I have a confession to make. Every time I leave Rustic Pines, it is becoming more and more difficult. I don’t want to leave, I want to stay and make it our home permanently. I consider myself to be a pretty patient person. I know we have a solid plan, and that plan will take quite some time to come to fruition. Each time I visit, I am more excited about the possibilities of what we can accomplish to have the kind of life we have been dreaming about.
This, in turn, has my head completely spinning when I am back at our “suburban” home. I am so overwhelmed with ideas, so many things I want to try, experiment with, and learn. I feel like I have to stop myself from going nuts and trying all of them at the same time! Rustic Pines consumes a lot of my thoughts when we are away. I want to contribute to our success as much as I can when we make the move permanently, and the best way I know how to do that is to learn and experiment from the beginning of our journey. I may not have carpentry skills like my sweet husband does, but I do very much enjoy homesteading, and am constantly learning new, better, and cheaper ways of making our daily lives easier.
One of the topics that has been heavily weighing on my mind is foraging. I could have learned these skills years ago, as I have always lived close to the woods. In fact, in our suburban neighborhood, we have a chunk of woods that connects to a bigger parcel with a decent sized river that is steps away from our property.
Now that spring has arrived, I am looking at our yard that is only a little green…..it’s only slightly green because there is a sea of yellow everywhere I turn. Dandelions! I have never liked the idea of spraying them (I’m sure the neighbors hate our yard) because it is the first flower hungry bees migrate to for food.
For years, I have heard some of my friends and relatives talk about making dandelion jelly. I’m not really big into jelly’s (other than to feed the orioles that I love) because, frankly, I don’t much care for sweets (I know, I’m super weird). My mother tells me that when I was a baby, she attempted to feed me the tiny jars of baby desserts, but I would just push my tongue out in an attempt to keep that sugary slop out of my mouth.
So, there I sat, looking at the sea of yellow, mulling over the possibilities. What can I do with some of these dandelions? There must be something I can do with these to begin learning the basics of foraging, and what better place to look than my own backyard? The internet is a wonderful place, I love researching all of the possibilities that are just a few key strokes away. I finally stumbled onto my solution for beginning foraging, dandelion salve!!
I started by reading about the medicinal properties of dandelions. Dandelions are not just a backyard menace that the Jones’s spend every waking moment trying to eradicate from their perfect manicured lawns. I was shocked to find out they are actually an herb! It was used as an antidote for excess sugars as early as the 2nd century AD. Wow, fantastic natural supplement to try for diabetics, right? (Disclaimer: listen to your doctors, I am not one..and would never give anyone medical advice) Dandelion’s can be used for loss of appetite, upset stomach, intestinal gas, gallstones, joint pain, muscle aches, eczema, and bruises. Dandelion is also used to increase urine production and as a laxative to increase bowel movements. It is also used as skin toner, blood tonic, and digestive tonic.
I could go on an on, but I’m not here to teach you a history lesson today (that was my least favorite subject in school), nor do I proclaim to have any knowledge of natural remedy’s (yet..he, he), I just wanted to share some of the things that I read, because I was completely shocked! How can one tiny weed…er…herb have all of these positive effects on our bodies? Well, I’ll tell you what folks, both John and I have plenty of aches and pains in our daily lives, but after a weekend at Rustic Pines…..we would both try just about anything to help our aching bones recover a little more quickly!
So, how do you make dandelion salve?
Pick dandelions! It isn’t an exact science, no measuring quantities for this part of the task. Pick a bunch of dandelion heads, I placed them in a gallon sized freezer bag. It’s okay if you have some of the leaves in the mix, the entire plant contains medicinal properties. If they look dirty, or have ants crawling on them, gently rinse them off. Dandelions have a high water content, so after you pick them, spread them out (somewhere safe from your crazy kittens) and let them dry out for a day or two. They will look pretty wilted, but no worries, all that herbal goodness will remain!
Infuse dandelions in olive oil Place dried dandelions in a mason jar (whatever size you would like to use). The dandelions should fill the jar approximately 3/4 full. Fill the jar with olive oil and screw on a cap loosely. Place the jar into a pan of warm (not boiling) water and heat on medium low for approximately 3 hours. Once the water and jar have cooled remove the jar and store it in a dark room for up to 1 week.
Double infusion If you would like a stronger mix, pick fresh dandelions and dry for a few more days to create a double-infusion. Using a wire colander, strain out all of the old dandelions from the oil. Place the new dandelions into a jar and top it with existing oil and repeat the infusion process above.
Whenever I work on something, I always go all out, so of course I wanted a double-infusion on my very first batch that I tried. Unfortunately, my jar 
cracked in the water, which in turn leaked into the mixture and the entire batch was ruined. I was temporarily distraught that I lost two weeks of time on this endeavor. I keep a picture of Super girl in my work office as a daily reminder that I can overcome any obstacles that are placed in front of me. The same afternoon as the cracked-jar accident, I kicked my slightly bruised pride to the curb, donned my super girl cape, and picked a new batch of dandelions to start the process over.
Salve
- 3.5 ounces dandelion infused oil / .5 ounces beeswax pastilles.
- Cooking/digital scale
- Double-boiler
- Jars
I purchased the beeswax pastilles and plastic jars at Amazon.com.
I had approximately 28 ounces of infused oil, so I measured out 4 ounces of beeswax (go big or go home, right?). I do not own a double-boiler, so I placed a smaller pan inside a larger pan filled with water (don’t allow the water to come in contact with the mixture). Gently bring temperature of water up, stir occasionally and keep temperature on medium-low until the wax is completely melted into the oil. Pour into selected jars and let it sit until the mixture is firm (will lighten in color as it is setting).
I was pleased with the end product. It looks pretty and smells great. Of course, I immediately tried it out on my husband’s achy muscles. He did say that he did feel less pain after I used the salve on him. BUT, I really am curious to know how this salve will work on other people, so I am giving a jar to my neighbor and my mom to try out. Who knows, maybe they will report their findings here!
If you try out this recipe, I would love to hear how it works for you.
Until next time folks, happy homesteading!
Katie