A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! It is Thursday, March 24 as I write, and after a warm blustery day yesterday we woke up to a light blanket of snow this morning. The sun soon shone bright and the snow was melted by noon, but it sure was something to see the green grass poking up through a white blanket.
I assume my “chickweed patch” in the alley came through just fine, but I’ll have to go out later and see for sure.
Why should I care about a common garden weed? I’m one of those crazy folks who see a helpful side to some lowly weeds. (They say my arch-enemy dock has medicinal qualities, but even I’m not sold . . . yet.)
Chickweed is a cool weather lover, and this garden weed can supply an impressive amount of vitamins and minerals to your spring salad. (It really doesn’t taste that bad raw, I promise!)
I picked it, however, not for its culinary possibilities but for its healing value in a homemade salve for insect bites, paper cuts, and other “hot,” inflamed ouchies. The kids and I grabbed several handfuls of the green tops earlier this week, shaking to remove any dirt. We then laid them on a clean tea towel for about 6 hours to let them wilt a bit, removing some of the moisture that could eventually cause our salve to mold.
We then filled a wide-mouth quart jar with plant material, covered that with olive oil, and covered the jar with an old piece of cotton tea towel, to continue to allow moisture to escape while it “steeps” in the dark of our kitchen cabinet for three weeks.
It will be mid-April when I turn the infused oil into finished salve, just in time for a summer’s worth of bug bites.
Transforming oil into salve requires an ingredient not in everyone’s kitchen cabinet, however—beeswax.
Several years ago I bought a bag of “beeswax pastilles” from Mountain Rose Herbs. These small pellets of beeswax don’t have to be grated before use, and are very handy for an amateur herbalist like me.
I look forward to being able to treat our family’s “ouchies” with another simple, effective treatment courtesy of a plant often considered a weed. It’s a great feeling to be able to use plants God has provided us to help treat life’s minor “boo-boos.”
Just as life is once again flowing through plants and trees dormant through the winter, my desire as a wife and mother to focus my time and energy on my family and home has been renewed. For many weeks and months now I have felt pulled in way too many different directions.
Ironically, clarity was given to my feelings of frustration by a comment made in passing by the Master Smith in our oldest son’s recent blacksmithing class at Cow Town in Wichita. “There’s too many irons in the fire,” he declared, thus breathing new life into my understanding of this old phrase.
Blacksmith or not, these days it’s still very easy to get too many irons in the fire, and that’s where I currently find myself.
We have carefully balanced our options, and have decided that closing The Buggy Stop is the best way forward for our family.
We moved to Enterprise with the intention of building a traditional, diversified farm that supplies as many of our needs as possible, and we have found that our “marriage” to our restaurant has kept us back from progressing on our goals. The Buggy Stop’s last meal served will be supper Wednesday, March 30.
Our family will devote the month of April to improvements here on the farm, with the ladies focusing on things inside our ramshackle old farmhouse and the men working on innumerable projects outside in preparation for spring planting.
In order for me to be able to devote maximum time to this project, I have decided to take the month of April off from writing this column. While I have thoroughly enjoyed chronicling our family’s journey every week these last two years, a break from the routine in order to make needed changes here at home will be a welcome change of pace.
Next time we talk, my chickweed salve should be ready, and the bugs will probably be biting, so I’ll be sure to let you know how well this old garden weed works!
Chickweed Salve
2 cups crushed fresh chickweed
about 3/4 cup olive oil
(or grape seed oil)
20 drops lavender essential oil
clean, empty wide-mouth pint jar
grated beeswax or beeswax pastilles
Vitamin E capsules
clean, empty small jars
for storing finished salve
1. Lay crushed chickweed out to wilt for about 6 hours to remove some of the moisture content (Excess moisture could cause your salve to mold). Place in a wide-mouth pint jar and cover with oil. Stir to remove air bubbles, making sure all plant material is submerged in oil. Cover with cheesecloth or scrap of cotton cloth to continue to allow moisture to evaporate, place jar band on to secure cloth, and store in a dark place for about 3 weeks, carefully shaking every day or two. Be sure to label jar with contents and date so that you know when the three weeks are up.
2. Strain infused oil through a fine meshed sieve (I line the sieve with an old tea towel that can be discarded), squeezing the plant material to get as much oil out as possible.
3. Let this set a day or so in a clean, covered jar to let any sediment settle to the bottom of the jar. Pour clean oil into a measuring cup, leaving sediment in bottom of jar. Take note of how many ounces you have. Transfer oil to top of double boiler or very heavy saucepan; add lavender essential oil.
4. For every ounce of oil, add 1 tablespoon grated beeswax and squeeze in the contents of 1 Vitamin E capsule. Heat the oil over low heat until the beeswax melts. Don’t walk away—this will happen very quickly. Test for finished consistency by putting a spoonful of oil in the freezer for 5 minutes or so. If it is too soft for your liking, add a little more beeswax. If it is too hard, add a little more olive oil and test again. Pour salve into small jars and let cool. When cool, put on lids and label jars. Hint: Wipe out saucepan and anything salve has touched with paper towels or an old rag before salve hardens, then wash in hot, soapy water.
Yield: About 3/4 cup salve. (1 cup oil=1 cup salve).
Copyright © 2016 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in Enterprise, Kansas. She and her husband own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six home-schooled children. You can reach The Buggy Stop by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com .
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