Coffee Chat: Dandelions and Daffodils

One morning a couple of weeks ago we were headed out to an appointment.  We had to leave early that morning and I was hurrying across the yard.  I was stopped in my tracks by a strange little flower in my path. It was perfectly round and white.   I leaned to look closely at it and realized it wasn't a flower at all, but a Dandelion gone to seed.  The fluffy seed ball had captured moisture from the fog that morning and looked much more substantial than the seed heads do in their dry state.  It had been completely transformed by that coating of fog and was unrecognizable as a dandelion.  

Flash forward to another morning this last week and we were up earlier than usual.  The sun was just beginning to come up over the top of the trees.  I stood at the window gazing out and puzzled over the objects covering the ground just beyond the Faith Tree and then I laughed.  I called John to come see.  There were rows of dandelion seed heads, also wet with the morning dews standing in perfect little rows between us and the sun on the lawn, shining for all they were worth as the sunlight hit them.  

Dandelions are the bane of many a homeowner who wants a lovely lawn.  Here in the country, we don't worry so much about them.  Dandelions are so quick to adapt to their environment that even if the lawn is kept mown short, they will simply learn to grow shorter than the blade height.  So, our yard is full of the plants that stand no higher than a Johnny Jump-up, and they live their entire lifecycles at no more than two- and three-quarter inches high, from budding to blooming to seed head.

The children and grandchildren are drawn to the sunny yellow blooms.  My children brought me many a dandelion bouquet.  Isaac and Caleb are the two most prone to bless me with the floral offerings these days.  I accept them happily.  Alas, the blooms fade very quickly if they aren't put in water immediately, but it's always the grubby hand holding that lovely little yellow flower that warms me through and through and makes me forget many an aggravation with those two boys.  

And of course, one cannot deny the fun of making a wish and blowing hard on a seed head and then peeking at the hopefully empty stem to see if that wish might come true...Stuff of sunshine and heart tugs, wishes and hopes.  How can a dandelion be such an awful thing if it gives us all that?

When John's youngest son Danny was living, I made up a song that I sang to him while he was eating.  "Danny Dandelion..." I'd say and immediately his blue eyes would brighten, and he'd grin from ear to ear.  He loved that little song that he knew was just for him.  "...he left me sittin' here cryin' " And indeed he did.  How I miss him!

We have a great variety of dandelions here.  Those adaptable ones we don't mind so terribly much and I believe they are the ones that many a holistic sort will go out and collect the blooms of for their medicinal properties. Then we have some that develop stalks that are six or seven feet high and two inches in diameter with great broad leaves and a tap root that seemingly disappears somewhere beyond the magna at the earth's center and just maybe comes up in China.

It's the small ones I claim as being sunshine and wishes.  They are the ones that are medicinal.  They are nutritious as well.  Every part of the dandelion is edible from root to leaves, stem to flowers.  The leaves contain lutein, magnesium, iron, Vitamins A, C and K.  The root contains inulin, a powerful prebiotic fiber. The flowers have a honey-like sweetness.

They grow year-round, but each part must be harvested in the right season if you're to find them palatable.  Roots are best harvested in late Fall and early Winter.   The leaves are best in early spring.  The flowers should be harvested in summer.

Dandelions are part of the sunflower family which includes lettuce, chicory and endive.  The latex in the sap causes the stems and leaves to have a bitter taste similar to arugula.  You can add leaves to a salad or mix with cheese in a quiche.  You'll want to cook the greens first and may mix them with spinach, after squeezing them as dry as possible before mixing with your eggs and cheese.  You can also add the uncooked greens to other greens when making pesto.

The roots are said to taste earthy, much like a carrot and can be eaten raw as a cut vegetable but when roasted become quite sweet.  

The flowers have a sweet honey-like flavor.  You can make a tea by steeping the flowers in boiling hot water for ten minutes.  You can make wine with them, as well as jams and jellies and the flowers may also be fried as fritters, or you might pickle them.

Dandelions contain both anti-inflammatory beta-carotene and polyphenols. They also have antioxidant properties and promote liver health, decrease blood pressure and cholesterol, and may help with insulin production.  You can use the powdered root in capsule form or make a beneficial salve with the flowers which is good for aches and pains.  Of course, all of these medical benefits are not fully tested and recognized by traditional medical practitioners per all the usual disclaimers posted everywhere on any site anywhere, but holistic practitioners are aware of the healthful benefits which have been passed down for generation upon generation. 

A few years ago, I took dandelion root extract for two months on Lana's recommendation (she is not a medical nor holistic practitioner, but I trust her advice), and I saw nothing but positive benefits.  I'm going to go through another treatment as soon as my capsules arrive.  

A couple of you have urged me to get an A1C and I am waiting on the doctor's office to send us the lab orders.  I think I'm going to have to call and remind them and ask if I can possibly pick them up next week while I'm in Perry visiting Mama.  We have a limited window each week when we can get blood drawn in our county.  It's then sent out to the lab that does the actual work, and the results are mailed to doctor, and occasionally to the patient, from there.  It's complicated...   When I was a phlebotomist at the hospital, we did lab work right there on site, and many doctor offices did basic labs in their offices or sent them to the hospital lab if they were more complicated tests, but alas, that is no longer the way of things.

I don't think it was the same day I saw the dandelion in the yard, but we came home one afternoon and there were daffodils bowing gently in the breeze.  I have removed the iris and daffodils from that particular spot many times because in the early spring, it is a hot bed of poison ivy or oak or something that has sent me to the doctor at least twice for a steroid treatment.  I threw caution to the wind and picked the daffodils anyway.  I felt safe enough seeing as the whole of our world is still very much winter bound.  It might not be apparent in the weather but is in the dull browns and greys of the world all about us.  I heard John on the phone with his brother the other night, "Terri found daffodils today..."  and I knew that bringing them indoors had been the right thing to do.

Those were the first daffodils I'd seen this year.  It wasn't until days later when I was driving along an old country highway that I saw dozens of roadside daffodils in bloom.  I am still searching for them in yards in towns, but I have seen very few so far.  In the meantime, I am hurrying to pluck the few that have bloomed in my yard because I so love them.  I prefer the trumpet shapes ones but I'm really partial to all of the daffodils, from the yellow narcissus to the double variety.  

Years ago, more than 50 now, we lived in a home built in the 1920's.  Off to one side of the front yard was a rectangular shaped portion that was fenced on two sides.  In the last days of winter, the whole area became a lovely yard of daffodils.  

Even as a young child, I adored the beauty of flowers and there were just hundreds of daffodils each year right there in my own yard for me to pick and enjoy.  Mama fussed each time I walked indoors with my handful of blooms, but I did not let it deter me in the least.  Somehow, I felt myself right and my mother very wrong.  She always said, "They're only going to die!"  Well, I reasoned, they were only going to die anyway, because that was the nature of things.  Why shouldn't I gather them to enjoy the look and aroma of while they lasted?  

This is a trait that Granny and I shared.  She had flowers of all sorts that bloomed from late winter through spring and summer and until late fall.  Not loads of them but enough that she managed to have a fresh bouquet most weeks of the year. It was a rare week when she didn't have flowers in the kitchen or living room.  She cut flowers from her yard to take to people when they were ill or needed cheering, too.  She understood something about the healing power of beauty, I think.   I certainly understood the desire to have that beauty in the house, breathing their own form of life into the rooms. 

I have my few daffodils in a tall glass jar sitting on the kitchen counter right now.  The ever so faint aroma of them tickles my nose.  The sunny yellow cheer of them makes me smile.  I usually pop them into an old cobalt blue glass Milk of Magnesia bottle.  I adore the bright yellow and green against that deep blue, but I didn't make the trek out to the shed to retrieve the bottle.  

Vases are something I do not have many of.  I have two.  Two.  One was Granny's and the other was a wedding present for John and I.  I used to have a milk glass bud vase but I've no clue where went.  Oh, and I do have a silver bud vase I picked up in a hardware store that sometimes put the household belongings they no longer cared for upon the dusty shelves.

Mostly I've always just grabbed whatever vessel seemed suitable to me at the moment.  I have used mason jars and cobalt or rich brown medicine bottles (only glass ones).  I have used tea kettles and creamers, saltshakers and crocks.  One of my favorite arrangements was of dogwood branches with their lovely creamy flowers in my great grandmother's brown glazed sour dough crock. Another was an arrangement of Tiger Lilies in the black base of Grandmother's ice crusher.  Still another arrangement was of golden rod and wild pink flowers we have in the autumn shoved into a blue and white enameled coffee pot.  I think sometimes that I'd like to have vases, but I like being creative with what I use to display flowers.  

I've been eyeing the other daffodils about the place.  I have several planted in pots, and various beds around the house.  Nothing like the mass I saw this afternoon on our way to Macon.  There were easily thousands on hillsides where old houses likely once stood.  My fingers itched to stop and pick an armload of them, but I didn't.  I don't think you can trespass on these old homesites to pick flowers as you might have done once in the past.  

It made me think of a hillside in front of farmhouse we used to pass on our way to visit the kids in Athens and later in Winder.   The same hillside Katie passed last year and texted me, 'Caleb just called the daffodils, "Faffodils". '  

Tell me...do you have daffodils in your yard?  And have you made a wish on a dandelion head lately?  

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