Elder Immune Wisdom

It was bright sunshine a couple of days ago, now  it's hailing outside. It must be August. It is a surprise every year, the days begin to lengthen, everyone begins to look forward to spring, then winter really hits. The temperature has been hovering around 10 degrees  but the weather app tells us it "feels like" 5 (unless it is hailing and then it plummets close to zero. No complaints from me, I am grateful for the rain and wish I could send some of it eastwards to the drought affected farmers.

I adore days like today, a good reason to stay inside and catch up on production, study, craft projects and begin to sort and throw in preparation for true spring cleaning once the sun is back. It seems that this between seasons weather is
when our immune systems become more vulnerable and need some extra support. This summer gifted me an amazing crop of elder berries which is rare in these usually warmer climes. Stripped and dried, they had been waiting for winter. Two weeks ago, on a day rather like today, I turned them into an immune boosting syrup.I have been taking a spoonful each morning as a preventative measure and so far have avoided catching any of the colds and flu around me. The addition of some warming spices makes it easy to take and adding the cooled extraction to the honey helps conserve the properties of our unique raw bush honey.

Elder Immune Booster

2 cups rainwater
2/3 cup dried elder berries
2 tablespoons of fresh ginger, thinly sliced
4 whole cloves
4 cardamom pods, crushed
2 sticks of cinnamon bark
zest of one lemon, peeled

Place all ingredients except honey in a saucepan.
Bring to the boil.

Reduce heat and simmer on a heat proof pad until reduced to about one cup.

Allow to cool.
Press through a sieve, then strain through a muslin cloth.
Stir in equal amount of honey until dissolved.
Bottle and label with date.
Store in the refrigerator.

Dose: 1 teaspoon on an empty stomach first thing in the morning as a preventative.
1/2 - 1 tablespoon every two three hours  when symptoms occur.

Dizzy!

I nearly fell off the chair laughing at the doctors’ the other day when I was told I needed to fling myself sideways and backwards onto the bed, lie there until the dizziness passed and repeat five times each side, three times a day. The doctor even handed me a printed sheet with the full instructions on the Brandt and Daroff exercises.

I had been feeling dizzy for a couple of days, a feeling of being drunk or sea sick. The diagnosis was benign positional vertigo. I had suffered from a cold the week before and apparently ‘debris’ had collected in my inner ear and was affecting my sense of balance.

This all seems to be a bit witchy.  It pleased me too in that if a little bizarre, it was a simple solutionlike banging the salt cellar so you can shake out the salt. The only herbal remedy that I thought to  administer is ginger for the nausea. As it is the inner ear that is affected, I don’t think ear candles would help much although I have found them useful after a cold.

The more I share the stories of the dogs leaping on me to play some strange game, the near misses of the head and the wall and the hysterical laughter from the unsympathetic partner, the more people fess up to having had the same condition and being given the same exercises. It is like a secret society of people who do crazy things.

Dizziness can be a symptom of many serious conditions (see the picture at left for another occasion) if you suffer from it regularly, don’t ignore it. And please, don’t be one of those people who deprive others of a good laugh.

Share the madness!

nirala