Revising the basics : winter colds and coughs (and a touch of family)

I seem to have spent the majority of this holiday season listening to other people cough, sneeze and blow their nose. I suppose it’s only to be expected at this time of year after a mild autumn has suddenly turned into a very frosty winter and everyone has been rushing around like mad things trying to prepare for their own family or personal celebrations.

Of course we all hope our immune systems are healthy enough to ward off whatever germs are around but you can help yourself by leaving button mushrooms on your windowsill for three days to drastically increase their Vitamin D content before you eat them. Helpful herbs are echinacea, and astragalus. Echinacea can be taken as a tea, tincture or tablets. Reishi or Shitake mushrooms also have immune strengthening properties and both the mushrooms and astragalus root can be used in stews or soups. (Remove the sliced astragalus root before serving.)

Remember that grief and loss can severely deplete your immune system, so special consideration should be given to anyone who is suffering at this time. Immune strengthening herbs should not be taken if you have an auto-immune condition such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia etc. as they might precipitate a flare-up in the condition.

Thankfully, my parents and their carers were all well when we visited on Christmas Eve and two of our children with their partners joined us at the farm for Christmas dinner. Only Stephen’s girlfriend, Sarah was suffering from the lingering effects of a dreadful cold and cough which struck her during their pantomime run during the third week of December. She had already been dosed with sage and thyme elixir and was given another bottle of cough syrup to try out when she left us last weekend.

Our poor daughter in law was the only person in her household to stay well over Christmas when her mother contracted tonsillitis, her father developed a serious chest infection and both her children and Richard went down with a dreadful cold. They were just getting better when they came to us for three days on December 27^th but the baby, Thomas was not well. Neither child ate as much as normal but Thomas still hovered up his carrots while James stuck with plain pasta shells and five clementines in one day!

Yesterday we travelled to Woking to visit all Chris’ family. His mother has developed pains in her back and is under the GP’s care. I didn’t dare offer her any pain salve to rub on but Chris’ father has felt the benefit of mullein root tincture for a back issue he developed several years ago. Every Christmas I make him some hawthorn cider vinegar to help with his heart issues. This year the colour was a beautiful stain glass red.

Perhaps now is a good time to revise the herbs which can help during these difficult times. At the first sign of a cold, I use dropperfuls of elderberry elixir (equal to 30 drops or ½tsp) every two hours or so for the first day then three times a day. For children I would substitute a dessert spoon of elderberry cordial.

Colds are the perfect proving ground for fire cider vinegar. I’ve got to the stage where I loathe the taste as a drink so take 2tsp in a shot glass diluted with water. Chris still prefers his with honey and boiling water in a mug. In between the medicinal mugs I’ve been offering an infusion of ginger, lemon juice and slices of orange. I can drink it straight but Chris has it mixed with honey or some spiced apple cordial which needs using up.

Today has also been stock making day from the remains of the turkey carcass. You can make stock from any bones. There is nothing more important than a nourishing broth for people with digestive difficulties or those recovering from viral infections.

Cover the bones in a large saucepan with water. Add 1-2 tablespoons of cider vinegar to help release the minerals from the bones. Add anti-viral herbs e.g. rosemary, thyme, sage, bay. (1 pinch of each herb plus 1 or 2 bay leaves) peppercorns for flavour, onions and leeks for pro-biotic stimulation of good gut bacteria, celery sticks (at least 3) for prevention of gout and help with arthritic or inflammatory conditions. DON'T ADD SALT.

Bring to the boil and simmer for at least one hour. If you are using large mutton or beef bones put aside 3-4 or more hours making sure the liquid level doesn't drop too much. If making stock in a cookpot/slow cooker, simmer all day on low.

Strain the stock and use to add a mixture of vegetables or vegetables and meat. If the bones have meat left on them, use it in the soup. Alternatively the stock can be frozen in small quantities and used as a nourishing drink or sauce base later.

If you are vegetarian or vegan, you can still make a nourishing stock by cooking vegetables, herbs, roots and mushrooms together for long periods.  Start by dicing at least half an onion per person and sweat in olive oil with at least two cloves of garlic. Add half a pint of water or vegetable broth per person together with a large handful of peeled and  chopped seasonal vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, cabbage, celery, corn, turnips, potatoes and fresh or tinned tomatoes. Add one small handful of seaweed per person to provide seasoning and to strengthen the immune system. Finally add one ounce fresh, or one-half ounce dried mushrooms per person (any kind) together with dried or fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram, and sage) and tonic roots (Siberian ginseng, astragalus, burdock, dandelion, chicory, yellow dock, American ginseng).  Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. You may wish to remove the roots before serving.

Viral infections make everyone miserable. There are some simple actions which can be taken to make life less uncomfortable, but these must be carried out in conjunction with common sense and basic nursing care.

The secret of herbal help is to start taking it as soon as you suspect you are coming down with something. It doesn’t actually matter what form you take the herbs in, as long as you take them as soon as you can, ideally at half hourly intervals for the first 12 hours or so.

Cider vinegar: sage, fire cider, garlic, - dose is 2 tsp in water or as a drink with honey

Elixir: elderberry, sage/thyme, bergamot, – dose is 1/2tsp/1 dropperful/30 drops

Honey: elderberry, bergamot, thyme/garlic, sage – dose is 2 tsp, can be eaten, drunk or added to bread or other food.

Tea: elderberry, calendula, sage, thyme, Echinacea, bergamot – dose is 2tsp dried herb or 2 tblsp fresh herb steeped in just boiled water for 10 minutes with a lid. Add honey to taste.

Tincture: elderberry, Echinacea – dose is 1/2tsp/1 dropperful/30 drops

For colds

Classic Cold Tea

Use 1tsp each of dried peppermint, yarrow and elderflower (1tblsp if fresh)

Pour 1/2-1pt boiling water into a teapot of cafatiere and steep for ten minutes. Strain and drink every half hour. Sweeten to taste. If you don’t like the taste of peppermint you can use other herbs such as New England Aster, or bergamot. If you only have a herb in tincture form, add the tincture either 1 tsp or in drop dosage to the hot infusion.

Ginger and Lemon Tea

Grate or finely chop 1inch root ginger without peeling. Place in cafatiere or teapot and fill with just boiling water. Infuse for ten minutes. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon and place in a cup or mug. Pour the strained ginger tea over the lemon juice and add honey to taste. For an anti-viral chesty tea, add 1tsp dried thyme and 1tsp dried sage to the grated ginger root. Infuse together and pour over lemon juice and honey.

For Fevers

Make elderflower tea and serve hot. Elderflower is a diaphoretic which will make you sweat and kill the virus. This is especially useful for children. Boneset tea is also useful for bone-aching fevers. If you have a fever which won’t break, give vervain tincture – half a tsp or 30 drops.

For coughs

Before deciding what herb to use, you must be sure what kind of cough you are dealing with.

Dry, irritable coughs: cherry bark, ginger

Cold, hacking coughs: angelica, fennel

Wet, green, mucous laden coughs: elecampane root (especially good for children and people who suffer with asthma)

Deep seated infected chest infections: mullein

Ordinary coughs: sage & thyme, white horehound/hyssop/marshmallow leaf or root.

Cough Syrup

(recipe from Non Shaw and Christopher Hedley's Herbal Remedies)

1 l (2 pints) water

40 g (1 1/2 oz) dried herb or 100 g (4oz) fresh chopped herb

450 g (1 lb) sugar

Put herb in water, bring to a boil, let simmer 20-30 minutes, strain.

Clean out pan, pour liquid back into it, let sit on minimum heat until you only have 2 dl (7 fl.oz) left Add sugar, simmer until sugar has dissolved, pour into jars, label. (This takes time. 1 fluid ounce evaporates about every hour.)

A children’s cough syrup can be made from onions or elderberry and Echinacea in equal parts. For a “straightforward” cough syrup, use 2 parts peppermint, 1 part hyssop, 1/2 part thyme, 1/2 part horehound. For a cough syrup which can also be used as a drink, use hyssop, thyme, elecampane, white horehound, lemon balm and root ginger.

N.B. Do not use peppermint with children under 2 years. Honey can be used as a substitute for sugar, but do not use with children under 1 year.

Dose: 1 dessertspoon as and when or make a drink with 1 tblsp and sip.

If you have blocked sinuses, thyme can useful but horseradish is very effective as well. If you have continual sinus problems, read Jim Macdonald’s excellent paper.

I hope you escape the winter without succumbing to any nasty bugs but if you do, reach for your syrups, tinctures and elixirs, wrap up warm and get plenty of rest.

Looking back and looking forward

January is always a two-faced month. It’s hard to do otherwise, given the nature of the god, Janus, from whom the month takes its name. There are two schools of thought when it comes to looking back. One philosophy teaches that you cannot move forward effectively without learning the lessons of the past, whilst the other recommends moving forwards and releasing what is left behind lest you carry it on your shoulders for eternity. Both ways of thinking have their merits and, like everything in life, a balanced approach to both of them should support an onward journey.

For me, 2013 felt as if my life had been put on hold because of my mother’s continuing deterioration. For the first six months she had two hospital admissions, each time becoming more debilitated. Then in July she suffered another ischaemic episode and became bedridden. Thankfully there have been carers brought in to manage her physical care four times a day which my father has to pay for. I provide the majority of their food so they can continue with a diet they enjoy and we visit at least once a fortnight to enable my father to leave the premises if he wishes.

This has meant there has been no time to physically tend the Sanctuary since my time at the farm is taken up with cooking, feeding, washing clothes and sitting with my mother. The workshops have continued once a month and they have been my only opportunity to spend time with my herbs. The 2013 apprentices all started off with great enthusiasm in January but had all disappeared to lead their own lives by the end of June, apart from one, who is a continuing joy to have around. Their lack of physical commitment to the Sanctuary was a great disappointment and as a result none of the herb beds were properly weeded or managed and the field plants have begun to take back the land wrestled from them over the past years.

It’s not all been doom and gloom. New people have emerged and given their time to help cut down trees and overhanging branches. Although the festival in September was poorly attended, new friendships were forged and those who came were deeply moved by the experience and are looking forward to this coming year. For me, the most positive issue to emerge from the festival was the request from a local beekeeper to keep her new hives at the Sanctuary something I have been trying to achieve for ten years!

So, what new things happened during 2013?

Flower essence

I was asked to write an article for Herb Geek on favourite summer recipes and as a result, I created two new cordials, rose and mint, which have been very popular at family celebrations and social gatherings and there are still bottles in my freezer. This inspired me to create further hot winter cordials using the surfeit of cooking apples on my garden tree – spiced apple and apple and rosehip, which were both a great success.

Some of you will be aware of my writing exploits. I belong both to my local Solihull Writers’ Workshop, which has a set annual programme and to the Pub Club sub-group where we read and critique newly emerging novels. Writing is an emotional task, full of peaks and valleys. Sometimes the dark times are hard to break through when the creative spark is missing.

One of our members was going through a bad patch when I read about the properties of peppermint flower essence which has a specific relationship with improving stuck mental creativity. This was in early September when most of my mints were flowering. It seemed the ideal time to make the essence which was subsequently given to group members as Christmas gifts.

Herbal Ally

My ally this year was Agrimony but I was very lax in getting to know this plant properly. I did move all the plants in my home garden into a designated bed and made my first double infused oil from their aerial parts at the end of summer. Although the plant appears to have no identifiable scent, the oil had a significant fragrance which really surprised me. Matthew Wood uses goldenseal and agrimony together for pain due to tightness, so I extrapolated his use to create a salve for constricting muscles by joining the agrimony oil with St John’s wort. I am waiting to hear how the recipient got on with her remedy.

I also used agrimony tincture as part of a personal tonic to try and clear up some bowel issues associated with stress. Things did improve but I should really have tried the plant alone rather than mixing it with other nervines. It’s hard to make your own medicines and take them when you’re suffering with overwhelming stress!

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha was the subject of my last blog post but is included here because I have been able to undertake several new plant products this year, notably a ground root honey, a root tincture and a cordial with nettle and rose.

Ashwagandha cherries are used as bitters. It makes sense for a plant which is renowned for its stress relieving properties to act upon the digestive system.  For other parts of the plant to also be bitter is not surprising. This was born out by the extreme bitterness of a tea made from stems. I may try making this again using less plant matter and see how much of a difference it makes.

Educational activities

Although there has been no income this year from herb-related articles, I have delivered two talks to new organisations. The first was Finstall and Coughton Hackett WI where the members enjoyed making and tasting hawthorn-related products as part of their Hedgerow Herbs talk. The second was just before Christmas when I talked about Herbs and Honey to the Solihull Beekeepers Association. The latter request came a discussion at my stall at the Solihull Go Green Faire in June (fairly disastrous in terms of general public interest since there were very few visitors!) which was situated opposite the Beekeepers’ exhibition. Again, members sampled infused honeys, herbal tea, oxymel and elixirs and several asked for the handout to be emailed to them later.

I also started a new part-time activity teaching singing to four and five year-olds in a nearby infant school. For three hours every Tuesday during term time we sing nursery rhymes and play circle games (60 nursery children in 4x 15min blocks) and sing seasonal songs and folk songs and practice rhythm (90 reception children in 3x 30 minute blocks).

Elixir

My elixirs are often unique productions because the herbs infused together always change. At the beginning of the year Chris suffered with a dreadful cough and the sage and thyme elixir was the only medicine which seemed to help. The original elixir was made in 2010 and the bottle was almost empty so by the end of October, it was time to create a new one from the remaining healthy gardenplants before the frost came. The new elixir comprised purple sage, lemon and flat-leafed thyme, marshmallow leaves and a few hyssop strands. Thankfully it has not been road tested yet but I hope it will be as effective as the last one.

International Mentorship Scheme

For several years I’ve been a member of the Down to Earth Forum where I’m known as a herbwife. Most of the members live in the southern hemisphere so could never become full apprentices. It seemed sensible to offer a long distance mentorship scheme to encourage people to learn more about herbs, especially those growing in their locality. There are currently twenty-one people from Europe, US, South America and Australia sharing their herbal experiences.

Family members

Our daughter, Kathryn, became engaged on Christmas Day 2012 so there has been great excitement choosing a wedding venue and her dress. The date is set for 6 May 2014 and our grandson, James, will be a pageboy.

James had a new brother on 7 November, Thomas Daniel. He slept through the entire home birth while Chris and I were hidden away in the upstairs bedroom until everything was cleared away and we could emerge for a cup of tea and cuddles. Their mother, Laura, is amazing and Thomas has gained over three pounds in his first seven weeks. He’s a very long, strong, happy baby.

Looking forward to 2014

Apprenticeship

Eight new women have joined the apprenticeship to make nine in total. Three have already been workshop attenders and understand the challenges of the Sanctuary. Several are making commitments to travel long distances to attend events and I hope it all works out for them. I am looking forward to watching them grow and develop.

Herb Festival

This year’s Celebrating Herb Festival has been brought forward to the last weekend of August. We are hoping this date change will enable more people to attend. For the first time we are offering a special creative writing intensive on the Friday afternoon where authors and poets can showcase their creations during the evening’s Open Mic session. The workshop will be led by the wonderful Charlie Jordan.

Herbal Ally

My ally for this coming year is ashwagandha. It amazes me how much there is to learn about this plant so I want to spend time increasing my knowledge and understanding.

Books

Henriette Kress very kindly sent me a copy of her Practical Herbs 2 Book which I am intending to read and review here shortly. I also received “Every day herbs in spiritual life” by  Michael J Caduto as a Christmas present so I’m looking forward to reading this and adding to my energetic and ritual knowledge. Then, of course, there is “The Herbwife’s Apprentice” which I started writing early last year and came to a complete halt about March. I fully intend to start it up again and have the first draft ready for the festival with frameworks for Years 2 and 3.

Workshops and workdays

We’re looking forward to welcoming both new friends and old to our monthly workshops held here in Solihull and at the Sanctuary in the Cotswolds. No matter what else happens in the world around us there will always be herbs to guide and support us.