Anyone still willing to adopt a zone 5 newbie? Just signed up a few days ago. This is my first post. Here's my story. I'm a single mom of 2 hyperactive, possibly autistic spectrum 4yo's. They are so hyper that they can't sleep and wake me 5-6 times per night. They are literally my miracle babies and the joy of my life, however, how I manage to function and keep a job is sometimes beyond me and totally a matter of faith. Their therapies and special therapy equipment are expensive & insurance keeps cutting coverage. I've struggled to find a daycare that will accept them and provide the individualized care that their disabilities require. I've fought the school district to get adequate early intervention services...it's a daily battle. My nearest family member is 1500 miles away so nobody I can count on for regular assistance...even to watch the kids while I go to the grocery store where I can't take the kids anymore because it triggers more hyperactivity. Gardening is one of my "keep your sanity" tools. In the summer I wake at the crack of dawn before the kids so that I can go out to quietly dig for just a few minutes. In the winter I dream through gardening books while the kids are watching their favorite video for the 1000th time. I've lived in my present house for 12 years, much of it trying to learn how to adapt my gardening from Western WA climate to Northern CO climate- experimenting to learn what plants survive here and so on. The house was an old farm house with nothing but prairie grass and 4 mature trees. I had to install a sprinkler system if I ever had a chance of buying a plant and it surviving in this dry climate. I had an old well on the property which is OK to use for irrigation. 4 yrs ago I finally had a landscape plan drawn up but when I priced landscape installation (mind you I just needed someone to do the heavy work or "set the bones" of the garden) the cost was astronomical. I'm talking $10k just for soil prep! $40k for the landscape w/o fencing or plants! So, I hiring a friend to work a few hours/week after his day job. He is trying to support a family of 7 on My next sticker shock...I went to the nursery looking for plants and shrubs....Holy Cow! I'm in the wrong business! Ever since I've been looking for cuttings, seeds, seedlings that have weeded themselves under shrubs, and anyone who needs help dividing perennials. I have a few things to trade...see my lists. I would joyfully welcome being adopted by a zone 5 gardener with lots of perennials that need thinning. And thanks emmaelice for being so thoughtful to start this thread! Blessings, Debra

I gave her another dose of the probiotics today. And of course her doses of Maalox and boy is she getting pi$$y....lol Her entire attidude is 'yes, you are trying to poison me, if one thing doesn't work you'll try another right?" She's beginning to finally shed off...which is a good thing. It's actually the fact that she hadn't shed off that made me notice her not well over two months ago. Donkey's shed off really late but she was way behind the others. I brushed her for an hour or so tonight and she's loving that. I got the beet shreds. That's the only thing they had. When I opened the bag I new immediately it was going to be a trial to get her to eat it. It has added molasses. I put some in a large zip lock and added water and it really smelled good. Actualy after reading the article you sent the link for, as a diabetic I think I've found the perfect food for me! lol Tonight she ate about 2 cups of whole corn. She refused, Horse and Mule, alfala cubes, ground corn, and of course the beet pulp. I added half a cup of molasses to the batch I have soaking tonight and added some crushed alfala cubes. She's still eating hay very good and I'm happy with that. And the corn is okay according to vet, a little high in protein but he said as long as she's still eating the hay in good amounts it won't hurt. but it would be really nice to get her to eat the beet pulp. We have cows and our feeder steer is getting all of her rejects. So at least it's going somewhere that will do some good. I truly enjoyed the article you linked. A lot of good information. And a great chuckle about Willam. We've raised a squirrel and I know just what she's going through. Our Rocky did finally go to the wild but returned for a few years to be fed grapes... thanks, arkiema

I suppose if one were in an isolated area with no access to modern medicine it might be necessary to fall back on home remedies for pneumonia, but that is probably what killed so many so soon in the days before modern medicine. Some illnesses are so severe, and move so rapidly, that traditional treatments do not have the strength to work. I have always considered pneumonia to be one of those. Essentially, the way I picture it, you have a concentrated ball of microorganisms rapidly doubling in quantity, and something has to be done to stop that fairly quickly before it kills you. Even today and hospitalized, many elderly still die of it. Traditional herbal treatments often cannot be safely taken in massive doses because they have not been treated by modern processes to remove any non-therapeutic constituents that could be harmful. There probably are remedies that could be taken to help ward off pneumonia, before a lung infection actually developed to the point it could be called that, but I don't know what they would be. I know the buds of forsythia have some antibiotic quality, but the Chinese grow a special strain in which that characteristic is stronger. There would be no guarantee, in either case, though, that the antibiotic quality of the forsythia buds would kill the harmful bacteria, rather than simply kill off more beneficial ones that might help to keep more lethal bacteria strains at bay. Only a practitioner in the area where the infection was occurring who had practiced on others with the same condition would tend to have this knowledge. Herbal treatment was probably by trial and error in the early days, and later patients probably benefited more than earlier ones during any particular epidemic. My theory is that most epidemics begin in more crowded and less affluent conditions, which would enable the ambitious practitioner to exercise his or her best remedies on the more affluent. Since herbs take more space to grow and store than today's pills, and transportation was also more limited, the average herbalist was probably rather limited in the number of remedies actually on hand. There were probably a few standards (like comfrey, because it grows so large and well in a variety of circumstances) which would be tried for almost every malady, since there was such a good supply of it, and other herbal remedies, which might acutually have been more effective, held in reserve for the very worst cases or the wealthiest clients. Herbs from warmer, or cooler, or dryer, or more humid climates than the practicing herbalist's would have been in short supply in the early days. An herbalist that relocated to an area with a different climate, for any reason, would have initially been able to bring a supply of his or her own remedies along, but would soon have needed to resupply with remedies that could grow in the new area, or which were obtainable through reliable trade with other areas. Even for conditions which the herbalist knew how to treat effectively, many probably died because of insufficient supplies of herbs or lack of anything to pay for treatment. All of that, again, would have resulted in those who had the knowledge and resources to do so, growing or gathering their own herbs where possible. It is possible that monks and nuns might have shared clones of valuable plants with parish priests, who then could pass offsets on to parishioners, but I don't know if anyone has documentation of that. Possibly, on pilgrimages, people also were on the lookout for curative plants that could be brought home.

I got the pneumonia shot at my last physical. Those shots do leave more pain and stiffness than most others. The nurse insisted on using my non dominant shoulder . I let it go even though I preferred the other. When I get the second one I will insist it be done on my dominant side. No debating. I had to consciously remind myself to work that side so it wouldn't stiffen up. My work paid off, I managed to stave off extra days of soreness and do my horse thing the following day which also helped. But it would have been so much easier if it had just been my dominant side using it in normal activity.