Bitter Melon After My First Taste

I have always been open to and held a great respect for ancient medicines and traditions.  My major complaint about American Medicine is that it is orchestrated and promoted by profit hungry drug companies out to profit regardless of the required listing of damaging side effects.

I have been monitoring borderline high blood pressure and pre-diabetes for years. I finally, several years ago, allowed myself to be placed on low dosages of Lisinopril  and Metformin  after extensive discussion with a doctor I knew and really trusted.

I discovered that the medications were interfering with continued weight loss (140# to date over recent years).  2012 was the year I decided to stop all medication and to concentrate on losing more weight and exercising.  This year (2013) I returned to the Doctor for blood work……. feeling good and having dropped (slowly) 25#.  Blood indicators unchanged:(:(:(  Still pre-diabetic  and borderline high blood pressure.  So I returned to low dosages of the two medications.

This caused me to explore new action in a new direction.  I did a little research into Ayurvedic Medicine and made an appointment with a certified Ayurvedic practioner here in Vermont. I met with Kevin Clark this past Friday and left impressed with his assessment of me and my concerns!

Without boring you with details you may have no interest in! (Plenty of information available if you are interested in learning more)  I have Double Doshas and have both Kapha and Pitta Doshas as strong components of my being. Kapha Ayurvedic Body Types have bigger builds and bones and being too slender would not be healthy for my being. I am designed to be large and solid.  People with a Pitta Ayurvedic Body Type tend to have very sharp minds and intellect and I will not self assess this characteristic 🙂

Anyway that brings us to Bitter Melon. It was recommended, as a first step in my new journey of exploration, that I start using Bitter Melon . Chemicals in bitter melon have been suggested to lower glucose levels, improve glucose tolerance, and increase glucose absorption. Additionally, the chemicals promote the way in which liver and muscle glycogen works together, and promotes healthy glucose oxidation. These findings are particularly note-worthy for diabetes research.

I found it in the closest Asian Market to us in West Lebanon, NH, Yipings.

My first taste was last night as shown in my first picture in this post.  It was no where near as bitter as I was mentally prepared for it to be after comments I had heard and reading I had done!  I could eat it raw!  I will explore receipts for cooking with it.

AND

I am planning to grow Bitter Melon in our garden this year!

Just bought my Bitter Melon seeds

Reading indicates it can be difficult to germinate. Nicking and soaking the seed helps as does knowing that they can take up to 30 days to germinate.

Will keep you posted as the season progresses!

Just heard from Piney Creek Garden “I grow bitter melon every year, for quick germination, soak it over night, the next day crack both side ( I bite both sides a little bit just enough to crack) and put on the ground after the last frost. for indoor start in a pot with under a grow light 2 weeks before the last frost. mine germinate in more than week”

They included a picture of Bitter Melon growing in their 2012 Garden

Piney Creek Garden‘s Bitter Melon 2012

Jumping the gun a little and replacing the winter image in the header with one from the archives.  On this, the second full day of Spring we are still snow covered.  I am ready for and  I am “seeing”  GREEN……… Soon:)  The plantings have grown but otherwise this is home in the spring and summer.

I am aware of the fact that too many people fail to see the real beauty in their immediate world. There is beauty around us every moment of every day. We just need to take time to see and appreciate it. One of the best ways is through the eye of a camera! Try it. Take you camera and look at your own world. The world that is right around you. Inside or out, beauty is every where. Seeing and appreciating it will make things much better in this difficult world we find ourselves living in.

Earl’s Shed

Earl is gone now. His place is empty and we mow the yard and let out poultry graze there so the place does not look unused and abandoned.  His daughters are in Florida.  Earl was the first person we met when we came to look at the house in 2003.  We went into his shop to introduce ourselves as prospective neighbors and to ask if he knew where the property line was and was he happy with it.

Earl’s Shop

Earl was feeding peanuts to a chipmunk that day we first met.  He walked us out and showed us the survey stakes. He was happy with them so we were too. Earl was a good man. Earl was a good neighbor. His shop was here before we bought our home. We bought our home knowing that Earl ran his shop and the yard filled up in the non-winter seasons.  We planted a “wind break”. We defended Earl’s right to do as he wished with his property. Earl was a good neighbor.  We miss him.

The perception of beauty is a moral test. – Henry David Thoreau

Let me share some of the beauty that Abigail and I see every day that we walk. Hopefully it will encourage you see see that beauty that is around you all the time.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful. – Alice Walker

Beauty is not caused. It is. – Emily Dickenson

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them. – John Ruskin

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world. – John Burroughs

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. – Edmund Burke

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. – Confucius

Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. – Albert Einstein

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. – Kahlil Gibran

Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously. – Rollo May

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. – John Muir

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. – John Keats

The beauty around me is endless – Take time to see the beauty around you.

Cliff Ice on my walk today

“Cabin Fever” is not something I usually experience!  I love winter as long as I have access to a wood heat source to “warm my bones”.  Wood stove heat is the only heat that penetrates my body and truly warms me on cold winter days.  So why am I experiencing bouts of what I believe is “Cabin Fever”  My personal assessment indicates it is a reaction to the roller coaster winter we have had!  The extreme swings in temperature from above freezing to below freezing, the swings in snow cover, that while mild compared to friends and family south of me, never the less have frustrated me!  The lack of snow cover protection threatens to harm my gardens and plants.

I work to heighten my spirits by preparing to start the incubator and seeds. The peeping of newly hatched chicks and the seedlings breaking through the earth are both indicators of Spring and the new cycles of life.

I look at pictures from other seasons and know that I,  we,  will be cycling though them again.

The Pussy Willows are out and have been for weeks!  They brave the winter weather swings and remind me that Spring is near!

The snow recedes and reveals the dead grass that will soon turn green with new life.  The chickens find these snowless areas, lay on their sides and bask in the warmth of the sun. They preen and strut and execute the courtship that will result in fertile eggs for this years hatching of a new generation.

On my walk with Abigail today, the three mile walk that reaped these photos, I found myself thinking about a Spring 16 years ago when an April blizzard had the robins presenting me with a valuable life lesson.  Nature teaches us as she wraps us in her seasons.  I searched back to find an article I had written “The Robins Keep on Singing”  and I lift a segment from it to end this entry.

An entry that reminds me to keep on singing as I wait for Spring!

“I knew I would have to walk the last quarter mile of my mile long driveway due to the mud. I parked at the turnaround just outside my gates. It was snowing — a wet, soft, gentle snow that clung to every branch. I lingered there, listening to classical music, writing in my journal, savoring the beauty and the peacefulness of the night, the woods, the snow, the world around me, life.

Suddenly I thought: “I do not want to be in a building tonight. I want to stay out here.” That is exactly what I did. Leaning the seat back, I went to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to a truly spectacular, truly beautiful, truly peaceful, truly memorable, white, snow covered world — trees, snow, woods, birds, me —–ethereal beauty and peacefulness. As I greeted the new day, appreciating the connectedness of all, I realized that this spectacular, snow covered world, while lifting my spirits, was a severe hardship to all the robins who had returned the week before. Yet, despite the hardship, despite the difficulty,”the robins keep on singing”.

A powerful lesson delivered by the natural world at a point in my life when the power and trueness of that statement, “the robins keep on singing”, can help me keep a proper perspective on events in my life.

“The robins keep on singing” has been added to the list of phrases I use to help myself. Two of my other favorites from the list are: A line from a poem by the Isles of Shoals poetess Celia Thaxter, ” The sunrise never failed us yet” and a line by I know not who, “The earth turns toward the morning”.

The first quote reminds me that light always follows darkness, without fail, and the second quote keeps me aware that each day is a new beginning, that whatever happens there is always a new day dawning, an opportunity for a fresh start.

I offer these for you to use as you ponder the “why for alls” and the “where for alls” of your life.”

And so I rejoice in the mud, which follows the snow and precedes the green awakening of my, of our, world.  May this find you rejoicing in nature’s cycles too!