Morning Yarrow Harvest
A Pajama-clad Herbal Collection Stroll
This Sunday morning we depart for a week long camping expedition through Banff and Glacier National Parks. The excitement is real! There has been lot of planning, scrambling, and over all intense preparations going on around the place as we get ready to take off on vacation for a week. This trip is going to be extra special because we are going on the adventure with some good friends and their kids. Ten people, one fifth wheel, and the open road. The blog posts will flow!
Of course Nature could care less that I am leaving. Every year I replenish my dried herb stockpile, and one of the herbs that I won't live without over the winter is yarrow (Achillea millefolium). Now, I am not an herbalist, nor am I going to give anyone health advice, but I will tell you what I do with yarrow. Hello yarrow tea! I have been drinking piping hot cups of yarrow tea since I was a child. If a cold, fever, or the flu strikes me, I can guarantee you that I will be ingesting a steaming hot cup of yarrow infusion.
This year I also wanted to experiment with creating my own yarrow hydrosol, but as the best time to harvest the herb is right when it bursts into full bloom (which is of course right when I am to leave on my vacation) it looks like my hydrosol experimentation will be conducted on my hyssop, mint, and lavender plants this year. That's okay by me, gotta go with the flow sometimes!
Morning found me out in my back ten acres, wandering clad in my pajamas through the wild plants that inhabit that patch of earth. I love quiet mornings in the woods. Of course I am never alone, my cat bodyguard contingency followed me through the shrubbery, and a mama white tail deer bounced out of the trees in front of me. White tails are such dramatists.
Once I had cut a good sized pile of yarrow, I tied it together in clumps with baling twine and hung the bundles in my woodshed suspended on more baling twine (An ode to baling twine is forthcoming). Sometimes I dry my herbs on screens, other times I tie them in bundles and hang them to dry, for anything done around here tends to happen in the most convenient way that appeals to me at the time. The most important thing to remember when drying herbs is to keep them out of direct sunlight and place them somewhere with good airflow.
I'll usually remember to check the herbs in a couple of weeks and place the dried herbs in a labeled paper bag or glass jar for later use.
All in all an easy to-do that I enjoy. The hour that I spent cutting yarrow this morning will be time well spent if I or one of my herd gets smacked with a sinus cold at some point during the next year, for then the tea will flow along with our nasal cavities!
Hope you all have the most wonderful Father's Day weekend ever!!!
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My goodness, that sounds like an adventure in itself traveling with that crew, lol. I am waiting for those posts.
I actually had never heard of Yarrow so I was intrigued from the get go. It sounds like a life saver! I am a bit jealous that you have fresh lavender, mint, and hyssop - mint tea would flow for me.
If today's shopping trip to buy food for all those souls is anything to go by, I'm really in for something, lol!
Yarrow has a very unique taste, but in ways it reminds me of mint, very fragrant! There is a lot of things growing around here, but I'm with you, mint is wonderful! I'm always chewing on a sprig, throwing the leaves in my ice tea, or sipping on a warm cup of mint tea! You need a mint plant stat!!! 😊
Thanks as always for such an awesome comment!!!
Lol, Lord have mercy.
That sounds delightful. My grandmother has mint plants in her garden and I am always "helping" to keep them pruned, haha.
Great to chat with you as always!!
Have a great camping trip! I see your conifers have nice new spring growth -- great for sun tea, cookies, and lots of other food enjoyment. You've got a great setup for drying your herbs. And that's a beautiful meadow full of flowers. You will be seeing so much more beauty, too, this next week. Have fun with that tour-bus of a camping crowd! You have enough people for a lot of fun and games!
Um, I want to know how to do all of those things! Fir cookies, lol! Sun tea? I need to spend a more time perusing your blog in my non-existent leisure time 😉
Camping kickoff happens tomorrow morning at 8am! So excited! Hope your weekend is going splendid!
people say that duct tape is like the force: It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
But duct tape is nothing compared to twine.
Me thinks that you should write the ode......
Twine is the polypropylene thread that binds my world together!
what a lovely article. one day i hope to be able to walk out in my pajamas, harvesting plants and just enjoying the simplicity of it. i cold almost feel the grass on my legs and feet. its so easy to romanticism a chore like harvesting and drying plants and herbs because in the end we all would feel that some satisfaction over getting the job done in a peaceful setting. with no one around to see us/judge us, in our enjoyment of our environment.
Oh thank you for such an awesome reply! Every time I wander out back with my hair sticking up forty-two different ways and in mismatched pajamas I am reminded of just how blessed I am to live where I do. My farm adjoins a huge section of state land and there is no one behind me but wildlife for many, many miles. It had rained a lot though, so my feet transformed into mops as I was wearing polar fleece socks with my tennis shoes, it wasn't too bad, I guess I could have mopped the floor when I came in, lol!
that sounds whimsical and perfect! one day i do hope to have those moments.
And I hope that you get to enjoy future pajama plant harvest strolls someday too! 😊
Doesn't it seem as though any project will expand to begin at the precise moment you have to go out of town. Or better yet, they all converse while you're sleeping, and converge all at ONCE..."even better", they say in project unison.
Ah, the ubiquitous bailing twine. What farm is complete without the reddish-brown majic rope. (Just noticed, yours is blue and yellow. Where do you get the colorful stuff? Let's face it, if I'm going to knot everything together around the place, it might as well look good on some scale.)
Thanks for the info on Yarrow, I'll have to try that. Enjoy the start of the trip North. What fun.
The project paradox is rather infuriating at times, for sure!!!
I have all three colors of baling twine, perhaps I will braid the orange, blue, and yellow together for snazzy belt that has utility applications? Hmm...I had to buy orchard grass, oat, and alfalfa hay and they all came with different colors of twine. Farmers be getting all fancy these days, lol!
Hope you had a lovely somewhat giant millipede free evening!
That camping trip sounds totally awesome. I'm jealous.
I have yarrow in my front yard. It's stuff I bought at Lowe's on the clearance rack for 25¢ a pot. I guess that's the same stuff.
Ooh! You are totally going to have to go on a camping trip now, just for fun!
Well, the yarrow I use is the wild variety, but I have a bunch of the colored, hybrid decorative stuff around the house too, and I don't see why you couldn't use it, although I am not sure how potent it would be medicinally if it was the kind bred for ornamental purposes. I am curious now to know how that would go! That plant is fabulous in all its forms!
Hope you are doing something awesome this weekend!!
Other than work...just being outside and tending the flower and vegetable gardens, especially after all the storms rolled through breaking the dry spell we've had.