Our Go To Herbal Remedies | Tinctures & Ferments

Hi friends, I'm Rachel at that 1870s homestead and today we are going to be making a lot of homemade medicine. I'm going to be at least sharing with you some of the natural medicines that we use in this house. I'm feeling like super under the weather. I came home yesterday from work with just terrible terrible headache that felt like it was going to turn into a migraine. Thankfully it didn't but just pressure in my head. My one of my co-workers is out with like a very serious flu like actually went to the ER. So I'm just gonna be upping my daily doses of some really great natural remedies that God has put on this earth to take care of us. So some of the things that I'm going to share with you are done but some of the things we're going to finish up processing today. So the first thing that I have is my fermented garlic and honey and this is from 2018. So we had two jars of it. This is great heart healthy medicine. Actually you can use it for cooking. It makes great marinades but just taking a teaspoon of the honey when you're feeling sick sometimes soothes a sore throat but it it has amazing wonderful healing properties. So I'm going to start taking this more regularly. I do need to pop open and check my homemade apple cider vinegar. Another awesome natural remedy good for your gut and just keeps your all those things in your gut in balance. So taking a little shot of this is wonderful for your system. Lastly, no not lastly, I have two more. This is Indian pipe tincture. Indian pipes are some kind of plant that grows. I think it doesn't have chlorophyll so they're like solid white. They look kind of like part of the mushroom family but they're not and they grow up at our cabin. They're really really pretty plants. If um Todd edits this video he's smarter than me. I'll make sure he throws a picture in here to show you what it looks like but you can take this for as a sleep aid. It helps calm anxiety. It's really just a good calming. So I have not been sleeping well so I'm going to start taking a few drops of this at night and see if it helps which could be part of the reason that I'm prone to not feeling well is if I'm not getting enough sleep. And then this is elderberry tincture. I much prefer elderberry tincture over elderberry syrup. I don't know why other than I don't really like the taste of elderberry syrup. It's very bitter to me and elderberry tincture you don't have to take as much and you just put it underneath a few drops underneath your tongue and it absorbs into your system just as well and it lasts a lot longer. It's shelf stable so that's why I prefer tinctures over syrups and things like that because it's shelf stable and will last a long time. We do have a video on when we first started this elderberry tincture. I'm sure it's gone long way longer than it needed to but we've had some on the shelf already that I purchased. This will be the first time making it from the elderberry trees on our property. Okay so let's get to straining the Indian pipe tincture which will doesn't make as much so it's interesting the color it took on kind of like a black purple deep color. I'm just going to strain it into a separate mason jar and we'll get our pickle packer and press out any of the goodness that's left. I need to research if I can actually feed this. I usually compost everything to the chickens and I don't know if it'll make them go on like a hallucinogenic trip so I need to be careful and check it out before I give it to them. So what you're left with let me see if I can pull out a plant. This is kind of exactly how they grow like let me see if I can yeah they grow like a little upside down pipe but they're clear when they grow almost white. Very very interesting plants and then this is the color of the final product kind of like a purplish hue grayish hue just smells like really strong alcohol. So I'm going to go strain this clean off my filter and then we'll get to processing the elderberry tincture. That has a wonderful smell oh wow lovely. When Todd made the initial batch of tincture he crushed all the berries first. Now I'm just beginning to start my journey in learning about how to take care of our family's like health and sickness needs through natural remedies as much as possible. I'm definitely not somebody that says don't take prescription medicine when you need it or over-the-counter medicine if it really is appropriate. We definitely like yesterday when I had that massive headache I took two ibuprofen because I needed it to not turn into a migraine. But you know definitely do your own research if you're just starting this process. I know I have Amy Fuel's herbal remedy book and it's been having it has given me a lot of guidance. I'll make sure to leave a link to that book below. Now for storing this you don't have to store your tinctures in the refrigerator or anything but you do want to store them in a in a dark location. So I'll just keep these down in my pantry or up here in my pantry. There is one complete jelly jar of elderberry tincture and I will tell you I've been using elderberry tincture bought from my local farmer's market now for probably three years and to me there's nothing more powerful than this right here. As soon as I start to feel sick no matter what kind of sickness it is even like if I just start to feel like I'm getting a sore throat or I feel like I'm coming down with the flu I take this I start taking it three times a day and I take about a half a teaspoon maybe even a little less than that put it underneath my tongue and let it absorb and within a matter of two or three days I feel completely fine. So I tell you what this stuff is like miracle stuff. So and even if you don't have elderberry trees growing on your property I know they don't grow everywhere in the United States there's several ways you can get these. You can buy the berries dried through suppliers online or oddly enough here in Michigan they grow really well and at our local one of our local shopping plazas the parking lot is lined with elderberry trees so you could go out and forage and harvest them. Ready so now though it is time to dose up. I haven't taken any medicine yet today and this is I do keep this in the refrigerator so the honey does get sticky but I'll just share with you how I take it and you'll see my funny faces I make. So for the honey I'm just gonna get a big clove a little bit of honey I do chew up the garlic it's not super garlicky at all it's actually I love it it's wonderful. Now if you also if you make your own homemade apple cider vinegar a couple tips so it's just some from somebody that is forgetful because you kind of set it away in a dark warm location and kind of forget about it sometimes. I don't know how many apple cider vinegars I have forgotten about so I started a new process that I'll label the lid and it'll say like strain on check on what's today's date today's the 21st it's really not due to be done until the 25th but it's still okay to take and then I also add it to the calendar that's on our fridge and in my google reminder app so I know what day I need I started it so I count back three weeks to strain it and then six more weeks to wait for it to be done. So for this I'm just going to take a couple tablespoons this is a clean spoon yeah and homemade apple cider vinegar and then for the elderberry tincture I have a medicine dropper and this is from my previous batch of elderberry tincture I'm just going to fill it up I might have to do a couple so there's one and then oh that one's strong and then I just let it sit underneath my tongue as much as I can I don't know why you do that I think it is a natural place for things to absorb you will end up swallowing some okay I don't need to take the Indian pipe tincture because I don't need to go to sleep right now actually it might be good for me but anyway so what did we end up with Indian pipe tincture helps calm yourself down if you need it but for me I'm going to be using it for you know what they called this too I think they called this it has a different name in old like old folk tale books maybe it's called like um fit something because they used it when um people had epileptic seizures to calm them down gosh what was it called I don't know look it up it's really interesting all the properties that can come from this and I of course don't know the biological name for that plant we just call them Indian pipes but I'll take start taking this at night probably just one dropper full about 30 minutes before I go to bed or so and then this is the elderberry tincture again if I took that alone I know I'll get better but I'll take this three times a day I'll take it in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening the ACV you can take this before every meal I usually just take it in the morning and then the garlic honey I only take this once a day I could probably up it to twice a day but for me I just take it once a day and it makes it last too for our family but other than this what other natural remedies do we use in this house things like kombucha for um your good gut health I am sorely behind on my kombucha so I need to up that and then drinking broth regularly is another way to maintain your health it's good for your bones it's good for your hair it's good for your skin it's just really good all around so I know Todd is much better at drinking his broth regularly than I am so I have currently in the sink for chickens so I can get some healthy chicken soup on the counter so just on these days where you know your head it feels like it's about to fall off your shoulders so thanks guys for watching I hope it gives you a little bit of inspiration to look in your backyard look around your area see what natural remedies are growing that you can harvest for your family and make some really good and healthy medicines for your bodies thanks guys for watching I'll talk to you later