Lavender

Lavender blue, dilly, dilly. That was a song that was sung in an episode of "Dr. Kildare," a popular TV show in the early 60s. Dr. Kildare had fallen in love and was dancing with his lady fair to that song, Lavender blue, dilly, dilly, lavender green, etc. (Click on BLOG title for words to the whole song.)

You see that picture? Well, if you look behind it you would see our home. Mom had a patch just outside the back door on the right as you descended the steps, and the aroma was wonderful. The patch of lavender grew and grew and grew.

I have a pot of lavender growing in by my front door. It wintered from 2007 to 2008 and is growing beautifully. It has flowers galore. I'm go glad because flowering lavender generates new lavender because the flowers become the seeds that keep the plant going.

Lavender has medicinal purposes, and mom made lavender tea a couple of times -- it was not my favorite, but it was okay. And it was supposed to relieve cramps. It didn't. Nothing did. They (cramps) just had to work their course.

Now, lavender ice cream is all the rage on cruises. And boy does it taste good. Lavender is, after all, a member of the mint family, and we all know how good mint ice cream tastes.

I especially love lavender oil. The aroma is supposed to make one sleepy. Put it in a tub of hot water and you'll find yourself drowning it. Mix with with water and put it in an old Windex bottle and use it to spray on your clothes as you iron them. (Like who irons these days?). It will make the clothes smell really good. I especially like to place the flowers and some of the leaves in with my pillow cases and sheets.

So, thanks to my mom for giving me another thing to remember her by. As I brush by my lavender when I leave my own house, I think of the lavender that I inhaled as I left my mom's house so many years ago.