Gardener, heal thyself.

I am here today to promise the Universe (and therefore myself) that this is the last blog post I will write until I have finished and turned in the paper about this blog that I must submit in order to graduate.  Priorities, Maggie, priorities! 



However, with that said...since we can't be out in the garden right now, playing with herbs--do you want to play in the kitchen with herbs instead?  Even better, do you want to play with healing herbs and skip the culinary stuff we already know for now? 



Calendula: still blooming in late December

Yes?  Great!  

As you know, in the middle of my frenzied just-before-Christmas whir of potionmaking, I did make a batch of herbal salve, but I am not entirely sure that I achieved the consistency in the final product that I had envisioned.  To be honest, there were beeswax and olive oil flying hither and yon all over my kitchen in various proportions, and eventually I was just throwing chunks of wax in jars without any coherent attempt at measurement.

I tell you this for two reasons. 

1.  You may have been a recipient of the salve and wonder what the heck I was thinking with the goopy stuff in the jar.  I wasn't thinking; I just owe you another chunk of beeswax.

2.  A salve of olive oil and beeswax is actually whatever you want it to be, and that includes the consistency.  Which means that there is a big range in the ratios of oil to wax that are all appropriate, and as potionmaker, you get to decide which you like best.   There is a simple way to do this, and if I hadn't been in such a flurry of multi-tasking before the holidays, I would have taken the time to do so.  More on that ahead.

[This may be obvious, but just in case you are not accustomed to thinking about recipes in terms of ratios, here is how to measure your ingredients this way:  for a ratio of oil to beeswax that is 3:1 (three-to-one), you want three parts oil to one part beeswax (in the sentence, oil is mentioned first and beeswax second, so oil corresponds to the 3 and beeswax to the 1).  You can decide that any given amount is one "part"--if you decide that 1/4 cup is one "part," you would use 3/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of beeswax and end up with a total of one cup in a 3:1 ratio of oil to wax.]
 OK.  Here is the recipe:

Herbal Healing Salve

Ingredients:


Olive oil
Beeswax
Dried herbs
Essential oil for scent (optional)

First, infuse the oil with herbs:


Method #1


The best way to infuse an oil takes time and sunlight: place the herbs in a lidded glass container and cover them with the oil, making sure they are entirely submerged, then cover the jar and put it in a sunny, warm place for 2 weeks. Be smart about this:  make sure everything is scrupulously clean and then dried thoroughly to avoid growing a science experiment along with your infusion.  Strain the herbs from the oil with a piece of cheesecloth, old stockings, coffee filter or similar, according to directions in Method #2 below. Put new herbs in the jar, cover with the infused oil, and repeat the process for another 2 weeks. Strain and store in a cool, dark place.


Method #2

Take a canning jar or other heat-resistant glass container and fill it ¾ full with the healing herbs of your choice. Pour enough olive oil over the herbs to cover them by an inch or so. Put the jar in a pan of water on the stove and heat very slowly over low heat. (Or, heat the oil and herbs in your crockpot, or use a double boiler on the stove.) Stir gently every so often. You want to extract the good stuff from the herbs without browning them or deep-frying them in the oil, or letting the oil boil—lower heat and longer infusing is the goal. Shoot for an hour of infusing, and feel free to go longer.


Strain the oil: take a mesh strainer and line it with cheesecloth or a thin fabric like muslin. Strain the oil. It may take a while to drain through the fabric. Once most of the oil has drained through, gather up the cloth with the herbs inside and wring the last of the herbal oil out.


Making the Ointment/Salve/Balm:


The rest is simple. For every cup of herbal oil, use roughly ¼ cup of beeswax. If you grate or chop the beeswax, it melts more quickly. Add the beeswax to the herbal oil and heat slowly to melt the wax. Stir well, but gently. If you’d like, stir in a few drops of essential oil, avoiding anything that might be too harsh for the skin like peppermint or clove. (Lavender or rose essential oils are always good for skin products. Citrus scents, while yummy, dissipate quickly.)


Here is the time to check the consistency of the salve: dribble a little on a saucer and put it in the freezer for a few minutes. If it cools and is too hard, add more oil to the original and test again. If it is too soft or goopy, melt more beeswax into it. The ratio of oil to beeswax can range from 3:1 to 8:1 depending on your preference.


Once you have the desired consistency, pour the warm salve into the containers in which you wish to keep it. Stored in a cool, dark place, the salve can last for up to a year. If you use any fresh herbs when infusing the oil, wilt them to remove as much moisture as possible before adding them to the oil.


Note on ingredients:


Olive oil is a good oil to use for cosmetic and healing purposes. You can use either regular or extra-virgin olive oil (I buy the regular stuff in bulk at Costco, since the regular oil is preferred for making soap). You can also use oils such as apricot, almond, avocado, and jojoba which are great for the skin. Grapeseed oil is good for really oily skin. The less processed, the better—“cold-pressed” is good to see on the label.


Beeswax is cheaper when you can buy larger quantities. Also, keep in mind that a big hunk of it will last quite a while. I get it at a health food store or from a farmers market, but you could also see if you can find a local beekeepers association or club and see what they say. I’ve picked it up at the big beekeeping area at the State Fair before and that was cheaper than my normal store.


The herbs I used in the salve for Christmas were: comfrey, plantain, calendula, rosebuds, rosemary, peppermint, lemon balm, lavender, red clover (listed in roughly descending order of amounts used—again, I don’t measure). The finished balm has a mild, earthy, green smell that I like, without any essential oils added. Sandalwood or rose essential oils (or a few drops of both) would be delicious too.


Other good skin-healing herbs are chickweed and chamomile. If I had to pick just a few to use, I would choose comfrey, plantain, and calendula. Calendula and comfrey should be fairly easy to find; you want calendula flowers and comfrey leaves or roots. Comfrey roots are more potent and should possibly be limited to external use only (so avoid in lip balm, for example), although in that debate, I am firmly aligned on the pro-comfrey side. Plantain is probably more difficult to buy, because it is an extremely common weed. Use the leaves--we are talking about Plantego major, not those strange green bananas at the grocery.


Important enough to mention twice: if you re-use glass jars and containers (jelly jars are nice, or small mustard jars, baby food jars, etc.) make sure to remove any paper or cardboard liners in the lids. If you leave those in place, bacteria will get between the lid and the liner, and you’ll end up with mold. Similarly, make sure the jars are entirely clean and DRY before you fill them with salve—moisture will cause problems.

Bonus: save a bit of your infused oil for a wonderful, healing lip balm.
This is by far my new favorite creation at the ol’ Hanna-Goeglein camp. We have one small container in our house, and so far, I am hording it for myself.


Peppermint-Honey Healing Lip Balm:
Take two tablespoons of oil in a heat-proof glass container, set the jar in a saucepan with a few inches of water in it. Add two teaspoons of beeswax. (If you preferred to weigh your ingredients, use 30 grams of oil and 7.5 grams of beeswax or a ratio of 3:1 or 4:1.) Heat slowly on low heat until the beeswax is melted. Remove from heat. Add a dollop of raw honey if desired and stir well. Stir in a few drops of peppermint essential oil (or other varieties, but be careful not to use too much). Pour into small tubs, let cool, and blissfully slather on your lips, cuticles, cuts, scratches, etc. You can try to re-use old lip balm tube containers that have been cleaned very gently (wipe out and then disinfect with vinegar; dishwasher and even hot soapy water may damage them).

On Second Thought: a Thanksgiving Post

Dear Lord.  How is it more than a month since my last post?  Argh.  Way waaaaay more.

OK.  So, it's not that I haven't started posts. 

There was one draft that I began back in early November, and all that I will say about it is that

"Time management."

was the first sentence (fragment).

I am not qualified to expound upon that subject...obviously.  Off to the virtual trash can it goes.

The second (circa a predictable 11/24) started off with this:

"Gratitude is pretty in these days.  So is talking about being 'blessed.'  Both of those words tend to make me feel a bit twitchy to be honest, but that is a symptom of their popularity and overuse rather than a deep-seated aversion to being genuinely thankful.  This is the second year, actually, that I've tried to write a Thanksgiving post, and my failing has nothing to do with how much gratitude I feel for the gifts I have in this life."

[...but it does signify the beginning of a long tradition in aborted gratitude posts, apparently.       *sigh*] 

*   *   *

So it is not that I've been lacking stories to tell, but rather that I am suddenly a much busier, employed person.  Then you add holiday prep/panic time and a catastrophic computer failure...and we end up...here.  With a sadly neglected blog and a few more gray hairs.  Would you like a quick update on the rest of my life?  Did I mention the sprained ankle?  The contractor who quit in the middle of a project for my new job, one that had already been delayed by three weeks--?        

--Wait.  That's not the stuff I want to share; that's just stress getting in the way again.  I want to talk about the good stuff, like my most recent bout of harvesting--yes, harvesting in the last few weeks of December.  I was on the prowl for plantain, if I could still find it growing in the yard, and also out to snip the last of the comfrey that had escaped frost damage.  Both, along with some of the calendula flowers I harvested and dried all summer, were for a healing salve that I planned to make for our home medicine chest as well as for gifts.  Jason was outside with me, and as I paced along, bent over and staring intently at the ground, I started to giggle. 

Plantain is a weed.  A prevalent and much-combatted one--in fact, my guess is that it is second only to dandelions as the weed most people could easily identify, due to their constant struggle to eradicate it from the lawn or flower beds.  And here I am, in the freezing cold with a scarf over my head like a peasant woman, combing the yard for this hated plant.  To use in a potion.  For healing.  Oh, poor Jason.  I laughed again.  How did I get to this place?  How did Jason get yoked into sharing his life with a crazy person harvesting weeds in December for Christmas gifts?

Jason was over by the chicken yard, talking to the girls, and he finally noticed me snorting to myself as I shivered and snipped comfrey leaves and asked what was so funny.  I joined him, explained, and we both laughed as we stood side by side, watching the girls beg for treats.  This is a good life.  A funny life, certainly, but a rich and satisfying one where we love each other dearly despite our glaring mental health issues, and where we can stand outside in the cold together, surveying our yard, chickens, garden, weeds with pride and contentment.  Where food and beauty and even medicine can be found just beyond the kitchen door, even in December when summer's gone and the living ain't easy for man nor beast nor fat, spoiled hen.  We have so much--so much of what counts.  I may not be capable of finishing a Thanksgiving post, but I am oh, so thankful.

When I started this blog, one reason was to write it as a project for school--to record my experiments in urban sustainability, and to keep a descriptive commentary going that others could use for their own purposes (hopefully as a guide for their own adventures and not just to laugh at my ridiculous musings!)   Well, the time has come to summarize this blogging experience in a paper, and I am already feeling nostalgic. 

The simple days of working on house-projects, caring for the girls and the garden, teaching four-year-olds about seeds, soil, and Nature, the long winter evenings snuggled on the couch with knitting needles whipping around industriously--now I have to find time for these luxuries on an increasingly crowded calendar.  Herein lies the basic dilemma of the two-income home:  who makes the home while both people are at work?  I don't know what the future of this blog is, or how frequently I will be able to write posts.  Now, more than ever, I realize the hard, cold value of time and labor; no matter how much I may want to reduce our consumption by making things ourselves, the truth is that there are only so many hours in a day.  How and where will I draw these lines? 

While I don't have these answers, I do have one:  I will still be posting here.  I have grown to love this strange blog world, an odd hybrid between a diary and pulpit where I am required to ponder life and Nature and lessons-learned and then offer up my ponderings under the bloggish-assumption that these thoughts are worth recording and sharing with you. 

Of course, the bottom line is that the girls have a responsibility to their public, and I am the only one who can type!

 

Happy New Year to all of you!  Thanks for reading!