Peaceful Home Tea-tini

It's getting to be the steamy part of the year and when we're unwinding at night we could use something calming and refreshing.  This Lavender, Vanilla and Chamomile tea blends nicely with a quality vodka.

http://blackthornhoodooblends.com/collections/frontpage/products/peaceful-home

Time: 3 minutes
Yield: 1 Cocktail
Ingredients:
2 oz quality vodka
1 1/2 oz sweetened Peaceful Home iced tea
Splash fresh lemon juice
Sprig Lemon Balm for garnish
Sugar for rimming

Preparation: Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with sugar. Garnish with the lemon balm.

Fiery Wall of Protection Chai Cocktail

Fiery Wall of Protection Chai Cocktail

This is a spicy, cozy cocktail that goes great in front of the fire pit in the back yard on a nice chilly spring night.

Prep Time: 7 minutes
Total Time: 7 minutes
Yield: 1 Cocktail

Ingredients:
2 ounces Baileys Original Irish Cream
3 ounces brewed Fiery Wall of Protection chai tea (if you haven't gotten yours yet you can find it here. http://blackthornhoodooblends.com/collections/frontpage/products/fiery-wall-of-protection
Raw brown sugar
Cinnamon stick (optional)

Preparation:
Brew 3 oz of Fiery Wall of Protection to desired strength. I'm using my favorite mug from Dancing Pig Pots. https://www.etsy.com/shop/dancingpigpots

Add 2 teaspoons of raw brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Fill a coffee mug with chai tea and Baileys Original Irish Cream. Stir with cinnamon stick.  Enjoy!

Gardening Ideas Hecate

While scrolling through my Facebook on Wednesday, I got an idea. I'm creating a new garden this year. A "Hecate" garden. She's most popularly known as the Cthonic Goddess of Crossroads, Sorcery and Ghosts, but she's also associated with medicine. She's been known to rule over the "brewing of concoctions, medicines and poisons".

She was said to favor offerings of Garlic. Since I grew up in an Italian culture, garlic is already sacrosanct.

A number of other plants (often poisonous, medicinal and/or psychoactive) are associated with Hecate. These include aconite (also called hecateis), belladonna, dittany, and mandrake.

The use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the first century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic.*

In "dog digging" the soil would be loosened around the base of a plant associated with magic, then a string would be tied around the plant, and then to the dog. The dog would be called away and thus, would tear up the plant, roots and all.

In the case of mandrake (named of the person like appearance of the roots) it was thought that the "man" who lived in the roots would scream and deafen you if you dug it up. It was believed that if the spirit of the plant wanted to exact revenge for the digging of the plant, the harm would fall on the dog, and leave the person, intact. There are even legends that say it has to be a black dog that does the digging, since black dogs are heavily associated with Hecate.

Many other herbs and plants are associated with Hecate, including almonds, lavender, myrrh, mugwort, cardamon, Henbane, mint, dandelion, hellebore, and lesser celandine. Several poisons and hallucinogens are linked to Hecate, including hemlock, mandrake, and opium poppy. Many of Hecate's plants were those that can be used shamanistically to achieve varying states of consciousness. (This is not an endorsement or recommendation.)

I don't know what is on my list to grow yet, but I'm really excited about this!



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*Frederick J. Simoons, Plants of Life, Plants of Death, University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, pp. 121-124.

Pest free Salad!

So I've decided that this year I'm going to build a Salad Table. For those of you who aren't familiar, a Salad Table is a shallow table filled with growing media and used to grow salad greens. Luckily, my inlaws happen to have all the 2x4s I'll need for my version free, but if you don't it'll cost about $35 dollars and last about 8 years.

So for an initial investment of building materials and twenty dollars a year for seeds, fertilizer and growing media, you can grow about ninety five dollars worth of lettuce a year for about eight years (if you use untreated pine for instance) A savings of seven hundred and sixty dollars.

Not to mention, the pride you get from growing your own food! Let's face it, with our busy lives, we're much more apt to make a salad to go with dinner if we can go out to the back deck and cut the lettuce and pick the tomatoes ourselves, right?

The best part? No deer, rabbits, or groundhogs to eat your hard work, and no back breaking time on the ground! When your crop is at waist height, it's a lot easier to spot any troublesome spots as well.

I'm planning out my version at home now, but you can build one with the plans here: http://www.growit.umd.edu/Salad%20Tables%20and%20Salad%20Boxes/index.cfm

I'll be posting pictures as soon as building and growing commences!