Somewhere In Time: Historic Waterville, Ohio

In a seemingly never-ending quest to find a cure for my health problems that have, to this point, baffled traditional medical doctors, I found myself waiting to see a naturopathic doctor in Waterville, Ohio, a while ago--a quaint, sleepy canal town outside of Toledo.  The town, laid out in 1831 but inhabited by settlers about 15 years earlier, is still somewhat unaffected by the metro Toledo suburbs that are slowly but steadily encroaching on the area, a fact that is evidenced by the lack of chain stores and restaurants, as well as the abundance of historic storefronts and homes that can be found all over the village of about 5,000.  Many of the homes along the river date back to the early to mid-1830s.  It makes one feel as though they've stepped back to another time, a simpler time.  I'll go into more detail about my appointment with the naturopath in another post, but after the appointment, I drove around and took some photos before heading back home, a little over an hour away.  I also made a stop at a grist mill owned by the Toledo Metroparks and open to the public, free of charge, and took more photos.  Here is a photo tour of my little day trip...enjoy!  P.S. If you want more info about the Grist Mill, click here.

Drying and Saving Herbs, Part 2

A while ago, I posted about how to prep your fresh garden herbs for drying.  This is the second part of that post--what to do when the herbs are dried out.  It's super easy!

Once your herbs are dry and crunchy, like this, they are ready to be ground up!

You'll want to get some supplies: bowl, herb scissors, a stem stripper, and an herb grinder (all pictured) or mortar and pestle, funnel, and glass jars.  The one pictured was a gift from my mother-in-law that she found from Pampered Chef, but you can also find them on Amazon.

Once the herb leaves are crunchy and dry, you'll want to remove them from their stems using an herb stripper tool.  Parsley is easiest, because the leaves are just at the top of the stems.  If you don't have a stripper tool, you can just pick the leaves off by hand or strip the stems by running your finger and thumb down the stem (for woody herbs).

Remove the leaves and keep them together.  I put them in a bowl as I'm plucking.  Once you have enough to run them through your grinder of choice, go ahead and do so!

Once the leaves are ground, I keep them in a labeled glass jar.  I just keep adding to the jar as I continue to dry herbs all summer.

Voila!  You have just made your own dried herbs!  And you know exactly where they came from and how they were grown.  Another bonus is that they are fresh, and the smell and taste so much better than the bottles you buy at the store!