Moss are interesting little plants. Little patches of bright green in an otherwise dark corner of the forest. Moss are different than plants because they do not have flowers, leaves, or seed. But reproduce with pores.

There are also many different type of moss. Here I’ll break down the differences.

Photo below are one of the many uses of moss. These are really nice ones from “Twig Terrariums.” Photo from .

Sphagnum Moss - Comes in dried form used in floral arrangements. Bonsai hobbyists also use them for air layering. The live Sphagnum moss is used in terrariums or miniature indoor garden.

Spanish Moss: Found growing on large trees in the SE United States, where it’s warm and humid. Not related to moss, but part of the bromeliads family. They are “epiphyte” and also called air plants.

Moss: Usually found on damp and shady parts of the forest, or if you’re lucky in your backyard. Also used to decorate gardens and terrariums.

The Georgia Gardner had this tip about propagating moss.

“You can “propagate” moss by taking a handful of moss adding about one cup of buttermilk and one cup of water and mixing it in the blender. Take the concoction and pour or paint it onto the surfaces that you want to grow moss.”

Sphagnum Peat Moss: The dead material that accumulates in the lower levels of a bog. There are peat moss bogs found in Ireland and Canada. Used in garden beds and for growing grass.

I got Sphagnum peat moss to grow catgrass and got this within 2 weeks. Sphagnum peat moss is also great for growing lawn seeds. Just spread out the seeds and apply the Sphagnum Peat moss as a top layer.

Cranberries come around for a short period this time of year. People like making cranberry sauce to eat with their turkey for Thanksgiving. A good thing since cranberries are one of the most healthiest fruits available.

I like to eat them this way, mixed with salt, sugar, and pepper. I also tossed in some dried cranberries because the fresh cranberries are very tangy.

Dried cranberries are a favorite with trail mixes. I also like them in granola. It keeps the granola from being too boring.

In 2005, researchers found that cranberries are also good for your teeth and gum. This is from the University of Rochester press release on November 23, 2005.

“Koo’s team also found evidence that cranberry juice disrupts the formation of the building block of plaque, known as a glucan.

Like a mason using cement to build a wall brick by brick, bacteria use enzymes known as glucosyltransferases to build dental plaque piece by piece, quickly forming a gunky fortress that covers the tooth and gives bacteria a safe haven to munch on sugar, thrive, and churn out acid.

Koo’s team found that cranberry juice prevents bacteria from forming plaque by inhibiting those enzymes and by stopping additional bacteria from glomming on to the ever-growing goo.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

This story is bittersweet. Also reminds me of Hachiko, the loyal Japanese dog that waited for his owner to come home from the train station.

BBC reports 11/21/11: A dog in China refused to leave his owner’s grave. Mr. Lao Pan’s, 68, a single resident of the village was the only companion to this dog.

The dog stayed at the grave site for a week without food. The villagers then left food and water for him. They also plan to build him a shelter next to the grave.

Photos from The BBC’s Xiaoyun Yao.

He’s such a cute dog, especially with the sad eyes. Maybe when he’s ready, a new owner will take him in. But if he’s happy to stay there and the villagers help take care of him that’s great too.

I don’t know much about Miffy but she’s very popular in Europe and even Japan. But I do remember seeing her at the bookstore and thought, “Oh, this kind of art must be Japanese.” Then I saw it was from the Netherlands.

Miffy came out in 1955. Hello Kitty debut in 1974 in Japan and along the years she’s had lots of friends. Cathy, the rabbit came along in 1976.

Miffy, Dick Bruna’s rabbit, left, and Cathy, friend of Kitty. Image from The Guardian UK.

This lawsuit back in November of 2010 between Miffy’s creator and Sanrio may be old news now but it’s still news to me. Dick Bruna, creator of Miffy wants Sanrio to cease production of Cathy (Kathy) because it’s copyright infringement.

Radio Netherlands Wordwide reports :

“Sanrio had already been asked to stop the marketing of Kathy, but it ignored the request. Dick Bruna has now applied to an Amsterdam court for an injunction demanding an immediate halt to production. He is calling for 50,000 euros a day in damages in case of non-compliance.

The court ruled in favor of Dick Bruna and called for an immediate stop to production, sales and marketing of Kathy goods in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and told Sanrio to pay 25,000 euro a day in the event of noncompliance.”

The lawsuit went on for most of 2010 as Sanrio did not give in easy. But then the tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011 and Sanrio decided it was better off donating the money (spent on the lawsuit) to help the tsunami victims and rebuild Japan. And Sanrio decided to stop marketing Cathy and thus Miffy got her way.

In some ways, Cathy and Sanrio took the high road. And not that it will hurt Sanrio because they have much more characters kids love. Even for me, some 30 years later and I still love Hello Kitty.

I can see that maybe the creator of Cathy was inspired by Miffy, but it’s not copyright infringement.

The only resemblance would be the round face and big ears, but how else would you draw a cuddly cartoon rabbit? Miffy’s drawing has thin lines and feels cold, especially with the X mouth. Cathy looks much more friendlier and happier, even if she doesn’t even have a mouth. Maybe it’s the bow or the happy colors? Miffy’s world is mostly yellow, red and blue.

Mr. Bruna’s been around a long time and already made lots of money from Miffy. I say give the kids a chance to make their own choices. There’s room for more than one bunny rabbit.

I used to get my chaga from a health food supplier out of Florida, but they have been out of stock for some time now. So I did a search for “wildcrafted chaga mushroom” and found many on Ebay. I chose the chaga from Maine.

Chaga (scientific name: Inonotus obliquus) also known as cinder cork. It’s a unique fungus that grows especially on the wounds of birch trees. But it can also be found growing on ironwood, elm, alder, beech and other hardwood species.

To prepare chaga, it has to be dried. Some advise simmering the dried chaga for a few hours. Just to be on the safe side, I let mine simmer on high in the crock pot for 10 hours. I used 2 small pieces along with 3 quart of water. The color was very intense, looked very much like coffee. The smell was pleasant, very fresh and woodsy.

This is 1/2 chaga extract with 1/2 water. It taste very pleasant and no bitterness at all.

Chaga has the highest antioxidant concentration of any known natural food. When made into tea (and no sweetener added), the taste is suppose to be slightly bitter. Like many herbal medicines, the bitterness seems to be a common factor.

Due to chaga’s health benefits, it’s been referred to as “King of Herbs” and “Nature’s Silver Bullet”. Chaga has been researched as an antiviral, anti-tumor for breast and uterine and other cancers, and diabetes.

Cheers to Chaga!

Note: Survival Topics has a neat post on how to harvest and prepare wild chaga.

Some advise to boil while others say to simmer for hours. For best result, take 30 minutes on empty stomach before a meal.

I started to pick up my crochet hook again. And made some Granny Square.

This is the traditional method. Very easy to crochet once you get the pattern going.

Between this and knitting, I’ll have to go with knitting. Knitting I can almost do without having to look down all the time. Not so with crochet and it’s also hard on my fingers.

This is my instructions for making a Traditional Granny Square:

Chain 4, slip stitch into first chain to form circle.

When the circle is made, chain 3 and dc (double crochet or call treble in England) 3 times into the circle. 3 dc forms a shell pattern. Actually dc 2 times because the chain 3 counts as part of the shell pattern.

After you’re done with 3 dc, chain 1 (or chain 2 or 3 depends on what length you want) and repeat. Repeat 4 times to form the square. 4 sets of 3 dc shells to form a square.

Instructions can only go so far - just watch the Youtube crochet tutorials instead. And there are many of them. Enjoy!

This version has more definition around the edges and it’s much more sturdy. But it’s more complicated to crochet.

On a side note, my mom thinks a crochet blanket would be nice. But I always feel sad for those blankets. Because it seems that there are so many Granny blankets at the thrift store. Just sitting there waiting for a new home. I could never get myself to own it since it always felt like it was made for someone else. That’s just me but I’ll still be happy to see someone else give it a new life.

For some time now, I had switched from drinking coffee to mostly tea, especially green tea. But I never could cut myself totally off coffee. The smell is just too pleasant to pass up.

One of my favorite coffee was Cafe Du Monde made with chicory. But my new favorite is World Market’s Moka Java Blend Coffee.

It’s a combination of coffee beans from Indonesia and Ethiopia. It’s medium roast, full body coffee beans. Smells like chocolate but still taste like coffee. I’ve also been drinking it without sugar, just milk and it’s still really good.

For coffee drinkers, it seem that over the years coffee had some bad news and now it’s back to good news again. Of course with these coffee studies it’s difficult to conclude since they can’t control all the variables and every body’s different.

But in the meantime, here’s some good news for coffee drinkers to consider when enjoying their coffee.

Coffee drinkers may be at lower risk of liver and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease.

A 2008 study found that women who drank coffee regularly — up to six cups a day — were less likely to die of various causes during the study than their non-coffee-drinking counterparts. The study was also done with decaf coffee, so researchers don’t think its because of the caffeine.

In 2009, another coffee study suggested more benefits for moderate (3-5 cups) coffee drinkers. Middle aged people benefited the most and had the lowest risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease later in life compared to less frequent drinkers.

And my favorite is that coffee has antioxidants. Polyphenols or flavonoids, is the type of antioxidants found in coffee. They have been proven to moderately help brain function.

On the downside, for women trying to conceive, two or more cups of regular coffee (or five 12-ounce cans of caffeinated soda) during pregnancy may increase the risk of miscarriage.

So for everyone else, enjoy your cup of coffee!

Info from Health Magazine 2011.

Jelly Belly Candy has been around for a long time. And one of these days I’ll have to visit their free factory tour. It’s not like it’s that far of a drive for us. In the meantime I’ll just enjoy these Jelly Belly artwork.

Here’s my favorite, Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

Image from Jelly Belly Factory.

The Starry Night
Artist: Kristen Cumings. “Because Van Gogh’s brush strokes went in a circular, swirling pattern, Cumings had to place each individual bean in the same direction as the brushstroke to mimic the effect and recreate it on a larger scale.” - Jelly Belly.

More Jelly Belly art can be seen here, even one of Abe Lincoln!

Or how about this music video of “In Your Arms” by Kina Grannis. I love that it’s a stop motion music video. Looks so cheerful and happy.

They used 288,000 jelly beans. It took 2,460 frames, 1,357 hours and about 30 people — and more than year to shoot and complete, according to video’s producers. Go to watch the making of the video.

The folks must have had so much fun putting that production together.

Back to the Jelly Belly Factory tour info. Wonder if it would be as much fun as Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory? I’ll find out soon enough!

“Step into our factory and smell the aroma of chocolate, peach, cinnamon, pineapple, or whatever is being cooked up that day. A visit to our candy making factory in Fairfield, California, located about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, and 45 minutes west of Sacramento.

During the 40-minute walking tour, Jelly Belly tour guides will show you a real working factory where we cook up over 150 different sweet treats. Learn the secrets to how we create the legendary Jelly Belly jelly bean, and discover why it takes more than a week to make a single bean.”

It’s finally starting to feel colder out here in California. And the cold weather means indoor heat. Indoor heat also means dry skin and dry scalp for me.

Then I came upon this “Ginger Scalp Care” shampoo by The Body Shop. It seems to be working well so far.

Natural and botanical ingredients include ginger root extract, birch bark, white willow, and oak moss. The astringent properties of these ingredients help promote a healthy and clean scalp.

Description from The Body Shop:

“Organic honey moisturizes and helps condition the skin. Helps protect and preserve the forest as well as providing necessary income for beekeepers, an increasing number of which are now women.

The honey that we use comes from communities living in and around the Ba’le Forest in Ethiopia, in the south Oromia state. This area forms part of the East African Montaine Eco-Region, which has been identified by the UN as a global hotspot for biodiversity and has several endemic species within the region that are classified as endangered.” - The Body Shop.

It’s a great shampoo for soothing that irritated scalp. I also like the spicy, sharp and warm scent of ginger oil. This scent is also more pleasant than most other dry scalp shampoo.

On the downside it does contain a number of ingredients they could leave out, such as SLS and parabens. Then again, maybe it’s time I start making my own shampoo bar with honey and ginger oil extract.

The shampoo retails for $10 for 8.4 fl oz. Smaller bottle than most other shampoo. But you can use this once a week and switch between a regular shampoo.

Note: Taking fish oil (supplement) is another great way to increase moisture and prevent dry skin or scalp. You’ll notice the difference in your skin and have healthy heart and joint too.

Now that it’s November and the weather is getting cooler it’s time to start knitting again. And begin knitting up some holiday gifts too.

When I first learned to knit it was with 2 needles. Now that I started using circular needles, it’s made knitting so much better. I’ll probably never want to use DPN (double pointed needles) again! These are my favorite by Takumi Clover.

The last time I knitted fingerless gloves was using DPNs. It turned out nice, but not that fun to knit. There’s also another way of knitting them using 2 circular needles. I gave that a try and decided the magic loop method is the best way to go. The “magic loop” method uses 1 circular needle and it’s so much easier and quicker this way.

I will also be knitting socks using the magic loop method. But who really knits socks anymore? Maybe sweet and kind grandmas. Yet if you Google “sock knitting“, you’ll likely get people from all ages. And it seem to be really popular these days.

All I know is that it’s relaxing to knit. But some things can be complicated so that’s good mental exercise. For sock making, there are lots of stitches to remember such as ssk (slip, slip, knit), then turning the heal and picking up stitches. With practice I’m sure it all will get easier. I’m thinking of making knitting videos to help me remember some of these steps.

This was suppose to be an arm warmer, then I decided on making fingerless gloves instead. It’s almost complete, except for the thumb and the second pair. The yarn is Paton’s chunky tweed which is wool and acrylic blend.

Note: I may be posting less (knitting more) this month, but not totally away from my blog. So feel free to comment and say “hello”.