Apocalypse Prep?

Nope. Just Herbal Remedies.

Did I trick you? I had to add some humor to my Friday. Really though, if society collapses, let's say long term, what happens when our Doctors are no longer able to provide the medicine we're all used to? We'll be thrown into Medieval times! I am assuming most of my glorious readers are fairly like minded in the sense that we all want some level of self sufficiency, of course assumptions can be a terrible thing, so what the heck do I know.

In my last herbal blog I mentioned willow tree acting as Aspirin. In the Native American culture it is used for; headaches, body-aches, fevers...etc. The part of the willow tree that is used is the bark and/or the roots. You may be asking yourself "how?", with hot water of course! You would place some bark/root in a covered pot of boiling water for approximately 10 minutes, drain into a jar or cup that has a lid, cover and store in a cool, dark place or you can dump the whole concoction in a jar/cup with a lid and drain later. Of course this is only one method there are many ways to extract the salicin from a willow tree however all primarily are from root and bark.

Why in the world would I go through all that effort for Aspirin I can buy it over the counter at just about any store? Many reasons other than the obvious, money saving option, and the first and foremost is, Aspirin causes many stomach problems because Salicin is terrible for our body's terrain, when the scientists extracted salicin and create it in a tablet form there are a lot of added buffers so that it does not cause so much damage, and yet it still does. However, when you extract salicin from it's natural source it comes with natural buffers that do not cause nearly as much harm to our wonderful bodies. That ends my rant on pharmaceutical mumbo-jumbo.

While being self sufficient is the majority of my goal, that also goes hand in hand with medicine. I would love to be able to produce all of my own medicine, of course natural medicine will not cure all of our ailments, as I read somewhere once, the Native Americans refer to those ailments are "the white man's diseases". Pretty factual, I suppose, when you look at the grand scheme of things. (Cancer)

I haven't began making my own remedies because the holidays are rapidly approaching, we have some traveling to do, feasts to prepare and toys to buy for our children. I'm in saving mode, to say the least. However, I have gathered most of the materials necessary to begin (just not the darn herbs). I am so ready to start whipping up some awesome stuff but I believe in the "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" theory, so I'm not trying to rush and I don't want to move so fast I don't focus on perfection. (Can you tell I'm a perfectionist? Haha!)

Of course I am trying to include more photos, so I will show and tell what I have collected thus far:

First and foremost my tea kettle (back ground picture for a good laugh). I found this beautiful little guy at our flea market and he is indeed ceramic.

This is my adorable mortar and pestle. The Man bought this little lady for me and I probably won't use her quite as much as I assumed when I first started this journey.

My beloved Mason Jars (I plan to start canning foods soon). These are quart sized jars and I currently host 12 of them. I have used one or two for echinacea tea because the family came down with a stomach bug awhile back....it was disgusting.

This gorgeous china cabinet is currently home to my herbal things, the lower portion will be used to store made tinctures and teas, it also hosts my strainer and cheese cloth.

These are my gems. They are old medicine bottles I picked up at the flea market also, because I love old stuff and they just look cute.

Perhaps one day I will be able to make a living with my herbs, but for now it's just a cool hobby!