In the past week alone I don't know what I would have done without all these herbal salves and teas on hand. We have relied and depended on them in our household for years, but here's a quick snapshot at one week's worth of herbal support!
The days leading up to Christmas are always a blur for me. Making sure orders get delivered on time, doing my own holiday family traditions, usually hosting a meal and connecting with lots of friends and family is all really great, and stressful. For this, I use lemon balm salve. A little on the backs of my ears and temples offers a pretty quick mood boost and really helps calm the nerves. Also amazing for tension headaches.
Moments after taking a big sigh having successfully making it through Christmas morning and hosting dinner, my son tells me he doesn't feel well. Wild Bear Ease by the mugful for him- it's immune boosting, antiviral, high in Vit C and happens to be his favorite! I added a little Elderberry + Sage Honey for additional benefits.
Just when he seemed to be on the up my dog's ear infection flared up with a vengeance. Being a holiday I couldn't get an apt right away at our holistic vet's office for some more ear drops, but I had to do something as he was itching his ear raw. On the raw areas I applied rescue salve liberally, which quickly healed and scabbed up the open areas. I then held a compress of chamomile and comfrey leaf on his whole ear to ease the itching and irritation. It's doing much better now!
Once I had both the boys doing better I went out to clean out the barn. With a little too much ambition for my own good I ended up straining a muscle in my back shoveling straw. It was spasming, hot and very tense. I carefully made my way back to the house and continued to move around gently for 15-20 minutes while rubbing muscle rub into the entire area. I then laid with a heat pack on and alternated that and gentle movements with muscle rub a couple more times. I also drank an infusion of Linden, Nettles, Hawthorn and Rose that I had made as a heart opening blend but found to be the perfect anti-inflammatory when I needed it! By afternoon I hardly had any pain and by the next day it was almost back to normal.
Now back to my son. By this point his energy level is okay but he had developed a cold that turned into a smasmodic cough keeping him up all night. I got up the first time and brought him some chest rub, rubbing it into his feet and had him sip some water. A while later the coughing started up again, so this time I came with St. John's wort salve for the chest as an anti-spasmodic.
This seemed to help too, but he still had a hard time sleeping from the coughing. So the next night we went in strong. I made Mullein milk by steeping mullein leaves in warm oat milk and straining well. He drank this before bed along with the same topical applications as the previous night. This did the trick- the mullein acting as a sedative, expectorant and demulcent, helping him decongest and sleep through the night.
This doesn't include the daily herbal tea we drink, Chaga and Geranium creams for moisturizing and the many tinctures I have on hand and use daily.
We're all feeling good now, after a fairly quick bounce back from some challenging days.
Gosh am I grateful to have support like this through life's challenges, it really makes all the difference.
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