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Autumn Tonics and "Flu" preventatives

Hello, I'm Back!
And just when both of you thought I was gone for good, Hah! I finally made it through the term with a not too bad of an average, like right around 3.00, but then again, my school is pass/fail so you can figure it out if you can. Hah! I'm giddy with relief and a couple of shots of my special "flu" preventative tonic. As a matter-of-fact it wouldn't hurt at all to share my recipe with you and maybe I can rant and rave a little about the collossal hoax that BIG PHARM and your own government are putting over on the American public again. That's right, again. Ever wonder why there always seems to be an imminent plague just around the corner? Every year and now it's twice this year we have a "flu" season,,,didn't have anything like that when I was a kid, so what's up? This post really isn't about the "flu" hoax, but if it was Iwould have all the facts for you all and they would be documented properly. You see, it's easy enough to find out about the "flu", Google it! Look for "flu induced deaths", "flu vaccine induced deaths", or just about anything to do with the "flu". There will be somebody who has written the truth about it, just dig a little. It's a sad state of affairs when our own government is covering BIG PHARM's backside and poisoning it's own populace with a vaccine that has been proven repeatedly to NOT DO ANYTHING AT ALL. Except perhaps to bring on the real gene-spliced, anti-population "flu" ! Enough of that, you all can keep on believing that OUR government is showing you the real deal if you want while I sit back with my home-made "flu" recipe and take a pull off the jug for ya!

• Here it is, this recipe has been handed down from generations past to help keep you healthy while all others sicken around you. Got it from an old Finlander who was kind of a mentor in my earlier years. What you need;
• 3 gallons of black elder berries
• 5 lbs pure cane sugar (real brown sugar will do)
• 2 handfuls Self-Heal ie, Prunella Vulgaris
• 1 quart finely chopped fresh alfalfa
• 3 packages Red Star active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup hot chile peppers( the hotter, the better)
• A big jug or crock to put it all in

Mash up your elderberries, saving the juice of course, and put into the jug. Follow with the Self-Heal, alfalfa, and chiles. Make sure everything is mashed together and mixed well. Now, dissolve the brown sugar and yeast in warm distilled water, enough to fill up the rest of a 5 gallon crock or jug. Add to the jug while mixing and blending further. The recipe is for about 5 gallons, you can make it proportionatly bigger or smaller. Cover or cap loosely and set in a warm place in the dark for about 3 -5 weeks. If you use a jug, get one of those punch-ball balloons and stretch it over the opening. As the stuff ferments the balloon will get bigger and when it's done the balloon will shrink. Okay, when it's done just filter through a cheese cloth or an old tee-shirt into smaller receptacles and mark them with the date and ingredients. There you go, "flu" tonic! Elderberries and Prunella Vulgaris are "proven" anti-viral herbs. The chiles are just good for your heart and they help with making you sweat, whch is a good thing. The alfalfa is a supreme nutritive, you can also use kelp, bee pollen, red clover, dandelion, burdock, slippery elm, etc, etc. You can enhance the recipe by chewing a clove of fresh garlic per shot of tonic. Garlic is Nature's penicillan, or better! You might not win friends with this brew unless they do it too, but it works! I haven't had the "flu" in 10 years, or really been sick at all. I did pick up a little Rhino virus a couple years ago and I was miserable for 2 days then it was gone. It has to be safer than what your government wants to jam into your veins!

The Misunderstood Dandelion

Well, here's another late nighter,,, an herbally-induced, but still quite impressive, got-the-zip- on study session. I guess I've just gotten so used to studying late at night when it's quiet and there's no distractions(or at least fewer) that it's getting to be my regular schedule. But, you know, when you upset your system by forcing different hours on it, you're not doing yourself any favors. As a matter-of-fact until you get used to different hours of wakefulness, you are stressing your ALL of your body systems. That's like everything from your glands to your digestion, or your ability to fight invading viral and bacterial menaces. You can't think as well, you can become touchy, emotionally, and just downright grumpy and ill-tempered.
So, what do you do? I mean like, besides sleep for 2 days? You start feeding your body the kind of fuel it needs to sustain the major functions and clean up all the waste produced by the inefficiency of over-worked and stressed-out organs. This is such a simple concept that I have always failed to understand why most people just don't grasp it. If your body is working harder,,, you give it better fuel! Right? Like what kind of a genius does it take to figure that out? But nobody seems to understand this most basic fact of our corporeal existence, namely, if you want the machine to run correctly and not let you down when you need it most, treat it nicely. Think of your body as a jet fighter, hmmm, well maybe just a regular old family car, it gets you around, and that's about it. I still prefer treating my body more towards the jet fighter idea, you don't want to go into combat with your fuel tanks half full, do you? You wouldn't want to go into combat without checking the gauges, without airing up the tires, with shoddy off-market jet fuel? Or old oil, used ammunition, etc etc. Do you see my point?
I won't go into all the ways and things you can do to keep your body healthy, everyone is different, so who am I to say? But there is one little thing you can do, that is pretty much universal, no, not sex, although that too, can suffer from a stressed out system. What I mean is help your body dispose of it's toxins and poisons that build up in every part of you, but most especially in your liver and large intestine. Ick! Gross, Right? Yeah, well look at a picture of a cancerous colon or a liver in the last stages of cirrhosis, that will wake you up! You see, it's just as important to clean out the waste as it is to put the fuel in the system If it doesn't run smoothly or gets plugged up, you are in a world of hurt, in more ways than one.
And you know what? There's a little plant out there in your front yard or maybe across the street, down the block or where-ever, that will help you detoxify your body and get running with a full tank again. I'll bet that everyone reading this, both of you if I'm lucky, has seen this little plant many, many times, so many times that you don't even notice it except for when it fills your yard with pretty yellow blossoms. Or when a commercial tells you to get rid of it with Agent Orange, because your neighbors do.
That's Right! The lowly, misunderstood dandelion is one of the best herbs around to help you clean up your act! All parts of this little beauty are edible, but the root is what your liver and intestines crave. Well, sort of anyways. Besides being high in several vitamins and lots of minerals, it tastes really good too! The leaves can be boiled like spinach, or when young, they are excellent in a salad. The roots must be boiled also, like a carrot or parsnip. They can also be dried, powdered and put into capsules. And bonus of bonuses, the flowers make some real fine wine, dry, slightly tangy tasting, with lots of medicinal properties and a potency of legendary proportions. More about this little goodie in a future article, for the time being this is Woodco, signing off and passing out, Good Night!

Wow! I didn't realize it but a month has gone buy since I updated my blog. For all of you out there who follow me, I'm sorry, won't happen again. For both of you, I have a meager excuse, I've been going through finals at school and studying my proverbial ass off. Didn't do too badly, but that's another story, eh?
The big news is; It's Really Springtime Out There! You can tell by that green stuff covering the ground, I remember it being called something like grass? Lawn? Weeds? Who cares, it's Green! I know, it's been spring for awhile now but the garden is sprouting, the grass needs mowing, and best of all,,,,,,,,,,the herbs and mushrooms and other wild goodies are starting to show signs of buds and flowers. Yeah! Hopefully, I will have some exclusive pics of local herbs and edibles coming up real soon. It's just about time for wild strawberries! They are the first of the berry producing plants in the wild to have something for us, followed by currants, dwarf blueberries, huckleberries, serviceberries, blackcaps, thimbleberries, wild raspberries, gooseberries, and elderberries. Then there's wild(choke) cherries, wild plums, and wild apples. I'm sure there's others, I'll think it over.
Feel free to add any to my list. Just thought of another, hawes from the hawethorne tree, we've got lots around here and they have excellant medicinal properties. I'll get back to you real soon, promise, Happy Trails to you, Woodco

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Ultimate Cleanse is a colon cleanser that appears to have been around for a while. Being sold mostly through retail stores, the website itself doesn't sell the product directly to the consumer (although you can still find the product for sale online through various retail websites). This review will give you a glance of the product itself and then take a more in depth look at the company that's behind this colon cleanser.

Ultimate Cleanse uses a 2 part cleansing process and has 2 different formulas to do this. The first blend is an herb based blend an contains 32 ingredients that make up the 640 mg proprietary blend. The blend is meant to support the digestive function. The second formula is a blend of fibers. This blend of 557 mg. is designed basically to "promote healthy digestion and elimination." All in the all, I see no reason why this ingredient profile shouldn't do it's job just fine.
Nature's Secret is the company that's behind Ultimate Cleanse. Aside from Ultimate Cleanse they do provide a couple of other related nutritional products. The Better Business Bureau had good things to say about them. They had two reports for the company. One for Nature's Secret and the other for what I'm guessing is the parent company, Irwin Naturals, Inc. They gave a C rating to the first one and an A rating for latter. There was only 1 complaint on the report for the first and only 2 complaints filed on the second. Both complaints showed that they had been resolved. This is obviously a good sign for Ultimate Cleanse as it appears the customers have generally been quite happy.
One thing you may have noticed if you've visited my site, is that in most cases when a colon cleanse company offers a free trial, it is in conjunction with a plot to enroll you into their autoship program. So what about the Ultimate Cleanse free trial? I searched and searched, and couldn't find anything wrong with their free trial. To the best of knowledge, it's legit and not designed to scam your money out of you. In addition to not finding any evidence of an autoship on their site, I also didn't see any complaints about such practices (which there certainly would be if they were doing it).
The price point for Ultimate Cleanse can be found ranging from $15 to $30. Compared to other colon cleansers, this is relatively inexpensive. One downside, however, is that Ultimate Cleanse doesn't offer any kind of money back guarantee. This is probably due mostly to the fact that they sell through retail, but I still think any good product should be backed by at least a decent guarantee.

In conclusion, Ultimate Cleanse appears to be a decent product at a decent price. The 2 step cleansing process is better than other one-pill products and the ingredients look pretty good. The company behind the product also appears to reputable with almost no signs of poor business practices at all. All things considered, I'd feel pretty safe buying the product.
Before you buy any colon cleaners online, make sure you check out Peter Wood's excellent complete review of the products. You'll get no-nonsense information and commentary.
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Well, here we are with Mr. and Mrs. Bufo enjoying the refreshing Spring weather. Time to clean out the kidneys and tune up the liver with a special "tonic". Now this mix is sort of propietory in that I never make it the same way twice. I think that giving you the basic recipe and letting you find your favorite tweaks is the way to go.
For a good body and system rejuvenator (general) I usually use fresh alfalfa and green oat straw with the heads just starting to form.
Next, for nourishing the nervous system I use St. John'sWort and Maca Root, the former because of it's anti-depression qualities and to give your body a special anti-viral boost. Maca is an adaptogen that is good for relieving stress, providing endurance and it makes you horny as a side effect. I always use Borage, just the flower tops and seed pods, a superb gland balancer(adrenal) and a good source of beta-carotene and Vitamin C. Always use some fresh Red Clover flowers to rebuild strength after prolonged illness or chemotherapy or just because they taste really good in the mix, slightly sweet and cooling. This is about as far as the basics go, if you want to uplift your spirits a little more, Lemon Balm is dandy, so are fresh Rose Petals. I usually add a little Yopo to get a little closer to Mother Earth and a little Blue Lotus to take the edge off of the Yopo. Wild Dagga also works well in combination with the others. Now mind you, I'm not suggesting you put these herbs in the mix, just letting you know what has worked well for other people in the past. Once you have everything together, you want to use one part of each (one ounce, one pound, one gram, whatever, just equal measures) except for the special additives at the end. Get this together and chop it up, macerate it, mix it up really well and dump the resulting conglomeration into a crock (ceramic) or a big jug or something that that you can cover and won'tbe soluble by alcohol. The reason for this is that you must put 4 parts of your favorite wine in the jug also. The wine can be red or white, I personally like a red table wine, Mad Dog 20/20 is just about perfect. This should be covered, corked or capped loosely and let sit for about 2 weeks for the wine to aquire all the benefits from the herbs. The longer you let it sit the more potent medicinally it becomes. When you really can't stand it any longer, pour the tonic through a filter (cheesecloth) into smaller containers. Make sure to mark the date and ingredients on it somewhere to avoid confusion down the road. There you go, Spring "Tonic" that is good for your body as well as your soul. Enjoy! Happy Trails 'till we meet again,,,,,,,,,,,,,Woodco

Easter is here again and usually signals the real beginning of Spring in my neck of the woods. Sure, there's still snow on the ground, but there's green showing on the edges and more every day.
Now's the time for a good tonic that will put "spring" into your step and get your blood moving and detoxed from the stagnant winter doldrums. Be kind to your liver, it does one hell of a job detoxifying your system from all the crap you and the environment put into your body. So, give it a break , a boost, a helping hand or whatever, just think about how hard it has to work keeping your funky ass alive.
A good way to help out your liver is by nourishing it. This can be done in a variety of ways, from buying very expensive and questionable detox treatments to sipping a homemade tonic once a day. Now, this "tonic" should consist of fresh ingredients but that is not always possible this time of the year. So you think ahead and stock up stuff in the fall and save some for spring, how tough is that?
Okay, let's start out by just eating some fresh local greens. Real local, like out of your back yard or garden. Dandelion greens, plantain leaves, asparagus shoots, early green onions and garlic shoots, alfalfa sprouts, are just a few spring greens that are really good for you. Also, how about some wintered-over dandelion roots, salsify roots, yellowdock and burdock roots? These are the real workhorses of liver detox, just about any herbal detox program involves these roots, their deep roots provide important vitamins and minerals and they taste pretty good too.
I'll give you a few tips and recipes for invigorating teas next time, until then, Happy Trails!

Student aid

Do you have problems getting going in the morning? Like, dumb question, eh? I do and here's a few things that I do to make the big break between the comfort and security of sleep and the normal chaos which is my everyday life.

Being a student, especially online, presents less intense criteria for an early morning public outing. I mean like, you aren't going to be seen by anybody if you don't want to be. More on student responsibilities in a later post, but you still have to be awake, mind and motor functions running smoothly and reasonably able to talk to someone on the phone or in the chat room.

I start off in the morning with a cup of custom tea, this is no flatland tea and this is no regular cup. The cup is a full pint, insulated mug, weighted on the bottom for less chance of tipping over. The tea is something special that I package myself in it's own teabags.

Ingredients;

• 500 mg. licorice root powder
  
• 500 mg. guarana seed powder
• 250 mg. ma huang, sifted
• 250 mg. "gunpowder" black tea
• 250 mg. ginseng powder
• a pinch of flavoring, either kola, tangerine peel, peppermint, fennel or Jamaican all-spice

This is one fat tea bag, for sure! The ingredients, being finely sifted, only need to be" infused" and not boiled. Infusing is merely pouring boiling water over the teabag and letting the goodies leech out as the water cools. A couple of squeezes and stirrings and your tea is ready in 10-15 minutes. With the tea I swallow 500 mg. rhodiola rosea, 500 mg. maca root, 500-600 mg. ginkgo biloba, 500 mg. bee pollen or royal jelly, and a squirt of sublingual B-complex vitamin.
Now, I tell you, when this cocktail hits your system you will wake up! But unlike double-shots at Star Bucks, this will stay with you all day and have no nasty jitters or caffeine come-down. Now get to work! Happy Trails to you,,,, Woodco

North Idaho Herbal Blog

WELCOME back and greetings, a brief missive concerning our fine sponsors is due and getting it out of the way is optimal. I really can't believe how easy it is to blog with "Blogger". Everything is done for you, making up your mind about colors and such is about as tough as it gets. Google was right on the money with "adsense", having it on my site and configured while I slept. Granted, my sleeping habits are what you might call "indeterminate", but in this case it was less than two days.
I feel pretty good about that little plug, they'll probably get more as time goes on. Things are going pretty well in N.Idaho, weather is getting warmer, more rain than snow, so it is time to take stock of our dwindling larder and pray for an end to the cold.
On my next post I'll share a few herbal first-aid tips, a few wake-up and feel- refreshed tips, or perhaps a good herbal warmer-upper for the winter. Thanx for stopping by, Happy Trails to You! Woodco

Greetings , welcome to North Idaho Herbal. A blog about local herbs and their uses, entheogens, sources, wildcrafting and ethics.
For everybody else it might be Spring in a few days, you know, the Equinox and all that. Around here, ie. N. Idaho, just short of the Canadian border, it's still pretty much winter. We are getting some reasonably nice days with temps of 40 F. but the nights are still below freezing and there's about 2 feet of snow in the flats. Just last week a small storm blew in 8" of new snow and sub-zero temps for a couple of days.
So, maybe you can understand why I'm not going to deal much with planting, wild-crafting or really anything to do with the out-of-doors for awhile yet.
However, this is the time of year to check the larder, so to speak, or your cache, stash, goody-bag or whatever, to see what's left after a long and tedious winter. It's a good idea to keep track of the herbs and medicinals you've used so that you can be better prepared for the next round of winter's wonderland. Wouldn't want to caught short, now would we?
I don't know about you folks, but being an herbalist, living and working in the great outdoors is my life and being cooped up inside because of inclement weather can be a real drag after a month or two. So I use this time to process my harvested ethnobotanicals and experiment with different flavor and effect combinations of local and store-bought favorites.
In the coming weeks I'll be sharing some of these favorites and tips about use and effects with you. Feel free to comment and/or link, Thanx, Woodco.