Bottoms Up!

Category: Artic Living | Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 10:55 am

Living in the Artic is something that requires alot of imagination not to mention endurance. I got the imagination, thats for sure but the endurance,, wellll,, I'm getting older, and I hope a little wiser anyways. I now relize its time to go about things just a little slower, easier and carefully. But!!! I just can't. The aches and pains are creeping their way into the old bones. I'll be 47 next month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. I'm not that old. But I do feel the weather more than I used to. I try not to let it bother me at all. But!! Sometimes you just can't help it.

So that being said and as I'm sure most you have come to relize I love the outdoors. I'm not going to let a few aches and pains stop me.. No Sir-ee!! So I look to nature for remedy. I have learned alot from the states when I lived there, but here in the artic who do I look to now. Well, its only natural to ask the "old timers". The very people who have lived here all their lives. But where did they get the rememdies from... Obviously passed down for generations. Thats why I am writing this blog.

The Vikings! Oh the super farmers from the north. Bless their huge beserker hearts. They were a people who adapted to what was around them and used it.. just as I do now. I have listened and adapted my ways to theirs. Lets take the berries of the land. As everyone now knows they are full of anti-oxidents. Blueberries, Cloudberries, TyttebÃƒÂ¦r (simular to a cranberry) Krekkling ( a very dark berry with no taste at all but packs a whollop) and there is others. All these little powerhouses are full of vitamin C, the B's and full of cleansing powers. They helped the Vikings to stave off flu's, colds, fevers and all those other goodies that the cold has to offer. Then there is the SierslÃƒÂ¸k. This is a plant that is a combination of garlic and onion. Long fat leaves, comes very early in the spring and dies back just before fall comes. This ofcourse has all the nutrition that garlic and onions has to offer a person for their health. Then there is the leaves of the different trees and berries. The birch leaves are so good for you, for your joints, aches and pains, good for the blood, it has natural asprin in it. The leaves of the black current are packed with more vitamin C.

After learning all this I have taken to waiting for spring with barely contained excitement. I use the leaves and berries and make a saft, or concentrated juice, I like to call Norwegian Kool-aid. When those old bones start to bother me, i make a drink using just a little of the concentrate and add water, or make a tea. Within minutes, I can run around like a kid again,, well okay, almost. I stay healthy now buy making my own jams, safts, chutneys, pesto's. All the good things that you just add to other foods, as toppings are the very things that are keeping me running around.

I started this blog because I will be posting different, very different recipes as each thing comes into season. Just so as not to scare you, or think I have jumped into the North Sea and my mind is still frozen. We can thank those loveable Berserkers and their very skilled wifes and also those from even before them, on how to stay healthy in the Artic.

So each day I go out and I look around, take note what is almost ready, what will be awhile. When I give the recipe I will also give the benifits of the herb, flower, leaf, berry or root. But I'm ready, and waiting,,,,,,,, very impatiently I might add.

Did I mention about angelica, or, or, nettles, then there is seaweed, ohh wow, we can not forget seaweed, then there is the purple clover, and the wild cheval,,,wait, wait I almost forgot the chickweed and the lambsear,,,,,,,, ohh yeah,,,then there is the ,,,,,,,,,,,

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Droopy wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 11:04 am:

*lol* You are wonderful, and I love your spirit and get-up-and-go! I'm pottering about outside, just in for a quick drink, but now I need to go back outside and munch some birch leaves. :D And the little oxalis acetocella leaves and blooms. And some rhubarb too, maybe.

eileen wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 11:58 am:

Biita your posts and blog entries are always soooo inspiring!!! I'm in having lunch at the moment but will be out again ASAP as it's sunny here. I may have an arthritic hip and two false knees but no way am I ever going to give up gardening!! I look forward to those recipes you've promised us and will try them out.

kaseylib wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 11:58 am:

Looking forward to more old-timer remedies. I never heard that about birch leaves, and I've got some sore bones/muscles too after a long day of gardening. Thanks for the tips.

kuntrygal wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 12:21 pm:

Love reading your blogs. You are so full of life and it shows in your writings. I look forward to your recipes. Maybe ward off some of my aches and ailments!

toni wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 1:19 pm:

Oh, I am ready for this. Nothing growing in the wild around here, what I can't grow for myself I know I will find at one of my favorite herb shops.

I loved your response in Sjoerd's Paardebloem topic yesterday calling the dandelion dinner and a drink. You have made other comments about eating from the wild that have really intrigued me and I was hoping you would share some of your knowledge.

Biita wrote on Tue May 06, 2008 1:32 pm:

Thank you all for reading. Thats one of the beautys of living organic. Nature has everything right outside your door. or a little further maybe,,lol. I plan on sharing a bunch as each plant comes into season here. Thats one of my main goals is to share all the healthful benifits of nature. With the high price of food there is absolutly no excuse not to eat healthy or to store healthy foods for winter or when out of season, and still get to benifit and enjoy the great flavors and foods,,, for free!!! Thats the best part of it all. We all grow our own foods to a point here at this forum, so why not take a freebie now and then too from nature!