Monthly Archives: January 2023

The Herbal Superstar that is Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica)

RewilderLife Posted on by

 

I discovered stinging nettles when my kids started displaying allergies, but also had health issues that made over the counter allergy medicine complicated. It is hands down in the top five plants and herbs I like to keep in my apothecary stash.  That stash has grown and grown over the years to include several dozen herbs, many of which I do try to grow or wildcraft now.  We use nettles in tea, pills, tinctures, salves, and in cooking on the homestead.  In fact, today’s dinner will be a sausage, potato, onion, garlic, and nettle soup. All grown here on the little suburban lot (nettles were grown at our acreage, venison for the sausage harvested there and mixed here).  So why do I love this spiky little devilish plant that will sting you and leave your skin burning for a few hours (especially if you rub it, ask me how I know)? Because it is one of the most versatile medicinal plants out there with the least amount of side effects.  *A side note about the sting, saliva can help neutralize the formic acid.

Stinging Nettle

Growing: It prefers rich, fertile soil with partial shade/sun.  You can dig up runners and transplant, and because of this it can be hard to contain.

Uses: Herbal, medicinal, culinary, veterinary, animal feed, horticultural,  fiber (cotton & linen).

Edible Parts: leaf, root, seed

How it can be used:

Tea: As a mix or on its own

Pills: you can buy pill makers or make balls yourself

Tinctures: These are made with alcohol (shelf life of, many years), vinegar (shelf life of about a year), or vegetable glycerine (shelf life of, 2-3 years).

Salves: Usually beeswax, some oil (I prefer tallow)

Urtication: Bundles of fresh leaves and stems used to sting oneself to improve inflammation.

Culinary: soups, pestos, teas, nettle beer, added to flours for pasta, etc…

Veterinary: I’d do some research on this for your specific animal and consult your vet, but it appears many animals can benefit from its uses. It can help dogs with inflammation and allergies. It can assist horses in laminitis, as well as many other uses.  In one study it has been shown to reduce parasites in broiler chickens.

Animal Feed: It contains more protein than other green plants and can be used as a feed.

Horticultural: They can be used as a mulch, compost addition, and as a spray for fertilizer and bugs. Stinging nettle fermented tea.

There is a long list of ailments people use stinging nettles for.

Gout, rheumatism, skin issues such as eczema, hormones (men and women), prostate, PMS, lactation, digestion, exhaustion, kidneys, urinary, diuretic, liver, colon, is thought to be a prebiotic, help adrenal function, and so much more. I have listed many links here for you to follow and do some reading and research on. It is a deep rabbit hole you can go down for hours.

Nutrition:

Stinging nettles are a nutritional powerhouse.  The nutritional content will depend on if you eat fresh, dried leaves or cooked ones (dried, steamed, or boiled leaves do not have the sting). Fresh leaves obviously would need careful consumption, I have never tried to consume them this way. But one of my reference  books suggests rolling the leaves up with the stingers inside the leave and consuming this way.  You can buy tinctures, salves, dried leaves, seeds and roots in bulk.  I did this for years until I started my own bed of nettles which I am still expanding, you can purchase seeds many places.  Strictly Medicinals is one of my favorite companies for medicinal seeds and plants.

 

Tallow Stinging Nettle Salve:

Good for skin issues and irritation.

Canning jar that can handle some heat

95-110 F oil (I use a mix of olive and tallow, tallow alone would be too hard) 1/3 tallow & 2/3 olive oil poured over Nettles. Make sure it is covered with 1-2″ of oil. Place lid on it.

Let it sit in a warm sunny place for 4-6 weeks. Shake daily.

Strain

Add up to 1/4 cup of melted beeswax.  You can use a plate to put some of the mixture onto it and let it cool off to test and get your desired consistency.

Store in an airtight container.

Tallow has its own healing benefits for the skin.  You can mix in other herbs like comfrey, lavender, and so on.

Links to more studies:

Nettles Study

Nutrition of Nettles

Chicken Feed

Mount Sinai- uses with children

You will not want to skip reading the above studies.  My guess is you will be seeking to buy or grow some nettles once you do. What an amazing plant!  It truly is a superstar, don’t ask me why it doesn’t get more attention.

Affiliate Links

I do make some financial benefit off of the links below through the Amazon affiliate program.  Thank you for your support!

Frontier Nettle Leaves

Starwest Botanicals Nettle Root

Nettles for Dogs and Cats

I want to remind you that I am not a doctor, medical professional or even an herbalist. Through this journey I have learned what works for our family.  Consult a professional for advice.

-RWL

 

Light: Zone 00

RewilderLife Posted on by

This fireplace was in a cabin we rented in Virginia, circa 1880. We adored that little place, we made a fire every single day.

Light

Up here in Northern Michigan around the 44th parallel we really start to miss our light this time of year.  The days are finally getting longer but they are cloudy.  Currently, Jan 7, 2023, it’s been days since I’ve seen that yellow warm orb of light in the sky.  We have these drab days that are just different hues of grey and brown. The sun rises around 8 am and sets around 5.  I try not to focus on the lack of light and enjoy what we do get.  I know there are places further north who get much less sun and day light. When the sun does decide to shine, you will find the windows thrown open, faces turned to the sun, extra time purposely spent outside trying to bathe in it despite the cold.  I honestly don’t mind the cold or the feet of snow we often get.  What does get to me is the lack of sunshine.

One of the things many folks do up here is replace the sun with the fire in the winter.  We love our fires up here, even fake fires give some kind of ambiance that people are drawn to.  So much so that YouTube, TVs, etc.. have ones you can play on a loop with the sound of fire and all.  But many homes here have gas or electric fire places, some have actual wood burning fireplaces or stoves. We are drawn to in innately, our bodies seek out that kind of light. That light is infrared, mostly in the form of near infrared light (NIR). There have been studies done on the health benefit NIR light.  To the point where it has become a whole industry to sell saunas, light walls, light beds and so on.  Interestingly it appears that the research into IR (infra red light) looks to have been started by a musician. Some of the research shows that NIR therapy can reach the body and “may restore biological function of mitochondria”. It has been shown to help with pain and inflammation, promotes healing, improves appearance of aging skin, brain function, and so much more. You can search and read many articles about it yourself.  The point is, our body craves this because we probably need it.

For me this means exposure to fire, sun, and having a NIR light in my home.  I will link to the one we chose, its thrifty and effective. This is part of my zone 00 care, caring for me! Which in turn cares for the rest of my zones.

All my photos are taken by me or my adult children. This is me enjoying some NIR. We have 3 bulbs for when we want to totally bathe in the lights.

But…

There are other kinds of light, many in fact.  I will only cover one more here in the short little blog…the research can be endless and exhaustive.

Darkness

Okay, yes, it’s not light, it’s the absence of. But it is vital.  Just like our bodies need that Near Infrared Light, they also need darkness.  And what they really need is utter darkness.  That kind where you can’t even see your hand in front of your face.  We need this darkness to sleep.  The street lights, night lights, clocks, phones, and so on…those all have lights and disrupt the most important thing we can do to help ourselves function, sleep.  There is actually something called Dark Therapy. More and more research is being done on the effects of darkness (and different types of light).  One key reason we need darkness is because we need melatonin.  Our body makes it so we can sleep well and our bodies need darkness to produce it.  In fact, they have found that it needs to be pretty dark.

It can be hard to get your room dark if you have family, travel, sleep in odd places (I recently watched a video of a naval sailor trying to sleep in his cubby in a storm with lights on). One option to mimic this is a sleep mask.  I use one, even though we have a fairly dark room.  The smallest amount of light bothers me so I wear one every night.  It has been a real game changer for me. It is amazing how much light comes in through your eye lids. One of the reasons I love camping, especially rustic camping is I get to combine these two things.  The fire followed by the dark nights. Camping outside is also a therapy many use to reset their sleep cycle.  Literally they go to the woods to rebalance their sleep.  If you do this it is best to not use any artificial lighting or technology that produces it.  It allows the body to adjust back to the sun, moon and stars…we probably know so little about how this works still, but I can tell you the days we spend like this are the most restful and rejuvenating times we have.

The sunset at a local beach. The sunset with its different forms of light actually help your body start the sleep cycle. And it’s so beautiful.

So folks, go rewild yourself and if you can’t try to mimic nature as much as you can at home with the right kinds of light and the darkest dark you can make.  Come back and tell me if you feel a change.

Rachel-RWL

 

 

After thoughts

Speaking of the moon and darkness, I want to send you on a rabbit trail. I am going to delve into woo-woo, at the risk of you all thinking I have lost my mind.  Oh, yes…even more than you may have thought before.

So here goes nothing…

Your bodies hormones could be and probably are changing with the moon and its light and tides and..??

…bare feet walking, tallow tooth brushing and now moon light cycling…

YEP

And before the men leave the page, they did on study on men too.  Its a human and animal  experience, not just female… (study).

I will leave you to your own research but I will tell you I did use moon cycling, my sleep improved dramatically and so did my hormones. You can decide if you want to dive into that topic yourself.

 

Anyway, for me the answer to many of my health issues has been sleep, darkness, fire…all available in abundance when I focus on Rewilding myself.

 

Below are links to some of the products I mentioned above.  These are Amazon affiliate links, meaning I do make a little money from them.

Eye Mask

RubyLux NIR light bulb

250 Watt Clamp Lamp