An Old Recipe for Scented Lavender Ink

Lavender from My Backyard Garden

Ever need to post something to calm and refresh yourself? That is what this simple photograph of lavender is meant to do for me this evening. I imagine breathing deeply in the plants and feeling a gentle relaxation overcome me.

I have had this recipe for many years, and have never made it, but maybe this August will be a good month to give it a try. My great-grandmother made scented inks every summer using a variety of garden flowers, including heirloom roses, geraniums and her very favorite, lavender.

LAVENDER INK

An ink that you scent with the flowers of the lavender plant will surely send a message of calm and enjoyment when the special recipient opens the envelope. What an added enjoyment to the message you send…

People do still write an occasional letter now and then — don’t they?

Here’s the recipe.

1/2 ounce lavender flowers, dried well
5-6 tablespoons of water (distilled if possible)
one small bottle purchased ink, black or dark blue

Crush the dried lavender flowers and simmer them in water for about 30 minutes – until there is 2 tablespoons of brown liquid left in the pan.

Strain through a piece of cheesecloth and mix with ink when fully cooled.

Enjoy.

Architectural Beauty

Turn of the 20th Century Mansion, Quincy Illinois

Detail of Roof, Including Wrought Iron Tulip Garden

This house in part of a several block stretch of turn-of-the-20th Century homes built on Maine Street in Quincy Illinois. Each home is more fascinating than the last. I love the wrought iron detailing on the roof – can’t you just imagine a stately row of early spring tulips in bloom?

Piano in Black and White

Piano Leg and Reflection

Taliesin Gardens and Asian Sculptures

Asian Sculpture in Frank Lloyd Wright's Garden

Wright's Crane Sculpture from Japan in Taliesin's Garden

Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Spring Green, Wiscosnin, has several gardens also designed by Wright. (If you know much about FLW, perhaps you know that Wright designed everything connected with his homes. He was not only the architect, he also designed the furniture, rugs, and everyday house implements from dishes to lamps. And some of his clients even allowed him to design their clothing, including magnificent dresses, so that they would FIT into his vision of his perfect environment. (Susan Dana from Springfield IL was his favorite client because she agreed to any of his ideas AND funded them promptly!) Hmm. Maybe Frank was a bit of a control freak in addition to all his creativity and genius.

Anyway, Wright brought thousands of art objects and artifacts from Asia to the US, most notably from Japan, and used them throughout many of his homes, in his designs and in his gardens. These two cranes are in the garden near his bedroom in Taliesin. He could open his bedroom door which was set into a wall of framed windows, take a dip in his 8 foot deep plunge pool, and then wander a bit through his flowers and sculptures.

It really would have been an insomniac’s solution – a dip in a cool pool and then a midnight stroll in the gardens. I’d much prefer that option to the one I take nearly every night when I find myself awake, lying awake and watching the ceiling.

Do you think FLW would mind a new occupant?

Graffiti Train

Train Graffiti

Blue Crazed Graffiti

Train graffiti

Trains stopped on the rails west of Madison.

What Better on a Hot Summer Night…

…than taking a stroll to the corner dairy store for a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a Safe-T Cup cone? When I was a kid, the ice cream always dripped faster than I could lick it and my arm would be streaked with the sweet stickiness to my elbow. And the cone? It always tasted a bit like cardboard – a slightly sweet cardboard, but cardboard nonetheless.

In these days of franchises and fast food, are there many real “dairy stores” any longer? Places where they make the ice cream in the back? As a kid, I only had to walk down the street to visit Deters Dairy Store, but it is likely I’m dating myself. Yes?