Sweet Smelling Hibernation

Slim pickings in the garden but not bad for this time of year!  We are picking daffodils to brighten the dining room table and the most succulent, sweet and juicy navel oranges daily!  As I stood by the kitchen window today, looking out on the garden and sucking on some such sweet orange, I marveled at how blessed we are!  Store-bought oranges never tasted this good!  It's one of the delights of winter.  That and a warm, glowing fire!  It's great to be alive!  When we are well, we take it all for granted, but after being unwell, we rejoice in the joie-d-vivre of being well again!  Everything looks so much clearer, food tastes more heavenly and the world is a good place to be!

I have just gotten over a bout of winter blues - laryngitis and the cougher-zoobies!  This lasted 2 very long weeks (hence no blogging for a while) and there always comes a point during my own or a family member's illness, when I have doubts about the viability of Sustainable Living practices.  That is, I wonder if I am doing the Right Thing by dosing ourselves out of the kitchen cupboard.  Well, after one week of laryngitis, I started to question this so-called home witch-doctoring.  I was taking a teaspoon of bee pollen morning and night, drinking lime juices with hot water and honey (as we have no ripe lemons yet and an abundance of limes), taking A.G.E - a homeopathic cold and flu remedy,  and sucking on Ayruvedic cough lozenges and sage pastilles - but still, no signs of obvious improvement.  I even took 3 days off work to get my voice back on track (the voice-box is an important tool of the trade in kindergarten!) but still, the cough persisted!  So I started doubting my own witch-doctoring, until I spoke to a kindy parent who had the same symptoms as I did, it had already been two full weeks and she had 3 days to go on a 10 day course of antibiotics............and she said she couldn't sleep at night for the coughing and still felt unwell.  So I realized something important.  The body will do what it is designed to do, to re-balance itself, almost despite what we do!!  It took me 2 weeks au naturelle.  It took her a little over 2 weeks via pharmaceutical medication. 

I did get to a point where I was fed up with my voice disappearing at random moments, so I Googled a natural cure for laryngitis.  Here's what I found - a miracle cure, supported by many postings of people's evidence of having cured their laryngitis in 2-3 days by making up a gargle of 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and1 Tbspn of Apple Cider Vinegar diluted in a cup of warm water.  Right, said Fred, that's just what I'll do.  So I set about making my mutti (African word for remedy) with (obviously) organic ACV and cayenne pepper.  I took a hearty big swig and proceeded to gargle loudly and fiercely.  The vinegar made my eyes and nose water.  The second I spat the gargle mix out, my throat, my tongue and my lips were on fire!  Quite comic, actually.  I tried to take a big breath but everything was afire - my family were concerned with my flailing arms and rasping breath.  I tried to speak but my lips felt double the size and what little voice I still had came out all thick and rubbery!  I felt better after about 5 minutes.  I thought maybe I shouldn't have used organic fresh bright red cayenne................

I tried the cayenne gargle once more after that - the next morning.  I guess that I had either become immune to the fire, or the cayenne's heat had settled over night.  Anyway, it was a little better.  Breath-taking but not quite as strong a reaction as the night before.  I could speak by the time I got to work.  

So if any of you out there are really desperate, you could try the ACV, Cayenne Gargle Mix, but there are probably a lot nicer ways to get your kicks or fix!

Pantry and Pharmacy of a Sustainability Freak! 

 Our family buy bulk dry goods from Ceres Organics and decant them into glass containers from the Deli of your local supermarket.  This way, we cut down not only on plastic wrappings but also it is way more economical in the long run. If you are keen to buy bulk organic goods and wonder how to do it, form a co-op with like-minded friends, so you can purchase goods to the minimum value of $300 and you can do this weekly or monthly.  Contact Ceres Organics for details -  09 574 0373.  For me, one of the abundant blessings of being married to an organic food sales account manager (we celebrate our 22 year anniversary on Friday 8th July!) includes the privilege of ordering bulk food, by-passing pre-packaged retail packs, which are way more expensive in the long run!  

Lavender flowers harvested at the end of summer

Another blessing which winter brings is Indoor Time.  This week, I pulled off all the flower seeds of my bunched, dried lavender (what a gorgeous smell emanated!) and bagged them.  The house had a strong odour of lavender.  Unlike a friend who strongly dislikes the smell, I absolutely get heady on it.   I  buy little organza bags at the $2 shop (not worth the hassle of making them) and fill them to put  under our pillows.  They make great gifts from the garden too.  This time, I filled tiny little pouches, which I then could put into each of our hotties (affectionate term for hotwater bottles) - the heat releases the gentle sleep-inducing aroma of lavender.  I also popped one inside a little soft toy I made for a friend's baby.  It smelled divine.  Hope the baby thinks so! Maybe Baby will sleep better!  The weather has been atrocious for working outdoors (gale force winds and pelting rain) for the past week, so I have been indoors, nursing the voice and getting to hibernate and sew some goodies.  In my element.  Making and creating.

Life is good!