Nettles

Stinging Nettle is an herb that grows wild all over the place. A while back, I had the opportunity to go to a wild foods class. There I learned about how to identify stinging nettles. I had heard about this herb before, so I went out and found some to transplant to my garden.

The leaves have one of the highest protein contents of any plant. Back in WWII, when meat was rationed, people would use it in all kinds of things to up the protein content.

From what I understand it is a jack-of-all trades when it comes to medicinal uses. Some common uses are: arthritis, an herbal treatment for allergies, relieves hair loss, treats Celiac disease, bleeding, bladder infections, skin complaints, neurological disorders and a long list of other conditions.

I grind it in a coffee grinder and put it in capsules to take as a supplement. I also use the leaves in soups or to make tea.

There is quite a list of drug interactions so if you want to use it, do your research. I'm not a doctor :) It is a diuretic and can affect blood sugar and blood pressure. Be careful!

The fresh leaves and stems can sting you so I only sell the dried form.

Our chickens love dried nettles. Not sure about fresh ones. Occasionally our flock gets a “cold”. Usually if this happens, they drop production for a few weeks. Sometimes they even go into a molt.

This spring when they started to sneeze, I put some dried nettles in a pillow case and stuck it in their water. Within a couple of days the sneezing and coughing had stopped and the egg production was better than normal.

It's a pain to harvest (quite literally), but we have decided we need to grow a whole lot more of this gem :)

Have you learned something? One wonderful life rule is : "Learn something every day." It's a good rule. If you have, you can go back to bed now :)

Alternative Health - Asthma Gone!

Yesterday, I did some pretty heavy duty cleaning and I didn't have to take any asthma meds! I'm not sure exactly what I am doing right, but I thought I'd share my supplement and oil routines. Maybe someone else might be helped.

Morning: chromium, garlic with parsley, a B complex, a pro-biotic, magnesium, hawthorn, ginkgo, cranberry, stinging nettles, ground egg shell capsule, and during the winter, vitamin D3

Evening: magnesium, selenium, ginger, zinc, hawthorn, garlic with parsley, cranberry, nettles and 2 ground egg shell capsules

I grow and pack the egg shell  and nettles capsules myself. I'm working on being able to produce my own ginger and may try to put some garlic and parsley together in a capsule sometime this summer. Not to sure about that though. I think the gel caps that I currently use from Puritan's Pride are odorless because of the combination, but I'm not sure if that is really the case or if they do something else to the garlic.

The ginger is a fairly recent addition. I bought a bottle a while back, but it made my stomach burn so I quit taking it. Then this winter, I decided to try it again, but make sure my stomach had plenty of food both before and after the capsule. That worked and I suspect it may be a major factor, because ginger is known to reduce inflammation.

I used to take 1000 mg omega 3  and 1000 mg evening primrose 3 times a day for my joints, but I have found that if I eat plenty of tree nuts every day, I can do without those, so I make my own trial mix out of several different types of nuts and dried fruits. I eat about a cupful a day. Lots of calories, but when you work like I do, that's not a big problem. I am also of the opinion that middle aged women need a good amount of fat on them to keep their bones strong anyway.

The other thing I think might be a major factor in the asthma issue is the oil routine I have developed. Last winter, I read somewhere that doctors are having some success treating back pain by putting people on anti-biotics for 100 days. Seems that sometimes bulging discs are caused by a bacterial infection such as pneumonia or a skin infection that somehow traveled to the spine and lodged there. This made sense to me, so I thought, "If I rub oils on my spine every day for a year, maybe the problem spots would heal up. So I ordered a back roller from a guy I "met" on a Young Living Face Book group and mixed up a concoction I thought might be helpful.

Last fall, I had stuffed a jar full of rosemary and lemon balm and covered it with olive oil, so I decided to use this as my base oil. I took an empty essential oil bottle and put a dropper full each of Thieves oil, melaleuca, and oregano from Young Living in it. Then I filled it with my homemade rosemary/lemon balm oil. I topped it off with a roller ball and twisted it into my back roller.

I've been using this for a couple of months now in the morning and before bedtime. I really think it is helping my back. The pain isn't gone yet, but I seem to be stronger! Chiropractors say that asthma can often be cured if the back is aligned correctly. I don't have the time or the money to go to doctors much, but maybe this is healing my back enough to kick the asthma :)

If you'd like to order or become a distributor, go to my website. https://www.youngliving.org/gramasues

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

My First Exposure to Essential Oils

In the 60s and 70s when I grew up, science, technology and all the new medicines and chemicals were exalted as the answer to all the world's problems. Herbs were relegated to cooking and alternative medicine was vilified as quackery.

It's taken a while for me to get where I am, but today I turn to prayer first, then natural remedies such as herbs and essential oils first, and then to practitioners in alternative medicine such a chiropractors. The only time I turn to modern medicine is for emergencies such as broken bones that need to be splinted and life or death situations.

Several years ago, Grampa Tom and I were at the Small Farm Trade Show and Conference put on by the Small Farm Today Magazine that takes place every year in Columbia, MO. My husband's aunt had given me a beautiful long coat just before that trip and since it was cold, I wore it down there.

Unfortunately, she had some sort of perfume on it that wasn't agreeing with me so I was dealing with asthma the whole trip. It was either asthma or freeze. I should have known better. I've always steered away from perfumes, potpourris and other strong scents because of this problem.

While we were there, I came across a booth that was selling essential oils. One of the oils they were selling was marjoram oil. The sign in front of it said it was used to relieve allergies, asthma and respiratory problems. I was skeptical. The first day, I avoided even going near, but the second day I stopped to talk with ladies. They opened a jar of marjoram oil and invited me to just try breathing in the vapors for a few minutes. WOW! It worked! Needless to say, I bought a jar.

I still rely on marjoram oil a lot, but I also have a roll on product called Breathe Again, that is a combination of several oils that I love too!

When I was at the same conference a couple of years ago, there was a Young Living booth. At the time, I was having some severe pain in my neck. I've had some stiffness in my neck since a car accident I had several years ago (while going all of 5 miles an hour), but that day it was actually hurt! I was talking with the ladies at the booth and I happened to mention the pain in my neck. One of the ladies did something strange (Which I believe had something to do with the "Raindrop Technique" that Young Living teaches - I haven't had the chance to study it yet.)  Then she took some black pepper oil and rubbed it on my neck. It didn't get rid of the problem totally, but it sure did help!

A few months later, my daughter signed up as a distributor and started giving me oils. Last fall, I finally took the plunge and became a distributor myself.

There is a spiritual component to the company that makes me uncomfortable. It seems to me that much of the material tends to "worship" the herbs and the oils. Over the years, I've heard many herbalists and natural healers talk about how the "herbs" seem to talk to them. They rely a lot on "feelings" and "dreams". From what little I've heard about this "Raindrop Technique", it seems very similar. When I was a new Christian, there were folks I respected who said that anyone who uses herbs for healing or incense of any type was dealing in witchcraft.

I'm just not willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. God made all these things. When people don't understand how they work, they tend to spiritualize them. When I am seeking healing. The first thing I do is pray! God rarely gives me miracles. He usually gives me solutions and often times the knowledge comes in the form of a "hunch" or a dream. Who's to say that God in His mercy isn't responding to those who don't know Christ yet in the same way?  If it works, I'm going to use it and bring my Christian perspective into it unless God specifically tells me not to.

I'm just learning about all this. If you are interested in essential oils or if you've got questions, please ask me! I may not know the answers, but I've always learned best when I'm helping others learn what they need to know!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Thieves Essential Oil

Several months ago, when I went to my daughter's house, I found the most heavenly smelling soap in her bathroom. And it had the most interesting name! I had to know where she go it from. She told me she had signed up with a company called Young Living. The Thieves® brand was created by Young Living based on research about four thieves in France who covered themselves with cloves, rosemary, and other aromatics while robbing plague victims. They claimed wearing their blend of perfume protected them against the plague. The Thieves® formula was studied at Weber State University in 1997. The studies showed the antibacterial effectiveness of this blend against airborne microorganisms to have a 99.6 percent kill rate against airborne bacteria. 

Interesting huh? So when I signed up as a Young Living distributor, it was one of the first things that I ordered. This month I got the essential oil itself.

It has so many interesting uses! If you google it, several sites have lists of 100 or more medicinal and household cleaning uses. It is even more effective against mold than bleach! 

I used one drop on my toothbrush the other day and WOW! I don't think my mouth has ever felt that clean ... and the feeling lasted for hours! 

Then Friday morning I woke up with a horrible sinus headache. I knew it was coming, I had a cold earlier in the week and blew my nose to hard One of the uses I had found was to put a drop on the roof of your mouth every few hours for headache. I decided to try it. By afternoon I could hear that crackling that comes when the thing finally starts breaking up, and before I went to bed that thing was beat! It usually takes a couple of weeks of saline spray to conquer a sinus infection! Next time I have a cold, I'm going to use it right away. Maybe it will help with that too. 

One of the stranger uses I read about was putting a drop one each big toe before bed to help with vision. My eyes used to be sharper than sharp. I could see things most people didn't even realize were there.When I was in my late 20s, I even read a small print Bible 5 times by the light of a 4 watt night light. But when I turned 47, I suddenly started having problems switching focus from near to far. Now I have to wear reading glasses almost all every time I try to read something. I think I'll try the drop on the big toe thing for a while and see what happens. Can't hurt! I'll let you know if it works :)

If you are interested in essential oils or have questions about them, please leave me a comment! I'm really just learning about all of this, but I know people who know a whole lot more, so we can get educated together!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Elderberries

We will have some elderberries at the market this week. I've been out picking wild elderberries. We planted some this spring, but after I fell, Grampa Tom didn't have enough time to keep up with all the weeding so they got crowded out. They wouldn't have made many this year anyway. 

Elderberries are tiny little tart berries that are packed full of all kinds of super immune system building nutrition. They have been used to relieve stress, stomach ailments, high cholesterol and complexion problems. 

The results of a clinical trial, published in the International Journal of Medical Research in 2004, showed flu patients given one tablespoon of elderberry extract four times per day recovered in an average of 3.1 days, compared to 7.1 days for those given a placebo. A 1995 study published by the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that nearly 90% of flu patients given elderberry extract were completely free of symptoms within two to three days, as compared to at least six days with a placebo.

It took me a couple of hours to de-stem about 2 1/2 lbs. There are machines that can do it faster. I'm going to try to plant a few again this fall. We met a guy last fall who has 35 acres of them. He makes pretty good money on them, but he has one of those machines! 

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue