On a few small acres in the hill country of central Texas, we live by watching, feeling, and waiting. Together, we come to know by loving and love best when we care enough to understand. Our Loves: limestone, leaf-vein, scales, feathers, friends, and all their shifting reflections in the waters of a small Creek.
The Wildman who promotes all things Chickweed (from women's tanktops to pots of the steamed yard weed) offers this advice on preparing the plant to eat:
FOOD USES: Chop common and star chickweed, and add them, raw, to salads, or cook them like spinach. Mouse-ear chickweedís so hairy, you have to cook it.
Chickweed gets its common name because chickens love it. Raw, it tastes like corn silk. I demonstrate this to school kids with a chicken imitation, then I grab the herb from the teacher's hand with my teeth and swallow it—corny, but consistent with the plant's flavor!
Cooked, chickweed tastes like spinach. Include any of the species in soups and stews, but cook no more than 5 minutes to prevent overcooking. Unlike most other edibles, the stems, as well as the leaves and flowers, taste good.
Cooking shrinks chickweed by 3/4, concentrating the nutrients and compensating for whatever vitamins cooking destroys.
Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule)
Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule)
Mistletoe (Phoradendron tomentosum)
Pilobolus left on a pile of dung from an errant cow that strayed onto the place this month.
Please watch this video for the little fungus in action.
Stinging Nettle or Heart-Leaf Nettle (Urtica chamaedryoides)
Urticaria flowering
Persian Speedwell(Veronica persica)
Burclover (Medicago minima)
Pennsylvania pellitory (Parietaria pensylvanica)
Parietaria pensylvanica or Pennsylvania pellitory. At this time of year (when it rains enough) it makes soft green clumps all around the fallen branches and the rocks. Harlin included a picture of the slope (there is a clump behind the rock on the lower right of the photo) and a picture of the leaves. The plant is wind pollinated and some species have been found to cause an allergic reaction. So, if you lay on the rocks in your backyard and find you are wheezing, maybe it’s the pellitory. [Science News, Vol. 137, No. 19 (May 12, 1990), p. 300]
Some of the algae in abundance this season.
Phoradendron tomentosum as the only color
in a rather foggy little canyon
A friend brought us this specimin of Horse Crippler (Echinocactus texensis). Thank you, Lee.
Thank you, Kate.
An unidentified fruticose lichen among cedar elm leaves littering Whitman's Rough.
January 24 and 25 the rains fell again. Perhaps three inches.
A nice discussion on a warm January 7 afternoon beside the Creek.
High on a cool and windy January 28. High.
