Ninth book for this year.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy | Book Review
Friday, June 27, 2025
Naturally Curious Blog | Recommendation
I have enjoyed learning nature facts from this website. I have the page bookmarked and check in every so often to see what new interesting thing has been posted.
I am going to add this site my links page.
https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com/
The blog is written my Mary Holland. A naturalist, photographer, and author from Vermont. I didn't know much about Mary Holland so I read this interview that she gave for Northern Woods. Now I want to buy her book! It sounds full of the kind of wildlife and nature information that I love to learn.
Just to give you an idea of the type of posts you can expect over at Naturally Curious, this month she has written about Wolf Spiders, Turtle Leeches, Tulip Trees, and a mystery photo of some species of turtle or tortoise. Pretty neat stuff! And the posts are very short with bite sizes of information.
To end this post I am going to show nature photos of things that caught my interest around my home recently.
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Some kind of crab spider |
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Some kind of oriental beetle |
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A beautiful box turtle wandering through the back yard |
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Leaf leg bug |
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Oyster mushroom |
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Wolf's milk slime mold aka toothpaste mold |
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Bee fly |
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Hackberry butterfly (they look prettier in person.) |
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Some kind of caterpillar. My three year old son asked me to take this picture. I am so happy that he appreciates little things in nature, too! |
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A pretty little Pearl Crescent butterfly sunning itself in the morning. |
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Another Hackberry butterfly. |
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Some kind of jumping spider with a fly meal |
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Sewing in June
My son needed this button sewn to his shorts.
These shoes that are new to me needed a little stitch where the thread had unraveled.
Friday, June 20, 2025
Counter Blast To Tobacco | Review
I recently found a really nice version of King James's Counterblast to Tobacco in a PDF. The spelling has all been updated, and the text is formated in an easy to read way across 9 pages, conveniently in the public domain. There are some latin phrases in the Counterblast. In this version translations to the latin phrases have been given in brackets, which I found very helpful because I don't know latin. Here is a link:
https://www.exclassics.com/blasts/tob.pdf
This was a short and entertaining read. I found myself laughing out loud in a few places. King James could be quite hilarious! I found a few sentences challenging and had to read them 5 times to understand the meaning. Some of the sentences are so long that I forgot what the sentence was about by the time I reached the end. I really enjoyed catching on to King James's train of thought. He was way ahead of his time in arguing that smoking tobacco is unhealthy.
Below, I have compiled my analysis of Counterblast to Tobacco. I have distinguished 11 points of argument.
King James's Counter Arguments and excerpts:
Summary of the Introduction: Even good people have a tendency towards corruption and as King he is going to act as physician and diagnose this societal disease of tobacco smoking.
#1. The origins of tobacco use are bad.
"For tobacco being a common herb, which (though under divers names) grows almost everywhere, was first found out by some of the barbarous Indians, to be a preservative, or antidote against the pox*, a filthy disease, whereunto these barbarous people are (as all men know) very much subject, what through the uncleanly and adust constitution of their bodies, and what through the intemperate heat of their climate: so that as from them was first brought into Christendom, that most detestable disease, so from them likewise was brought this use of tobacco, as a stinking and unsavory antidote for so corrupted and a execrable a malady, the stinking suffumigation whereof they yet use against that disease, making so one canker or venom to eat out another.......
.....Why do we not as well imitate them in walking naked as they do? In preferring glasses, feathers, and such toys, to gold and precious stones, as they do? Yea why do we not deny God and adore the devil, as they do?"
#2. People say that all hot and dry things are good for the brain because the brain is cold and moist. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Just because the brain is cold and moist it doesn't proceed that all things hot and dry are a benefit. If the brain is cold and moist, it is because it needs to be for it's good function and smoke is then a detriment.
#3. People say that smoking is good because it helps the body void phlegm. King James's counter argument goes like this:
The smoke doesn't help void phlegm. It causes the phlegm that then must be voided.
"....so this stinking smoke being sucked up by the nose, and imprisoned in the cold and moist brains, is by their cold and wet faculty, turned and cast forth again in watery distillations, and so are you made free and purged of nothing, but that wherewith you willfully burden yourselves: ...."
#4. People say there must be something good about tobacco because so many people find it pleasing. King James's counter argument goes like this:
People are just attracted to novelty.
"And so from hand to hand it spreads, till it be practiced my all, not for any commodity that is in it, but only because it is come to be the fashion. ..... and therefore the general good liking and embracing of this foolish custom, doth but only proceed from that affectation of novelty, and popular error, whereof I have already spoken."
#5. People think tobacco is a cure. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Correlation doesn't equate causation.
"...so if a man chance to recover one of any disease, after he have taken tobacco, that must have the thanks of all. But by the contrary, if a man smoke himself to death with it (and many have done) so then some other disease must bear the blame for that fault. So do old harlots thank their harlotry for their many years, that custom being healthful (say they) ad purgandos renes,["for purifying the loins"] but never have mind how many die of the pox* in the flower of their youth. And so do old drunkards think they prolonged their days, by their swinelike diet, but never remember how many died drowned in drink before they be half old."
#6. People say that tobacco is like a medicine and keeps one in good health. King James's counter argument goes like this:
Medicine can't be taken constantly (as people take tobacco) because it will cause harm if not used appropriately.
"Medicine hath that virtue that it never leaveth a man in that state wherein it findeth him: it makes a sick man whole, but a whole man sick. And as medicine helps nature being taken at times of necessity, so being ever and continually used, it doth but weaken, weary, and wear nature."
#7. Tobacco has addictive qualities.
"In your person having by this continual vile custom brought yourselves to this shameful imbecility that you are not able to ride or walk the journey of a Jew's Sabbath but you must have a reeking coal brought you from the next poor house to kindle your tobacco with? ..... To make a custom in anything that cannot be left again, is most harmful to the people of any land."
#8. Tobacco is a waste of money.
"Now how you are by this custom disabled in your goods, let the gentry of this land bear witness, some of them bestowing three, some four hundred pounds a year upon this precious stink, which I am sure might be bestowed upon many far better uses."
#9. Tobacco smoking is filthy and rude.
"And for the vanities committed in this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanliness, of modesty, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof to exhale althwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very often, men that abhor it are at their repast?"
#10. Smoking tobacco corrupts one's breath.
"But herein is not only a great vanity but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke, wherein I must confess it has too strong a virtue: and so that which is an ornament of nature, and can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired, once lost, be recovered again, shall be filthily corrupted with an incurable stink, ..."
#11. Tobacco smoking is dishonoring to one's wife.
"Moreover, which is a great iniquity, and against all humanity, the husband shall not be ashamed, to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean complexioned wife, to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt her sweet breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment."
Conclusion: [tobacco smoking is] "A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
*The use of the word pox can refer to many diseases that cause a rash. I am guessing that this use of the word pox is in reference to syphilis. Syphilis is one of the few diseases that came from the Americas to Europe. This is to the best of knowledge, but I am not an authority on the subject.
I have made a recording of this Counterblast. I have been unable to find a reading of this work on YouTube. So I made one myself, though it is a little rough around the edges.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Pineapple Weed Vs. Black Medic
May and June are the best time of year to gather Pineapple Weed buds. Pineapple Weed has petal-less flowers that make really calming tea, in fact Pineapple Weed is closely related to Camomile. Pineapple Weed loves poor quality soil like driveways and empty lots. I love the smell of the buds. I like to squeeze a bud between my fingers and sniff the fruity aroma. It smells kinda like....... pineapple!
Friday, June 13, 2025
Nanking Cherry | Wild Edible
I have learned a new wild edible. This is the Nanking Cherry. They are succulent tart little cherries grown on a shrub.
Do you remember this flower that bloomed in March that I saw during my morning walks but didn't know what kind of flowers is was?
Now on my morning walks I see these cherries. I was able to look up the shrub now that it has leaves and berries and make a sure identification.Nanking Cherries are a drought resistant shrub. I need to get a bunch of these planted in my yard. I think they would make a great hedge. The cherries are tart, delicious, and prolific. All along each branch there are cherries up and down. They would make good pies and jam I think. The trouble would be getting the pits out. They have a miniature cherry pit in each fruit.Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Nutmeg Documentary
The second time that watched this documentary my children joined me and I considered it part of homeschooling (even though we watched it on the weekend.) I even drew these coloring pages and made copies for my children to color.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Huffman Pineapple Upsidedown Cake
This is my mom's pineapple upsidedown cake recipe. I am still not able to make pineapple upsidedown cake as well as my mother. Her cakes are the best. The caramel crust on her pineapple upsidedown cakes are so crisp and praline-like. She has made this cake probably a hundred times. When she melts the butter and sugar in the skillet she knows by experience how long to cook the mixture. She doesn't time it. She doesn't measure the temperature. So she can't tell me exactly how to replicate what she does. One of these days I am going to practice pineapple upsidedown cakes until I get it perfect like she does. Now I will have the recipe to do it right.
Melissa Huffman's Perfect Pineapple Upsidedown Cake
1 stick of butter
1 3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 can pineapple rings
1 jar of maraschino cherries
1 box plus 1/2 cup more from a second box of yellow butter recipe cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup pineapple juice
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Mix the cake mix with eggs and add oil and pineapple juice
Melt butter in iron skillet and add brown sugar and spread evenly and turn off. Put pineapple rings and cherries in place. Pour cake batter over.
Bake for 45 minutes or until tests clean. Turn out onto platter immediately.
In case you don't have box cake mix, I used the following and the cake part of the pineapple upsidedown cake was good.
Yellow Cake from Scratch
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups white sugar
½ cup oil + 2 TBS. butter
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup pineapple juice (or how ever much pineapple juice you have plus enough sour cream to make 1 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract