Pioneer Woman at Heart

It appears that some of the bigger projects on our to-do list will be taking a longer break than we want.  Atleast anything related to climbing a ladder around here. Oh boy.  I did it again.  I'm mostly mad at myself, because I just started to clean up flower beds, and was about to start raking out weeds from the already tilled vegetable garden (s). It's an eye roller moment. I've been MIA a bit in blogger-land this past week.  First, I was instructed to stay off my feet, other than to use the bathroom.  Second, I was instructed to use crutches when I was up.  They were (yes were) the most pain in the rump to use.  I can say, that I can stand to lose more weight than I thought ha ha!  Lifting myself on those was a complete work out in itself. The urgent care I went to did not have any boots.  I thought this was very odd for an urgent care facility.  They gave me paperwork to take to a medical supply in the same town.  Again, no boot...

  Winter arrived all at once, with rain, snow, high wind (high wind warnings), flood warnings, and now freezing temperatures.  We woke up to 3°F with a wind chill of -18°F.   All is well, other than both of us have been best friends with biofreeze.  I took a fall in a parking lot.  It was the only patch of ice that wasn't salted.  Go figure.  I was stepping out of the truck and wooosh, down I went.  I caught myself with my forearm (on the foot area of the truck) and wailed myself back up, but with a sore bum, neck and arm.  Not to mention bruises.  Go figure, we are out of comfrey poultices in the freezer too. Has anyone made a poultice with dehydrated comfrey?  I'm wondering if it would work too.   Either way, I'm digging out my spikes to put on my muck boots today.  We'll be dealing with sub-zero temperatures for a while.  At least the beautiful sun is shining for us today.  For now anyway. I also spe...

  Yesterday's pickings.  Even though I picked the day before, and I obviously missed some cucumbers.  Those larger ones went to the chickens. In lieu of a severe storm threat yesterday afternoon and evening, I tied up the last 35 tomato plants, hit the stakes again (best I could with a dry ground), and found another worm.  I accidently slammed the side of my thumb while hammering stakes in (not the first time for either of us). I could barely bend my thumb to cook nor do dishes, so I whipped up a comfrey poultice, and today there is barely the sight of a bruise, and pain is about zero. We have been enjoying our homegrown green/wax beans.  We don't eat potatoes like we used to, but last night was just the right time.  So good with bacon.   My husband is my entertainment lately.  He is coming up with ideas for the extra zucchini, and last night made these in the air fryer.  Blech.  Coconut oil with an egg dig and seasonings....

  I didn't get any comments on if a poultice can be made using dried comfrey.  I did some research myself.  I found that if you are making one for the healing of a broken bone you can make a "tea" with the comfrey and apply the compress 3 times a day. I decided to make a poultice for my sprained ankle.  I poured enough boiling water over dried comfrey, and blended into a "mash" using my blender.   I then used a thin layer of cheesecloth and created a poultice.  day one I used the two poultices and iced and wrapped.  Day two it was much better but still a bit swollen (way less pain). I am still applying a poultice daily, and yesterday was unable to get my ankle in my much boots to go to the coop.  Doctor Daughter K sternly told me that if it's not better "in 3 days" I need to get x-rays done on it.  However, the swelling has gone down each day so far.  The count down is on.... I was able to get on a pair of soft dress boots to head t...

Yesterday we literally hunkered in and did nothing but watch movies, and sip hot coffee.  My husband baked some no-bake cookies. The wind gusts were anywhere up to 60mph.  Although the temperature was in the low 60's, it was not conducive to outdoor anything. My ankle is a bit better, but still sore.  No one answered my question about dried comfrey, so I went online and dug into my herbal books and made several poultices (update on that later). I located a person who makes handmade kitchen tools.  I emailed him, but have not gotten a response.  Hopefully I will hear from him soon.  I hope my email didn't go into his "junk" mail. The glass cutter called me.  He wanted to make sure the cost was okay before he special ordered the glass for the wood stove door.  The prices have gone up 4 times he said over the last year alone.  What cost us under $50 will now cost us $138.78, and it will take much longer to get the glass.  I get so frus...

Our wood stove door got dropped off, but not by me.  I had Daughter K drop it off for me.  I had something that was irritating my eye, and didn't feel up to that long drive.  Door is there, but the glass cutter was not.  Not sure when it'll be done.  My husband brought me home eye drops and my eye feels a bit better today. On the sprained ankle.  I can't recall anything I was doing that would cause it,  other than I tripped on Daughter K's boots in the hallway this week.  I am guessing because I walked on it, fetching fire wood, tending the hens, etc.  I made it irritated, because I was not icing it, or wrapping it for 2 days. Go figure, I have zero comfrey poultices in my freezer, but I do have comfrey salve.  The ice pack will be used for now.  Thankfully, I have a cane to get around, but foot will be up most of this day (sigh).   Does anyone know if I can make a poultice using dried comfrey and comfrey root?  ...

We had a beautiful morning sunrise Monday morning.  It was cold out, but gorgeous sky. Never hit your shin on something.  The pain is like no other.  I've been using up my freezer stash of comfrey poultices.  They are helping, but man... (used my mortar and pestal for a small amount) I've also been picking plantain.  I somehow got an itchy patch of a rash on my ankle (hm, could be from wearing flip flops out when it was warmer and brushing on something).  I got rid of it using a fresh plantain poultice in two days (second one I added fresh chickweed).  Yay, for the power of weeds.  Our plantain isn't very big yet, but we are getting some here and there.  I also ordered a free small food processor for small batch making.  Does anyone here take horse chestnut for varicose veins?  Would love to hear your input.  Just wondering if I order the horse chestnut, do you make the extract as you would a "tincture?" I p...

I'm joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom today.  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.  Oddly, my kids did not try to prank me one time. Over the weekend, we got a motorcycle ride, joined Hubby's family for Easter dinner, took my Dad plate of food, and split more wood.  I think not being prepared with a few years of split wood has finally weighed on my husband's mind.  He keeps saying, "I'm so tired of this, I will have all our wood split before next winter." Update on my fall:  I had placed a comfrey poultice under my arm where I slammed onto the chair, but not anywhere else.  The bruise was gone in a few days, but last Saturday, I had shoulder pain and two nasty bruises show up on my knee.   On the breakfast plate. . .

This was my first time to actually use comfrey for anything.  You could call this a "pile to file" recipe too.  The first time I planted it (live plant vs. seed), it died.  This year I planted organic/non-gmo seeds and was successful.  This year however, I am making comfrey poultices to put in my freezer. First, I grind the leaves in my food processor (worked better than my blender) with a touch of water.  Most recipes I found said to add flour to make the "paste."  I also read that chia seeds works well too.