Growing & Drying Lemon Balm (& tea) & Mints & Current River Kayak trip & Cave Spring Cave! (Issue 100)
Visit the new website for Lemon Balm where you can find it all again if you need to in the future. Remember there is an index on the website to all the plants and flowers.
I wish I could tell you that Issue 100 on Substack by me was carefully planned out to be something special, but it is not. It is just happenstance. I feel like I should be celebrating this special issue, but that would take more energy that I have at the moment.
Here is the YouTube video. I recorded this SO long ago and then waiting for a small part of it to flower for what seemed forever. It never really did flower well, but I grabbed some more video snippets at the end to show you what I could. The video shows how I dry my Lemon Balm as well.
I find the scientific name of “Melissa” and its meaning a bit funny, especially since it is a girl’s name! I love Lemon Balm and it has to be my favorite herb to grow of the ones I have tried growing over the years. We do love to drink it as tea in the Winter months mostly. I cannot drink caffeine after noon or I am awake all night! So when I am wanting something warm to sip on in the colder months in the evenings, Lemon Balm tea is it. I also like it in most foods as it is mild and does not take over the flavors of the food. I like it in mashed potatoes. Whatever I put it in, it gives that picture of health and makes me feel like I’m eating better, even if I am not.
I show in the video how green my herbs stay when I dry them by comparing 2023 to 2024. I do like to use my herbs for flat lay photography like this! I miss having time to be creative with flat lays. The time will come again.
There is also a new website page for Mint with my study notes and some older photos. There is no video as I no longer have mint in my garden. Take a look. You might learn something there. Have you ever been baffled like me at the many flavors of mint plants you can buy?
Here is our kayak trip which I took on Monday. Here is the YouTube video. I lost my kayak buddy when she moved from Missouri to the State of Washington, and having my son home for a few weeks, it was a great opportunity for some quality time. We had a great trip and the weather was in the 90’s which was perfect as well.
Here is the new website page for the Cave Spring Cave - Akers Ferry to Pulltite Current River Float. Can you believe it is page number 419? That means I have 419 locations on my website now! Wow! They are all indexed and on a map too. Here is the Pulltite to Round Springs float trip. Pulltite Springs is amazing to see! It is just below the section we floated last Monday. Here is the website page and video of us crossing Akers Ferry which is now pulled on shore and no longer operational.
I put a cool 1916 photo of Cave Spring Cave on the website page.
Did you see that Twitter has now officially been changed to x.com? I think it is stupid. I am barely hanging onto my now “X” account. It’s just that I’ve had it since January 2008, which is fairly early on in the Twitterverse existence, so it seems like something I should keep. I post there just a little bit. I think about getting rid of my Instagram account sometimes too, as well as the stupid Threads account. The homepage of Threads says it is being purchased by Shopify. What? Did I read that right? Why would Meta/Facebook start it and then just sell it? It seems like a joke to me. It seemed like a competition betweeen Zuckerberg and Musk on who could launch the best social media and the joke is all on us. (Oh, I did read it wrong, I found this: It's not clear if the startup sold the domain name to Shopify, Meta, or anyone else.) Regarding Instagram, I really want to create a feed like it on my own website homepage and move photos over, but I am not sure how to do it and I have no time. Social media has just become stupid. I’m happy here on Substack though and wish more would join me.
I have started the next digital Bible journaling on Jesus Walking on Water. My notes are all done, but now I need to open Photoshop.
I hope you find some joy in my sharing as I find joy in sharing it with you.
Cheryl
I planted some mint seeds but nothing came up. May try again.
Love the kayak video! That cave was very cool. 🤍