Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Anything posted here is for education and entertainment. I am not a doctor, just someone who loves folklore and learning about how people coped before modern medicine. You are entirely on your own if you want to experiment. Almost everyone in the south has heard of sassafras tea. It is known as a "spring tonic" and is thought to purify the blood. It is also used for stomach distress and nerves. I have read that it was used to treat venereal disease before modern medicine. Externally, the tea will help rash caused by poison ivy. Sassafras officinale grows abundantly in North Alabama on roadsides and around pastures. Its leaves feed deer and other wildlife. Every part of the tree is fragrant, and distilled oil from its roots is used in the perfume industry. All parts of the plant can be used to make tea, but purists prefer the roots. Clean 1/4 cup of roots, cover with 2 cups water, and boil gently about twenty minutes. Strain and sweeten. It tastes like root beer, which I have ...

Sometimes, I just feel defeated. You have been there. You do the best you can, but it is never good enough. I know we live in an evil world. I know that I am not part of this world. Still, the load gets heavy. I have childishly threatened to run away, somewhere no one knows me. But I know better. It's the same world everywhere you go. David knew this. He had failed, he had felt unloved, he had fallen into a pit. But he knew, just like I do, that God was there. God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too-- your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful-- I can't take it all in! Psalm 139:1-6

Turn on your "gathering" instinct. Pokeberry weed, or poke salat, can be found growing wild where there is sunlight and friable ground. I have found the best sites are edges of fields or older construction sites. Gather more than you think you will need. This is too small. This is too big. This is just right! Go through your bounty and pick out all the things that are not poke salet. Rinse in a colonder. Put in large bowl. Sprinkle with about a tablespoon of salt, then cover with water. We aren't the only organisms who like it, and the saline solution will cause the little fellows to turn loose and rise to the top. Let set for an hour or so, then drain and rinse. Put in a pot. Add water until it about half full. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer. During cooking, the poke salet will lose its bright green color and shrink dramatically. Some find the odor while cooking a little strong. It is done when you can cut it easily with a fork. Drain. Are you surprised at ...

Phytolacca Americana , or pokeweed plant, grows prolifically in the Southeast. One of the first wild plants to appear in the spring, it is prized by birds and some people like me. Generally considered toxic overall, only the tender shoots are good to eat. The plants will grow to ten feet tall in the summer, producing berries that turn purple in the fall. Birds love these berries, and you may find the splatters on your car tinged a nice magenta during that time. The berries can be used for dye, and almost every little girl in my generation made pokeberry pie, a lovely creation that, alas, could not be eaten. My mother was a teenager during the Great Depression of the 1930s. She told of one winter when there was no cash, no jobs to be had. My grandfather worked for a farmer who produced molasses, and was paid with the product they made. Using ground corn from the previous year, her family consisted throughout the winter eating cornbread and molasses three times a day. They were thrilled ...

Anything posted here is for education and entertainment. I am not a doctor, just someone who loves folklore and learning about how people coped before modern medicine. You are entirely on your own if you want to experiment. Mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum , is all those green umbrellas you see on the roadside, and they are abundant this year.  Common names are mandrake, ground lemon, hog apple, love apple, umbrella plant, wild lemon. Male plants have a single leaf. Female plants have two leaves. The blossom and fruit is produced where the leaves split. The mature fruit is about the size of a small egg. I have found it tasteless, although some say it is lemon flavored, and some say they have made jelly from it. The plants colonize, and sometimes, it looks like a green rug covering the woods. Every part of the plant except the fruit is toxic. Folklore claims the dried roots were used as a purgative to remove worms in the intestines. In earlier days, mayapple wa...

A little madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown — Who ponders this tremendous scene — This whole Experiment of Green — As if it were his own! Emily Dickinson Photos by WSR But Thou, O LORD, art a shield for me: my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. Psalm 3:3

The news came that time was short. My father’s brother’s wife, a sweet gentle lady who constantly had snuff juice in the corners of her mouth, was in the last stages of colon cancer. My father asked Hub and me to take him and my Mom over to Georgia, about two hundred miles, to see her one last time. It was a hot, dry summer, one where plants or patience did not prosper. Come early Saturday morning, we packed up our two sons, picked up my parents, and headed for Georgia. About five hours later, we found the hospital, the biggest building in the small Southern town. Hub stayed downstairs with the boys, and I went with my parents to locate my Aunt’s room. Southern rituals seem to illuminate an obsession with death, where friends and kin gather around the bedside to see the dying one breathe their last. When we arrived at the small, stuffy room, it was packed. The weariness of the trip must have shown on my face, because the preacher, there to do his duty, rose from his seat and kindly off...