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Rojo Chiquito - red beans

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 This week for Earth day, our Climate Action Group hosted several events:  Saturday a fair worth talks on reducing use of plastics and recipes/ tips.  On Monday, we joined the worldwide prayers for the earth, and showed the new film Common Ground, which highlights the importance of returning to sustainable agricultural practices. Rojo Chiquito beans in filtered water  This morning, I'm soaking Rojo Chiquito beans  (du ya • gi ga ge i) - I usually soak beans 4+ hours, then rinse, drain and pre-sprout by repeating the rinse / drain sequence several times over 8-24 hours.  I'll simmer frozen veggie trimmings for stock, and add asplash of vinegar, kombu (seaweed) a bay leaf,yomohi and herbs as I cook the beans. (For Stock plus Rice n Lentils recipes, check out this post  These small red beans will take a bit longer than the lentils, likely 60-90 minutes total) I Picked up the beans on my Tuesday trip to Wellspent Market (in Mac Mkt on Alpine, near the Tea Garden) They were grown
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Okinawa Inspiration

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 In recent years, many of us have become intersted in Blue Zone areas with higher numbers of centenarians, including Okinawa. There are books and PBS Recently hosted a series exploring Blue Zone lifestyles.  Soup and salad Recently, Aki (Samurai Matcha) filmed a session with Christal, who has been living in Okinawa and researching  the practices of these older adults.  They share tips from her research and visits in this video  - 7 Healthy Habits of Okinawa.   Like my previous post sharing tips from Aki's Japanese lifestyle, anyone can incorporate some or all of these into their own lives.  Aki and Christal open with an invitation to spend time with your friends, and not canceling plans unless it's truly necessary! Spending time with others several times weekly (daily when you can!) supports mental health and happier nature.  Healthy eating - and only till 80% full (hara hachibi bun me) - is common in older Okinawas, (and key in all the Blue Zones.) A variety of ingredients
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Rose Beads

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 This morning I'm beginning the process for turning rose petals into precious beads, which will retain their fragrance and last for decades! Dried rose petals rose petals (I'll strip all the petals off the stems rose geranium and lavendar tea electric coffee mill  small crock pot cinnamon, 5 spice powder, lavendar and nutmeg Rose petals and supplies The activity for March in the Seasons of Wonder Devotional, which our church is using this year, is to craft simple rosaries. Did you know that rose petals have been used for prayer beads for hundreds of years? Rosary - from the Latin Rosarium- rose garden. 'In the east, rose-beads are Atul made.  Dried roses are crushed to powder, moistened with rose water and formed into pellets, which are strung, dried and polished, ready for use.' (The rose by Ann Mayhew, illustrated by Michael Pollard - p75) My grandmother Mary used the fragrant petals of our heritage rose to craft rose beads, and I began making them in the 60s, usi
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Rose Gold

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 Several years ago whilst going through my spring cleaning and dethughing, I pulled an angel Card from one of my decks ... and a bit later, came upon a fascinating   video  from British healer  Amanda Ellis  , and watched several - Wow!  One was a piece about having been sick with a double whammy virus,  Archangel Metatron   (Pre pandemic) which returned just as she thought she was over it! Amanda works with the Archangels, especially Metatron, and shared a teaching about receiving an  energetic reset , rather like a vaccine for our physical bodies to match the evolution of our spiritual bodies, as many shift from 3-D to 5-D.  Now this concept of illness as a reset is something a one of my daughter Mary's co-workers suggested over a decade ago. Her friend sees being ill as a chance for the body to do a tune-up, basically going through all the systems, tuning them to better efficiency, and often forgoing more serious illness. And it's a time to just take it easy, if we possibly
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Cleaning the fridge

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 One of my Reset tasks this weekend has been cleaning the fridge! I moved into Rose Cottage 10 months ago, and have done spot cleans - one shelf or drawer at a time as I emptied a container or cleaned out the veggie drawer, but it was time for a thorough go!  Tuesday - before You know the drill - turn it off, empty the contents (into a cooler, if it's going to take awhile! ), wash drawers and any organizers, wipe down shelves, walls and gasket! I did the main shelves Saturday, and saved the door for today.   I have a random selection of clear shelf organizers, so put them in the dish pan and gave them a good wash.  Compost went into my under sink container, then out to out bin.   ' After ' Don't you love a clean and reorganized fridge?!! The oddest one I ever saw was in the home of a friend's aunt - one lazy Susan on each shelf, and all items on one of those lazy Susan's! Way to OCD for me - but necessary for her!  Natural cleaning products I love this refilla
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Sochani

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 Recently, I used my little Cherokee Syllabary dictionary to record plant names in my garden journal, I needed to look up one of the wild greens, Sochani, and was delighted to find this article !  This winter, I'd ordered 'Golden glow' (Rudbeckia lanciniata) seed from Everwild, havinging read the greens were a favorite food of the Cherokee. Sochan seed packe t In an article on his blog in 2019, edimental proponent Stephen Barstow wrote that Rudbeckia lanciniata "is documented as probably the most important spring vegetable of the Cherokee in the Southern Appalachians in Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany, which is probably where I first noted its edibility. It’s missed in Cornucopia II. The Cherokee ate the tender young leaves and stems cooked alone or with other greens such as poke (Phytolacca americana), Ramps (Allium tricoccum), Rumex spp. (docks) and eggs. They were also fried with fat, were dried for later use and also eaten as a cooked spring salad or as celer
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 Last Saturday, our Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  group met to discuss tending our  28 garden boxes this year! It was fun to see each other and meet the newest volunteers at Mac Market - I brought my own mug for a cuppa, and got a Mexican Mocha. Edible landscaping volunteers Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, and this year we've received a grant to expand the garden box project to several other areas.  The board members scheduled the quarterly clean up for after our meeting, and the city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides!  Clean up crew It felt so rewarding to gather those bags of litter along Alpine - and what a great reminder to attend to the areas near and around our garden boxes!  This is the second year I'll be tending the Tea Garden which I dearly love! It is ironic that the picnic tables (one near my box) are only
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