Therapy Goal VII

Since the first time I walked this property in 2013, it has felt far more like an herbal wonderland than a dairy farm. Investment acreage tends to be that way. The long neglect from the Weed Warrior faction allows nature's pharmacopia to flourish in unpredictable blends of feral and native plants. I'd rather try to predict Wall Street than what might spring from nature's pharmacopia when left to it's own ancient wisdom and devices. While I have been involved in abandoned farm properties for my entire silver streaked life, I keep a solid safety buffer from the investor class which owns them, including my husband and in-laws. For my weed witching expeditions, it is far easier to find forgiveness than permission. The need to ask forgiveness is rare. I donae believe any of the investors has ever known I was there and the ocassional tenants are seldom possessive of their rentals. They typically comisurate with me about the unavailability of absentee owners.

At the start of the 20th century, European dairy farmers, most especially the Germans, were still using horehound to scrub their dairy buckets, etc. They brought horehound to this region when they emmigrated. One of the ways I can spot an abandoned dairy farm here in the 21st century is by the feral stands of horehound. It is rare to find contemporary country folk who have a name other than, "weed" for this plant their ancestors respected enough to bring all the way from Europe. The feral horehound on this property is THE finest horehound i have ever dragged my cuffs through. It makes my attempts to grow it in gardens look laughable. There isnae any praise in that fact. Horehound is only one of many *weeds* which are more easily cursed than domesticated.

I still donae trust that Hubs has moved beyond his investor class conditioning and his brother and wife remain a mystery to me, but since my first survey of this property in November 2013, I have been quietly and without expectation been proposing the feral horehound here could be nurtured into a potential cash crop with comparative ease. After discovering that bees like it, hubs took the time to learn how to identify horehound and has even begun to give respectful salute to its abundance up here. I think. After 38 years of marriage I still find it hard to distinguish his sincere interest from water cooler fact trading. Still, the five year evolution has given me some confidence that I can believe what he says about this particular *weed*. Some. 

The healthiest stand of this past year sits in a fenced off paddock which has been left untouched by any domestic creature for ALLOT of years. I guestimate the enclosure to be around 2 acres. It is mostly horehound. This time of year horehound is prickly enough that not even *I* will venture into that burry wonderland. I have been proposing it as a potential test plot for horehound cultivation from day one. Each mention of the possibility has launched Hubs into nostalgic potentials for his someday dreams. Ears open, mouth shut for me. For my purposes, the someday dreams translate to, "No" for my own current day. Someday might or might not ever arrive.

Earlier this summer GS and I mowed the perimeter of this paddock, along with a path down the middle to allow closer, safer examination of what is actually growing in there. Girl howdy, that was an adventurous chore. I suspect the smell of horehound will haunt GS for the rest of his life, but he treated it like an African Safari, all the way to stripping off clothes on the back porch and heading straight for the bath tub so that we didn't carry all that mystery crud into the house with us. The resulting pathways gave Hubs some clearer illustrations of my Weed Witchy visions. This past weekend he consented to designating that paddock as a horehound test plot. I think. Our herstory is chock full of times when we were agreeing on radically different ^its^. Could be he was still agreeing to the need for generic suburban mowing after the recent rains.

Yesterday I took that vision to the next level. Today's rain makes me believe it is already growing its next evolution. The paddock sits a hundred yards or so from the big barn where I have been starting my morning guit-chi. The cattle runs between the barn and paddock, continuing on to the walkways through that paddock have become a common route for my guit-chi wanderings.

It's guit-chi time.