Still Playing With the Still

I did a distillation of some dried roses last night and wasn't really happy with it so I made a strong infusion from 3 different dried roses.  This morning I'm distilling last night's distillate with the strong infusion and some rose hips and it is coming out beautiful.  I may also do some elderflowers today too.

I know Spring appears to be early-we are going to be in the 70's all week.  Yet I'm still impatient and can't wait to have fresh plants to work with.  Just in my garden I will have tons of Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Peppermint, Basil, Rosemary, catnip, calendula and hopefully Helichrysum.  Lest we forget the various Roses I'll have to play with.  My husband will probably move out if I have the house reeking of flowers all summer. I want a Rosa Rugosa Rose bush from Horizon Herbs, for the flowers and the hips-I love the EO so it should make some awesome rosewater.  I am also going to buy seeds and/or plants of German Chamomile, Roman Chamomile, Ceremonial White Sage and Tulsi Basil.  i have some Lavender but not enough to do much hydrosol so I may have to stick with dried herb there-but that one came out fantastic and produced more essential oil than I ever dreamed!

I am going to start listing some of these this week so if you are interested in hydrosols and aromatherapy you should consider making a purchase. 

Hummer Watch and Other Projects......

Good Morning!  I am outside on the patio having my coffee and hoping to have a hummer sighting.  I always see one on Memorial Day, though last year my husband and I saw our first one in early May.  It hasn't been unbearably hot yet, but we are supposed to be in the 90's today and tomorrow.  I hung my feeders yesterday and added a couple drops of blue food coloring to the nectar so my hummers are going to be having purple nectar

I am going to be finishing my gardening work early this morning before it gets hot.  I have some helichrysum and St. John's Wort to plant.  All my St. John's plants perished for some reason.  Two of them may have been simply from old age but the other 2-I don't know.  The only St. J's that I have in the ground look like seedlings that were sown from last year's plants.  So I suspect I may have a shortage of oil this year.  I also bought a stevia plant.  Not sure where I'm going to put it.  We have run very late getting our mulch in so I am going to cut the comfrey and lemon balm plants to the ground to make it easier to put out mulch.

I am still working on some perfumes.  I want to build a musk accord tonight with ambrette seed extract, cistus absolute, patchouli, myrrh, angelica root and maybe some jasmine.  Since we are having plenty of sun I am also going to make some more flower essences today and tomorrow-but I need some brandy first!  I am going to do valerian, lavender, roses, and arnica.

I am also going to be working on some natural pest control.  I have a bad case of little red spider mites on the patio so I am going to make insecticidal soap with neem CO2 and castille soap and water.  I may also make a brew of Neem CO2, rubbing alcohol and water to spray directly on the little bastards so they'll die.  We also have ants invading our dining room.  This is a room where we only eat when we invite the whole family over for special occasions like Thanksgiving so there's no food in there.  I have no idea why they are there but I will fix it.  I am also going to come up with a chili pepper CO2 mix of some kind to put around the flower pots for the Hibiscus.  The squirrels are actually climbing the hibiscus and sitting in them while they eat the leaves.  Last year we had rabbits chewing off branches.  Apparently hibiscus leaves are a rodent delicacy.  I am also attempting to grow Calendula again this year and the squirrels always chew those to the ground-so we are going to have a chili pepper barrier..............