My lawn is real purty this morning. It’s bedecked with random dandelion blossoms. So is the neighbor’s yard… but I know it can’t last. Suburbanites can’t stand dandelions and think they’re weeds. In a few hours their lawnmower man is coming, and away will go the beauty for something… kind of ugly, actually. I’m not sure why people would trade something so lovely for ugly barrenness.
I’ve been trying to remember a lot of things I knew while growing up while learning new skills. I always have dabbled in herbalism, but you can’t just dabble and let the flowers get mowed down. Nooooo. So even though I’m under the weather yet again, I rushed my butt outside and busily set to harvesting dandelions.
The neighbor’s son came up to see what I was doing (as is routine), and when I replied that dandelions were good eating he made such a face. It was the kind of face small children make when you ask them to eat their liver. I was laughing on the inside, but with a straight face I explained that the leaves were good for salads, the roots were good as a coffee substitute as well as medicine, and the blossoms I intended to try to learn how to make jelly with. I also mentioned they were stock full of four essential vitamins like A and K, and two of those vitamins are ones that are missing from your average American diet. Oh hell yes I was in my yard harvesting dandelions before they got mowed down!
The main reason I think that people would die in an apocalypse is because they’d be sitting in a field of dandelions and never know they could eat.
The dandelion parts are in water and being washed thoroughly right now. I mean, dogs walk around the yard after all. (No sense in grossing out over that. Deer, rabbits, and a host of other critters walk all over the farm as well. In the garden.) I also have one blossoms that had started to turn to seed early in a glass of water, hoping it will open. I’ll take those seeds and cultivate them in a cleaner, more secure place if I can.
Incidentally I completely suck at harvesting dandelions. I only got a few roots, and my goal was to get a bunch. I have enough to start learning with, though. I’ve never dried dandelion roots up for medicine before. We’ll see how it goes.
In the meantime, here’s a video I did talking about more craft stuff.