Shepherd's Purse

You have the questions, I can tell. You need to know something. Darlingk, come over here, sit down. What is it you need to know? I can tell you anything. Is it love? Maybe, okay. Is it career? No, okay. Me and the crystal snow globe know many things, just ask. It is about weeds, you say? Weeds?! Did I hear right? You come to the Madame Sauvage Farouche for the weeds? Oui oui, it is hard to see the ground beneath all the snow, it is. Soon it will be February, oui oui, it is true.

Well, let us ask the crystal snow globe. I have to turn her upside down, see, so that the snow comes off the bottom. What do I see? Hummmm. I hum a while, it will appear in the swirling snow.

I see a boy, a young boy in wool and fur. He is near a ditch, or maybe an empty lot; rocks, lots of rocks. A gravel driveway? No, but that does not make sense, because I see sheep, lots of sheep, grazing on patches of green between piles of the snow. In the city!

Oh, I must shake it again. There, now the boy and the sheep are leaving, but the boy drops something. Let me see: it is tiny, very tiny, and looks like a tiny bag, or purse. Very very tiny! If this is his money bag, he is a poor shepherd indeed.

The snow is settling again, I must shake. On the ground, among rocks or a ditch maybe, I see a rosette of leaves. They are random: some lobed like dandelion leaves, others oblong like chicory. But they are smaller. The difficulty would be to identify this plant now, but before the seeds come is the best time to eat these greens, I think. But you need to be very sure before you eat a plant, check the manual or expert.

Ah, the snow is disappearing and the stems are growing 3-12" tall. Along the stems are a few more leaves, oblong and narrow like blades of grass. Ah, and here come the small white snow-flake-like flowers, always staying at the tip of the stem, and leaving behind heart-shaped Valentine seed pods along the stem. It's March now it seems, and this plant is telling me it will stick around through June or so.

I'm getting flavor now: mustard greens mixed with turnips mixed with cabbage. Oh! So much more than bitter spinach, and it seems a good substitute: young leaves in salads and older leaves in soups. I see a Chinese woman in this Crystal snow globe telling me they are good in dumplings. She is saying something about gathering these with her mother in China when she was a child, and now she gathers them in here, in Eastern Washington.

I taste ginger now. But I am looking at the roots here. I see fresh roots and dried ones in carrot soup.

I also see a Native American woman, winnowing chaff from the peppery seeds and grinding the seeds between stones for flour. But this plant seems European in origin. (Edible and Medicinal Plants of The Rockies by Linda Kershaw.)

Oh! here's something terrible! I see the pregnant woman, sick and ailing. No, it does not look good. Ah! Now I see the woman in labor drinking tea. Now she is with a newborn in her hands and she is drinking a strong tea from the herb, and there is not too much blood. Oh, I see many people drinking the tea made from the dried stems and leaves: people with headaches, and stomach aches, and the hemorrhoids. Oh, dear! I did not want to see that!

Does the term Capsella bursa-pastoris mean something to you? I keep hearing the words: Box, purse, pastor. Do you recognize? There is only one species, I think.

Ah! So you do! Tell me what is this plant?

Shepherd's purse. I see. It does all make sense, doesn't it? Madame Sauvage Farouche see's the truth, does she not?