BOBVLOG #6 With Mango - Drainage Ditch Forest
5*******IMPORTANT NOTES READ FIRST*******
BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING, let me get this out first: that horrific wound you see on my face is a basal cell carcinoma, a very common and generally not life-threatening skin cancer. It looks a lot angrier than it does normally precisely because I have been attempting to treat it.
I have been attempting to treat it using natural medicine, and before you jump on me for that, I have had this thing for 10 years. It's not what you would call aggressive, but there is potential for disfigurement. Until and unless Obama covers my medical expenses, I am not going to submit it to rather expensive conventional treatment, and if I DO submit it to conventional medicine, I will have to do that in the truly bleak and soul-destroying environs of Parkland Hospital. I spent some time at Parkland in my youth, and no offense to the fine doctors at that establishment, it is a very very bleak place. If a place could actually make you ill purely through the ambiance of despair that surrounds it, it would be Parkland Hospital. My first treatment was rather experimental using fig latex which is really nasty on your skin, hence the big angry looking red spot. I am currently using euphorbia latex which there are euphorbia species that actually do have chemicals in it proven to preferentially kill skin cancer cells. The species used for that, and used in actual pharmaceutical creams for that purpose, is euphorbia peplus which I do not have access to, so I am experimenting with euphorbia maculata which I do have access to, and which is in fact the very same spurge that I show in this video. May not work, but then again since I am not seeking conventional treatment until Obamacare kicks in, I don't have anything to lose as long as I take care to keep the stuff out of my eyes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_peplus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_maculata
Yet another note, sort of an apology, I realize I accidentally recorded all sorts of rather disgusting close-ups of my nostrils and eyes and ears in this video, it was not intentional. It is in fact way closer to my various orifices than you ever really wanted to be, and I am sorry about that. ;) However I was talking while pointing the camera up my nose, and it would have been inconvenient to block out those sections, so when you see the closeups of my hairy nose holes, just close your eyes or look the other way. ;)
Okay, down to business. We set out today to, among other things, find purslane and to distinguish it from the toxic lookalike spurge (euphorbia maculata) which often hangs out in the same places purslane does. Purslane itself is a superfood with tons of nutrients and omega-3 fatty acids. Despite its typical status as a highly prolific weed, it's a wonderful ground cover plant and I would think highly useful in a permaculture situation as a cover crop to keep the soil together. The roots of corn for instance have been known to follow the roots of purslane down to water, since the roots of purslane tend to be pretty deep. Also, chickens that graze on purslane produce eggs high in omega-3 fatty acids, and the plant is extremely prolific and virtually indestructible aside from being not very frost-hardy. Like dandelion, an incredibly resilient plant and a highly nutritious food that everyone strangely insists on considering a nuisance weed.
What do people know? Not much apparently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_oleracea
Along the way I am reintroduced to a really nice spot in the guise of a drainage ditch, in this case a drainage ditch surrounded with forest, humming with dragonflies and in one case a big Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly which unfortunately managed to avoid being filmed. ;) We get in touch with the local art scene, listen to the trains go by and listen to a cottonwood. Along the way we identify a number of other citizens of this rather overlooked woodland. I will definitely be back, but next time with sensible shoes! And much more hydration.
The ever lovely and talented Mango puts in an appearance at the beginning and end of the video.