Ever since I started using a French Press, I have been drinking more herbal tea.  The French Press makes it easy to brew and pour.  Normally I would fill my unbleached tea bags with loose tea and then brew.

But you don’t always need special equipment, just a tea infuser or something to strain the tea will work fine.

Photo of fresh stevia plant from ECO library.

So far I have made the following blends:

Peppermint, Hibiscus, and Stevia:  This is one of my favorite blends, since the Stevia leaves add some sweetness to the tea.  Stevia leaf is great, it’s sweet but has zero calories.  American sugar substitutes are selling them as Truvia and other names.  A few years back, I was really intrigued by the sweet leaves.  I even bought a stevia plant so I could eat the fresh leaves.

Rooibus (red tea) and hibiscus flower:  Rooibus looks more like red pine needles.  This combination makes for a very tangy and red colored tea!  Loaded with vitamin C too.  Even people who don’t like tea think this is good tea.

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This is the best eye cream I’ve made so far. The others I’ve made previously with carrot seed oil did not turn out so well. You can read more about the benefits of rosehip for skincare here.

The eye cream goes on nice and smooth.  I’ve been using this for about 1 month and find it’s great for the delicate area of the eye. And this one even has extra virgin coconut oil, so it smells like real coconut too.

It’s a nice natural product with no preservatives or chemicals. And all the plant oils nourishes and protects your skin. The shea butter and beeswax is what holds it all together - naturally! 

I used an old container from another cosmetic company. I never finished their cream as the texture and smell was just too odd.  At least I got to re-use the container.

If you would like to make this eye cream, the recipe is listed below:

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This is the latest soap that just finished curing after 4 weeks. Time seems to go slower when you are waiting for them to cure. But if you just leave them alone and check back later, it’s really not that long!

In the beginning, there were some nice swirls. But now it’s pretty much in one color that looks almost light brown in color.

It’s a smooth skin clarifying soap made with Moroccan Red Clay.  The clay will help with the removal of impurities and toxins.  It’s good for those with oily or acne prone skin. 

It would also make a great shaving soap due to the smoothness of the clay. A shaving brush or facial scrub could be used to increase the later.

Other ingredients include olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, and grape seed oil.

I have tried it in the shower and noticed it’s a hard bar that turns smooth once it’s wet. The scent is also very light and refreshing, less of the lavender and more of sweet orange scent. The combination is very pleasant smelling handmade soap full of gylcerin that is a treat for your skin!

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These pretty little flowers are call vygie (sounds like jiggy).  It’s a blooming kind of succulent plant without thorns - unlike cactus. In California, I’ve seen them grown in rock gardens and also used as ground cover in parking lots.

These were my vygies from last summer.  They have survived the cold weather, but no blossoms yet. Probably in spring or summer. They are completely easy to grow and propagate too.  And best of all they are drought tolerant plants so require very little water.  The bright colorful flowers are the best part of this plant.

There are 1700 species of this plant and a large percentage of them are found in South Africa.  I like the colorful type with bright flowers.

Oscularia species The plant flowers en masse in Fall & the blooms nearly obscure the foliage! Grows in less than perfect soil with minimal water & always looks great! - Annie’s

Annie’s Annuals and Perrenials, a seed and plant nursery in Richmond, California has many type of vygie available for sale.  Many of them look like ice plants with  many bright blossoms.

I love the little description they give of the plants too.  If I am ever in the area, I will have to stop by and pick out some nice plants - especially the vygies!

Here are some more of my favorites from Annie’s:

“Cherry Bomb” In full, glorious bloom, this shrubby, trailing succulent glows with hundreds of nearly florescent pink flowers! Each is about an inch across & together they blanket the foliage for a month or more in Spring.

“Lipstick Iceplant” Large phenomenally brilliant true red blooms without even a hint of yellow will slay you the first time they open. 3” across & silky-glowy, they appear most in Spring & again in Fall & Winter in our mild climate.

Photo and description from Annie’s Annuals and Perennials. Open to the Public 7 DAYS A WEEK, 9-4* 740 Market Ave. in Richmond, CA

These are nice also succulents: Aeonium “Blushing Beauty”. I took this photo at Target’s garden center.

Monkeys aren’t the only creatures that live in trees. Tree kangeroos also live in trees high up in the rain forests of Australia, West Papua, and Papua New Guinea.  They are so elusive that the locals refer to them as “ghosts of the forest.”

They look a bit like small kangaroos and wallabies.  They have such an endearing face and look almost like a plush toy animal.  In this photo, they look a bit surprise that they’ve been spotted. It must be the furry yellow marking on the chest that gave it away. Photograph by Russell A. Mittermeier/Conservation International, National Geographic.

Unlike their cousins, the front and hind legs are closer in size than ground kangaroos. They also have stronger fore-limbs to help with climbing and living in trees. As for the fur, it is thick and grows in opposite direction on nap and back. This helps to shed water when it’s head is crouched.

Although there are several species that live in the lowlands too, call the Lowlands Tree Kangeroo. As tree dwellers, the tree kangaroo eats mostly leaves and fruit. And sometimes collect and eat fruits that has fallen to the ground. Tree kangaroos will also eat other items such as flowers (orchids), tree sap, eggs, baby birds, grains, and even bark.

They are a reclusive and solitary bunch, much like pandas. I hope the natives learn to protect these animals since they are an endangered.  And who would eat a creature with such a cute face!

Photo from Green Expander 20 New Species of 2005.  I can see why it’s call the golden-mantled tree kangaroo from looking at those golden markings.  It also looks like it spooked out here.  

The golden-mantled tree kangaroo was discovered in December 2005 by a team of Indonesian, Australian, and U.S. scientists, in the Foya Mountains, in the Papua proivince. Currently, ten species are recognized in the group, nearly all of which are threatened by habitat loss or hunting. The golden-mantled tree kangaroo is considered as one of the most endangered of all tree-kangaroos, being extinct in most of its original range.

Lisa Dabek, Director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program, has been studying tree kangeroos for 20 years. Dabek commented on ABC news, “We have no idea what they do on top on the canopy — so we want to see what plants they eat, what they’re doing up there, so we’re basically getting a window into her world.”

Other info about tree kangaroos (compiled from the Oregon Zoo):

Lifespan: up to 14 years in captivity
Mating: no defined breeding season, females cycle every 51to 79 days
Gestation: 39 to 46 days, longest of any marsupial
Birth: usually one joey (about 1 inch at birth)

• female isolates herself before birth

• Birth position - sitting on base of tail with tail between legs

• Takes 2 minutes for joey to crawl to the pouch

• pouch contains 4 mammae

• joey attaches to nipple for 90 to 100 days, at 250 days joey looks out, at 300 leaves pouch for first time, at 350 leaves pouch permanently

• long pouch life compared to other kangaroos

If you are in Nebraska, you can visit a family of tree kangeroos at the Lincoln Zoo.  Milla and her mate Noru just had twins too!