Nettle Tea

Making Nettle Tea

If you are having nettle tea from teabags, you don't have to worry at all about the sting. The sting (from histamine and formic acids) has been dried out.

If you are harvesting fresh leaves, then you have to be a little more careful. Don't harvest from areas where pesticides or car diesel fumes might coat the plants. Use gloves. Snip the brighter green tops and place in your collecting bowl or basket. Give them some rough chopping with a pair of clean scissors. Place them in your pot or teapot. Pour boiling water over them. Let it brew for AT LEAST ten minutes. This way the sting is removed. Then, you can strain the herbs and drink the tea. And the cooked nettles are edible and good for you.

The stinging nettle was referred to by Shakespeare in the play Henry IV part 1, where the character Hotspur asks that "out of this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety." The common figure of speech "to grasp the nettle" has its origin in this quotation and means to face up to or take on a known problem.

Stinging nettles have long been of considerable value as fodder for livestock, although when they are growing they won't be eaten by the animals because of their known stinging power. However, if harvested and left to wilt they lose their sting and are then relished by livestock, particularly cattle which respond to a nettle diet by giving more milk, and poultry which respond by laying more eggs. In Sweden and Russia the stinging nettle has even been cultivated as a fodder plant. Horses are known to prosper on nettles and in many countries horse dealers mix nettle seeds with horse feed in order to help their horses develop a sleek and lustrous coat.

Nettle stems are very fibrous and the strong fibre taken from them has often been compared to flax, hemp and linen. It has been used in the past for making string, ropes, sacks and sails, a good quality paper and fabric for use in clothing. In the first world war nettle cloth was used in Germany for making their military uniforms. There is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called The Princess and the Eleven Swans, in which the princess weaves some coats out of nettle cloth.

*

The Holly and the Ivy

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Original has live links, clicky

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Air pressure changes, allergies increase, Alps melting, anxiety, aggressive polar bears, algal blooms, Asthma, avalanches, billions of deaths, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cannibalistic polar bears, cardiac arrest, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, methane emissions from plants, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink, cold spells, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, damages equivalent to $200 billion, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, disaster for wine industry (US), Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, drowning polar bears, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early spring, earlier pollen season, earthquakes, Earth light dimming, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth wobbling, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis,, Everest shrinking, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (ladybirds, pandas, pikas, polar bears, gorillas, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, glacial retreat, glacial growth, global cooling, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Gulf Stream failure, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, hurricanes, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, inclement weather, Inuit displacement, insurance premium rises, invasion of midges, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, krill decline, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane burps, melting permafrost, migration, microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, more bad air days, more research needed, mountains break up, mudslides, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, nuclear plants bloom, ocean acidification, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, pests increase, plankton blooms, plankton loss, plant viruses, polar tours scrapped, psychosocial disturbances, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, refugees, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rift on Capitol Hill, rivers raised, rivers dry up, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, Ross river disease, salinity reduction, Salmonella, sea level rise, sex change, ski resorts threatened, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, spectacular orchids, tectonic plate movement, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, tropics expansion, tsunamis, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus pups orphaned, wars over water, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine - no more French , wind shift, winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, Yellow fever.

and all on 0.006 deg C per year!

Hattip to birdonthemoon

Nope.

It's damned hard work.

Give Mom half a chance this Christmas. . . .

re-post: Can't say this too often. . . .

"a man of applied ignorance'

The case Gore makes is worthy of sleepless nights: Our Earth is in extremis . It's not just that polar bears are drowning because they cannot reach receding ice flows or that "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" will exist someday only as a Hemingway short story -- we can all live with that. It's rather that Hurricane Katrina is not past but prologue. In the future, people will not yearn for the winters of yesteryear but for the summers. Katrina produced several hundred thousand evacuees. The flooding of Calcutta would produce many millions. We are in for an awful time.

You cannot see this film and not think of George W. Bush, the man who beat Gore in 2000. The contrast is stark. Gore -- more at ease in the lecture hall than he ever was on the stump -- summons science to tell a harrowing story and offers science as the antidote. No feat of imagination could have Bush do something similar -- even the sentences are beyond him.

But it is the thought that matters -- the application of intellect to an intellectual problem. Bush has been studiously anti-science, a man of applied ignorance who has undernourished his mind with the empty calories of comfy dogma. For instance, his insistence on abstinence as the preferred method of birth control would be laughable were it not so reckless. It is similar to Bush's initial approach to global warming and his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol -- ideology trumping science. It may be that Gore will do more good for his country and the world with this movie than Bush ever did by beating him in 2000.

For more: click title

Time for a re-post

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts

Copyright © 2003 Donald Bradshaw

Will Iredale

SCIENTISTS have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.
The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.

Although polar bears are strong swimmers, they are adapted for swimming close to the shore. Their sea journeys leave them them vulnerable to exhaustion, hypothermia or being swamped by waves.

According to the new research, four bear carcases were found floating in one month in a single patch of sea off the north coast of Alaska, where average summer temperatures have increased by 2-3C degrees since 1950s.

The scientists believe such drownings are becoming widespread across the Arctic, an inevitable consequence of the doubling in the past 20 years of the proportion of polar bears having to swim in open seas.

“Mortalities due to offshore swimming may be a relatively important and unaccounted source of natural mortality given the energetic demands placed on individual bears engaged in long-distance swimming,” says the research led by Dr Charles Monnett, marine ecologist at the American government’s Minerals Management Service. “Drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice continues.”

More: click title

Hat tip to The O C

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Tanner Update

December 02, 2007 at 09:25 PM MST

I keep meaning to update, I can't believe it's been 3 weeks!
Tanner is doing well. I know I said in my last post that I was sure he had a UTI. Well, I was wrong! They couldn't find anything and he slowly got better. The only thing left is this darn cold that won't quite go away. Tanner's due for a CT scan this month, however, I don't want him to have it while he has any congestion. I would HATE for something to show up on the CT because of it. He'll be getting labs again this week, and we'll go from there.

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. I had invisioned a scene straight from the movies. Picture the Christmas music in the background, everyone sipping cocoa, working together, quietly and happily. What was I thinking??????? The boys were all so excited, that it got a little wild. Austin, 8, put most of the lights on our huge tree!! Austin and Noah put candy canes on, and Tanner took them off. It was too funny. Tanner was gathering up those canes as fast as he could.

Love and hugs to all, Megan

Getting nekkid for a good cause. . . . .

Bettmeralp's mayor, Heidi Kreuzer, was unimpressed by the fuss.

"There's no need to get undressed, I can show you very nice pictures of the glacier," she told the Swiss newspaper Le Matin.

Environmental issues have considerable resonance in mountainous Switzerland, which has been hit by a growing number of damaging flash floods and landslides in recent years due to stronger storms and rainfall, as well as heatwaves.

A Swiss government report this week underlined that temperatures were rising faster than the global average, and measures needed to tackle the impact of global warming would cost the country about one billion Swiss francs (833 million dollars, 617 million euros) a year.

The country's 1,800 glaciers are regarded as a visible barometer of global warming.

Their data also shows that all Switzerland's main glaciers are retreating and the melting has accelerated since the mid-1990s, according to scientists at Zurich's Federal Polytechnic (ETHZ).

For pic, and the rest of the story, click!

Time for a repost. . . .

IT TAKES NINETY YEARS TO GROW A BOX OF KLEENEX

USE A HANKY FOR GODSSAKE!

CLICKY

(DIRECT FROM EASY BAKE COVEN)

You, Yours

Every word I've ever written

Every hand I've ever held

tear I've dried

pain comforted

sorrow made whole

What tongue loves

and ear

Things held in a hand

knives, umbrellas, pens

paintbrushes, hammer and saw
banner, flag

tilth

All joy, all sun, all crystal

murmur, rustle, hum

bird wing, turquoise bead, sparkle

on water, bud and berry, seed

beetle and butterfly

Storm, wave, thunder

leaf, flower, grass, thorn

High summer, winter's dead

spring sweetness, autumn's flame

Each moment of quiet,

peace, pleasure, giggle,

glee, laughter

Compleat

.

1 December 2007

One year, one month, one day ago. . .

The Queen of Chicago
was taken to hospice today
Did I not love his sister
I would not have known.

A week. Or two. And even this
a miracle. I stood with her on
Thanksgiving Eve, holding his hand,
the hand of a man I'd never known,
breathing in rhythm with her and
the respirator. He looked startlingly
like Van Gogh. Fine blue veins surfacing
in pale pellucid skin, rough red beard;
skin drawn against the bone of his skull.

Hands flaccid and warm in ours
we stood, blue-paper clad and masked
like towers to either side of his bed
just out of the reach of the monster
machines that ate and breathed for him.

An only son, an only brother, blessed uncle,
a very special godfather,
beloved partner, mate. Who had
already taken his last step,
and when he waked, was only
to know with certainty
it was to say goodbye.

The decades of battle
resolved in this one, kind, word:
palliative.

Like the battles of his childhood,
it was never a fight he
was going to win.

For Thankful's brother, Rene,
and Subway's brother, Dan

"AIDS Ribbon Chair," 2000
Michael Ransom
carved wood with paint, 4.5" x 4" x 4"

Must be an English teachers' joke. . . .

moar funny pictures