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...

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills , from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber or sleep. The Lord is they keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Psalm 121

Some say it may be the oldest cultivated shrub. Speria , common name 'bridal wreath', is not as common as it used to be. It may be because they can grow to be quite large, taking up too much room. Also, their blooming time is short; the blossoms can come and go in a few days. But, oh, those few days! One of the first shrubs to blossom in the spring, they are quickly covered with black bumblebees. Soon, their white petals makes the ground beneath the shrub look like a light snow has fallen. There are new varieties now that are more compact and hold their blooms longer, but I love the old fashioned ones better. This lovely shrub may have gotten its name when its flexible twigs were woven together to adorn a bride's head. It is said that the white wreath of flowers symbolized the bride's purity and virginity. At old "home places" in the country, one can find bridal wreath, sometimes struggling among weeds and other shrubs that have been unattended for years. They...

Ol' man river, dat ol' man river He mus' know sumpin', but don't say nuthin' He jes' keeps rollin' He keeps on rollin' along Ah gits weary an' sick o' tryin' Ah'm tired o livin' an' skeered o' dyin' But ol' man river He jes' keeps rollin' along! Old Man River lyrics (not complete) by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, from Showboat Photos by WSR Near Knoxville in East Tennessee, the Holston and French Broad Rivers join to become the Tennessee River. It flows south toward Alabama, then follows the curve of the Nashville Dome until it empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. On its journey to the Ohio, then on to the Mississippi before it flows into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, it kindly passes through the beautiful little city of Florence. We are extremely blessed to live just a few minutes from its banks. ..And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth ...

The sun , with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. . . . .Galileo And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:16-18