Pioneer Woman at Heart

One Flourishing, Frugal and Fun Family!

One family learning to live off the land, cut back on expenses, and to live a simpler and a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Adopted Motto

"Eat it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or go without."
~A Pioneer Sampler, by Barbara Greenwood~

Showing posts with label Wild Flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild Flowers. Show all posts

Monday, June 30, 2014

Thursday, May 31, 2012

What's Blooming?

Daylilies

Forget-Me-Nots

Foxglove

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Wild Burdock and More Red Clover

This has been growing at the edge of a few barns.  I'm pretty sure is wild burdock.  The stalks are short and the leaves have hairs.  Either way, if it is burdock I can't do much with it.  We are all allergic to ragweed (just by the touch also).  I read that burdock is in that particular family of plants.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Buckwheat Waffles ~ Thrift Store Find

I made these buckwheat flour waffles for the family, and they were delicious.  The kids love to top these with natural peanut butter.  

A week ago or so, I found a set of TV trays with stands, at our local thrift store.  


I spent the afternoon cleaning the trays on my front porch.  These are wider than your normal TV tray and will be helpful with meals on the porch, and to take camping.  I had planned to spray paint the stands on these, but I may just leave them as they are.


I spent time reading a book of writing prompts, and got a laugh out of some of them.  The kids and I shared quick and short verbal stories with these.  I do have a notebook to hand write these in, but would love to "jazz" it up with a fun cover.....adding yet another project to my "project" list (ha ha ha!).



While cleaning a bit in my room, I noticed that I left two flowers pressed in my flower press (from last summer/fall).  I really enjoyed looking through my scrapbook of wild flowers, and adding the last two to it.  I plan to add more this summer.



Sunday, September 18, 2011

Sunflower Power

I used pieces of cheese cloth to cover the head of my sun flowers, and tied it on with string saved from feed bags.  Hopefully the birds won't get to them anymore.

I'm now on the hunt for recipes using sun flower seeds.  I mentioned, to the family, that foxtail grass seeds, and the other red flower we found, is edible.  My  husband looked at the kids and said, "you guys can all take the first bite." He's just a big chicken when it comes to foraging. Although, he is up for mushroom hunting.  We may be taking a mushroom hunting class to familiarize ourselves with what is edible and what is not.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Homemade Pumpkin Butter Results ~ Sun Flower Seeds


My 5 pumpkins resulted in 9 pints of pumpkin butter.  After researching canning recipes, I decided to heat my lids, after sterilizing jars, and simply attach the lids.  I allowed them to cool, and then moved them to the refrigerator.  They will last up to 6 months this way.  

Canning is not recommended.  In fact, I plan to take the last of the pumpkins, and make pumpkin puree to freeze.  Then I can simply take it out to make pumpkin waffles, pumpkin bread, muffins, or pumpkin pie.  There are tons of pumpkin recipes to try it with.  

Having always purchased sunflower seeds from a store, my husband was actually "giddy" when I shared these with him.


"We grew those?" he squealed like a little kid getting candy (ha ha ha!)

I will have to start covering some of them with cheese cloth.  The birds are starting to get into them, and they are not all ready to harvest.

And once again, I am shocked at the fresh taste these little guys had.  So much better than what you buy in the stores.  Hubby wants a whole field of these now - ha ha ha ha!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Poisonous to Horses

I am so glad we are boarding Blondie at a stable right now, so that we can research the plants on the property (and get the fencing in place).

I am finding plants that can hurt horses, and we need to remove them.  Here are some of the poisonous plants that we found here (I have milkweed growing along the creek and isn't near where the horse will go, or the goats):


and Dogbane (no photo yet).  I guess we have some work to do.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Amaranthus (pigweed family)?

I'm working with a park expert and a master gardener, to identify flowers and weeds on my property.  However, we are still unsure of this red colored one.  I think the chickens are the reason we have it all over this year.  I'm not exactly sure what it is.  Unless I hear back from the experts, I may have to keep looking in books and on-line.
 

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Woot Woot!

You know you are a farmgirl, when you find wild chicory growing on your very own property!  And you get really excited about it.  He he he!  My kids, and my husband, just think I'm plain nuts.
I need to find out what that red weed is.  I'll have to look in my books and on-line to find out what it is.  I'm just tickled pink to find wild chicory on the property - chemical free.  Woo hoo!  It's only one plant, but one is better than none.  

Now I just need to research how to make the coffee from it.

Oh...he he...that photo was taken today in a garden that had zucchini and melons.  We had so much rain that it killed the zucchini and rotted almost all of the melons.  That garden now looks like a weed patch.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Wild Flower ~ Catnip

I have no idea what I was thinking.  I picked a small piece of wild growing catnip and put it in my flower press.

Every day, my 9 year-old's cat (Tiger) would attack my flower press.  I finally opened the flower press yesterday and gave him that dried catnip.  He went nuts!  Then along came the other cats and wanted some.  

My 9 year-old has been wanting to dry some to make a safe cat toy for her cat.  I had her look at my wild flower book, so that she could identify it correctly, before she picked it.

We now have catnip drying in the garage, away from Tiger.  The catnip will not be making an appearance on my wild flower book, for the sake of keeping my book in tact.

Dear Lord, Please bring me some of that delicious catnip tomorrow. Amen.

Wild Flowers

The kids just take over the computer when they get home, so while I waited for my turn, I worked on my wild flower book.

My 9, 12, and 14 year-old daughters were sitting around the table watching me.  It's turning out pretty nice too. I just need to label each page and write down where they each grow.





After I worked on that, and got my turn on the computer (he he, I needed to see how to bind off with knitting on YouTube again, I just forgot how to do it already), I went out to pick more wild flowers.

We came back in with this flower, and honeysuckle. 

I saw bushes that had clusters of white berries on them.  I am pretty sure it's White Baneberry - a completely poisonous plant.  I'm working with a park district expert to see if I am correct on the baneberry, and will have to remove it somehow.  The word "bane" is typically found in names of poisonous plants. If it stops raining, I will pull on my mucking boots and go get a few photos of it.

I have no idea what the first white flower that I posted is.  In my wild flower book it looks similar to White Snakeroot.  I guess I'll just have to wait and she what they tell me.

There are approximately 7 wild flowers in our area that are threatened or endangered.  They are:

~Blue-Eyed Grass (Endangered)
~Grass Pink (Threatened)
~Kalms St. Johns Wort (Threatened)
~Prairie Rose (Threatened)
~Prickly Pear Cactus (Potentially Threatened)
~Wild Lupine (Potentially Threatened)
~Wood Lily (Threatened)

I found it interesting that one of the threatened plants, have not been growing here in the wild, since the 1980's.  That plant is the Wild Lupine.  Due to constant weed control and other maintenance techniques, the plants have been eliminated.  Large parks and local preserves have re-planted some of them, starting a recovery program to protect them.


Here are photos of a wild flower display that my 12 year-old put together.  

The flower display turned out very nice.  Imagine who special the pioneers felt, when they woke up to a vase of these in their cabin. 

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Ragweed, Wild Flowers and The Mower

I've been chatting with a park district expert, in regards to the wild flowers, weeds and invasive plants on our property.  At first I thought it was fun to press some of them, but it's been more that just that.

I've not only found out we have some very interesting flowers, but some weeds that are the cause of our bad allergies.  In fact, the dork that I am, went out and pulled Common Ragweed from the goat's pen area.  I had gloves on, but after pulling two armfuls, I had to stop.  My neck broke out in welts and it had the appearance of poison ivy or oak.  My neck was read and very itchy.  However, after wiping it with a cold, wet washcloth, it disappeared.  Phew!  I woke up congested and could not smell my clothesline fresh bed sheets.  

In this one picture I took, you can see three wild flowers, and they surround one giant weed.  The Tall Ironweed in the picture is taller than me, and I'm tall.  I am pressing some of the Wingstem, and Tall Ironweed.  I have yet to pick some of the Goldenrod.  I found out that the Goldenrod we have can be invasive.  We have a ton of it.

This wild flower grows low to the ground, and I just discovered it this year, as we mowed a good portion of the back acres.  There are still many plants I need to identify.  If we are going to have cattle and a horse out there, we need to know exactly what's growing and what needs to be removed.

My husband had to replace the mower blades recently, and repaired the mower several times.  Finally, we go it working again.  The other day we were in the house, and heard a loud "POP!"  

"Uh, Mom?  Your flower vase just exploded," said one of my daughters.

It didn't take long to discover that my husband ran over a rock, that was slivered by the new mower blades, and shot it right through the screen of the window.  It hit my plant pot and broke it.  Luckily, no one was sitting in the reading chair by the window.  That's scary.  We blame the dog.  One of our dogs picks up rocks in her mouth like a stick and drops them everywhere.  We are trying to break her from this, as her teeth may get damaged too.

Those very sharp mower blades, or maybe it was his bad mower driving (he he) that destroyed one of my garden stakes.  Grrr!  He got a little too close to the garden.


Speaking of garden, I went out there last night to pick tomatoes.  I discovered my Rote Von Paris, heirloom bush bean plants had disappeared.  I stood there, looking at the last 1 inch of plant stems.  After we went through, and could not find deer tracks, we decided we have our first rabbit problem.  Ugh.  Good thing I pulled the dry beans of last week.  At least I have a few dozen for planting next year.  Bad bunnies!


And I knew that I would get the e-bee jeebies scared out of me again.  Last year it happened when I was walking through the yard in flip-flops and a black water snake slithered under me.  Last night, it happened in the garden.  With all this year's rain, we've had a lot of frogs in the tomato and pepper area of the garden.  I was picking tomatoes and reached down low on one plant.  Out slithered a snake.  I almost threw my basket of tomatoes straight into the air!  Luckily, it was a Garter snake, so I let him live.  I just told him he better leave my frogs alone and scare those rabbits off.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Wild Flowers and Weeds

Over the years I have collected odd books from used book sales.  In the beginning they were placed on a shelf for homeschooling, and for my public school kids.  So far, every book has been helpful with school reports and other needs.

One book I am using a lot lately, is a book on our state wild flowers.  I've had a flower press for many years, but have not used it recently.  I got it back out after finding these wild flowers on our property.

The other day I was flipping through the pages of the book, and said, "Hey!  I know this weed.  I've seen it before."

My husband responded with, "What your mother really means to say, is that she probably fed it to you."

Ha ha ha ha ha!