55 Comments

Thank you for brightening up April Susan! It seems to get hidden under the gloom of tax season through no fault of its own. In truth April is when my much-maligned Horse Chestnut trees come into bloom and try to make up for all of the work they leave me with the rest of the year. They honestly do stop traffic! Quite the show-offs with their huge candelabra brackets of blooms that can grow as much as 4 inches each day. The lilacs come on a week or two later. They too leaf out with remarkable speed before adding their sweet scent and blooms to the yard. I expect the barn swallows to be showing up soon to grace the back field with song and glides, as well as animated tweets while sitting on the nearby house wires. Thank you for reminding me to take a closer look at April, including the dandelions! Which I do enjoy as salad greens now in the spring and then later in the fall. I never bother to dig them up for making tea, but I do like store bought dandelion root tea with a drop of honey.

Oh, and let us not forget that this month's flower is daisy! Very soon I will have a field of classic ox-eye daisies. So easy to over-look and yet so welcoming when brought to the kitchen countertop in one of mom's pitchers.

Expand full comment

I remember a great aunt making "Dandelion wine." She and her friends shared it for a "pick-me-up" during the hot, humid afternoons in rural Tennessee.

Expand full comment

I had a childhood friend whose mother was our Brownie leader... (Are there still Brownies with their little brown uniforms and always carrying a smile in their pockets, while waiting to become a Girl Scout?) At any rate, my friend's mother paid us to pick the dandelions from their backyard so she could make dandelion wine. There were hundreds of blossoms! I forget what we were paid. But we got to drink lemonade while we were doing it and that was enough to keep me happy. Even though we picked a lot of dandelions, I doubt it made very much wine when only the yellow petals were used. Later we sat in the shade and played Monopoly at a folding card table with a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier. It is a favorite memory of a sunny afternoon in a simpler time.

Expand full comment

Sandy,

What delightful memories. I suspect my great aunt had others pick the dandelions from the fields the family owned. My brother and I tasted the wine once - it seemed too bitter to us despite the sugar and raisins.

Expand full comment

You might be surprised, Sandy. Here's a recipe for 3 qts of petals that makes a gallon of finished wine. https://commonsensehome.com/dandelion-wine-recipe/ But it sounds like a wonderful play day for kids and a sweet early lesson in plant foraging. What a lovely memory!

Expand full comment

This is good to know. Though it will have to wait while I stick to my diet. That 3 lbs. of sugar and 1 lb. of raisins is about my limit for a year. Still, I must admit I never dreamed that one could make a whole gallon of dandelion wine with 3 quarts of the petals. Maybe that explains why my friend's mother was always happy. 😉

Expand full comment

Re: happy. Certainly possible. :) I confess to not knowing that 3-quart thing, either, Sandy. I never was around as a child when Grandpa Franklin made that wine (and was never allowed to taste it).

Expand full comment

Wonder what stories they shared while they enjoyed that dandelion wine. 😉

Expand full comment

My vague memories suggest they mostly "gossiped" about various members of the family. The family had lived in TN since before the "war between the states" and freely discussed everyone else's business. They used "church fans" and sat out under the large trees in the back yard. Long before air conditioning. I also remember the "ice man" bringing large blocks of irregular shaped ice in the back of his pickup truck, insulated with burlap bags. What a treat to have the shaved ice coated wth some sort of berry syrup.

Expand full comment

I encourage you to add to the memories of your family as you think of them, Georgeann. I honestly enjoy reading what that time was like. In truth it wasn't so long ago that ice was shipped south on the Mississippi for use in homes and businesses. It is in fact only one lifetime ago! The 2-3 teams of small mules that delivered ice to my grandmother's home in Baton Rouge was a favorite topic of the family when they got together. As a child I started to picture these incredible mules as barely bigger that a St. Bernard. My aunts and uncles claimed the mules only needed humans to unload the ice. They knew which houses had the ice delivered to the back or side near doors to root cellars. And according to my dad, they knew how to 'back the cart up' when that was required.

Expand full comment

My brother and I share remembrances. Another memory is of a framed picture my mother had of the Powell Ferry. The image showed a wooden platform with two mules walking in a circle on deck to turn the paddle wheel. The ferry carried farmers, goods and their wagons from Caruthersville MO to TN. The mules worked all day; the image showed feed bags hung around their necks. The ferry ran every day, except when the current was too strong or the floods covered the landings. According to the story, the mules actually lived in a small shack with their owner, near the river.

Later more modern ferries traversed the river until the government built the bridge over the river

Expand full comment

Thanks for telling us about that picture Georgeann! I know little about paddle wheel boats and never had heard of one being powered by mules!?! I wonder if there were other such boats? There must have been a story or two about navigation of such a vessel! I have heard of people sheltering with, or in the same building with their livestock in various ways before modern forms of heating. Would be interesting to know what year the picture depicted. I wonder what it cost to cross the river? Any idea of why your mother had such a picture?

Up here in western Washington state (Divided down the middle as we are by the Cascade Mountain range eastern Washinton might as well be another state entirely with its almost desert like climate.) .... But over here we had a sternwheeler that was active until the early1980's as a snag puller on our rivers for the Army Corp of Engineers. It was called the W. T. Preston and had a lovely way of announcing its arrival with a beautiful almost lilting steam whistle that could be heard for miles. Here's a link if you or your brother might be interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Preston

Expand full comment

Sandy,

Sadly the picture got misplaced during one of the many moves our family made (my father was in the Navy). My best guess is in the very early 1900s. If you are curious, you can do a Google search on "Powell Ferry." There is a wealth of information, but no copy of the image I remember.

Thank you for the link. There are images of the later Powell ferries that look very similar.

My maternal grandfather was a member of the Powell family. Once quite large. I traced the family tree about 10 years ago - back to settlers in Virginia. in the early 1700s.

My husband's family (he lost his battle with cancer a few years ago) traced their lineage back so that they belong to the Plymouth Society. They built and ran the Berry Tavern in Danvers MA. All the family are buried in a cemetery family plot nearby.

Both families are members of the DAR.

Expand full comment

Sandy, what a treasure of a memory! Imagine the work that went into getting that ice from its point/time of harvest down to BR! No wonder so much effort was put into the development of refrigeration. My own memories go back to the ice man with the burlap pad on his shoulder, holding the 25-lb block of ice on his shoulder with the ice tongs. No mules, though. That would have been in my father's memory.

Expand full comment

These memories of a time before refrigeration, and air conditioning or even a fan are worth being reminded of from time to time. We talked about counting one's blessings a while back. My mother felt blessed to live in a more modern time with electricity and indoor plumping! 🙂

Expand full comment

Your mom was right, Sandy--mine felt the very same way. One of the gifts of aging is a historical context that frames that present and allows us to appreciate it (while we also criticize it).

Expand full comment

I’d like to join the private FB group, please, when you have a chance. Raeanne

Expand full comment

Great! Please email me susanalbert01@gmail.com with your Facebook email. I'll send you the invitation.

Expand full comment

❤️🤣❤️🤣

Expand full comment

Loved the story on dandelions! As I look out on our backyard, I see we have a number of them blooming...now I have an excuse to put off mowing the lawn! Also glad to hear about the new China book. I'm a bit behind in the series so it will be awhile before I read it, but I do want to make sure to have it in hand!

Expand full comment

Judy, we don't mow until early in July, to give the spring wildflowers plenty of time to reseed. Of course, we don't have neighbors or a bossy HOA, so we can do that. Hope you can keep your dandelions! And thanks for being a China reader--I'll be sure to let her know. 😊

Expand full comment

In our neck of the woods along Hwy 30, the main route through Columbia County, the road crews mow the grass along the hwy starting about this time of year. They do, however, delay mowing the portions of the right-of-way where big swaths of sweet peas grow. I'm glad they do this (as are the bees, I'm sure!), but have often wondered what prompted this choice.

Expand full comment

Loved sweet peas when I lived in IL--too hot for them here. In our TX county, the commissioners have set some mowing restrictions to preserve the native plants. They've found that it pays off in tourist traffic during April-June, wildflower season. And of course, tourists=$$, which counts for more than conservation in their minds, I'm sure.

Expand full comment

I think that’s where I first learned to say ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ 😁

Expand full comment

I had a tee shirt like that once! I wore it to rags. 😂

Expand full comment

Right you are! And I drew the line at coming home from work and heading out to forage for the evening meal 🤣🤣

Expand full comment

Oh, yes, funny, Lynne! It's about all I can do to forage in the fridge! 🧡

Expand full comment

I would like to be invited to your Facebook Group "Thyme Place and Story." Thanks

Expand full comment

Great! Please email me susanalbert01@gmail.com, with your Facebook email address. I'll send an invitation. (I posted your amazing rose photo the other day. Feel free to add others!)

Expand full comment

Susan, you and China are welcome! I'm sad it's the last China book, but I'm so delighted that you are writing short stories and also that you post here at least once a week. And we have so many of your books that can be reread and listened to! Thank you for all that you do and have done!

Expand full comment

❤❤❤❤

Expand full comment

I will be sharing the dandelion doggerel! I should post a sign in our yard "Dandelions welcome here!" I think I will include some in our dinner.

We had our eclipse back in August 2017, and we hosted people, too! It was over too soon and I forgot to watch to see what the duck flock did during the event. I got to sing in a concert that comprised entirely songs celebrating the sun sometime near the actual event. Enjoy!

Time to get out and enjoy the sunny day!

Expand full comment

We're looking at a rainy forecast for eclipse day, so I'm not getting my hopes up. Guess we'll have to watch it on TV--most of the channels seem to be covering or at least featuring it. I used to suggest to people that they gather dandelions from as far away from a street as possible. There's not supposed to be any lead in auto exhaust now, but just to be safe . . .

Expand full comment

Please put me on the list for the Facebook group, Susan. I am re-reading and loving all the Dahlia books and I have a picture of Sally Lou’s Pecan coffee cake to share. I’m looking forward to the new China too!

Expand full comment

Cindy, if you have a Facebook account, please email me (susanalbert01@gmail.com) with your Facebook email address. If not, your usual email. Love to see that coffee cake!

Expand full comment

I had a Great Aunt that lived in the city and used to come to our farm in spring to dig up dandelion plants for salads. My dad used to laugh at her and tell her "she wasn't poor anymore, so did not need to eat dandelion salad!" She replied "I need for the goodness in it after a long winter."

Expand full comment

My grandmother felt the same way about dandelions for spring salad. She considered them a spring tonic--cleansing, after a carb-heavy winter w/o fresh veggies. Thanks for this reminder of an era when people were more in tune with fresh local foods and changing seasons. 🥦🥬🥭

Expand full comment

Dandelions are great! I really enjoy your All About Thyme every month! And pre-ordered FORGET ME NEVER. I cannot wait. I love your short stories and everything else you write for us. Thank you!

Expand full comment

China and I thank you for preordering her book! It's likely to be the last one so it has a warm place in our hearts. 🧡

Expand full comment

Monday morning coffee at my office with All About Thyme. Life is good. Happy Spring!

Expand full comment

💚💚💚💚 To you, too, Mary!

Expand full comment

Oh, dandelions! Something that really flourishes on our lot 😁 We let ‘em grow. I remember, in the late sixties, a craze for the flower buds, picked when they were just emerging and used in salads. And the whole young plant picked before it became green, also in salad.

Expand full comment

You're right, Lynne. I remember a lot of interest in foraging in the 60s--but I was in Berkeley then and that was a hippie thing. 😊 The kids and I used to go up to Tilden Park to look for things. Euell Gibbons published a half-dozen books in that decade and popularized the movement.

Expand full comment

I’d forgotten about Euell Gibbons - probably have a couple of his books lurking around. Gave up foraging when we moved to Toronto.

Expand full comment

What foraging and wild-gathering I've done has given me a deep respect for the native peoples whose lives depended on their knowledge and stamina. A tough life!

Expand full comment

When my son was a teenager he chose to learn all the wild edible plants in our part of Massachusetts. Every spring he'd bring home a couple of puffball mushrooms and we would feast on them. We tried a lot of interesting things at his instigation.

Expand full comment

I think that's a great activity for kids--it can be a treasure hunt. With a huge potential payoff in long-term interest in the green world. Hope he is still keeping his eyes on the ground! 😊

Expand full comment

He is now in his mid-30s and his work is environmental impact statements for potential developments or logging. He's outdoors and looking for endangered and threatened species and other potential environmental threats. He was showing signs of his calling as early as age 4.

Expand full comment

Yes, indeed, Susan. Hal and I went on a weekend devoted to foraging, and pretty much foraged for what we ate. A true eye-opener!

Expand full comment

Maybe slim pickings, as my Missouri hill country mom used to say. 😉

Expand full comment