I'm on the Twin Oaks Health Team, and I recently started working with the herb garden manager to learn more about natural medicine for common ailments, so this information is more publicly accessible within the community. She sat down with me and gave me a list of all the tinctures she makes, and told me lots of interesting stuff I have always wanted to learn about. She's incredibly knowledgeable. I felt like I wanted to pick her brain for hours.

Here's the list of the current herbal tinctures made by the Herb Garden manager:

echinacea

echinacea/goldenseal

elderberry

catnip

valerian

hops

motherwort

uva ursi

burdock

horehound

donq qui

chaste berry

st johns wort

calendula

lavender

goldenseal

mixtures:

swedish bitters (rhubarb root)

women’s mixture: donq qui, (motherwort), chaste berry, (st johns wort)

sleep mixture: lavender, st johns wort, valerian, hops

There's a cold and cough going around right now, so I asked her for some suggestions on ways to treat it. She told me of honey and lemon, salt water gargle, elderberry, ad a horehound syrup she used to make.

I was most excited when she told me about chickweed and white pine needles. I knew chickweed was a wild edible, but I didn't know of its medicinal properties. Apparently it is very soothing and works great for healing coughs. I also remember learning about white pine being very high in Vitamin C in the past, but I never actually used it. 

Since I have been feeling pretty sick, I felt a lot of initiative to take care of myself. I slept nine hours today, and then I took a nap by the fire in the afternoon, but in the time in between I walked down to the garden and pulled up some chickweed that was tangled up around the leeks and partially covered in snow. Then I snipped some pine needles off a tree. 

I made myself a chickweed salad and pine needle tea. 

Here's to healing a more natural and simple way.