Foraging: Lavender

I love lavender.
I love the way it looks, the glorious scent of the beautiful purple flowers, the dusty looking green leaves.
I love how many different ways you can use lavender.
I really enjoy anything that is lavender scented- lotions, soaps, chapstick, tea, anything lavender is just divinely lovely to me.

It just so happens my mom has a huge lavender bed right out in our front yard.
I'm not sure if this actually counts as foraging, since it's in our yard, but I'm going to say it does since it's from a natural source and not a store.

I cut several stalks of lavender a few weeks ago, put them into bunches and hung them upside down to dry in the kitchen.
When they were nice and crispy dry, I ran my fingers down the stalks and got as many flowers off as I could.
This was a messy job! I got the little lavender flowers everywhere, and then vacuumed up the ones I dropped on the carpet and the whole kitchen smelled wonderful!

I stuck the lavender in a jar and put them in the cupboard to experiment with different ways of using it.

First up: Tea!

Yesterday I was really stressed out and decided that using a little lavender for aromatherapy and tea would be a good idea to help calm me down.
I also spent some time with the Lord, and that calmed me down more than any tea ever could, but I have to admit, this tea helped too. God gave us lavender for a reason- to help calm our busy little lives!
If you'd like to make some into tea, it's simple. Here is what you need:


Lavender Tea 

1 Tbsp dried lavender

Hot water to fill a nice mug

1 tsp. Raw Honey (optional)

Tea Strainer or Tea Egg

Take your strainer, set it over your mug and put some lavender flowers in it.

I used way more flowers than this when I made my tea!
 I didn't think to take the picture til after I'd already dumped out the used flowers and didn't want to waste any more than this, so put a teaspoon or tablespoon of flowers in, depending on how strong you want your tea.

Then pour boiling water over the flowers, until they are slightly floating in the water.

Let steep for 5 minutes at least.

If you want your tea to be sweetened, put a teaspoon of raw honey in your mug, stir, and inhale deeply as you cup your hands around the mug and relax.

Try not to gulp it down. 

I imagine if you had some chamomile flowers and added it to the tea you'd really be relaxed! I'll have to try it sometime. :)

I'm on my way outside to go pick more lavender to dry for future tea-making. I have a feeling I"ll be drinking this a lot, it's so yummy!

Have any of you ever made lavender lotion? I'd love to but am not sure where to begin. If you know, please leave a comment for me!

Foraging: Wild Rose Hips

A couple of weeks ago our family took a walk down the road to get some fresh air, and ran across a whole bunch of wild rose hips.

I immediately wanted to pick them all, but had nothing to put them in, so I resolved that we'd come back and get them in a few days, and went home to research how to preserve rosehips and what to use them for.

If you want to read a more in-depth description of what rosehips do for your health, go here.

Rose hips are really high in vitamin C and can be made into tea, jelly or oil to help bolster the immune system. I thought that since it's fall and the beginning of the blustery, rainy season that we're bound to get a cold here or there, so why not make some tea to help us stay healthy??

One cool gray afternoon, I gathered up the kids and Grandma (my mom) and we went rose hip picking.

We had fun! 

Some of the rose hips were low enough for the kids to pick, and we snacked on the blackberries remaining on the nearby blackberry bushes. Some of the bushes were still flowering!

Once we got about 4 or 5 cups of rose hips and there weren't really many more that we could reach, we came home and I spread them out on a cookie sheet to dry. The process takes a few weeks, so they're not dry quite yet. They look so pretty though, and I can't wait to try them in some tea!

The mornings here have been foggy and cool, and it's so beautiful!!
I love seeing these girls out the kitchen window when I'm stirring the sugar into my coffee:

I know- more cow pictures! I just can't get enough of them!!

Have you ever done any foraging?? What did you get, and what did you do with it? I'd love to hear! 

This post is shared at Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.