On a completely unrelated note

My favorite show got picked up for another season. It almost didn't make it because it's not a mindless profit churning boob'splosion machine (though there are a fair amount of explosions). Regardless, I'm very, very excited.

That is all. 

Tincturing around

I strained and re-bottled my tincture of lemon balm tonight!  The uses for lemon balm are vast, so I'm going to squirrel this away for a rainy day.

Holy mother of chartreuse! 

ew. 

Getting herbal

I've always been interested in herbal medicine, especially the science behind it. Growing up my dad would listen to lots of books on tape, and one day when we were driving along I heard something on one that caught my attention: about 75% of our modern medicine is derived from only 40 different plant and animal sources. Now this was when I was a kid so I don't know if that number is true today, but I was surprised.

Growing up with a dad who practices medicine (podiatry, but you still have to finish normal medical school before you can specialize) I was encouraged to think independently and draw my own conclusions (my dad LOVED playing devil's advocate for literally every hypothesis, which may or may not have something to do with my love of debating, much to Erick's delight) And while I enjoy a lot of the herbal medicine literature, I find some of it is lacking the nuts and bolts science of why the plant does what it does. Which drives me nuts. Back in the day before you could stuff a plant in a beaker and find it's chemical compounds, you just had to go with "If I eat plant X, outcome Y will happen". And I think if the general public is going to take herbal medicine seriously and use it effectively, there needs to be more science and less, eh... mysticism? Which is why I love books like "Why George Should Eat Broccoli" Even while it was written in the 90's, it lists a wide variety of plants and their cancer fighting compounds. For instance, melons have 12 cancer-preventative compounds, and garlic has over 30. Websites like University of Maryland Medical Center give a comprehensive list of herbs, their uses, contraindications, even supporting research. This shit gets me jazzed! I've started preparing my own herbal medicine at home, so far I've been steeping a tincture, drying some whole lemon balm for a tea, and just about an hour ago I harvested some chamomile flowers to dry.

First, Tinctures:
"A tincture, also called an herbal extract, is made by combining fresh or dry herbs with a menstrum such as alcohol, vinegar or glycerin. Tinctures are a concentrated liquid form of herbal medicine that is easily assimilated and requires no refrigeration."


 Essentially, it's like a booze tea that takes a few weeks. I got some glass bottles at Goodwill (they were normally ten bucks each, recycled glass from Italy bitches! Woo!) Roughly chopped some lemon balm, and after stuffing it into the bottles, I covered with Everclear and corked them. Easy peasy. 

After that I used the rest to dry for some tea: 

I'd also brewed some fresh tea after steeping some over the stove to try and help my allergy attack, and it actually worked for a little bit. 

And today I harvested some chamomile from my front bed to dry for tea! I did it by hand because I can't afford a chamomile rake (which I had no idea existed until right before I went out and picked my own) I'm keeping it in an old cardboard tea box from the store so it can dry out without being pestered by the cats or any flies that wander in from outside (too bad I couldn't do the same with the lemon balm. We'll see how it all turns out! (FYI don't take chamomile with asprin, it can cause internal bleeding!)

Garden updates

Holy crap, so lots of stuff has been happening and I finally have time to post about it.

First: The garden
The garden is in full swing! The lettuce is coming up, the zucchini, pumpkin, and other squashes are doing great, and we're working on our tomatoes.

Next: The HHGRC

She literally packed my station wagon

 So I've joined up with the DCCG (Dekalb County Community Gardens). They've been working to add more community and vegetable gardens to our schools and churches in town. So far they've put in like, four or five? Good stuff. Through them I met a woman working at the YMCA and we've worked out program I'm going to teach. The YMCA day camp has a lot of food insecure kids, or kids who don't really have a lot of access to fresh fruits and veggies. Remember all those food safe buckets I got? We're going to make salad buckets for the kids to take home!  I got plants from BJ Miller at the Kishwaukee College greenhouse. The kind souls at the greenhouse donated a ton of leftover plants from their annual plant sale, and I cannot believe how generous they've been!

And finally, lots and lots of photos! 

Totally totaled

I got nailed pretty hard by a car yesterday, my station wagon is totaled and I had to go to the ER for neck pain (So far I'm fine, but I guess soft tissue damage takes a while to present itself?).

I had been waiting to make a left hand turn onto my street and a college student rear ended me going full speed. I looked in my rear view mirror and realized she wasn't slowing down, but by the time I realized she was about to drive into my car going at least 40mph it was too late. I was catapulted onto my street via the sidewalk, narrowly missing a brick building and a parked car (and when I say narrowly missed I mean I was heading directly towards a brick building but somehow managed to turn away from it and drive down the sidewalk, I should have smashed into it and have no idea how I didn't)

When I finally managed to stop the car and turn it off I was only about two houses away from my own. Thankfully there were some people on the scene right away and a very nice guy helped me out of the car and find my glasses. The police told me she hadn't been using her phone or distracted by anything, but just didn't see my giant gold station wagon? I "came out of nowhere". My car is totally destroyed. At least she was insured?