To make the best of a bad thing - Rebatched Sea Buckthorn soap

Last chance in the garden.  Everything has pretty much
died down, except the Hollyhocks which are blooming
like crazy. This lovely cream colour is just lovely. 

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that winter is here.  Today is the "First day of winter"  according to the traditional Icelandic almanack.  We have had the most wonderfully mild weather this fall and I've enjoyed that so much.  Almost for the first time that I can remember we have had all the leaves on the trees and bushes turn their beautiful red, orange and yellow colours.  Usually they are blown away be strong winds before we get to see their glory.  I have also enjoyed the last few flowers in the garden that have continued to bloom all the way into the first frosts, among them are some Hollyhocks that are in bloom for the first time.

I made a soap quite some time ago that included a some Sea Buckthorn oil and a lot of other goodies.  It was a great soap (I think) except it was so soft as to be almost mushy.  I waited  and waited for it to harden up, but finally gave up and decided to rebatch it.

It has now been curing and has turned into a very nice yellow soap.  The colour is quite a bit lighter since I mixed this with some whipped soap that was mostly white hard oils, but hadn't turned out the way I wanted.  So that was a lot of hard oils that I combined with all the soft ones.   I've been meaning to post about his rebatch except I lost my notebook so I couldn't find the recipe.  When I found the notebook I discovered that I hadn't written it down in the notebook at all.  So I searched for it on my little computer and I found it.

The combined recipe for this rebatch turned out to be:

Lard                  34%
Olive oil            24%
Coconut oil       22%
Jojoba oil          10%
Cocoa butter       8%
Wheat germ oil   1.5%

The water was 1/3 water and 2/3 a combination of Oat meal tea and Aloe vera.  The additions to the yellow soap were Sea Buckthorn and St. Johns Wort oils along with about a tablespoon of honey.  When I rebatched this I used yoghurt as a liquid.  The precise recipe is hard to figure out, but I like this soap as a gentle bath soap.  The lather is very soft and creamy.
.

Farewell gifts

I have a wall where I hang family photos so I am always
on the lookout for nice frames, preferably old.  The
three children are my grandmother and her siblings and
I think she also owned the pearl necklace. 

In a recent post I mentioned that I was making soaps as farewell gifts for a group of people that I have been meeting a few times a year.  I made a soap with Patchouli EO and decided to make a pink one for the women in the group.  I used Geranium and Lemongrass with Rumex oil to make it pink.  This one I used 15 g. to 500 g. of oil and I put the oil in at trace.  It still turned out a very light pink.  And the center, which gelled is a lot darker than the outside.  I don't mind that, but some may do.  The solution is to either wrap the soap to have it all gelled or put it in the fridge.  But anyway, I am pretty certain now that putting the Rumex oil in with all the others will produce a stronger pink colour than putting it in a trace.

I haven't been particularly involved in thinking about packaging and labels, although I've thought about it a lot.   Mostly I'm still thinking about some sort of stamp of a logo.  I have it in my head, waiting to jump out on a pice of paper.  I realize that to sell soap they must be packaged and that is also true for when they are given as gifts.  From what I see from others, they put as much effort (and money) into packaging as they do into the soaps.  I am in awe.

But I had to do something so I got some cellophane bags.  They were way to big (couldn't find small ones) but I solved that by cutting in half and using the bottom for the girl's and the top for they guy's.  So different soaps and different packages.  To make this a bit simple for myself I had cut little pieces of soap and made o hole in the corner, through which I tied a piece of raffia.  I then used the raffia on the outside as well.

Not terribly original, but fast and easy.  I did intended to photograph the packages, but I was finishing them at the last minute.  I made a few extra and figured that I would bring some back and snap a photo of those, but I ended up giving the staff all the extras for husbands or wives.  They were all delighted with their soaps and everyone of them put their gift up to their nose to have a sniff (and we are talking about a few very middle aged men here).  And even if I put all the ingredients on a label on front, the ones they were most interested in were the scents.  So much for unscented soaps!  

.

I've been tagged

I was tagged by Courtney Robyn at Courtney Robin's nest.  I love the great community of soapers from all over, although I also kind of like being slightly anonymous.  But I'm happy to play along today.  So here are my answers to those questions.

1. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Airport security - I'm soooooo sick of discussing my cosmetics with middle aged men and being felt up by strange women.  I just don't understand why they can't leave me alone.

2. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Oh, that's easy.  Somewhere (anywhere) sunny and wonderful.  I love Sorrento in Italy and that area.   France is also tempting.  Sarasota in Florida is great.  In my utopia "nothing to do with reality" I'd like to live on my grandparents farm in the northwest of Iceland.  Preferably with them in the house that they built, but was crushed in an avalanche ten years before I was born. My grandfather was very innovative and farmed with all kinds of animals, grew strange vegetables and taught my father about the many different plants that grow there.  I'm sure he would have been the first ,bee farmer in Iceland and we would have a few hives and probably have heated arguments and passionate discussions.  My grandmother and I would make soap and creams and jams and herbal potions and blood saussages.  She was a very gentle and sweet woman, my father told me, and  I would have loved to know them both.

3. Have you ever been searched by the cops? (LOL inquiring minds want to know)
No, but airport security has a special fondness for me.

4. What is the one thing on your mind right now?
My masters thesis, my french classes, my mothers bathroom and my daughter's mirror and....
And of course the next soap.  What do you mean one thing? One thing?  On MY mind?

5. Favorite song right now.
This one is my favorite for many, many years.  It's sung by Gail Davies and Emmilou Harris is in the background.  It's called "It's a lovely, lovely world" and it's the happiest song ever!  I used to ride along in my beat up old car when I lived in Colorado in the early 80's and sing along and just become happy. I never thought much about it's name or who sang it and it took me 25 years to find it again and buy it on itunes. I haven't found anything public with this song and it so deserves to be played more often. I made a slightly sentimental video for our anniversary two years ago (husband kept complaining that I wasn't romantic enough.  After making this video, I hardly need to civil anymore.  I SO won!).  
That video is private so even if I posted that for a bit, it was always going to be for a short time
But do look the song up and if you like it it's cheap to buy on itunes, something like 99 cents.  And that is the best depression therapy I know!

I also love Jean Shepherd's "Slippin' Away", especially this video on YouTube.  I have this song on an old record, but her voice is amazing even at her age.  

6. What talent do you wish you had?
To speak French fluently.  Alternatively, if we can be not practical I wish that I could stretch time. I have it on expert authority that one needs to go very, very fast.  

7. Favorite drink.
Ginger ale, especially the one I make myself, and my husband says tastes like Landi (Moonshine) (which I have never tasted, so I can't say).

8. In one word, how would you describe yourself.
Yeah! - See here's the thing.   One word doesn't work for me at all.  I talk a lot and have done since I was little, I'm told.

So I'm not sure how to tag other people, except to name the ones that I want to tag AND haven't already been tagged by Courtney.  So here is my list in no particular order:

Texia - Sanga Natual

Tiggy - Future Primitive

Potions & Chaudrons

Michelle - Soap Pixie

Hellen - Strenua Inertia

Heidi - Happy Tiny Bubbles

Swanee - By Swanee

Edith - Innoscents Handmade Soaps

Lyn - Lynnz Artisan Soaps and Candles

Miss Polly - Miss Polly Soap 

Those who feel so inclined can play along.  It's really up to the individual, but others can go and check out their blogs all of which I read regularly and a lot more.
.

Rose hips - full of vitamin C

I really wanted to make these into a necklace they were so
pretty. And I really would like to be able to make oil from
those seeds. There's so many of them.

Autumn, not at all my favorite season, does have a few redeeming qualities.  One is the crops that are there for the picking.  I'm not a cook, but I love to bake and make sweet stuff.  That of course includes jams, jellies and syrups.  I have posted a few of my recipes but one I haven't posted yet is rose hips.  I picked a lot last year.  I in fact only discovered them here last year as I was walking the dogs.

There is this huge overgrown bush close by my house in no mans land and suddenly it was full of these lovely red fruits.  I quickly realized that they were rose hips and having read about them in Danish magazines for years (decades) I excitedly went a picked a few.  And then a few more and then even more since I started seeing them everywhere.  I think I still have some in the freezer since last year and I guess I'll use those to feed the birds this winter.  My only regret is that I am not able to extract oil from the seeds because there are so many seeds, it's unbelievable.  I did find a something on the internet that was supposed to do that, but It was too expensive.  But it would sure be fun to be able make my own rose hip oil.  I have infused rose hips in oil, but it's not the same.

But this summer was very good and so far the only sign of autumn is in the shorter days, so now we can light candles in the evening (and taking photo's without flash is getting increasingly difficult.  But temperatures are still in the 60's (we call that summer over here) so I have to wait a bit longer to gather a decent crop of rose hips since they are at their best just after the first frost.  And I read somewhere that rose hips have the most vitamin C in the coldest regions so here it must contain mega quantities.  But I have started to collect a few to make into a jelly to join the red currant and gooseberry jellies that I have already made.  I like to make small quantities, so my recipes are usually enough for maybe 6 jars or so.  Although i only had 3/4 of a jar of gooseberries, but boy are they good!

I like to make fruit syrup as well a jellies and one of the advantages of not making jam out of the rose hips is that there are a lot of tiny hairs inside and they used to be used a an itching powder by naughty boys in the olden days (before my time) and most recipes recommend that the seeds and the hairs be removed.  I'm too lazy to do that.  It's just too much work.  So here is my recipe for a jelly where that stuff is just sived away.

2.3 liters / 2 quarts   Rose hips
1.7 liter / 1.5 quarts  Water
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 packet pectin (depending on what you use the directions can be different)
1/4 tsp butter
3.5 cups sugar

Top and tail the rose hips and put them in a pot, pour the water over and let simmer for about 1 hour, or until the rose hips are soft.  Mash this in the pot with a potato masher or use a food processor if you wish.  The pour this into a jelly cloth contraption and let the juice run of for at least an hour, longer if you can.  Squeeze out all the juice.

Now measure the juice, you need 3 cups.  If there isn't enough then add water.

The juice along with the lemon juice is put into a clean pot and this is heated.  Add 3 tsp of sugar to the pectin and set aside.  Add the rest of the sugar to the pot and when that is dissolved, but the butter in and boil the whole thing hard for 1 minute.  Then add the pectin/sugar blend and boil for another 1/2 minute.  Pour into sterilized jars.  Close them when cold.
.

Orange dog soap

The old books were used as props for the wedding. They were
stacked here and there in the house. We got them for free at the
Good S. Those fall colours we had this year were fantastic.

I thought I would do an orange soap to keep Jennifer at Jenora soaps company. One of the reasons is that I saw unrefined Palm oil in an asian food store the other day and I just had to have it. I have never used Palm oil because it isn't sold here. I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding Palm oil and I respect that. But I wouldn't be human if I didn't succumb to trying out a new oil!

I decided for some reason that this would be a good dog soap and that it should go into a tube. I had intended to cut it into long half rounds since I thought that would be a good shape to fit nicely into the palm as I wash the dogs. I did cut a few that way, but some I cut smaller. I have no idea why, but ever since I have been thinking of trying to do a landscape, using this as a setting sun. That would be very patriotic.

The soap is without scent, but with some herbal oils because Bichons have a tendency to have skin problems and I thought it would be nice for my bitches to have nice skin conditioning ingredients.

Recipe:

Coconut oil               25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Palm oil                     25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Olive oil                    25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Soybean oil               20% 100 g / 3.5 oz
Castor oil                     5%   25 g / 3.5 oz

Water                        38%  190g / 6.8 oz
Lye                                       71g / 2.5 oz

In addition to this I added 1 tsp. of Comfrey infused oil and 1 tsp. of Yarrow infused oil, both infused in olive oil. So the SF is a bit more than the 5% that the recipe reports.

But the soap traced very, very fast and I had quite a time getting it into the tube. I was therefore a bit surprised that the soap was quite soft when I took it out of the mould. The colour is a very strong orange-yellow. It is a little bit too saturated for my taste.  The colour is not dissimilar to the Sea Buckthorn soaps that I did some time ago but it is more orange, so not a bad try for an orange soap.  But maybe I'll try to use more socially acceptable colourants next time.
.

And my Very Green Soap

That metal circle will be a great frame for a wedding picture
of the kids. I have just the right photo for it but need to
 photoshop it to fit. I also dried some of my Hollyhock.

I actually intended to try to make another blue soap with indigo be cause the first one was a total failure.  I had put the indigo powder into oils and it did not give any colour.  So I figured that I should put it into the water, so I tried that.  Well, that sure didn't work either so I changed direction and reached for my dried herbs in the hope that I would be able to make green soap.

I chose Comfrey, since I have quite a bit of it already dried and still a lot left in the allotment garden.  I think maybe I read that Cocobong has used that and gotten a good green, but I'm not sure, it might have been nettle.  I know that I have read that Parsley is supposed to give a good green.  I tried to put that into oil.  Do not do that.  It's completely pointless.  So now I'm drying some and I will try to put that into the water for a soap sometime.

But back to Comfrey.  I have some of that in oil and also some that I simply dried.  Since the infused oil isn't particularly green I put some crushed dried leaves into the lye water and let it sit for a while and it did turn a bit green, but not a lot.  So I decided that I would leave the leaves in and attempt to make them smaller with the stick blender.  Which I did and it worked fine.  I don't usually like to leave flecks in the soap if I can help it, but if I hadn't there wouldn't have been much colour at all.

Since I had just bought some patchouli EO I decided to use that for the first  time along with some Bergamot and Lemongras EO's.  I have to admit that I wasn't sure what Patchouli was like because I have never had it.  It is very Hippy to me.  Reminiscent of the seventies.  Which is good.  A bit masculine also, and that is good since I haven't done a masculine fragrance in a long time.

I did a very simple soap.

Coconut oil 30%  150 g / 5.3 oz

Olive oil 40%       200 g / 7 oz
Soybean oil 25%  125 g/ 4.4 oz
Cocoa butter 6%    30 g / 1 oz

Water  38%          190g / 6.8 oz
Lye                        72g / 2.5 oz
5% SF.

So the soap wasn't particularly green at first, but when I cut it it was this beautiful grass green.  Alas, it has now turned olive green.  A nice olive, but that green was amazing.  How I miss it!  But these are perfect soaps to give as a gift to a few guys that I have been working with.  There are a few women in that group also, so I now am thinking up a recipe for a pink soap using my Rumex oil for the colour.
.

My Incredibly Green Cream

I had dried herbs hanging all over the house in the autumn
and I am always looking out for suitable containers for dried
herbs, face creams, body lotions, lip balms and toners.

I have been making face creams for almost two years now. I really like that and I use no commercially made creams anymore.  In fact, my cousin and I were talking and she was telling me how someone had given her a sample of a well known brand of face cream and she almost threw up because it smelled so artificial.  I so agree.  All those famous brand creams now are about as appealing to me as nuclear waste.

The creams I make are usually made with beeswax as an emulsifier.  That makes a thick, very creamy and slightly oily cream that is very good for the night.  It is concentrated and a little goes a long way.  I tend to slather on lots and lots, probably I use too much, and I really shine in bed at night.  But I have been searching for a lighter emulsifier as an option for daytime.  I ordered some vegetable emulsifier and it came with an ingredients label that said: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate!  That is very irritating to the skin and it is one of the ingredients that I want to avoid.  So I haven't used it at all.

I was really please to read Texia's (at Sanga natural) post about homemade emulsifiers.  She did two recipes and I have made them both and already used one in a cream.  I have a lot of dried herbs and herbs macerated in oil and I figured that I should use all my herbal oils for something.  So I decided to make an incredibly green cream.

The Incredibly Green Cream:

Oil phase - 70g of macerated oils: 20 g. each yarrow (Achillea) oil, chickweed (Stellaria) oil and Calendua oil.  10 g. mock orange (Philadelphus) oil.  And additionally almost 1 tsp. Njóli (Rumex) oil.
Into the oil I added a pinch and a dash of AHA and A retinol.  I don't have a scale that measures accurately in small increments so I eyeball the small stuff.

Water phase - 120 g. herbal tea: I made tea with the following herbs: Yarrow (Achillea), chickweed (Stellaria), shepherd's purse (Capsella), Comfrey and Viola.  I let this steep for about an hour and then I added a bit of licorice extract and niacin as well as the preservative Natrium benzoat.

Making cream is just like making soap, minus the lye.  I warm the ingredients in bain marie and then pour the water phase into the oil while whisking with a stick blender.
I forgot to write how much emulsifier I used, but I think it was somewhere between 10 and 20 g. and I put it into the water phase.

I like the cream very much, so thank you Texia.  I've been using it for about 2 weeks now, both morning and night.  It absorbs well so that my husband's goodnight kiss doesn't slide right off.  It is chock full of goodies for the skin and smells a bit green and I am pretty sure that it has taken twenty years of my appearance already.
.

Calendula soap - Triple luxury

That improvised soap mold worked beautifully and I could
easily use it to practice swirls. The heart shaped evening bag
is pretty and the ornate hairband is a little over the top.

Now I know that it's fall again.  My cousin and I just started to make soaps together again after taking the summer off for the most part even though I have made a few soaps on my own.  I can't not do it.  I guess it's an obsession of sorts, or it's just too much fun to not do it.  And there always seem to be some really fund things to try out.

But our joint soap making sessions are ususally fun.  We always manage to agree on what to do and this time she wanted to make calendula soap with her homemade Calendula oil and my dried Calendula petals and her dried flowerheads.  We ended up making it in a tray mold that I had picked up at "The Good Shepherd" a thrift shop charity where I spend all my spare cash.  It isn't really a soap mold, that much I know, but I can't imagine what else it could be used for.  I frequently get asked by the staff at the till: "What is that you are buying?" and very often the answer is: "I have absolutely no idea".  I usually figure it out or find some use for the stuff myself at some point.  But back to soaps.

Very pretty and very nice soap for delicate skin.

We intended to make just one recipe and since we wanted it a bit yellow we used carrot juice and we also hoped that the infused Calendual oil would contribute a bit of colour.  But as it turned out we made a 3 layer soap because the mold required at least 3 pounds of soap and we just made a regular size batch the first time.  So we made the other two a bit different, just for fun.  We could have made swirls, but didn't since she wanted to put dried flowers on top and I have to admit that that looks very nice.

I was asked for cut pictures and here they are, the little hacked up darlings.  It did surprise me that the dried calendula petals came through with their colour so orange, but I don't know if that will last.  We used no fragrance.  Two reasons for that.  I placed an order from a UK company at the beginning of June and am still waiting for it!  This might turn into a separate post about fraud pretty soon.  I've called and emailed... But... later.  Anyway, in the absence of the EO's that we should have received a looong time ago we thought we would make this unscented and therefore suitable for people with allergies and sensitivity to fragrance.

The recipes are:

Layer 1:
Olive oil            56%        420 g / 14.8 oz
Coconut oil       28%        210 g / 7.4 oz
Cocoa butter       6.3%       70 g / 2.5 oz
Sunflower oil      5%          50 g / 1.8 oz (Calendula officinalis infused)

Carrot juice         38%       285g / 10 oz
Lye                                    103g / 3.6 oz
8% SF.

The infused oil was added at trace as well as a generous amount of dried Calendula petals.  This layer turned out to be a slightly yellowish tan colour.

The next layer is almost the same except we added unrefined palm oil which I found in an Asian store and couldn't resist trying even if there are all kinds of ethical issues.  So layer one has different percentages, but mostly the same numbers are layer 1.

Layer 2:
Olive oil                   52.5%      420 g / 14.8 oz

Coconut oil              26.3%      210 g / 7.4 oz

Cocoa butter               8.75%       70 g / 2.5 oz

Sunflower oil              6.25%       50 g / 1.8 oz (Calendula officinalis infused)

Unrefined Palm oil     6.25%       50 g / 1.8 oz 

Water        38%       304g / 10.7 oz

Lye                         109g / 3.9 oz

8% SF.

To this we also added dried calendula petals and the infused oil went in at trace.  This layer turned out a very pretty yellow.

The third layer was the same as the first except we used water instead of carrot juice.  That layer is quite white and is a perfect backdrop for the dried flower heads we pushed in on top for decoration.

Cutting the soap turned out to be a bit of a challenge.  I hadn't really thought about how I would do that since the mould is larger than any knife I have.  I guess I need to make a wire cutter if I use that mould again.  I had thought that we would end up with 3x4 soaps out of the mould, but when I had cut (hacked?) them up they were way too big so I cut them in half again.  And they look kind of cute, if a bit crooked.
.

My bad - Salt soap

Etageres are irresistible to me.  This one is new, but looks
old. It was an impulse buy, but looks good in the sunroom,
filled with whatever little trinkets that needs a home.

Feeling a bit blue and bored the other day, I had the idea to make a blue soap.  I have some indigo and have read that it will make a blue soap.  Salt soap, I thought, would look nice in blue.

Feeling quite a bit less blue,  I took out the bag of the coarse sea salt that I picked up the other day and happily pulled out my oils.  I made a pretty simple recipe, but there was nothing pretty about the outcome.  It didn't have a trace of blue and it was just pure ugly.  But it smells nice, still.   Don't know if it will last.

There is something really sad about ugly soaps.  Soaps should be pretty.   This soap is very ugly.  Even more so than the photo suggests.  I sometimes try to like my ugly soaps.  Try to think of them as ugly ducklings that will turn into beautiful swans.  Sometimes they actually do.  Some of them turn out to have a great lather or smell or feel on the skin and end up as my personal favorite in the bath.  But some are just ugly soaps and there is nothing to be done, but rebatch.  I don't even know if it is possible to rebatch salt soap!

Appart from the failure to turn blue, nothing much went wrong, perhaps I just don't like the coarse salt.  It doesn't have a good feel to it.  Crumbly and difficult.  I need to try it out in the bath to see what it's like.

The recipe was a rather uninspired 30% coconut oil, 25% lard, 20% olive oil, 15% cocoa butter and 10% sunflower.  I put the salt into the soap at trace at the ration 1:1.  The fragrance I used was lemongrass, bergamot and peppermint.  At least it smells nice.  I need to find out more about indigo in soap.  This obviously didn't work.  But what the heck!  Chuck it up to experience.
.

Mock orange / Philadephus coronarius - oil infusion

My mother gave me that colander and I use it for all sorts of
things. It's perfect to separate the stamens from the petals.

I have two Philadelphus bushes in my garden.  They are on either side so when I walk into the garden when they are in bloom, the air is filled with this magical fragrance that is so different from any other.  To me it is like the scent of oxygen, if it had any.  Just so refreshing and light and a hint of vanilla.  I have often thought about trying to capture the fragrance somehow and the scent is so unusual.  So this year I decided to collect the flowers and pour oil over them to see what happened.  I have done this with roses and viola, but one of the dogs got into that jar and licked it up!

It is time consuming to collect enough quantity, but I was in the company of eager bees and it was nice and sunny.  The bushes were absolutely covered in flowers so they still looked pretty after I had raided them.  I then tried to isolate the petals from the stamens (the things in the middle of the flowers) and was successful using the old Swedish colander that my mum gave me and shaking it.  Then I put the petals in a jar and poured oil over.  This I let sit for only 24 hours during which I try to poke the petals into the oil.  They tend to float up.  I find that longer time does not work well with Philadelphus petals, they wilt quickly and start to look bad.  When that happens there is no fragrance left in them.  So I strain them out and let the oil sit for a bit.  There are always some impurities and bits that gather at the bottom.  These are water based and and heavier than the oil so they sink to the bottom.  When the oil looks completely clear I pour it into another container.  A turkey baster also works well.

I managed to make two infusions, one with Apricot kernel oil and one with almond oil.  I infused the first 3 times and the second 2 times.  The fragrance that was left in the oil smelled surprisingly of pinapple to me.  It's not the same as the fresh scent of the flowers, especially when I sniff the oil directly.  But when I put it on my skin it smells heavenly.  I intend to make this into a body lotion.  I know that this would never survive a lye bath.

I looked for medicinal uses for Mock orange and found some described for P. lewisii which is the American variety.  I haven't found anything about it's European cousin, P. coronaria, and don't know if they are similar in this respect or not.  But the American mock orange is described as used by native Americans as anti-hemorrhoidal and anti-rheumatic, used as a poultice or in oil.  Apparently the leaves are very high in saponins and can therefore be used instead of soap.  I found that a bit amusing.
.

Raspberry/Rubus idaeus - Leaves and berries

They may be a bit smaller that store bought, but what taste.
Our dinnerware is Maria from Rosenthal designed in 1916.
I fell in love with the glass bowls. We use it every day.

I have to admit to feeling a little bit greedy these last few days.  And I am suitably ashamed, as I should be.   The greed has to do with harvesting from nature.  I just have a feeling that I'm missing out and not picking enough and winter will be here soon.

I have completely neglected to pick Birch leaves, and there are so many trees here that I felt I could pick them whenever.  They weren't exotic enough to begin with, but now I want them and I want a lot.  They are good in tea as a diuretic, although I don't really need that as such.  I just want to have a large jar of it.  And then there are the plants that I should have picked in their prime in early summer that are now past their best.  So I am too late.  Oh, horror of all horrors!  I actually have to wait until next spring.  And I am not particularly good at waiting.

But I did find something new the other day and I'm ecstatic.  I found Raspberry bushes growing by the big river that runs through the city.  They are quite close to my allotment garden and seem to have been planted in the 50's or 60's.  They have spread quite a bit in those decades as they are a bit rampant and not something that is suitable to my small garden.  After I found them I visited again, this time with a basket and picked some raspberries.  The berries are almost too ripe, but I managed to get a bowlful.  And they were so good.  I have been eating them with ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.  Very, very healthy.

But I did more than that.  I picked Raspberry leaves.  They have medicinal qualities as so many plants have.  They are particularly good for pregnant women and during childbirth.  the leaves supposedly tone the uterus and pelvic muscles.  But they can also be used for PMS, bedwetting, sore throat, burns and mouth ulcers.  I just love the list of things that each plant can manage to treat.  But one thing is for certain, they contain vitamins C, E, A and some b (niacin), calcium, magnesium, manganese, selenium and iron.  Who needs pills?

But I also was given some rooted shoots and have planted them in my allotment.  The allotment community is planning to plant berry bushes all around the area and that way we should all get our share of berries, Red currants, Black currants and now Raspberries.  I can't wait for next summer and this one is hardly over yet.
.