Chicks for Church

Catching a virus means I haven’t had the most productive week, but I got two important tasks crossed off the list: assembling the Sunbonnet Sue quilt and making a batch of stuffed chicks:

I have learned to lower my expectations when I’m sick. Having to throttle down like that annoys the daylights out of me, though. (Just because I’ve learned to do it doesn’t mean I am happy about it.) I was glad I had some small projects that I could work on from the comfort of the couch.

I debated for quite a while on how to stuff these. I have plenty of crushed walnut shells, but those are good for stuffing pincusions and perhaps not so good for stuffing toys for little kids. Fiberfill is an obvious choice, but I wanted these to have some heft. Rice attracts animals. Beans would have been okay, but I didn’t have ones of an appropriate size. I had a small bag of polyester pellets, but not enough to fill all the chicks. (I was in no condition to run to Joann Fabrics.) In the end, I did a combination of polyester stuffing and polyester pellets. I am happy with the way they turned out and I hope they will be useful decoys, LOL.

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Because one of my goals is to stay healthy and out of medical facilities—can you blame me?—I worked really hard this week at making sure this virus didn’t turn into something serious. I do not like to take commercial medications if I can avoid it, and truly, I don’t think that taking a cough suppressant when I had the flu in 2018 was the best course of action. This time, I was more interested in keeping stuff loose and moving. I drank a lot of hot tea. This one, mixed with some local raw honey, has become one of my favorites:

I can’t remember where I got it. A Google search on the name brings up a company in a different area of Montana. This tea is a very simple blend of oregano, peppermint, echinacea, plantain, and mullein. Why that combination? Peppermint contains menthol, which is soothing. Echinacea helps fend off infections. Plantain has a high mucilage content, much like marshmallow and licorice root, and helps to hydrate the respiratory tract. (Licorice root and I don’t get along, though, so I tend to steer clear of teas with that as an ingredient.) Mullein is helpful in loosening mucus and moving it out of the lungs. But why oregano? Oregano is surprisingly high in antiviral and antibacterial properties.

Here’s a piece of anecdata for you: The husband came down with something in July of 2020. In true husband fashion, he refused to stop working. He was sick for almost two whole weeks. I haven’t seen him that ill in a long time. Whatever he had was mostly in his sinuses. He hates doctors almost more than I do (which is saying something) and wouldn’t go to urgent care. In desperation one evening, I handed him an oil of oregano capsule and a cup of tea. “What’s this?” he wanted to know. “Just take it,” I said.

A few hours later, he came upstairs to bed. I asked him how he was doing and he said, “What did you give me? I feel so much better!” He says he is now a believer. We keep a good supply of oil of oregano capsules on hand, and while it doesn’t prevent everything (obviously), we take it when either of us thinks we have been exposed or might be coming down with something. Placebo effect? Could be, but he didn’t know what I gave him at the time, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it to work as well or as quickly as it did.

I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. I’m just trying to stay out of the hospital. I’ve been drinking tea, taking ibuprofen, and checking my oxygen saturation periodically. It has stayed well up into the 90s. For perspective, when I landed in the emergency room four years ago, it was 75, and that was after being on full-flow oxygen all the way to the hospital because the husband stopped at the fire hall and picked up a tank and mask for me. I’ve also had the humidifier on every night. My cough—what is left of it—has stayed nice and loose.

I was also really hungry yesterday, which was kind of funny. I was snacking on anything I could find. Amy’s Fire-Roasted Southwestern Vegetable Soup is really good, by the way. My mother used to say, “Feed a cold, starve a fever,” and I guess that was what I was doing.

I have all the ingredients for this kind of tea growing here on the property. I want to make a bigger effort to harvest and dry my own herbs from now on, and this is a blend I want to keep on hand.

I was hoping to start seeds this weekend, but I think I will push that out a few days. Next week is supposed to be nice—sunny and in the 50s—and I have nothing pressing on the calendar besides a dental checkup. It should be a good week to replenish my vitamin D.