Homemade Elderberry Syrup, Henny The Poo, "Making Home" Book

Homemade Elderberry Syrup-
In the scheme of wanting to make more homemade supplements, etc, I found this post- Everything You Want to Know About Elderberry Syrup, courtesy of Frippery Farm. I LOVE Pure Cajun Sunshine's blog, looks like she stopped posting after a horrible snakebite. I hope she's ok, cause there's lot of fun stuff there! Anyway, after going thru two rounds of bronchitis and a cold with 2 weeks in  between where I thought I was ok, it's time to make elderberry syrup. It will be good to have on hand. I went thru a doctor visit, 2 rounds of back-to-back antibiotics just to finally get rid of it. My doc says it's the worst flu season she's seen, with a lot of other people going thru the same thing, back-to-back infections. I found some dried berries online here Herbalcom.com I've ordered some and am going to follow the recipe list on the first link. I'll post photos when I'm done. It's so MUCH cheaper, and fresher, to do this yourself. The sugar-based syrup sounds like it has a pretty good shelf life. I can see using this during flu season to boost the immune system in general, and sounds like it would be good for other types of infections. Great on pancakes too!!!

Rosie

The Adventures of Henny The Poo-
Sorry, I couldn't resist. If you raise chickens you have to clean them up once in a while. If you don't know how to do this yet, it's actually very easy and may save you a lot of grief with a very sick, or dead, chicken. Thus was the case with Rosie, no photos, so don't worry about hurling! Last week I saw a big (like an egg almost) round poo ball hanging off her little feathered butt. So.............. off for a bucket of warm soapy (a little dish soap) and an old washcloth. It was mild outside. In the winter I would have done this inside and sanitized everything afterwards. So..................... you get the chicken in place, I held her under my left arm facing away from me, since I'm right handed. Grab very sopping/dripping washcloth and get it very wet. Bend over a little so you don't get the mes on YOUR shoes :)  Then start very gently massaging. After about one minute or less, chunks started coming off. Keep dipping rag. All gone! Now I have a clean chicken with a very wet end. I set her down and went in to get some paper towels. Rosie kept trying to look back like "what the heck just happened to me? My butt is wet!". I dried her off very gently, as her poor rear end looked a bit irritated. She dried off nicely fairly fast. Next day she looked perfect. A good reminder- check your chickens. This can actually kill your bird, I'm not kidding. Next time I'll take pictures, maybe. I will add- the girls have lots of fresh, clean water and good quality food. Shit just happens. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
                            


Making Home Book-
When I saw Sharon Astyk had written a new book Making Home- Adapting Our Homes And Our Lives to Settle in Place I knew I had to buy it. I took Sharon's food preservation online class last spring, and she's awesome! I'm just getting into it, but it has great ideas for people like me who want to grow and store their own foods, etc. It also talks about learning new skills, security and all kinds of useful stuff.