Rain, rain, go away, come again another day....
I know, I know, I should be rejoicing at the endless falling sky liquid, and really, I am thankful for the rain. It's just that it is JUNE! And it has been a long, long year so far, and I would really, really like to see some blue sky instead of perpetual gray! And no, I am NOT WHINING!
Okay, so I might be whining a little bit. It's just that there is so much work that I want to get done around the farm, and like it or not I don't have gills and I am most certainly not waterproof. Ooh, there's some Christmas wish list items right there!
Anyway, one nice side effect of all this never-ending moisture is that I have a bumper crop of flowers starting to bloom out. One crop in particular is making me stop and smell the fantastic, the Sitka roses are exploding into full flower bloomage around here!
Sitka, aka Rosa Rugosa, is a naturalized species of rose in my part of the world. Every year towards the end of spring my realm gets a little pink around the edges. Rosa Rugosa grows everywhere! On the edge of roads, in old clear cuts, and even in my yard! It is a vigorous, suckering vine of awesomeness. Your children can annihilate the shrub with a weed whacker and it will return to it's former glory with an almost smug I will survive growth pattern. Heck, the rose in my yard endured multiple goat massacres over the years, only to be the last man standing as I got smart and got rid of my heathen goat herd a few years ago.
Why do I like the almost invasive roses so much? Well, aside from the fact that they smell good and they look pretty, I also use the heck out of them! Yesterday while I was cooking dinner I asked my lovely and non-sassy daughter to pick me a colander full of petals. I love to make my own herbal tea mixes, and dried Rugosa Rose petals add this delicate floral hint of flavor to tea blends. When my over active brain needs the equivalent to a deep tissue massage of relaxation, I walk back to my catastro-pantry (It truly is an unorganized disaster), grab some dried lavender and dried rose petals, and make me a cup of kick my brain out of overdrive and chill girl brew.
Drying the rose petals is a pretty straight forward process. My spunky spawn returned with a wire egg basket full of the reminiscent of eighties cheek blush colored petals. I promptly gave them a rinse and spread them in single layers on my dehydrator trays. No, I don't have an Excalibur dehydrator. I have wanted one for years, but alas, it has not materialized as of yet. I use my inexpensive stack-able dehydrator that I got from Cabelas on clearance.
Before I became an almost once percenter and purchased a dehydrator I used old window screens that I sanitized to dry my herbs. Truth be told, I dry my herbs a bunch of different ways, bunched and hanging, on screens, in the dehydrator. The key is airflow, warm dry temps, and not drying in the sunlight.
Back to the petals. once I had them all spread on the trays, I plugged the dehydrator in for four hours, just to get the party started because the petals were a little wet, and moisture=mold. A lot of the time I will just spread the herbs in the trays, forget to turn the dehydrator on, and a week or two later be pleasantly surprised with perfectly dried herbs. Life is good.
In a future post I will show ya'll the end product and share my recipe for super calming Lavender Rose, Knock Yer Cares To The Curb, tea!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's never sassy but starting to get rather crotchety iPhone.
