Ribwort Plantain

It's everywhere at the moment and growing upwards at an astonishing rate - when you look at it closely it's rather pretty. The Irish name is Slanlus and these are some of the things it's good for:

*'The leaves of Slánlus are very good for a fresh cut. It is plucked and chewed up and then applied to the sore. This prevents blood poisoning and encourages healing

*It is used for feeding turkeys

* It is a herb with long thin leaf, chopped with two stones cured their cut toes.
Whose toes I don't know, nor do I know why they were cut but all useful information. From the Irish Folklore Collection.

A busy and full day at school. We were making paper windmills. This involved a lot of cutting, lolly sticks and a drawing pin. Infants and drawing pins are dangerous and getting the wretched things into the lolly stick was traumatic, and resulted in blood - mine. They didn't exactly whizz round in the wind as hoped and promised - small girl was most disgruntled. Ah well.