"When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras." That was one of the gems that Dr. Steve shared in his off-grid medicine course.  It's something taught to all students in medical school.  And what is means is this:  Common things happen commonly.  The child in the waiting room is more likely to have an ear infection than appendicitis.  The young adult is more likely to have type-2 diabetes than a gunshot.  We naturally gravitate toward the sensationalized rather the common.  If we decide to learn something new, it has to be something cool, different, u ..read more

As I noted last week, Exile 1981 requested a list of my top 10 or 20 herbs in response to an article I posted last month.  I realized in putting that list together that there are herbs I use all the time, and others that are favorites, but that I never use.  That begs the question, how can they be favorites if I never use them?  Well, they’re for special occasions.  You know, like cholera and smallpox.  Or broken bones or appendicitis.  Dread diseases that we strive to avoid in our everyday living. Juniper.  This top antibiotic, especially for urogenital infe ..read more

Disclaimer. I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conve ..read more

Like just about everything else in the grocery store, pectin is getting expensive.  And like so many of the convenience items in stores, there is a homemade option for pectin.  Remember, commercially produced pectin wasn’t even an option for our ancestors, and yet our grandmothers made plenty of jams and jellies.  Believe it or not, additional pectin isn’t even absolutely required to make jam, as most fruits already contain some.  However, it takes a lot longer to cook jams without added pectin, and some of the natural fresh flavor of the fruit is lost.  So most women ..read more

Two articles in the past few weeks have focused on the medicinal uses of gelatin and ways to use gelatin in the kitchen.  To be sure, using the commercially produced stuff, like Knox Gelatine, is the easiest way to go.  It’s fairly inexpensive when purchased in bulk and stores indefinitely.  For other uses in the kitchen, like an egg substitute or in making marshmallows, it’s really the only way to go.  For the medicinal uses, however, extracting gelatin from animal bones at home is perfectly acceptable, and perhaps even preferred. Most of us have already made gelatin on nu ..read more

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on nutritional needs and deficiencies that you might wish make sure you have covered in your food storage supplies and plans.  No medication or supplement, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginnin ..read more

(The spelling of this word is enough to drive a person crazy.  Apparently, sty, stye, sties, and styes are all correct.) Over the last semester or so, it appears Becky has been plagued by styes.  She finally went to the health clinic and was given some antibiotic eye drops.  But she hasn’t been impressed.  Her condition hasn’t improved much.  And so I figured it would be a good topic to research.  From The Ship’s Medicine Chest and Medical Aid at Sea: A sty is an abscess of the small oil glands along the margin of an eyelid.  There is usually a painful red lu ..read more

It’s been a couple of years since I first posted on the medicinal uses of basil.  I have to admit, medicinal uses of this herb aren’t my favorite.  I mean, just inhale the delightful aroma of basil fresh from the garden.  How can you not want to just eat it?  Maybe this will be the year that I have such an overabundance that I can make some medicine as well.  For the most medicinal basil salves, begin by making an oil infusion with freshly dried basil.  You can use the slow method given here, or either of the faster methods provided in the article on making oil in ..read more

is finally done and available for sale on Amazon. Many days it felt like it would never happen.  The constant research and re-writing are part and parcel to compiling an herbal reference.  I did not bank on the guy I selected to do the formatting introducing more of his own errors into the manuscript and adding in typos along the way.  And then expecting me to correct them.  And messing with the indexing.  And making excuses all along the way for why a project he promised to deliver in two weeks took a full eight weeks.  For the first three deadlines he missed ..read more

Being a wife and mother is the absolute best career in the world.  Sure, there are those days when I wanted to trade places with my husband—the baby is puking everywhere, 4-year-old QOTPE is mad at Lydia, so she decides to frame her for the crime of drawing on the walls (but she got busted by Dad instead… bwahaha), 12-year-old Jared decides the ironing board would make a fine ladder for reaching the top shelf of the closet—and then somehow believes that we won’t notice that he hasn’t bent it back into shape, 3-year-old Becky chops all her beautiful hair off, applies a whole tube of lipsti ..read more