Big Sandy Mush: Nodding Trillium, Blood Root and Cassette Tape Dance Party

Yay! I got to go for a visit to Big Sandy Mush yesterday - in my GMC Jimmy... the drive was a descent into a deeper more green spring then I've been experiencing high on the mountain in Luck. Every moment was one of magic... seriously filled with butterflies, color, flowers, with various smells of trees, honey combs and blooms.
There were some of my favorite wild & native plants growing over there - and Bort dug up some blood root for me to take back with me to the cabin. He dug it up with a neat handmade 'shovel' cut from a piece of bamboo... (see pic below) ... (i like that alot!)We found some nodding trillium too! The flowers of the nodding trillium are underneath the three leaves (hence the name.)

But the party REALLY got started when Bort helped me fix the cassette tape player in my GMC Jimmy ---> which was holding a big ole' grocery bag full of my cassette tapes thanks to my mom who brought them all the way from New Orleans.

We opened up the doors and back hatch, and turned those old mix tapes on high volume... and of course when I hear things like Billy Idol singing 'Rock The Cradle Of Love' I naturally must jump onto the hood of my funky ole' truck and dance like the girl in the video did!!!

We blew on the wishie flowers (dandelions) but I forgot to make a wish.... not feeling like I have any wishes must be a good thing, maybe cause it feels like all my wishes have come true lately. :)

What was Bort's wish? I wanna know.
Bye bye Big Sandy Mush... the rain clouds rolled in and I rolled outta there back to the Luck Cabin.
xoxoxoxo

Where The Wild Things Are

Today I took a walk into the woods and found one of my favorite wild native plants growing! When I first moved to Western North Carolina I took a short "Wellness Weeds" class by a painfully animated lady named Molly - she sang songs about "weeds" such as stinging nettles, chickweed & dandelion that made me never forget their edible nature. She also cultivated a deep love in me for knowing how to forage your own food and medicine right in your yard. Today I found Bloodroot, which is a very controversial medicinal plant used by the Native Americans, loved by Dr. Andrew Weil, and shunned by the medical community as being poisonous and deforming to the skin. The root also makes a red sap which can be used as a dye but should only be harvested with much care to keep the ecosystem going strong by not using too much.

Each Bloodroot plant makes only one delicate white flower growing very low to the ground, then it's tropical and oddly shaped leaves thrive in a beauty that is something like a mix between a succulent & a fig leaf. Isn't it purty?!!! I love Bloodroot (seriously, this is the second time I blogged about this awesome plant!)

xoxo

I Heart Bloodroot

Bloodroot is my favorite native North Carolina plant, that is next to the Elderberry. I mean, just look at this picture - isn't it so heroic, oddly shaped and cute? Bloodroot is usually found growing deep in the woods under big shady trees- anytime I have seen the sun touch them the leaves burn and die.
"Bloodroot is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants, a process called myrmecochory. The ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, where they are protected until they germinate. They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant nest debris."
Now that is freaking awesome! In wikipedia it warns that the sap is toxic and can disfigure skin over time - but I read a statement by Dr. Andrew Weil that he used it to remove moles and it would separate the mole tissue from the live tissue and then heal cleaner then a surgical cut. (To read more about that theory get his "Spontaneous Healing" book... it's a cool book for anyone faced with an incurable disease.) Either way, I am in love with bloodroot - for it's beautiful shape, cool history of native american use, it's controversy and it's actually native!
Viva la native gardening! YAY!