Category Archives: General Interest

When I wrote about my approach to herbal remedies last week, I mentioned that often the way I first try a new herbal remedy is by using it as a tea. The above tag came from my moringa tea bag, which I ordered on amazon a while back to try. I also ordered some moringa seeds and plan to start some soon. With moringa, the information I found states moringa trees grow best in a warm climate, zone 8-10, so I am going to try growing my own moringa tree.

I found this quote on my tea tag even more uplifting than the moringa tea. As of yet, I’m not sure I’ve noticed any change in my arthritis pain since I started drinking moringa tea. Even if moringa doesn’t help my arthritis, its leaves are packed with nutrients. So if I can grow my own moringa tree, I hope to find ways to use the leaves in some dishes. I read it can be added to soups, stews, smoothies, stir fry dishes and it sounds like it can be treated like another green. I could also dry my own moringa leaves for tea.

Since Spring is right around the corner, another healthy green is dandelion. When I was a kid, my mother handed me a paring knife and sent me to gather dandelion greens in early Spring, when she made dandelion with hot bacon dressing. It’s one of my favorite PA Dutch-style meals. I also love PA Dutch scrapple fried nice and crisp for breakfast with eggs and I spread apple butter on my scrapple, because that’s how I grew up eating it.

It’s important to pick dandelion from areas where you’re sure a lot of chemicals haven’t been used. With gathering dandelion greens – first, we only ate them when the dandelions first appeared in the early springtime. My mother told us not to pick dandelion that had already bloomed, but dandelions with closed buds were still acceptable. She said after dandelion blooms, the leaves become bitter tasting.

Here’s a video with a recipe for PA Dutch dandelion and hot bacon dressing from one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels, Helga’s Pennsylvania Cooking. Some people add the dandelion into the hot bacon dressing to wilt it down a bit before spooning it over a boiled potato, but some people arrange it just like in this video:

Here’s a WSJ piece with some background into the groups behind that Biden administration alarm about gas stoves:

The Campaign to Ban Gas Stoves:

Biden and the media deny it exists, but the effort is calculated and well-funded.

This is going to be a blog post on my approach to herbal medicine. In a pre-pandemic blog post I mentioned my maternal grandmother’s two herb books (pictured above), that I inherited. My maternal grandmother used these books all the time. My maternal grandmother, besides her interest in herbal remedies, helped run the family gas station and held various jobs outside the home, including being a school bus driver. A family member told me my maternal grandfather gathered some type of mint or something in the woods in the Pocono Mountains, where they lived, and sold it to a pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia. Along with that sort of a side hustle, he had a small gas station, was a tinkerer, who liked to fabricate things in his shop, my family said. My grandfather died when I was a toddler, so I don’t remember him.

The little red herb book shows pictures of plants, bushes and trees and provides a great deal of information on what part of the plant to harvest, what time of the year, and the medicinal properties of each plant listed. In the back of the book are lists and prices to mail order herbs and herbal remedies from the author, Joseph E. Meyer. It has a 1934 copyright, so even during the Great Depression the herbal remedy business was thriving in America. Here’s a bit of Meyer’s bio from Wikipedia:

“Joseph Ernest Meyer (September 5, 1878 – March 9, 1950) was a botanist, writer, illustrator, publisher, and supplier of pharmaceutical-grade herbs and roots to the drug trade who became a prominent citizen and eventually a millionaire in Northwest Indiana. He was the founder of the Indiana Botanic Gardens, Calumet National Bank and Meyer Publishing (now MeyerBooks). At his death he was said to be the world’s largest distributor of herbs used in salves, cosmetics, and medicines.^[1][2]“

While I believe there’s a lot of valuable information in this little herbal book, since it’s from 1934 I remain open to more current scientific research. Often, research validates some of the claims with herbal remedies passed down through the ages, but sometimes research discovers health risks or discounts some of the medicinal claims. And often the research doesn’t validate or invalidate herbal medicinal claims, so we’re left with the research is inconclusive. I try to be open to listening to both sides and my usual approach is to use only a small amount of some new herbal product, after doing some research. Even most medications from doctors aren’t safe if taken in massive doses. I like teas, so often the first way I try an herbal remedy that can be ingested is steeped as a tea. Plus, whenever someone is selling an idea or merchandise, I keep that in mind as I consider their information and ideas.

There seems to be a prevailing belief system among many people who gravitate toward herbal medicine to believe herbal remedies are inherently safer, because they come from nature, as opposed to drugs produced in a lab. Here again, there are many compounds found in nature that are poisonous to humans and pets. Some herbals could be very risky administered to young children or people with various medical conditions. The mixture of some prescription and over-the-counter medications with herbal remedies can be risky, so doing more research and talking to my doctor is how I approach this. I do take some herbal supplements and I do use some herbal remedies.

As we moved around the Army, I met people from all over. One time a young woman from south Texas recommended wetting a bit of tobacco and putting it on a bee sting and I tried it, because I didn’t see any major risk from trying it. It seemed to work to me, so I have done that many times When I googled that home remedy, it said there’s no research to back up that claim. And that’s how I go about herbal and home remedies – I determine my own situation and risks. I didn’t see any great risk in sticking a bit of wet tobacco on a bee sting. Long ago, I watched a show on the history channel about how the ancient Egyptians used honey to treat injuries with the workers building the pyramids. So, of course I started doing my own bit of testing using honey on scrapes and cuts and using a band-aid to keep it on and seeing if things healed faster. It wasn’t scientific in the least, but honey sure seemed to help. I also found honey to help with coughs and sore throats. There’s quite a bit of research worldwide into honey’s antibacterial properties and other medicinal uses and there’s even medical-grade honey. Now, I do not eat honey, because it elevates my blood sugar too much, but I would not be adverse to using honey in wound care.

When I lived in Germany, I encountered a lot of recommendations for teas and other herbal remedies, including for babies. My late mother-in-law told me I needed to make fennel tea when my oldest daughter was a baby and had a lot of gas.

Of course, after the disastrous lapses with rushing vaccines and all the craziness with all of that in the past few years, many people will point and say – you can’t “trust the science.” Unfortunately, I think the mishandling of so much of the pandemic response damaged the reputation of our federal health officials in America and created a distrust of modern medicine, but that doesn’t mean we should discard all the hard work and effort that’s gone into modern medicine and medical research. Oddly, enough I suspect many of the same people online who say they refused the COVID vaccines and rush to the conclusion on every news story of deaths of athletes and healthy young people as due to those vaccines, also have no qualms about ordering antibiotics (medicine created in a lab) online to add to their prepping supplies.

I can see the benefits of having ready access to antibiotics in various extreme emergency situations, but there are a lot of health downsides to self-prescribing antibiotics. For one, different antibiotics are effective for different types of infections. Antibiotics also have a certain shelf life, so stocking up on most medications isn’t like stocking rice and dried beans, which can last for decades. Please, don’t become my grandmother who kept every packet of pills her doctor ever prescribed to her in her big purse. And finally, going the self-diagnosis/self-medicating route, believing you can skip all the medical tests and professionals, could delay prompt medical attention and lead to more serious medical problems.

There’s no way someone who reads a lot about herbalism or turns to a medical kit with antibiotics they ordered online knows as much as trained doctors and modern medical testing. I read the medical information that comes with my prescription medications and it lists the chemical composition of the drug, potential adverse side effects, testing information and all sorts of other information. There is no way my use of herbal supplements or home remedies is on the same level as the research and studies that have gone into most modern pharmaceuticals. Yes, there have been many big mistakes with prescription drugs having adverse side effects or even causing death, but when balanced against the millions upon millions of lives saved by modern medicine, I believe the scale tips very much in favor of modern medicine.

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts that my paternal great-grandmother made a drawing salve made from pine resin, which she sent me to gather when I was a kid. There’s a lot of information online about pine resin uses in herbal remedies. I found this interesting piece at an herbal website: Pine Resin Uses & Salve Recipe. She wanted the resin from cutting off the knots of certain pine trees and she only wanted that pine resin gathered at a certain time of the year. I was often her fetcher and gatherer, where she would tell me where this or that plant grew in the nearby fields and woods, but she was too old to go traipsing around gathering them herself. Her salve was a good drawing salve, after using it on my scrapes, in my opinion, but my mother stuck to ointments and salves she purchased. I’d compare my great-grandmother’s drawing salve to a yellow salve sold by Rawleigh’s. We had a door-to-door salesman who came around selling Rawleigh’s products when I was a kid.

My mother did buy that Rawleigh’s yellow salve and the medicated ointment, which was similar to Vick’s vapor rub. She also did use some herbal remedies. My mother’s approach though was stuff like she wet a tea bag and applied it to minor burns and she told me it’s the tannins in black tea that makes it effective. My mother liked to understand the science behind something. She also remained open to new research and information, on both modern drugs and herbals, while many people steeped in herbal medicine imbue ancient remedies or home remedies our ancestors used as being natural and somehow purer and more reliable than modern medicine, while skipping the historical evidence of shorter lifespans and the high numbers of people wiped out by illnesses that today are easily treated with modern medicine.

Herbal medicinal remedies have a place in my health care choices, as I mentioned in a recent blog post, but I treat them just like modern pharmaceuticals and check into side effects, drug interactions, recommendations for usage and dosages. With herbal remedies it’s hard to figure out what amount to use and what amount is safe to use and this applies to manufactured herbal products too. I was watching a charming video online with a lady mixing up an herbal remedy and she was deciding what ingredients to mix up for a tincture she was creating. Her amounts were completely subjective and there’s no real recipe or science or standardized amounts. She had a lovely backdrop set up and lovely glass bottles and droppers and she called it her apothecary, but despite the charming aesthetic, this is not scientific in the least. This lady was charming too. I think it’s important to keep this in mind with online influencers. Doctors can’t just read a few books on medicine or watch a bunch of online videos and begin practicing medicine. They go through rigorous years of study and then they also have to do time as residents working beside trained doctors in a hospital and they have to be licensed to practice medicine. Herbalists can just start making videos and posting them online.

I think most people encounter all sorts of herbal and home remedy advice, but it’s very easy to see a lot of online content with people talking about herbal medicine and natural remedies and it’s very easy to get sold on things, so I have to remind myself to do my own research, because I do take some prescription medications. I also discuss herbal remedies or even other trendy diet and lifestyle things with my doctor first. I had been thinking about a couple trendy diet plans and my doctor didn’t think that was a good idea for me. He recommended exercising and trying to cut my carbs, but work on a more balanced diet and portion control. I also have one prescription medication that has a warning to avoid eating grapefruit, so treading cautiously with herbal medicine remains my approach.

This post is some thoughts on paths and obstacles.

I never thought about writing a blog before a friend suggested it to me and even sent me a link to WordPress as a blogging site that looked very easy to use, back in 2012. Initially, I thought I’d write about politics and culture war, hot topics in the news, type stuff.

After years of doing that, I’m thoroughly sick of all the political games on both sides in America and truthfully, I’m weary of all the culture war battles too. The craziness of 2020 coupled with the dramatic change in my life, with my husband getting critically ill in January with a respiratory infection, that was unidentified, then being sent home on hospice care completely changed how I view many things. The thing is I felt alarmed enough to make some major changes in my life – some by choice, but many due to events beyond my control.

I had a jaded view of “preppers” as doomsday crazies or alarmists, yet there we were in 2020 facing shortages in grocery stores in America. I believed America was the land of plenty and never in my wildest imaginings did I believe there would be widespread shortage situations here.

Here’s a true story from when I worked at Walmart years ago. We had an elderly man, who was a people greeter, and he usually was at the patio gate in lawn and garden. He was caught shoplifting camping type merchandise from sporting goods and lost his job. After that incident, a young lawn and garden associate told me how bad she felt for that people greeter. She told me he really believed the Mayan Apocalypse was going to happen and he stole that stuff to prepare. Of course, I have a very dim view of shoplifters, so I just believed he was a thief and had probably been stealing stuff a long time. This old people greeter was how I viewed “preppers.” I don’t really think of myself as a “prepper” and generally think I’m just becoming a cranky older lady.

With my own personal crisis, I had to start thinking about all sorts of things I didn’t want to think about, if my husband died. Even though I knew there wasn’t any hope he would recover and have anything remotely resembling “quality of life,” a small part of me kept refusing to give up hope completely. Along with all of this I began to make some major changes in my thinking and how I handled important aspects of my life.

Instead, of thinking a Dave Ramsey no-debt type lifestyle sounded wonderful, but not attainable, I started working on that and by working on that, I mean it required totally changing my spending habits. I did not follow his plan exactly and I still have things to work on with my personal finances. With the shortage situation, I was concerned about augmenting supplies needed for my husband’s daily care, by purchasing extra supplies on amazon and also stocking up on groceries and basic supplies around the house.

I began to work on changing my rather careless way of sticking food in the pantry, cupboards and freezer and both organizing things and rotating the older food to use first. I watched all sorts of food storage and prepping/homesteading videos to learn more. I paid more attention to how I spent money and made changes. I started thinking a lot about needs vs. wants.

There are still plenty more changes I can make. However, I don’t regret stocking up food, water and basic supplies and I certainly don’t regret working to become debt-free and paying off my mortgage. As you pay off debt, it frees up more of your money to use for other things, like build up emergency savings or stock up on food and basics. I see all sorts of frugal-living ideas and advice online and in books. Some I find useful and others isn’t how I choose to live. How I live isn’t how lots of other people will choose to live. What I’ve gained is a feeling that while things are bad and likely to get worse, I’ll do my best to find more creative solutions and look for some positive things each day and things I am grateful for.

Of course, the pandemic craziness waned and shopping seemed “somewhat” normal, but nothing ever really returned to pre-pandemic days and now the situation is deteriorating rapidly with our nation’s financial stuff and with food shortage and other shortage and inflation issues all across the country.

What a whole lot of people did as gas prices soared and inflation rose on all sorts of things was they did exactly what our government does – they racked up astronomical amounts of credit card and consumer debt. If you think only Washington’s got an out-of-control spending problem, just look at how most Americans handle personal finance. Here’s a December 2022 news article, Credit card debt growing; average household has $8,900 and a quote from that :

“Americans started 2022 with more than $1 trillion in outstanding credit card balances. As the Federal Reserve has continued to raise the prime lending rate during the year, people in Oklahoma and across the country have taken on more credit card debt – to the tune of an estimated $110 billion.

The average U.S. household has over $8,900 in credit card debt, up 4.5% from the previous year.”

With both aspects of my life – personal finances and stocking up on food and basic supplies, I’ve readjusted my thinking and approach, as I’ve gone along, trying to find ways that work better for me. I’m taking the same approach with the gardening effort.

I’ve also had family make comments about my “crazy prepping” and other decisions. I’ve tried to talk to various family members and a close friend about why I think it’s important to stock up food, water and basic supplies and get out of debt. My friend told me her pastor has been telling them to stock up too, but she hasn’t taken any action yet. Most people haven’t taken any action to be prepared for much of anything. Recently, my friend mentioned the high egg prices and how expensive everything is getting. The sticker shock at the grocery store is starting to impact everyone and while the point of this post isn’t to say, “I told you so,” I think it’s going to get much harder for many people to keep up with debt payments and keep food on the table, let alone pay off debt.. The government does stuff like print more money and raise the debt ceiling to cope with their runaway spending, but ordinary people are just going to suffer.

The solution isn’t to charge up more stuff or get more credit cards and it’s not to just keep spending like you have been. For most people they’re going to need to seriously look at wants vs. needs and make some hard decisions. I’ve also noticed a lot of people prefer to rant about the government’s reckless fiscal policies, while refusing to do a single thing about their own reckless personal financial management. It’s hard to do much about how the government wastes money, since both political parties spend like drunken sailors, but everyone can take control of their own finances, if they choose to. Even now, it may be much harder to pay off debt and make ends meet, but almost anyone can find a few frivolous expenses to cut, to free up a little bit of money in their budget. Sometimes much harder decisions are required to get your spending under control and pay off debt.

I expect life to get a lot more difficult for all of us and simple things we took for granted, like getting a prescription filled might take a lot more effort and a runaround, finding certain items at the grocery store might become a wild goose chase. I check prices online at my three major grocery stores before running around looking for stuff.

Finding ways to stretch food dollars might require doing more searching for new recipes, ways to utilize the food we do buy and even develop new eating habits. I mention this, because even with my little fall container gardening effort, I grew broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. As I was reading more about those plants, I realized that the leaves on all three can be eaten as greens, so that’s another part of those plants I could use. I use radish leaves as greens too. I grew kale and spinach, but the collards I planted didn’t produce much. Even with store bought foods, I’ve been learning more about ways to use scraps and bones, etc. when I used to just toss those. I did start a compost bin again too.

These were small things that I could do by myself and none of them required a great deal of time or effort. I took some sad looking pieces of ginger root from the grocery store that had been sitting in my fridge and stuck them in a pot with potting soil last summer. I harvested quite a bit of new ginger root late in the fall. I peeled it. Some I grated and some I sliced, then I dehydrated it, so I probably have enough ginger to use in stir- fry dishes and cooking for a year. I used some of the grated ginger root last week in a stir-fry and it’s easy to rehydrate. Ginger root in my local grocery store is around $3.50 a lb. right now.

Dave Ramsey calls his financial plan 7 baby steps, but the truth is every little change we make “baby step” can help change our life, but most of all it changes the direction of our thinking. If your first response to new ideas or suggestions is to make excuses for why you can’t do that or look for other people or events to blame for why things aren’t working well in your life, then nothing will change. The economy isn’t likely to improve any time soon, if we’re to believe just about every financial expert, including right-wing ones, left-wing ones, and even the global elite ones meeting at the World Economic Forum. We can’t change any of that, but each of us can make small changes (and big ones if we really need to) to find ways to get through coming storms.

Believing we can take charge and change is hard and I’ve failed miserably at many things – many times, but as I’ve gone through the past few years, where there were terrible things happening in my life beyond my control, along with the pandemic craziness, it led me to doing a whole lot of soul-searching. I used to spend too much time whining and complaining and most all – making excuses. I realized I could do a lot more than I thought I could. I believe all of us can do more than we think we can too and that’s the new way of thinking that’s been leading me toward making changes and adjusting to many changes that were beyond my control in the past few years.

Some things are scary or disturbing or very upsetting, but I’m trying to take an assessment, like thinking “Boy, this really sucks!” when faced with new problems or obstacles, then I start thinking of various ways I can move that obstacle out of my way, climb over it or go around it and even ways to pound it into pebbles that just pave my path. Every day, I remain grateful for life, for my loved ones, and the multitude of blessings in my life.

Each day is a new opportunity.

Here’s a helpful site I came across: US FDA Drug Shortages. You can click on the Drug Shortage Database box and it takes you to a list of drug shortages and current status.