chamomile? what? come again?

I have never been foolish enough to plant eggplants—I don't like them—but every year I do plant something I don't like or don't use.  This year it's chamomile.  Its sprays of white and yellow flowers do enough for my eyes.  Earlier in the season (not that long ago), when the garden was going through an awkward teenage phase, the chamomile was about the only plant in the garden that didn't look like gangly limbs and pimples.  Actually, it does kind of look like pimples, sweet yellow and white pimples... 

Anyway, I don't personally drink chamomile tea.  I don't generally drink tea of any kind.  I might drink some chamomile tea in the future, but it's unlikely.  I have short cropped hair and herbal teas and me don't get along.  I don't wear leather sandals and glow over tinctures.  What I'm saying is that I'm not an herbal tea guy.  I'm not, but someone I know is.  Who that person is is not clear at the moment, but just as there will surely be future enemies of the state, so I will come upon my future chamomile tea recipient.  Make herbal tea, not war.  It's less profitable, tea, but it's also sweeter.  Chamomile especially: it smells like honey and apples.

Drying chamomile is easy.  Drying most plants is easy.  Look at the picture.  It's worth 1000 words.  Basically, you just tie it up with some twine or string and hang it upside down in a hot and dry place.  Inside or outside, both work.  Outside works faster.  The sun is hot.  Also, outside you get the added benefit of a cluster of upside down flowers blowing in the breeze.  When we had those really severe winds recently, the day after the tornado whomped Springfield, my only solace upon looking at my garden being kicked around by the wind was a bunch of strung up chamomile blowing sideways.  It's just cool to see flowers upside down.

Finally, once your chamomile (or other plant) is dry, you merely take it inside and finish the process.  This is a tiny jam jar, i.e. not of huge monetary value, but as a gift its value will be transformed into karmic value and amplify many hundred percent.  It's all about home economics, kids.  It's also about getting off the damn internet and doing something timeless.  My brain was ten times happier when I snipped off the flowers to fill this jar than it was this morning when I diddled around on the boring facebook.  Ten times, no less.  So, instead of liking eight hundred status updates, why not make some herbal tea that you have no interest in drinking?