washing horsehair... i'm cleaning out the paper mill and found my stash of horsehair from my mare mist. so i washed it.
it smelled only a little of horse, but it was so her. silver gray hair from her mane. i will use it in a textile soon, i think. i saved it for the right time. which might be now.
luscious slippery elm bark i harvested for frank, a north country gift. a nice bunch, i found it isn't peeling as well as it did in spring. the summer is so advanced this year that peeling isn't easy and pleasurable like it is in may. but i think he'll have enough to make some paper and see what he thinks. i still haven't tried basswood inner bark. must do! also must harvest milkweed and dogbane. i'm a little weirded out by the ticks and really don't want to come home covered in them so i find myself avoiding tall meadows. silly of me, but there is lyme disease up here now. i'm feeling creepy crawly from harvesting that slippery elm.
