Henny Penny Farmette

Many herbs and plants from a garden have restorative and healing properties

Recently, I went through a box of books that I had not unpacked after moving from Miami to Northern California. In the box was Best Remedies, a book written by Dr. Mary L. Hardy, M.D. and Debra L. Gordon for Reader’s Digest.

The book focuses on ways to use natural remedies alone or with conventional medicines in an integrative approach to healing. Many of the remedies involve the use of herbs, honey, vegetables, and oils. Listed below are just a few remedies to treat common maladies.

Chamomile

Chamomile is an herb that when made into tea can be used as a mild sedative and also fights the inflammation of a sore throat. Likewise lemon and honey in hot water can soothe swollen throat tissue.

Echinacea

For treating colds, a tincture of Echinacea purpurea and Echinacea angustifolia can provide relief when made into a tincture and mixed with hot water. Authors Hardy and Gordon recommend  1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon of the tincture in 1-2 ounces of hot water to be consumed every four to six hours.

Garlic

Traditionally used as an herbal remedy for respiratory infections, garlic, to be most effective, must be consumed raw. The best way is to peel and mash 3-4 cloves into pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes.

Ginger Root

For treating bad breath, tea made from ginger root (1- to 2-inch pieces, peeled and steeped in hot water, sweetened with honey) or peppermint tea (all types of mint are easily grown in the garden or in containers) can be effective agents.

Mint, lavender, and other herbs can be used in teas and tinctures for healing

Lavender Oil and Aloe Vera

Oil of lavender works as an inflammation and pain reducer  while acting as an antiseptic; therefore, it’s a wonderful natural agent for treating minor burns. Once you have applied the lavender oil, you can also apply the sap of an aloe vera plant. Aloe reduces the pain of a burn and promotes healing.

Lemon Juice and Honey

Honey, one of nature’s antiseptics long used to treat respiratory ailments, provides a protective coating of the throat and acts as a humectant (drawing moisture) while the lemon works as an astringent to reduce swelling of inflamed throat tissue.

Olive Oil, Beeswax, and Honey

These three ingredients mixed together in equal parts can be used to treat psoriasis, a disease characterized by itchy, scaly skin. The authors recommend smoothing the mixture onto the affected area of skin before going to bed at night and then covering the skin with plastic wrap, held in place with an elastic bandage.

Garlic and onions have been used for over a millennium in health remedies

Onions and Garlic

Onions and garlic are recommended as two vegetables that can lower blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure. Onions are high in vitamin C and, and like garlic, contain immune-enhancing compounds. Garlic reduces blood clotting (thus, preventing heart attacks) and raw garlic has strong immune-stimulating properties as well as antibacterial and antiviral benefits. For people with chronic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes, these foods should be a regular part of the diet, according to Hardy and Gordon.

St. John’s Wort

St. John’s wort essential oil–10 drops to 1 ounce massage oil–massaged into the skin over painful areas over time may result in relief from nerve pain. Patients who have fibromyalgia, diabetic neuropathy, shingles, Lyme disease, autoimmune disorders, and other types of diseases can suffer nerve pain as stabbing, burning, and shooting sensations. Other herbs believed to revitalize nerve and brain cells include Gotu kola (an herb considered a mainstay in Ayurvedic medicine) and Evening primrose oil that fights inflammation and is found in black currant and borage oil.

Grow these herbs in a garden or in containers on your patio for use to restore and maintain health and also for enhancing flavors in your cooking.

Honeybees love foraging in Spanish lavender

If you’ve ever wondered where honey gets its color and taste, think flowers. Or, more correctly, pollen from the flower and herb blooms and tree blossoms.

In the environs that encompasses roughly five to ten miles around the Henny Penny Farmette, honeybees gather pollen from blossoms on lavender, citrus, sunflowers, cosmos, fruit trees, and other flowering trees. Bees collect pollen from cultivated gardens but also from plants growing wild on hillsides and in the meadows and fields.

The first woodland flowers and wildflowers of spring yield honey that is a pale lemon color and tastes sweet and light. Later in the season, the pollen bees collect from citrus tree blooms such as orange blossoms becomes honey with citrus notes and aroma. When certain types of eucalyptus trees bloom in September, the honey takes on a warm amber color and a strong and earthy taste.

Honey can vary widely in color and taste, depending on the type of pollen the bees have collected

Dark honey is also found in a spring hive. It can be traced to the pollen that the bees have discovered and gathered from blossoms and blooms of flowers, trees, or herbs with a strong flavor and dark color.

If you want the health benefits from honey, purchase the raw honey. Raw honey is high in antioxidants and also has immune-boosting properties, according to Dr. Tasneem Bhatia, from the Atlanta Center for Holistic and Integrative medicine.

In a December 2012 appearance on the Dr. Oz show, Dr. Bhatia recommended  people take 1 to 2 teaspoonfuls of buckwheat honey every day as a natural remedy for cold, sore throat, and flu symptoms. See, http://www.prweb.com/releases/honey/buckwheat-honey-raw/prweb10242276.htm

Raw honey means it has not been heated or otherwise adulterated by processes that reduce or compromise the healthy benefits. Beneficial enzymes, propolis, pollen, minerals, vitamins, amino acids, and antioxidants are destroyed when the honey is heated.

Drink your hot tea or warm milk with honey, but don’t put the honey in the cup of liquid and stick it into the microwave. Warm the liquid first, then add the honey.

It matters not whether your taste leans toward the light honey or the dark, the liquid honey or the honeycomb, have some honey every day. It’s good for you.

Find non-GMO zucchini seed from heirloom seed-saving sources

You might assume your zucchini and sweet corn is safe to eat but what if it was grown from GMO-treated seed, able to withstand an herbicide or even produce an insecticide as it grows? What happens in your gut when you eat that corn? What happens to animals fed such corn? These are questions that scientists, doctors, consumers, food safety advocates, and environmentalists all grapple with in their concern about GMO food safety.

The Non-GMO Project is a nonprofit organization concerned with GMOs and food safety. It explains on its Web site that a genetically modified organism (GMO) is a plant or animal that has been “genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses, or other plants and animals.” That means it is an anomaly in nature as such experimental combining of genes of different species does not occur in traditional crossbreeding or in nature (http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more).

Consumers might not be getting all the facts of what is known and what science is discovering about the health concerns of many Americans eating foods that contain GMOs. Estimates suggest that 80 percent of U.S. processed foods contain GMOs, meaning millions of Americans are eating foods that might not be all that safe to consume. Research into links between GMO consumption and ill health are ongoing but already GMO-altered foods, whether plants or animals, are raising health concerns.

Seed suppliers say that interest in non-GMO corn seed is growing among farmers  because of lower costs, better animal health, and higher yields as well as increasing disenchantment with genetically modified traits of GMO seed (http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/january2013/Demand-growing-for-non-GMO-corn-seed.php)

With summer on the horizon, many people are planting seeds or seedlings in their gardens or are anticipating the plentiful vegetables available at produce stands and in supermarkets. But read the labels on all those mounds of squash, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes.

Potatoes and tomatoes are considered low-risk for GMOs by the Non-GMO Project, that is, those two vegetables are not currently being genetically engineered. Although many people might think wheat is a concern, the Non-GMO Project states that wheat is not now nor ever has been genetically engineered, unlike soy, cotton, sugar beets, alfalfa, canola, zucchini, and summer squash.

Sweet red and green bell peppers

More than 60 countries, including most of  the developed nations, have banned or restricted GMOs. The United States is the exception, allowing production and sale of such products to continue. Consumers, scientists, and environmentalists opposed to genetic manipulation of plants and animals say avoidance and boycott of such products are consumer choices even as legal battles against bio-tech giants and anti-GMO advocates move through the courts.

As for summer corn, the best option might be to grow your own from heirloom seed that has not been genetically maniuplated. Otherwise, buy corn certified as non-GMO or from sources that support organic farmers and food sources such as Whole Foods and other organic markets. Check out the offerings for seed at Seeds Now (http://www.seedsnow.com/pages/shop-all-seeds).

Honeybees

Working outside in my garden, I heard a loud buzz next to my ear and felt a searing pain at the site where my cheek and ear meet. I wouldn’t swat at the bee. I didn’t actually see it.  But, boy, did I feel it!

I dashed into the house and my husband removed the stinger. I put an ice cube into a napkin and rubbed the site for a few minutes until the pain subsided. I also took a an antihistamine tablet with diphenhydramine, the  active ingredient in Benadryl™.

Here are a few helpful tips if you or someone you know gets stung.

Remove the stinger as soon as possible. The longer the stinger is left in place, the more venom is injected. Use your fingernail or tweezers to get it out.

The application of ice will keep down the swelling. For people over 18 with pain from a bee sting, give acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

Antihistamines can help with the itchiness associated with a bee sting.

For severe reactions or for people allergic to bee stings, seek immediate emergency assistance. Symptoms can include difficulty breathing. rapid heartbeat, tightness in the throat, hoarseness, and anxiety.

If the person stung has a history of anaphylaxis and possesses a doctor-prescribed emergency dose of epinephrine, have him inject the dose or do it for him if the individual cannot.

Even before I get out of bed each morning, I meditate. Once my feet hit the floor in our little farm house,  I’m working–making coffee, preparing breakfast, and starting laundry. The cell phones begin ringing by eight. It seems virtually impossible to find quiet time after that hour.

The great risk of meditating while lying down is falling back asleep. Sleeping is not meditating.

The mind’s natural tendency is to endlessly flit from thought to thought, like a chicken ever moving and scratching the soil surface for the treasures it holds (worms, bugs, grains). The person meditating aims for focused concentration of the mind to gain the treasure of peace.

A simple practice is to count each cycle of breaths, attaching a number at the end of a cycle: In-out-one, In-out-two. Alternatively, you could repeatedly recite a mantra or prayer. A rosary or prayer beads can help you to keep a count. Meditation is not a religion (although it is associated with some). It is self-care.

Benefits to practicing meditation for even 15 to 20 minutes daily are extraordinary. Through deep mind-body relaxation,  you reduce stress and tension accumulated and held in the body. Meditation has been shown to lower heart and respiratory rates, decrease blood pressure, and improve blood flow and circulation. Concentration and brain power improves.

Health and well-being book I wrote with Carolyn Dean, M.D.

A few years ago, I teamed up with Carolyn Dean, M.D. to write 356 Ways to Look and Feel Younger (Adams Media 2009), a book that explores more of the benefits of meditation and provides daily tips on building muscle, boosting memory, and achieving vibrant health.

My meditation teacher was a powerful yet unassuming Indian who lived in a small village in  Gujarat, India where I stayed in the early 1970s. The simple technique of counting breaths I learned from him has always helped me in the stressful types of work I’ve undertaken.

As a respiratory therapist for a large county hospital, I worked in an emergency room and five intensive care units as well as participated in ambulance and helicopter transports of patients. Later, I directed Hollywood screenwriting conferences. Now I work long hours on the farmette, no less stressful but a different kind of work than treating patients or working with writers, producers, and directors.

Through meditation, I rid my body of tension and stress, cultivate a mindful attitude toward all areas of my life, and function more efficiently. Digging fence post holes, caulking windows, chasing chickens, planting trees, canning jams, and harvesting honey requires abundant energy and clear focus. Daily meditation and self care make all the work associated with living such a full life possible without issues associated with physical or mental decline.