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| Nice day for a walk, a little cloudy though. |
On Saturday morning the dog and I walked up to the west end of the dirt road. Another cold front was approaching so the weather was fairly warm and cloudy. The temperature was steady in the mid 60's. The humidity was high at 84 percent. On Saturdays the dog and I usually go to the gas station in my old truck for coffee. I have a feeling the dog counts the days and knows when Saturday has arrived. His rides in the truck give him a chance to see his enemy the squirrel in several different places along the way and the dog has a chance to give them a good barking at. Anyway he always seems happier on our Saturday morning walks.
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| The first Dandelion of fall looks very healthy. |
We continued up to the end of the road where I spotted the first of this fall's Dandelion crop. I checked out the
Dandelions on eattheweeds.com and found that many parts of the Dandelion can be eaten or used in some fashion. It can be used as greens either cooked or in a salad. You can eat the roots by boiling them. You could also fry the blooms which is something I have never heard of.
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| A little sunshine on a cloudy day. |
I read that the blooms can be used to make tea and the roots can be baked and ground up to make a coffee extender. I also saw that the sap makes a good glue substitute. I guess this plant has been in close proximity to humans for thousands of years and we have learned very well how to exploit it. Too bad no one uses it nowadays. There are probably people somewhere who are hungry and have these plants growing like crazy in their yard and never even realize that with a little bacon and a pot of water they could have a gourmet meal.
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A large Sycamore leaf and the tree
it rode in on. |
As we walked back to the house I picked up a very large leaf that had fallen from a Sycamore tree along the roadside. The leaves of these Sycamores can be huge. The one I found was nearly one foot wide. I suppose the larger the leaf is the fewer leaves the tree needs. If you have a sycamore in your yard you probably don't need a rake. You just walk around and pick up a few leaves each day until they stop falling. What a deal. I imagine there are Sycamore owners out there who would argue with me about this though. Thanks for reading my blog today. Bye
