Sweet Pea Salve

Sweet Pea Salve

You're a prickly pod then a seed

I am here in this time of need

A bouquet for courage my dears

Let perfume rest your fears.

How to make the salve:

Gather a bucket full of wild sweet peas

Discard the leaves and stems

In a Kerr sealing jar push the flowers down to fill half

cover in olive oil

The olive oil should not be EVOO but make sure it is fresh and not old

The ratio is about a cup of flowers to 3/4 cup oil, depends on your jar

Seal the lid and put in sun for 3 weeks.

Strain with cheesecloth discarding the now dark flowers

On a double boiler (water on bottom dry metal on top)

heat 1 tablespoon beeswax with 2 tablespoons shea butter

Don't let it burn just melt.

Add the oil.

Does it still smell like sweet peas? 

You can add one vitamin E tablet (use a pin to prick the end and squeeze in) 

If you want to enhance the smell - a couple drops of real lavender essential

oil or a flower fragrance you love

Store in a tin with a lid.

Now when you go pick the sweet pea seed pods you have hand salve to

ease that prickly burning feeling in your fingers 

Copyright  © Caroline Gerardo

Zucchini Boats From Garden To Table

Life After A. D. Poem

A. D. Anno Domini was The Year of Our Lord.

D. P.  During Pandemic This moment sans time.

B. C. because those words have women floored.

B. P.  Old life's dandelion wishes often ignored.

A. P.  What to build in the new going forward?

copyright 2020 Caroline Gerardo

Lavender Ghazal

Ghazal

Easter 2020

Sleep escapes leaving only stars to count,

night sky fogged over on Good Friday.

Focus on rosary repetition

while moon clouded over on Good Friday.

I asked, I begged, and remained on my knees

lavender scent misunderstood Friday.

Create wreaths, boil eggs, clean the cabin twice

children fly the way home on Good Friday.

Gave us a beautiful savior and son

in grave pain was murdered on Good Friday.

A quiet request to Mary his mother

bring back my babies please on good Friday.

Ghazal and instructions how to make lavender wreath and 

lavender Easter Egg nest. 

Bees are attracted to the lavender when fresh, my nephew wasn't

so happy with the buzzing of visitors at their door.

The nest can be dried. I tend to put them in my chicken coop for the

girls to enjoy the smell and pick at the flowers at night.

I haven't been sleeping and really hope my daughter makes it out of

quarantine soon.

Son is up north in college rented house, doing his classes online to

graduate in June.

Copyright Caroline Gerardo all rights reserved

Sestina Poem Coronavirus

Sestina

Corona Virus Poem

Paper towel turns on.

Wet hands large glob of soap.

Cover with big bubbles.

Rub and count to twenty.

Shake for fifteen seconds.

Don't touch anything hard.

Sneezing gets your guard on.

Bless the elbow, not hard.

Share to wash with bubbles.

Our lives count on seconds.

Virus flies almost twenty.

Liquid or bar's good soap.

Glycerin rose is soap

Killing molecules on

surfaces that are hard.

The beauty of bubbles

scrubs away in seconds.

Give it a count twenty.

Rabies creates bubbles

It takes months not seconds

Bites cause one in twenty.

Clean a wound with much soap

reduce molecules on

muscle joins fast and hard.

Our panic is not twenty.

Will there be enough soap?

C. P. C.  evil turns on ~

No vaccine makes it hard.

Guns not filled of bubbles.

Virus spreads split seconds.

Life has many seconds

recall being twenty

the solution is soap

you desire to go on

without beloved its hard

memory pops bubbles

Keep strong, although its hard

recall: wash with bubbles

sing birthday for seconds

see children be twenty

the solution is soap

you desire to go on.

  Caroline Gerardo 

© copyright 2/4/2020 

Please wash your hands in hot water and soap for twenty seconds, some say to sing the Happy Birthday song, before you eat, touch another person, come home, before you touch your face. As a matter of fact train yourself not to touch your face with your fingers.