A small rant

I spoke with my sister today, and mentioned that I have an online store. As in, "Yep, L is going to high school next year. Can you believe how the time flies? I guess I'll have to get a job. Heh. Although, hopefully the store will be making enough money by then... I have a whole year to build it up."
Now, my sister works in the medical field. She's a PA, and she's very well informed about Western medicine. I respect her. A lot. I love listening to her speak about medicine. Sometimes I'll ask her questions just to get her started on a subject. She really knows her shit.
And.
She's not real happy about my store. I think I upset her. Which, of course, upset me.
See, my sister is pretty much against herbal remedies; and I understand why. They're inconsistent, some of them are toxic (hell, most of them are toxic when taken over time, or in large quantities or both) Also, some of them simply don't work. To say nothing about those people who choose to self-diagnose, then self-medicate with herbs. Far better to see a doctor!

The thing is, I agree with her for the most part. If you think something is wrong, see your doctor. That's what he or she is there for. But she doesn't give "alternative medicine" the same credit. Why is it that mothers could give their children chamomile tea for millenia, but now it's wrong because it's herbal? Or why is it that people used comfrey, calendula, or other plants rich in allantoin for millenia, but now it's an evil thing?
I have never said, "Don't see a doctor, use this herb instead."
I have never tried to scare someone into using "alternative medicine".
I've never said doctors are evil, and I've never claimed to be a medical practitioner.
Yet, I mention that I'm selling homemade arthritis cream and suddenly my sister sees me as
You know, I don't know what she sees me as right now. I know she was both angry and dissappointed.
It just upsets me, you know?

We're Outta Here!

We are off to DragonFest! Woo! I am so looking forward to 5 days in the mountains. Ahhh.
There's nothing like 1000 pagans at 8000 feet. (Except, of course -a thousand pagans camping at 8000 feet)
Anyways, the Astounding Persephone is still running the store, so keep ordering, ok? She is also sitting the cats and watching our house. That's why I call her Astounding.
In other news, we tried selling at the Barnhardt Flea Market. :(
Persephone did ok, she sold a bunch of eye pillows and got a lot of lookers; I didn't do so well. I sold one tub of Migraine Miracle. Ah, well. At least there's one happy (migraine free) woman out there tonight.
I'm gone!

Family Fun

Eventually, I'll post the amazing story of selling arthritis cream at a flea market. You'll love it. It involves the redheaded cluster phenomenon, consignments and QVC. Seriously.
But right now, I'm going to my sister's house to partake in pizza, while parceling out photos. It should be fun. I'm bringing along the Migraine Miracle.

If only I could come up with a menopause miracle butter... it would do so much for the female half of my family right now. (sigh)
note: must add evening primrose oil to the list of essential oils to experiment with...

Worth Every Penny
Jasmine Essential oil is $75 an ounce!!!!!
But it's a key ingredient in Migraine Miracle, so it's worth every penny.

Fun!

I spent the day with Persephone, yesterday; and I had a blast! To be fair, she wasn't feeling her best, and I stayed way too long, and I'm sorry. However, we got a lot done. She made a set of truly awesome bath products -which are now being tested for the store. I watched in awe as she created bath salts for her daughters; who are going through hormonal changes. She'd never made this particular blend before, but you wouldn't know it to watch her. She filled the kitchen with love, and she smiled as she worked.

When the girls' salts were done, she moved on to a bath salt for men. She didn't use snips, snails or puppy dog's tails; and it was still the perfect blend for manly men who deserve a good soak in the tub. I want some for the Hubby-Man. I'll be her first customer. The rest of you all have to wait in line.

She called the kids, and had them sniff the bath salts. The girls smelled the mens bath and said, "That smells ok." Then they sniffed the womens salts and said "That smells soooo good!"
Next it was the boy's turn, and they had the opposite reaction. The girls salts were ok, the boys salts were fabulous. Nice!

After the smell test, Persephone moved on to a milk bath. Again, miracles happened. I have a jar of (what I call) "Mother's Milk Bath", and some of the bath salts. I'm testing the salts today, because I'm ovulating right now; and it's an ideal time to try Persephone magic.

I'm Making Comfrey! surprise, surprise

The shea butter is whipping, the lavender is added, there's more set aside waiting for it's turn to be whipped with peppermint... and I still don't have my labels printed. (mue)

So, I'm gonna label them by hand.

*time passes*

Ok, the Shea with Comfrey and Lavender is done. I have 8 four ounce tubs and 4 half ounce samples. I would have had more, but I accidentally dropped a tub and it spilled out onto the floor. Ah, well... spills happen.

My cat is a freak

When I order shea butter, it comes in a big ziploc type bag. I transfer it to glass containers in order to infuse it with comfrey. So today, I dropped a little flake of shea while measuring it. The cat rushed up and licked the floor clean where it had fallen. Now, I know shea is edible and all; but I never thought a cat would want to eat it.

By the way, if you decide to grow comfrey yourself, dry the leaves in a closet or something. Cats love the leaves, and they will eat your entire stash. One advantage to growing prickly comfrey (comfrey uplandicum) is the neighborhood cats won't eat it while it's growing. Of course, it grows so fast, that a little nibble here and there won't make much of a difference.

*shameless plug time*
For those of you who are interested, I have eight 4 oz tubs of pure shea butter ready to go. The price is $5.

Taking a Trip

While chatting with Chasmyn, she mentioned "salvia divinorum" was a popular new psychedelic. Like me, she knows a lot about things, without actually doing them. So I'm sitting there on the phone thinking, "salvia...salvia... what is that?" Then I remembered. Salvia is sage. I doubted my memory... it might be basil. I said, "Kids are smoking sage or basil to get high? *scoff*
She googled it and sent me a link.
Later on, I googled the URL and searched for pages that link to SageWisdom.org. Lo and behold; the Department Of Justice has a link to them! It's in a page about Drugs of Concern. Interesting...
So, of course, I had to go look at the other drugs of concern. I'm a mother of a 13 year old, I'd like to know what's floating around out there.
I couldn't find anything about mushrooms, though. I would think, that if they're concerned about a hallucinogenic member of the mint family; they would surely be concerned about a toxic fungus. Not finding what I was looking for, I looked elsewhere. I'm reading 5 different sites right now.
I also found a FAQ on codeine. That one is a big deal to me. When L was recovering from surgery, the hospital gave him Tylenol 3. He barfed all night. They decided he was probably allergic, and he did fine with just plain tylenol after that. However, I want to know everything I can about any opiates, so I can forewarn him -if he ever pulls the stupid teen trick of doing drugs. So today I learned some new things.
Tylenol 3 is: 30mg codeine, 30mg caffeine, and an unspecified dose of tylenol. I didn't know there was a tylenol 4. I'm not linking the site where I got the info, because it encourages the use of opiates for recreation. I'm not going to sully my blog with that. This part caught my attention, however: "Most codeine found in pharmaceutical products today is synthetically produced via the methylation of morphine." Methylation... as in dissolving morphine in methyl alcohol to extract it? Could my son have an allergy to methyl alcohol, or one of it's by-products? Better safe than sorry. I'll tell him he might be allergic to Meth, too. (snerk) Is that cruel?
I'm a child of the 80's. Everyone did drugs. Is it limiting for me to pray that my son never experiments with them? (Not that I really care if you think I'm mean) I believe in everything in moderation. I think occasional drug use won't do horrible damage, and you might just learn something. But I've seen what can happen with "recreational" drug use. People tend to make poor choices. -sigh- Just one more stress. :)
I was actually going somewhere different with this. Methinks I'll save it for another posting

Get this party started

It's 4:26 pm. I am late for a party. I was supposed to bring the massage table, and I'm not going to. See, last week I bumped my knee on the refrigerator. I knew I'd done some serious damage when the limits-of-my-threshold pain subsided, thanks to endorphins. Because I'm an idiot, and refuse to accept it when I'm hurt, I rushed to Persephone's house to get the coffee I'd left there. I knew I had less than an hour before the endorphins wore off. Once home, I smeared comfrey all over my knee and hoped for the best. The comfrey only lasted a few hours. Next I tried ibuprofen. I took 3, where I usually take one, and smeared comfrey all over the knee again. I amused myself by watching the bruise grow and poking at the puffiness around it. The ibuprofen only lasted a few hours. Ok, now I knew I'd done serious serious damage.
I thought, "It's not broken, I can still walk on it. I didn't tear anything, I can still walk on it... I don't need an x-ray, I can still walk on it." etc.

We have a variety of prescription painkillers in the house, because Hubby has degenerative disk disease in his neck. He offered me valium and percocet, but I refused. I had to drive L to school in the morning. So I dosed myself with Ny-Quil and went to bed. The next day was bad, but what can ya do? I pushed on. That night, ibuprofen and comfrey were my friends again. At least until I woke at 4:08 am. It felt like my kneecap was split in two. I spent the next 2 1/2 hours trying to meditate the pain away enough to make it to the medicine cabinet. When I finally stood up, those good old endorphins kicked in, so I used the time to rush L to school and make it back to the sofa. My whole week has been like that. Meditation, medication and pain receptor overload. I really want to massage! And I'd be a fool to try it on one leg. I had 3 lined up this week, the most customers I've had in months! dammit. We don't need the cash, yet I really wanted the work. I like to work.
Yesterday, my body let me know it had had enough. I got my first ever migraine. Ibuprofen and peppermint oil made it bearable, but it was the final straw. I called Persephone and canceled on the massages. I still baked a batch of chocolate covered espresso cookies, though. I'm wondering if I can just drop them off and get out. I know Persephone will understand, but I feel like I'm letting her down big time.
It's been a week! I should be fine!
and I'm not
and I hate it
and I don't want to go to the doctor, get yet another x-ray of my knee, and be given a bunch of pain pills I probably won't take.
Because I'm stubborn that way.

Thank you, Mother Earth

I've really gotten into shea butter as a base for massage cream. Shea butter is kind of expensive, and is currently very popular in high end salons. I really want to use a good quality shea butter, but I was leery of buying it because of it's popularity. I'm well aware of how fashion trends can devastate the economies of the small countries that produce the item du jour. I want no part in that.

Today, I found some great news. The shea tree grows wild in Sub-Saharan Africa. The fruit is harvested by illiterate, generally disempowered women; who process the nuts with the most basic of machinery. In the last century, most shea butter exports were sent to Europe as a food product. The women received very little money for a lot of labor. That's the bad news. The good news is that in the 1990's, the UN got involved.
In 1994, UNIFEM, the women's rights branch of the UN, took a far more proactive role with African women and their production of shea butter. They have provided villiages with better quality manual presses, water filters and business courses.
UNIFEM's assistance is changing their culture. And it's a change I support. In addition to helping them earn more money with their businesses, UNIFEM is teaching them about AIDS, and how to stand up to abuse.
I can buy shea butter with confidence, as long as I find a distributor who shares my ideals.

As for thanking Mother Earth, shea butter is rich in allantoin. (Woo Hoo!) I've been searching for a lotion base for my Comfrey arthritis formula. It works great in olive oil, and I wanted something less messy. Shea butter will be perfect, and the scents blend nicely together :)

Huh. I
was going to bitch about my heart and the weird freaky dreams I had last night. It all clicked into place, tho. My heart has been acting up since I bought the last batch of Millstone coffee. Perhaps their quality has dropped. Perhaps they're using a new pesticide on their bushes.

Ok. I'll rant about pesticide in coffee instead! Everyone knows that coffee contains caffiene. Not everyone knows (or cares) why. Caffiene is a natural pesticide. It's the plant's defense against bugs and small animals. It works well enough. So why do most coffee growers use pesticides? Because big corporations told them they should.

I love that Comfrey is disease resistant, insect resistant and weed resistant. I've personally noted that mosquitoes like to hide in my comfrey foliage in the evening. Fortunately, spiders have noticed too! My biggest challenge when harvesting comfrey is to give the spiders advance notice that I'll be removing parts of their hunting grounds. My second biggest challenge is not squishing the caterpillars that like to nibble the early spring leaves of my comfrey. It's never a BIG problem, just some of the leaves get munched on. Comfrey is self-healing, so it will re-grow the nibbled bits.

I love comfrey because I have arthritis. An ounce or two of leaves, ground by mortar and pestle and put in a carrier oil for a few days means instant relief from my arthritis at it's worst. It reduces the swelling and the pain is gone for up to 8 hours. It doesn't numb the area, nor does it create a sensation of heat or cold. It just has my knees feel like they did before I developed arthritis. That lack of pain without any side effects is well worth a bit of oil on the skin.

Some interesting things about my favorite herb, Comfrey.

Thank you to Perdue University for an in depth look at Comfrey as a food crop, and many other things on the above linked page.

History
Comfrey has been cultivated since about 400 BC as a healing herb. The word comfrey, derived from the Latin word for "grow together", reflects the early uses of this plant. Greeks and Romans used comfrey to stop heavy bleeding, treat bronchial problems, and heal wounds and broken bones. Poultices were made for external wounds and tea was consumed for internal ailments.

Comfrey (Symphytum spp.) is native to Europe and Asia. Although comfrey has been used as a food crop, and as a forage crop, in the past 20 years scientific studies reported that comfrey may be carcinogenic, since it appeared to cause liver damage and cancerous tumors in rats. Comfrey-pepsin capsules, which are sold as a digestive aid in herbal and health-food stores in the USA, have been analyzed and found to contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These alkaloids cause liver damage in people and are a potential carcinogen. Huxtable et al. (1986) cited cases of hepatic veno-occlusive disease that were produced by using these capsules. These reports have temporarily restricted development of comfrey as a food crop.

Three plant species in the genus Symphytum are relevant to the crop known as comfrey. Wild or common comfrey, Symphytum officinale L., is native to England and extends throughout most of Europe into Central Asia and Western Siberia. Prickly or rough comfrey [S. asperum Lepechin (S. asperrimum Donn)], named for its bristly or hairy leaves, was brought to Britain from Russia about 1800. Quaker, Russian, or blue comfrey [S. × uplandicum Nyman (S. peregrinum Lebed.)] originated as a natural hybrid of S. officinale L. and S. asperum Lepechin. This hybrid was called Russian or Caucasian comfrey in reference to its country of origin. Cuttings of this hybrid were shipped to Canada in 1954 and it was named Quaker comfrey, after the religion of Henry Doubleday, the British researcher responsible for promoting comfrey as a food and forage. The majority of comfrey grown in the United States can be traced to this introduction.

I grow the prickly, hairy, purple flowered kind. I bought it from Richter's in Canada and I'm delighted with it!

Weed Control:
Mechanical: Comfrey is an excellent weed competitor due to its rapid and dense growth. Weeds may become established between comfrey plants under a multiple-cut harvesting regime. As a result, two cultivations per year are often required. Rototilling between plants is an effective method for destroying weeds.

Chemical: Comfrey has usually been grown without herbicides. No herbicides are labeled for use on this crop in the Upper Midwest.

Diseases and Control:
Diseases have not been a serious problem with comfrey in the United States. Comfrey rust fungus (Melampsorella symphyti) overwinters in roots and reduces yield of old plantings in Great Britain. This disease problem has not spread to the United States due to plant quarantine regulations on the importation of roots or plants.

Insects and Other Predators:
Insects have not been reported to be a problem with comfrey in the United States.