The Tree Year - June

It's been several months since I've had a chance to update the Tree Year but since my cedar has berries on it, I wanted to update.

Herbal Ally Challenge #12: Make a Salve

The next challenge is to use some of your oil to make a salve. Salves are great for applying your ally where you need him without a huge mess. They are compact and can be traveled with easily and ready to use when the fresh herb isn’t around. 

Assignment 1:
Read a few different perspectives on salve making:

Healing Wise by Susun Weed pages 273. Similar excerpt can be found at this online article: Be Your Own Herbal Expert part 6 by Susun Weed 

Making Plant Medicine by Richo Cech pages 87 - 88 (Second part of Chapter 10)

The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook by James Green Chapter 18: Ointments, Salves & Balms pages 201 - 208 (click to see online...5 pages are missing from this version)

Assignment 2:
Make a salve using any oil(s) you have previously infused with your ally. If you have an oil for each part of the plant, make a salve out of each.

To make a salve, you will need your infused oils, beeswax and vitamin E. You can purchase vitamin E capsules at your local drugstore. You’ll only need a few drops. 

Measure your oil and place it in the top of a double burner. For every 4 parts oil, add 1 part beeswax. For instance if you have 4 oz. of oil, you’ll add 1 oz. of beeswax. 

Gently heat until the beeswax is melted. Dip a teaspoon into the salve and bring out, shake off. Let it set up either at room temperature or in the freezer for quicker results. When it has hardened, you can tell how thick the salve is. If you think it’s going to be too hard, add a bit more oil. If you’d like it harder, add a bit more beeswax. It will become a bit harder than it is on the spoon so keep that in mind when you make any adjustments. 

When it is the consistency you want it, use the tip of a sharp knife to poke a hole in the vitamin E capsule and squeeze it into the salve. Stir and pour your salve into a wide mouthed jar or metal container. 

Assignment 3:
Journal any thoughts you have on salve making. Write about why you think salves will be a good mix with your herbal ally (or why not).

Take a moment to write down any uses you might have for a salve with your herb. Does he have an affinity for muscles? If so, he may be useful for rubbing on sore muscles after a long day in the garden. Does he stop bleeding? Then his salve is a great addition to the first aid kit to staunch bleeding. Salves can be used for healing sore or damaged muscles, nerves, bones, cuts, stings, insect bites, animal bites, diaper rash, mild burns and much more. 

After making a list of the obvious uses for your salve, make a second list of possible uses for the salve, whether or not you have ever read about the oil being used for these ailments. Part of exploring your ally is to learn new things, so trial and error will help you discover new uses.

Assignment 4:
Continue meditating with your plant and journal your experiences. Note any changes to your plant in size, color, bloom cycle, etc. Pay attention to your ally’s journey of life. You’ll want to continue doing this throughout the lifecycle of your ally.

Assignment 5:
Catch up on any other Challenges you’ve fallen behind in. It’s always good to go back and review what you’ve been doing just to refresh your memory. 

Herbal Ally Updates and Survey

I apologize for the lack of Herbal Ally updates. Spring is catching up with me!

I promise to continue offering them and I will have the next one posted shortly. In the meantime, I wanted to take a survey for those participating in the Challenges. If you could answer the questions in comments, that would be helpful for me.

1. How often do you feel you can manage to get a new challenge? once a week, once every 2 weeks, once a month? What pace works best for you?

2. Do you feel you are benefitting from the amount of challenge that is offered each time? Is it too much? Not enough? Anything I could improve upon?

3. Are there any specific challenges you'd like to see offered/covered in the future? Do the challenges seem balanced enough between the emotional/creative side and the practical/knowledge side?

4. Would you be interested in creating a challenge and offering it on your blog as sort of a herbal ally challenge blog post party, similar to past herbal blog posting parties? This is an idea Ananda suggested as a way to help me out when I get to bogged down to do the challenges myself: different people would volunteer to post upcoming challenges, either those they made up or from a list I'd provide.

5. How would you feel if the challenge took that direction and was co-hosted?

6. Anything else you'd like to add, suggest or say?

I truly appreciate your feedback on this! I want this challenge to continue and I have enjoyed doing what I've offered so far, I just feel I am letting everyone down by not being able to post them in a timely manner at the moment. Please be honest, you won't hurt my feelings! This is exactly why I started the challenge because I knew if I didn't host it publicly, I'd personally not follow through. :) I am thrilled so many have joined in and I don't want to let you down!

Update: Spring is Raining Deadlines and Tornados

"...the sky is a poisonous garden tonight..."

-Concrete Blonde

Thanks to everyone who signed up for the Culinary Herbalism course! I've only begun the first lesson but I know I'm going to love working through it.

Right now I am swamped in deadlines: Herbal Roots zine issues, an article for Rhythm of the Home, a handout for a presentation on Wednesday about Herbs for Children, trying to get soap made for the upcoming market season (starts in less than 2 weeks!!!) and so on. Then there's everyday stuff such as dishes, laundry (which is hard to do while dodging thunderstorms and tornados), cleaning house, milking the goats, tethering the goats (again when weather is cooperative), schooling the kids....deep breath!

So, unfortunately, something has to slide and right now it is the Herbal Ally year. I promise to add another challenge as soon as I can, I am not abandoning it, nor have I forgotten about it! If I can get through this next week or two, I will hopefully reach a plateau and can breathe a bit....hopefully.

The garden that has been planted so far is doing well. Onions are sprouting, garlic is filling in, strawberries are blooming (it is SO hard to pinch those blooms off but I'm determined to do it right), and lettuce is growing like crazy. Unfortunately, so are the weeds. And with the rain, I haven't been able to get out there regularly to weed.

We've had lots of crazy weather lately. A tornado ripped through the St. Louis airport Friday night and did lots of damage. There were also several communities damaged, we lucked out and it went south of us. There's more of that predicted for tonight.

This spring has been cold and wet and gloomy. Unusual and that's the description I'm seeing all around the country from others who pay attention to that sort of stuff. I have a feeling that this is going to be the new norm unfortunately.

I have a ton of planting to do: 10 flowering trees (2 each: crabapple, dogwood, redbud, hawthorne, goldenraintree), 3 each: hawthorn, witch hazel and crampbark plus 8 cranberry bushes. The cranberries will be the most intensive since I have to amend a bed for them with peat moss, sand and other additives. I'm looking forward to having fresh cranberries though!

Herbal Ally Challenge #11 Completed

Love letter to my ally, Nettles:

Final Day for Sign Up!

Today's the final day to sign up for K.P. Kalsa's Culinary Herbalism course on Learning Herbs. If you are wanting to sign up for the course but can't afford to pay all at once, they are now offering a payment plan. The details are at the bottom of the page.

I've had a chance to check out the first lesson and I am loving this course! I know I'm going to learn a lot about using my food as medicine and I'm excited for this because sometimes my family is not always on board with taking the weird concoctions I offer up to them when they are feeling a bit under the weather. Any chance I can get to play a bit of kitchen witchery and create a meal that not only tastes spectacular but is healing is well, well, I'm all over that!

If you've taken any of the past courses John has put together at Learning Herbs then you KNOW this course is going to be amazing. K.P. himself will be on the website for the first week of the course but it will remain open to all of those who signed up indefinitely so if you're like me and finding time to do something can be difficult and weather based, you can tuck it away for a rainy day.

The sign ups close around midnight tonight unless it fills to capacity before then. There was a glitch in the system a few days ago which wouldn't allow anyone to sign up so it has not filled as quickly as it should have so there's still lots of openings left!

Winner of Crone's Gazette

Congratulations to Karisma! Her comment was selected via the random.org generator to win a year's subscription to the Crone's Gazette!

Karisma, I'll be in touch shortly to get your information for the subscription.

Thanks to everyone who signed up!