Pineapple Weed

 

    Pineapple Weed or Wild Chamomile can be a usefull plant to know. I've found it growing in several places, usually in hard packed poor soils such as around walk ways or where vehicles or farm machinery travel.
It is related to Chamomile but it lacks the petals, the flower of the plant is shaped somewhat like a pineapple and when crushed it smells and tastes quite like pineapple.

   Some of the uses for this plant from my research is that it can be used as a natural insect repellant when the flowers are crushed and rubbed on the skin andcan also be used to treat scratches that are getting inflamed.
As a tea a teaspoon of the flowers steeped for half an hour can be used as a calmative or for stomach disorders, or when feeling rough such as when getting a cold.

Before using any plant do your own research and make sure it is safe for human consumption, I prefer the Peterson Feild Guides as they will usually list look alike plants that can be harmfull if consumed.

Stay Safe
Bob

Back to Bushcrafting

      It's been awhile since I've posted to the blog. In fact other than my regular six day a week job and the cows at the farm it's hard to get the energy to do much else. But yesterday is I hope a new beginning back to bushcraft. My son Josh and I took my Granddaughter on a canoe trip down Back Creek, it reminded me how much I like the calmness and solitude of the woods.
Now I wouldn't necessarily say it was calm with a three year old in the canoe but she did very well, and she didn't fall out.

One of the greatest moments of the afternoon is when a doe and her fawn crossed the creek in front of us, she made the leap up the bank but he got left behind until he found a another path.

Stay Safe
Bob

If you like Bluegrass

I was never a big fan of Bluegrass music although I listened to it on occasion. Recently I was searching for something on U Tube and came across these very talented young Brothers who call themselves the Sleepy Man banjo Boy's. Bluegrass truly is Americas music which is the title of their first CD and they are working on their second. 

History Around Us: Mary Jemison...The Massacre!!

        During the attack on their homestead by six Shawnee and four Frenchmen, Mary along with her parents Thomas and Jane, her siblings Robert, Mathew and Betsy were taken along with a neighbor woman and her 3 children who was staying at the homestead. Her oldest brothers Thomas and John who were working in the barn escaped.
The ten captives were led Northwestward en route to the Ohio Valley, the children being whipped when they did not keep up. On the second night thirty or so miles from their home they were not far from the area now known as Fort McCord, a private fort that was destroyed by a band of Indians led by Shingas about two years prior.

        Around this time Mary along with the other women's young son were given moccasins to wear by the Indians. As they were separated and led away from the rest of the captives Mary's mother cried out.
"Don't cry Mary...don't cry my child. God will bless you! Farewell...farewell!

The gorge where Mary and the boy traveled with their captors.

The monument

  
Some pictures of the gorge that Mary and the young boy traveled with their captors.
  

 A narrative of the life of Mary Jemison: the white woman of the Genessee By James Seaver

Stay safe

Bob