Well not a bad day here.  Decided on cleaning the shop a bit along with my shop vac.  Then since it’s such a nice day would leave  the door open to air out the place, the shop that is.  You know I have been giving this tea a bit of thought. One thing us folks in the country have to deal with is scum on our tea.   It’s nothing to do with anything being wrong with it, it’s the hard water we have.  The minerals and things tend to cause this scum.  Over the years folks have tried all kinds of things to eliminate it with out to much success.  The folks that raised me years ago had a simple remedy and thought I would share it with you.  Simple and one doesn’t need a diploma hanging on the wall to figure it out. Lemon, yep that’s it.  The acid in the lemon counter reacts with the scum and prevents it.  Simple huh?  Well I got to be honest here as I didn’t remember what the solution was till one night while I was sleeping.  I dreamed that Laura the lady of the house was putting a touch of lemon in her tea pot.  Then it all came back to me. So in the morning I got up and tried it. Took a bit to get it right as I don’t much like the lemon taste in tea. But after four or five mornings of making tea we finally got it right.  About a 1/4 tea spoon per tea pot.  Works slick and no more scum.   Talk Soon

Well I know you are probably asking or should say thinking,  that there is no cure for the common cold.  For years my old Dad and Grandfather used to use leaves and blossoms from the Linden Tree or some call the Basswood Tree,  to stop a cold or flu in its tracks.  The leaves to use aren’t the big ones that is on the tree year round,  they are the long slim pointed ones that come out when the tree is in blossom.   There is two of them that go with each bunch of blossoms, those are what you want to harvest.  It’s not hard to find a tree when it comes out in blossom,  as if you put your nose to the wind come mid summer you can smell them a mile off.  Well at least here in the North where the air is clean.  Once we find a tree my wife and I pick all we can.  We take the blossoms and the slim pointed leaves home, sometimes a bushel at a time if we are exceptionally lucky.  She then takes them out of the bushel and lays them on news paper and lets them dry for about a month or so,  each day turning them a bit.   Once dry we separate the leaves from the blossoms.  The blossoms are good to cure the cold and the leaves are used to fight a fever.  I like to mix a couple leaves with my blossoms,  as that seems to be the fix for me.  At the first sign of a cold, which is usually a punky feeling,  my wife brews me up a cup. The simplest way is to go and buy yourself a thimble that you can put loose tea in. Usually you can buy them at the dollar store or an old Country General Store like we have here in Port Loring.  She then just crushes up enough to half fill the thimble and hangs it in a glass of hot water with a touch of sugar or molasses for taste.  In about two or three minutes of dunking it in and out one just sips away on it. I should say it tastes great and what medicine today can you get that tastes great and works.   A few weeks ago I was to town and sure enough I must have picked up something. I felt a bit down a week later so the wife made me up a cup of the blossoms just before retiring to for bed.  In the morning was back to my old self again. Can’t beat that huh?  We have been  using that remedy for years now and my Grandfather and Father before that. It is widely used in Germany and Switzerland still today. Oh and I would like to say one more thing about the blossoms. If you let them go to seed you can take the seeds, grind them up in a coffee grinder and you will have the best hot chocolate ever. Talk Soon