Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Red Salad Bowl, Plantain Tea, and Another Silly Thing

Today I finally finished that illustration of Red Salad Bowl Lettuce:
So, apparently, as I just read on wikipedia, lettuce has something in it called Lactucarium, or Lettuce Opium, that is a mild opiate-like substance of which both the Romans and Egyptians took advantage by eating lettuce at the end of a meal to induce sleep. I've never noticed myself getting sleepy after a salad, but I guess I will start to pay attention now.
Another fun and useful plant tid-bit I keep meaning to write on here about is that plantain leaf tea is good for allergies. I learned this from that book, The Moneyless Man, (thank you mom for the Christmas present). Juneau has pretty bad allergies and he says it helps him. I have also been wondering if I am developing allergies because sometimes I have itchy eyes and a bit of a runny nose and I like to imagine that this helps me too when I drink it, but who knows what is really going on since I am not even sure if I really have allergies. Anyway, you just pick a few leaves, we like to chop them up, boil some water, make some tea and voila, allergy relief. Here is what the plant looks like in case you don't know and want to look for it in your yard:
And lastly, here is an improvement on yesterday's video. It seems pretty much the same at first, but be patient and you will probably laugh.

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