A Salve for Insect Bites
Contributed by Ann(ie)
I used to make a salve when I lived in the cabin on the ocean that worked better than anything I've ever tried....

1/2 cup chopped broad leaved Plantain
1/2 cup chopped lance leaved Plantain
1/4 cup chopped Red Dock (leaves and roots)
1/4 cup chopped fresh culinary sage (optional but is a good anti-bacterial).

Put in pyrex cooking pot, just cover with olive oil, or almond oil or canola oil (as your budget allows...almond oil is the best but is expensive).
Keep on very low heat just below or just at a very slow simmer for several hours.
Setting it on the very back of a slow wood stoveworks best.
Strain oil out using cheesecloth bag...gently squeezing it to get all the oil out.
Throw plant material away.

Put strained oil back into cleaned pyrex pot, and add beeswax to warm oil...let it melt and then cool to make a salve.
Sorry, don't know how much beeswax...I always kinda eyeball it.
For this recipe, I'd guess that you would need beeswax the size of a grade A large egg.
Now if you want to get fancy, at this point you can add some natural lavendar essential oil or other medicinal essential oil.
(Lavendar is good for skin irritations and funguses) such as vitamin E oil (helps preserve the wholesome freshness of the salve as well as benefits the skin - anti-oxidant).
I never had any of that very expensive lavender essential oil on hand, but I had a friend who added it to her salve, and it was wonderful.
I used to squeeze the vitamin e oil out of the gel capsules right into the liquid salve mixture....
That works well, and I always had vitamin E around the cabin in that form.
Pour or spoon it into little jars (baby food jars work great).
It cools into a wonderful salve.

This stuff works really well for itchy bites and rashes!
I used to make it for a friend who suffered from eczema and she said it worked better than the stuff she got from her doctor.

Annie Old Witch in BC

                                                                                               

Vickie responds

Gosh Annie, thanks...I just love stuff like this - 'nature's remedies'.
You reminded me that my grandpa used to boil green Dock down to a paste to treat horse wounds, ours too.
I can also remember rubbing the raw leaves over nettle stings.

My elderly auntie likes to collect Yarrow, hang it upside down in the garage until it dries, then crush the flowers for tea.
She says it's good for everything from colds to 'female trouble'.
I once read that the cure for everyone of our health problems can be found in nature - if we just look hard enough.
Like the bark of the endangered Yew tree in CA was found to have properties that shrink ovarian tumors.
Vickie

                                                                                               
Ann(ie) has more for us
Yep. Lots of yarrow here in BC.
I'm all excited about spring now... gonna dry lots of yarrow this year...LOLOL!
And mullein...lots of that here, too.
Really good for upper respiratory problems.
And coltsfoot... and dandelionroot...good for water retention problems.
I need a larger more private abode!!! LOL!
Annie in BC
Oh, and did I tell you this river valley is just lousy with Black Hawthorne?
Makes a tasty tea (leaves, flowers, berries or all three), and improves circulation big time at the same time.
Sort of a natural, gentle nitroglycerine for people with heart/circulation problems.
You get a nice warm feeling as you drink the tea and your capillaries gently expand and fill with nice, fresh blood :-)

                                                                                               
Vickie, in admiration!
Wow girl, you really *are* an herbalist, you do need your own lab.
BTW, do you pronounce herb with a hard or soft H?
I try to use the hard H like the Brits on my cooking shows because it makes more sense, but it comes out 'erb when I'm not thinking about it.

Anyway, back to nature - I knew you were knowledgeable about rocks, but you really know your herbs too.
My grandmother had her 'potions', and would try to teach me things when we walked the woods.
"See this? It's (?), when you have a headache wash the roots real good and chew them."
How I wish I had listened to her, but all I could think was;
"Grandma, I don't care about weeds, I'm going to be a movie star." [g]

What do you know about Sage?
Gran used to burn dried bundles of it in the house...it really smelled good.
And we sometimes drank Sage tea...also Alfalfa tea.
I forget what I dried and tried to smoke behind the barn...some kind of tobacco...rabbit?
Anyway, it made me sick as a dog and put me off smoking for ten years.
Vickie

Julie, getting excited adds to the Sage information
Oooh, I know! I know!! (jumping up, waving arm in air)

Sage is good for repelling cockroaches, even the nasty huge flying Florida palmetto bugs.
When I travel I always carry a baggie of dry sage leaves with me.
I put the open baggie in a drawer in my (necessarily /cheap/) motel room...
And when I work with others staying in the same motel who complain about bugs I've never seen a roach since I started doing this.

Julie - - amateur herbalist in Kentucky

Ann, appreciatively........
Wow!
Great info, Julie...I've never heard that before.
And here's one for you.... plant mint and pennyroyal around the foundations of your home to repel mice and fleas.

Blake is thrilled to hear this remedy
Hoo-Ray! What invaluable information.
Sometimes we get those (we call 'em 'turpentine bugs") in late summer.
Now I know what to plant as soon as spring gets here.
Blake
PS to Vickie : we tried to smoke grapevine. Ugh!

Vickie confesses:
Heh...grapevine huh? We never tried that, just rabbit tobaccy.
Vickie

The interest from Vickie grows.....
Thanks Julie, that's good to know. OK can get a little buggy in the summer...
Iwonder if sage would discourage other creepy critters.
I grow it wild in my backyard and have plenty...
Vickie

Vickie again....
Thanks Ann, more good info...I'd heard that pennyroyal is a good insect repellent indeed.
Vickie

Julie comes up with a question.....

Very cool - - we have problems with both.
Cats are no help with either.
What can I do to repel ants?

Ann wants to know the answer too...
Good question! Maybe someone will give us both an answer to that one....
a in bc

Norma arrives with a solution:
If you know where they're coming in, a line of ground cinnamon completely enclosing the entry area will repel ants.
It's a bit expensive to surround the whole house. :)
Norma

Julie has another suggestion:
Chalk too, they won't cross a chalk line.
But with dogs and cats tromping through it I can't keep an unbroken line for more than a few seconds.
Julie in KY

Vickie after a web search adds:
Catnip
"Catnip: Except for cats, catnip repels almost everything.
Keeps away flea beetles, aphids, Japanese beetles, squash bugs, ants and weevils.
Dried catnip in sachets can be used indoors to repel ants."

Heh...I'm remembering the first time I gave a cat catnip.
She wallowed in it for a while...then raced up to the top of the drapes and down several times...then hopped along the backs of all the chairs and sofas.
How I envied her.

                                                                                               
Gloria adds to our Remedies
Great news, Ann!
I also have a remedy that I 'd like to share:
For upset stomach I use 3 juniper berries, slowly chewed one by one.
The heart burn (sometimes from black coffee) goes away in 30 minutes.
This works for many of my friends, but of course, not everyone.
I pick them near Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Gloria

                                                                                               
Donald has a word to add:
While I am on this subject (herbs), I will relate a story.
When I was a young man in high school, I married the most beautiful girl in the whole school.
She happened to be from Mexico.
Her grandma used to visit from Mexico for months at a time.
She would on occassion, send us out to buy small quanities of marijuana for her.
No, not to smoke!
She would put the pot in a small dish and pour rubbing alcohol over it.
It would eventually mold over and she would rub that poltice on her joints (finger joints - not smoking joints) where she was having pain and inflamation.
She claimed it really helped stop the pain.
Donald