramels, spaying cats

Freki, our 6 month old kitten, went into the vet this morning to be spayed. While she's away I have to try to cut and wrap all of the caramel I made yesterday, otherwise she'll be in the middle of the whole process wreaking havoc.

This is her about a month ago or so, asleep. We've learned not to wake her when she's asleep. Best to enjoy the reprieve from all of the running and ricocheting and climbing up your back:


Here's a peek at a pan of caramel:

I made a triple batch yesterday and poured it out to cool overnight, knowing that I would have a precious few hours today without Freki in which to get my two pans of caramel cut and wrapped:

These two pans will produce about fifteen 8 oz. bags.

Okay, the dog is walked, the driveway is shoveled, the cat is at the vet. Time to wrap caramels.

Candymaking: homemade caramels and candies

This week is reserved for candymaking. I'll be making caramels, chocolatey covered candy honeycomb, and maybe fudge, but that's a big maybe. It'll all go out with holiday gifts (well most of it will).

I've sold my candy at the local farmer's market before, which is a lot of fun. I'd love to open a candy store, but my nice little town already has three of them.

Maybe I can take some pictures as my candymaking week progresses. If I do I'll post them.

Septimus Heap

I went to the library to get some things for the holiday weekend and saw that book four in the Septimus Heap series, Queste, by Angie Sage, was in the 'New' section. I checked it out and started reading it last night. I was reminded immediately how charming this series is. If you know a child (I would say 9 and up) who enjoys fantasy along the lines of Harry Potter, you may want to consider these books as holiday gifts.

In these books there is a family of seven brothers. As Queste opens, one is lost somewhere in Time and is trying to get back; one (Septimus, who is the seventh son of a seventh son) is the apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard; one has turned bad and has run off to the badlands and is occupying the home of the late Dom Daniel (who was a very dark wizard and gave them all a lot of trouble in the earlier books); and the other four have chosen to leave home and set up camp in a very dangerous forest next to the home of a coven of witches (causing their mother no end of worry). And did I mention that the girl who was raised with them as a sister is really - well I won't say in case you haven't read the other books in the series.

But I will say that one of my favorite characters is Marsha Overstrand, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. She's bossy and head strong, and often doesn't listen when someone is trying to tell her something important - but she knows who she is and what she wants and I often laugh when she's on the page.



The series starts with Magyk, which introduces us to Septimus, the seventh son of a seventh son in a magical family, and his wonderful world. This is a story of two boys switched at birth, a hidden princess, and a host of other characters who all come alive in this well-told tale of getting identities sorted out under difficult situations.


Flyte continues the story and we learn much more about Septimus and his world, and there's even a dragon!






Physik adds to the characters we already know and loses two of them somewhere in Time - which is where Queste begins.





I would highly recommend these books to those who like the world of Harry Potter, whether they're young, or old (like me).

The Pink Sari Gang

There is a gang of women in India who have taken matters into their own hands.

Tired of officials turning a blind eye to crimes against women, corruption, and caste prejudice, these women have banded together under the leadership of Sampat Pal Devi in order to shame wrongdoers and, at times, beat sense into bad husbands and corrupt officials.

They number in the hundreds, carry big sticks, and are earning the grudging respect of officials in Bundelkhand, a desperately poor region in Uttar Pradesh.

You can read about the Gulabi (which means "pink") Gang in these two articles:

India's 'pink' vigilante women from the BBC News and,

The pink vigilantes: The Indian women fighting for women's rights from the Daily Mail online (and from which article the above picture comes).

I wish this would happen all over the world. One cowering woman is easy to make submit, 700 women with big sticks is another thing altogether. And when they come knocking on your door to ask why you've just beaten your wife, things may not go your way.

Personally, I think the Amazons of myth were real and that they began in a similar manner - a group of women who banded together, tired of being treated poorly.

Still snowing....

It snowed all night and we're supposed to get several more inches today:


No more barbeques:


Our growing kitten is discovering what that white stuff is:

I thought this was supposed to wait for winter - isn't that a month from now?

And there's more to come.

A quick change of seasons

Here is a picture of some cattails. They are in the park next to my house. I took the picture on July 15th for my July Bloom Day post:

Here are the same cattails as of yesterday, November 20th:

I've lived here in northeast Ohio for seven years now. In that time we've never had snow like this, this early. Several years ago we had a year in which snow fell on Thanksgiving and never stopped and never melted until late spring. We didn't see the ground from Thanksgiving dinner until well after Easter. I'm wondering if this year will be comparable.

I need new boots.

Icicles and Snow

We've gotten some snow over the past couple of days:


The old farm buildings I walk by everyday look nice in the snow:


My dog likes to nose around in it. Here he's smelling where one of the deer trails comes out of the wild parts and enters the tame environs of the park:

Here's what he looks like after he's been nosing:

Icicles and snow... argh! It isn't even Thanksgiving yet! :

I saw some bluebirds on our walk. I've never seen them in my neighborhood before. I tried to get some pictures, but they're flighty little things and I couldn't get close enough.

Hope you're warm and cozy, wherever you are!

November Snow and Doggie Ice Cream

It's snowing today. Every day this week there's a chance of snow.

This picture is a little blurry - probably because of me, but also because the falling snow makes it look a little blurry:

My doggie and I just got got back from a walk in the snow and he rushed outside with his after-walkie treat:

What is his treat, you ask? Ice cream. Doggie ice cream. It's not real ice cream, it's made just for dogs. He likes to have one after the big walk of the day - every day. No matter the temperature or weather. He loooves it:

Nom, nom, nom!

When the weather's really bad, I make him eat it inside. He likes outside better, though.

Making infused oils for salves

I'm planning on sending out some small tins and jars of salve with Christmas gifts this year. I'm making goldenrod salve and calendula salve. I started the process today with making goldenrod infused oil using dried goldenrod.

I gathered the goldenrod from a field in September and hung it to dry in my garage. I had to find a big jar to store it in:


Here's 3/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil becoming infused with goldenrod:

I made some goldenrod oil toward the end of summer using fresh goldenrod. You can read how I did it here. This time I'm using dried instead of fresh.

Tomorrow I'll make calendula infused oil. I grew the calendula in my garden over the summer and harvested and dried the blooms. Here's a jar of what I haven't used already:

Calendula is so colorful:

It's hardy too. I collected a few flowers just yesterday, and there are several about to bloom. I'm not sure they made it through last night though, it got down into the twenties. I haven't checked them yet.

I've got my labels printed up and ready to go and my 1/2 ounce tins and jars came in the mail yesterday, so as soon as I've got my oils, I'm all set to make salve:

Instructions for making goldenrod salve can be found here, just substitute whatever type of infused oil you'd like for whatever type of salve you have in mind.