I am so excited to let you know that I will be participating in the upcoming Holistic LDS Living Conference! I have been gearing up for the last few weeks,  so I apologize that I have not posted in a while. I will be in booth 16 at the front of the vendor area.

The conference will be on the last Saturday in June, on the 26th, in South Jordan, Utah at Paradigm High School.  I would love for you to meet me there, so I wanted to let you know that the registration deadline is this Friday, on June 18.  After that, there may be some at the door registration spots left, but it’s not guaranteed and it will be at a higher price.

The conference is going to be amazing, and has 20 speakers providing 56 classes to choose from.  Truly something for everyone, you won’t be disappointed! Many magnificent and qualified practitioners in the holistic field will be presenting at this conference.  The opportunity to learn about such a vast array of interests  from herbs, essential oils, energy work,  vaccines, holistic dentistry, whole foods, and the like will be offered at the conference and is geared towards the beginner and expert alike. Be sure to check the blog and Facebook and Twitter pages to keep up to date on the last minute happenings.

As you know,  there has been a major shift in the acceptance of the holistic arts, especially within the LDS community.  It is important and timely to bring such an intensive learning opportunity to the public.  Although the conference is  spiritually based, it is open to people of all faiths and beliefs.

Your support would be very appreciated!  If you could forward on this information to your contacts to let them know about this fantastic opportunity to learn and become empowered, that would be great.

Thank you!

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When I got home, the first batch had gelled into a very soft yogurt that held form when first scooped up, but then collapsed into a really runny yogurt, more like kefir. The second one was much more firm and was beginning to separate from the whey. Glad that there was an extra half teaspoon, I used the pure starter and mixed it in to a quart of raw milk that I had mixed in about 1 cup of cream, and set it on the counter again. This batch set up very nicely after 24 hours and had a really nice thick mild flavored yogurt. Yum! I used the 3rd 1/2 tsp to make another pure starter (done right by heating the milk first) and put it in the refrigerator to be used in the next batch – I will make another pint of yogurt by heating the milk and then I can use 2 Tbsp in each quart of raw milk without having to heat it again until I want to make another batch of pure starter. This is done to preserve the integrity of the villi culture, because bacteria from the raw milk can change the culture and yield unpredictable results.

The Greek yogurt was a bit different – it requires very low heat. I started out right this time, warming the milk to 180° this time (as per instructions) and then cooled it to 110° before adding the culture.  With only 1/2 cup of milk, much of the liquid evaporated out. I used my food dehydrator and I am wondering if it may have been a little to warm. I put the starter into a Ziploc baggie and put it in the refrigerator. I think I will bring in the cooler and use the hot water method instead.

To be continued! . . .

For those of us who prefer not to foist our personal responsibility for our food choices off onto health professionals, taking care of the stomach complaints caused by food borne illness is really very simple. The good news is that there are several ways to naturally fight food borne illness, and if caught early, natural remedies can stop a stomach bug in a fraction of the time that antibiotics can. I have had food poisoning from eggs and the remedy that worked for me was simply a mixture of black walnut and olive leaf tinctures, one full dropper of each in a small glass of orange juice; all combined was less than the $30 copay that I would have paid had I gone to the doctor. Both of these herbs have strong parasite killing properties, and I have found them to be effective for stomach flu as well. I gave some to my neighbor once as she was getting ready to walk out her door to take her daughter to the emergency room, and less than an hour later, her toddler was running around as if she had never been sick.

I have read before, that in most cases what we call the stomach flu is actually caused by eating contaminated food. If this is true, then people actually get sick from food a lot more often than they realize. One of the great things about herbs is that often there is more than one way to kill a flu. I recently put the question out to the fans of my raw milk page on facebook. Even though none of these people had ever been sick from raw milk, they have encountered food borne illness from fast food or other packaged factory foods. Here are some of the remedies they have successfully used:

• Grapefruit Seed Extract as a nutri-biotic with lots of Vitamin D3 and garlic to boost the immune system
• Oregano oil (best taken in capsules)
• Colloidal silver or nano silver – 2 to 3 Tbsp every 15 minutes until stomach upset is gone
• Activated Charcoal capsules
• Fresh garlic with cayenne
• Where there is diarrhea also take slippery elm capsules

Any of these remedies should be followed by probiotics, like kefir or yogurt, to restore the intestinal flora and for fastest results, should be taken at the fist sign of stomach upset. It is common for these strains of bacteria to be highly resistant to antibiotics, and if food poisoning symptoms are ignored and you wait until they get really bad as many people do, they can become very serious, even leading to kidney failure or other long lasting health problems, especially in small children, people with compromised immune systems, or with the elderly.

With the food industry and its track record, it is best to be prepared because chances are someone in your family will end up sick with a food borne illness, no matter what you eat.

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1. Comfrey – Comfrey is a cell proliferator and speeds healing. It is very easy to grow, just get a start from someone and plant it in a well watered spot in your garden in full sun. Soon you will see its large broad green leaves start to come up. These leaves are slightly fuzzy and stick together, making them good to use as a wrap. Pick leaves directly from your plant to add to infused oils, and other herbal remedies.
2. Garlic – Garlic is one of natures strongest antiseptics. It is very easy to grow, in fact once it takes root, it is nearly impossible to get rid of it, so choose your location carefully!
3. Cayenne – Cayenne is very easy to grow, and one thing that you may notice after planting is that unwanted wasps will not bother you anymore! Cayenne is good for the circulatory system, and can even stop a heart attack!
4. Echinacea – Echinacea is beautiful, it has lovely purple cone flowers. Once you plant it will come back year after year, and the seeds will spread. You will want to wait until you have a large patch of it before you harvest the root, but tinctures made from echinacea can detox your system if you receive a poisonous bite, and it is a great immune system support.
5. Lavender – Lavender is a wonderful calming herb, it is beautiful with all of its tiny purple flowers, and it smells divine! It enhances the properties of other herbs, and has strong anti-fungal properties. Lavender grows as a bush, and can get quite large and unruly if you don’t trim it back, so be sure to plant it in a part of your garden where it can spread out, or it may smother your other herbs!
6. Calendula – Calendula flower petals have wonderful healing properties and can be infused in oils to be added to ointments, lip balm, and ear oil. These pretty yellow flowers will add a splash of color to your garden, and the petals can even be added to salads.
7. Aloe Vera - Aloe Vera can be grown in a pot in your kitchen window sill, and is perfect to have on hand in case of burns, sunburn, bruises, and bug bites.
8. Peppermint – peppermint and other mints are aggressive and spread very quickly, so they are best kept in a pot or in a section of the garden that you don’t mind having them take over. Once rooted, like garlic, they are impossible to get rid of. Peppermint is wonderful for belly aches, gas, heartburn, and makes an energizing herbal tea.
9. Chamomile - Chamomile is a calming herb, great in a relaxing herbal tea to help on sleepless nights. Chamomile can also be used in an infused oil or added to an ointment or salve as an analgesic to soothe rashes and minor scrapes and burns.
10. St. Johns Wort - Tinctures made from St. Johns wort are effective pain relievers for burns, shingles, arthritis, and bruises. It is also has antidepressant qualities, and can be used in herbal teas, tinctures and infused oils.
11. Arnica- Arnica is essential for bruises and swelling. An oil infused with arnica flowers, immediately applied to an injury  will prevent bruising.  Great when you have an accident prone child!
12. Lobelia- Lobelia and cayenne tinctures used along with CPR can help revive a person who has stopped breathing. It can also help with smoking cessation, or for someone who is in shock, to slow a racing heartbeat, or to help with circulation or blood pressure problems.

I could list many other easy to grow herbs for your medicinal garden, but this is a good start. These essential herbs will help you treat many common health issues at home.

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It’s like night and day – once helpless, dependent, and full of worries and fears; now empowered and confident. It is such a comforting feeling to know that for most family illnesses and health emergencies, I have the tools and know-how to take care of them myself! No waiting on a doctor over the weekend or dealing with a screaming child for an hour or more in an emergency room or doctors office waiting room full of sick people. If you have not yet educated yourself on simple herbal remedies for basic family health care, I strongly encourage you to do so – it is one of the best things I have ever done!

To make a family herbal first aid kit, the first thing that you will want to do is take inventory of your family’s health. Are you in basically good health, or do you catch every bug that goes around? What are your most common illnesses? Do you have an extremely clumsy kid? (Zee is very clumsy, and I have gotten calls from the school twice this year about bruises, one of which DCFS sent a social worker to investigate my husband and me at our home!) There are a few things that every family with small children should be prepared for – here is a basic list of some of the most common things that people go to the doctor for that can easily be treated at home:

• ear infections
• colds
• stomach flu
• pink eye
• parasites
• headlice
• staph infections
• yeast infections
• warts
• strep throat
• chicken pox

And a few basics, usually treated with over the counter medicines:

• indigestion
• diarrhea
• bug bites
• sunburn
• cuts
• scrapes
• bruises

All of these can be treated at home naturally without commercially prepared medicines, and would all but completely remove any need for a doctors visit, with the exception of real medical emergencies like broken bones or other traumatic injuries.

The ideal would be to have a small travel size kit with just the basics for the car, and a larger one that is kept in a safe place at home in a container like a large fishing tackle box with plenty of room for ace bandages, and supplies like a capsulator and a mortar and pestle, etc.

The following is a fairly comprehensive list of things that would be good to keep on hand and their uses (chose the items that are most relevant to your family. You can also add other items that you feel your family needs – if you feel the list is missing something important, please leave a comment!):

Tinctures – Note: If you dislike the alcohol used in tinctures, you can reduce its presence somewhat by placing the drops in a half cup of hot, boiled water and allowing it to sit for 15 minutes, or you can look for glycerites (glycerine based extracts).

Arnica:
Apply immediately after an injury and continue every couple hours for the first day. Can be combined with a few drops of Hypericum.
Use on sore and cramped muscles, or for strained or sprained muscles or tendons, or bumps and bruises.

• Decreases pain
• Prevents swelling and bruising

Cayenne:

• Use five to ten drops diluted in two ounces of water to help with frostbite and hypothermia
• Put a couple of drops under the tongue to revives someone who is in shock or trauma. Cayenne taken this way has also been known to stop heart attacks.
• Put directly on wound externally to coagulate blood and stop the bleeding

Valerian:

• 30 to 60 drops
  • Relieves intestinal and menstrual cramps
  • Relives headaches and general aches or pains
  • Brings sleep to an exhausted person
• ½ to 1 teaspoon up to 3 times daily relives anxiety

Echinacea:

The dosage ranges from 30 to 60 drops, the higher ranges used for fevers and acute situations. Echinacea stimulates the immune system and can be used with fevers, poisoning, or any type of internal infection.

• Add 1 dropperful of echinacea extract to 1?2 cup of water as an antiseptic wash.
• Use as an antibiotic and antibacterial
• Use for poisonous insect and snake bites
  • 60 drops every 15 minutes until symptoms subside.
• Use as a preventative and supportive herb for the flu or common cold
• For toothaches, it can be massaged into the surrounding gums and teeth.

Elderberry:

• Take 1 dropperful four times a day until symptoms subside.
  • Stops or Prevents cold or flu
  • Speeds up recovery from cold or flu

Grindelia:

Can be applied externally to cool and soothe hot, irritated skin rashes or sunburn, and itchy bites:

• For exposure to poison oak/ivy/sumac, immediately wash the affected area
• thoroughly with soap and cool water, or sponge with alcohol to remove the oily resin.
• If a rash occurs, spray with grindelia extract several times a day.
  • Relieves poison ivy

Taken internally:

• Expels mucus obstruction in the bronchioles
• May be useful for some types of asthma and respiratory congestion

1:1:1 Milk thistle, burdock, & kelp combination:

• Take before and after dental x-rays and after taking Tylenol or Advil.
  • Leaches heavy metals and radiation toxicity from the thyroid, blood, and liver.

Quassia:

• Take three to five droppersful every six hours.
• To treat suspected bad water, add 30 drops to each quart of water.
  • Use as an antimicrobial
  • Used for bacterial diarrhea, dysentery, and giardia

Usnea:

• Take three to five droppersful every six hours.
• To treat suspected bad water, add 30 drops to each quart of water.
  • Has antibiotic properties
  • Use for colds, flu, bronchitis, urinary tract infections, & sore throat
  • Useful for some fungal infections

Syrup of Ipecac:

• Apply immediately after an injury and continue every couple hours for the first day.
  • Promotes vomiting
  • Decreases pain
  • Prevents swelling and bruising

5 Flower Rescue Remedy:

• Apply immediately after an injury and continue every couple hours for the first day.
  • Use for emotional trauma for all ages
  • Decreases pain
  • Prevents swelling and bruising

Meadowsweet:

• Use a couple of drops directly under the tongue.
  • Use as a fast acting, anti-inflammatory
  • Pain relief

Hypericum (St. John’s Wort):

• Used externally or internally. Hypericum has pain-soothing, anti-inflammatory, and tissue healing properties.
  • On burns
  • Puncture wounds
  • Sores
  • Boils
  • On insect and animal bites
  • Use specifically on wounds with sharp, shooting pains, and puncture wounds.
  • Useful for bruises
  • Neuralgias
  • Muscle strains
  • Spasms
  • Muscle aches.
  • Add a few drops in water for a pain-relieving mouthwash for gums that are sore from flossing or dental work

Urtica Urens:

• • Apply topically to burns or hives. Can be used with Hypericum for painful burns. For
• chemical burns flush with water immediately for 20 minutes before treating.
• o Rapid pain relief
• o Prevents vesicles, inflammation, and scarring in 1st and 2nd degree burns
• o Promotes tissue healing
• o Can be applied to old burns to bring about more complete healing
• o Soothes hives

Calendula:

• • Apply topically to cuts or scrapes
• o Aids healing
• Eleuthero Standardized Extract:
• • Use a couple of drops directly under the tongue.
• o Prevents Jet Lag (used by Soviet cosmonauts to help them adjust to space
• travel)

Witch Hazel Extract:

• Excellent base for diluting essential oils or for a variety of simple, topical herbal firstaid  remedies. Do not take it internally.
  • Use as a mild astringent, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory
  • Useful for insect bites and skin irritations.
  • Apply to gauze and place over blister to dry it up

Bug Bite and Itch Relief Combination – Apply Tincture combination directly to the skin. Note: Juice from the plantain is mildly effective and it grows throughout this region (just crumple or chew the leaves and rub onto the skin). This combination provides relief from insect bites and general itching:

• Witch hazel
• Plantain
• Grindelia
• Comfrey
• Lavendar Oil (enhances any tincture combination)
• St. John’s Wort

Powdered Herbs
Slippery elm capsules:

• Take Capsules or mix into juice
  • Used for food poisoning
  • Decrease toxic absorption
  • Soothe mucous membranes
  • Settles an upset stomach

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale):
The root can be dried and made into a powder that has strong anti-cancer properties.

• Cures Some Cancers
  • Dig root, shake off excess soil, DO NOT WASH! Chop it into little pieces and dry it at no more than 100° until it is brittle. Grind into powder and take ½ tsp 2 – 3 times a day in juice.
• Eat leaves in salad or use as a diuretic

Ginger root capsules:

• Take two capsules
  • Use for motion sickness or morning sickness
  • Take for nausea caused by flu or bad food
  • Use to relieve gas
  • For nausea, take 1 to 2 capsules of dried ginger every 15 minutes
  • To prevent motion sickness, take 6 to 8 capsules of powdered ginger about 45 minutes before departing
  • To calm a queasy stomach, chew on a piece of crystallized ginger.

Elderberry capsules:

• Take capsules.
  • Stops or Prevents cold or flu
  • Speeds up recovery from cold or flu

4:1 Marshmallow-peppermint oil capsules:

• Take capsules.
  • Reduces intestinal cramping

Blackberry and Strawberry Root and Leaf:

• Take capsules
  • Reduces internal hemorrhaging.

Cayenne:

• Open and apply externally
  • Stops bleeding
  • Warms cold feet (sprinkle inside your boots)

Cinnamon:

• Take ¼ tsp 3 times daily
  • Regulates blood pressure

Goldenseal Powder:

• Sprinkle onto cuts or wounds as antimicrobial or to stop bleeding. Do not takegoldenseal internally during pregnancy
  • A powerful antimicrobial
  • Warms cold feet (sprinkle inside your boots)
  • For diarrhea caused by infectious microorganisms, take 1 capsule of goldenseal three times daily for up to two weeks

Comfrey:
Alternative styptics: comfrey and yarrow. Comfrey is perhaps the finest internal antihemorrhage
there is.

Goldenseal:

• Use Sparingly
  • Use as an antimicrobial, antibacterial

Myrrh:

• Use Sparingly
  • Use as an antimicrobial, antibacterial

Bentonite Clay or Charcoal Tablets:

• Take 1 teaspoon in water, 3-4 times per day. Drink a lot of water. Helpful herbs include blackberry root or leaf (root is preferred for its greater astringency: simmer root for 20-40 minutes or steep leaf for tea for 10-30 minutes). Similarly, use wild strawberry root or leaf. Cooked white rice works wonders at reducing diarrhea.
  • To relieve diarrhea
• Of charcoal, take 4 every hours, of bentonite clay, take 1 teaspoon in water, 3-4 times per day, drink a lot of water.
  • To assist with detoxification, in case of poisoning.

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) Tea Bags:

• Taken Internally 3 cups a day:
  • Mild sedative
  • Relives anxiety
  • Antispasmodic
  • Anti-inflammatory
  • Antibacterial
  • Promotes relaxation
  • Relieves indigestion
• Applied externally
  • Soothes skin irritations

Laxative Tea Bags: Senna combined with cinnamon, fennel, licorice and ginger.
Peppermint Tea Bags: Soothes upset stomach & clears sinuses.

Essential Oils

Peppermint Oil

• Rub a little on the temples
  • can help you stay awake
• Take a few drops mixed in water
  • Settles an upset stomach

Tea Tree Oil

• Use sparingly. For sensitive skin, dilute with equal parts olive oil.
  • Use for fungal infections
  • Good for infected pus-filled wounds or burns
  • Apply to cold sores and herpes lesions.
  • Use for earaches

Oregano Oil

• Use sparingly. Dilute with olive oil.
  • Use for fungal infections
  • Use to get rid of cold sores
  • Used as a disinfectant or antimicrobial

Peppermint Oil

• If you have sensitive skin, dilute with olive oil before applying. Taken internally, peppermint may aggravate heartburn.
  • Clears sinuses
• Curbs itching from insect bites.
  • Soothes an upset stomach
  • To relieve headaches, massage 2 drops of diluted peppermint essential oil onto temples, forehead and neck. Keep away from eyes

Eucalyptus Oil

• Dilute with oil or witch hazel extract before applying to skin; do not take internally.
  • A potent antibiotic and antiviral
• Add a few drops to recently boiled water to use as a steam inhalation.
  • Use for treating colds, flus and sinus infections
• Soak in a hot bath with 5 drops of eucalyptus essential oil.
  • Use to relieve pain from strains or sprains

Lavender Oil – lavender enhances properties of other essential oils

• For most people, lavender essential oil can be applied directly to the skin. Do not take more than 1 to 2 drops internally.
  • Soothes wounds and burns
  • Has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties
• Add 10 drops to a bath or on a cloth to inhale.
  • Relieves anxiety, insomnia, & headaches
  • Use as a sedative
  • Relives sunburn

Clove Oil

• Dilute with olive oil before applying to skin.
  • Use as an antiseptic for cuts
  • Soothes toothaches

Thyme Oil

• Take two drops in 4 ounces of water.
  • Use as mouthwash
  • Use as toothache
  • Relieves sore throats
• Apply externally for:
  • Crabs
  • Lice
  • External parasites
• Add two drops to recently boiled water & inhale the steam for:
  • Colds
  • Flu
  • Bronchitis

Salves
Emollients — marshmallow, slippery elm, plantain, comfrey, and mullein
Antimicrobials — echinacea, goldenseal, yerba mansa, Oregon grape, osha, propolis, myrrh gum, garlic, calendula, chamomile, chaparral, gentian, and usnea
Astringents — horsetail, bistort, geranium, rose, alum, yarrow, witch hazel, yellow dock, and St. John’s wort.
Note: A combination of one herb from each category is a good disinfectant for anaerobic bacteria and is soothing to epithelial cells. The mixture will also cut down on bleeding and slow the scarring process. It will speed up the healing time and can be used anywhere a salve is needed to coat and protect.
Antimicrobial healing salve: A comfrey based salve, including herbs such as plantain, St. John’s wort, calendula and Echinacea; essential oils such as lavender and rosemary strengthen the effects.

• Soothes
• Accelerates healing
• Disinfects
• Use for any breaks in the skin and for burns
• Do not use initially on puncture wounds, use an antiseptic such as Echinacea tincture instead

Liniment for Aches & Pains: Arnica, witch hazel and St. John’s Wort tinctures in combination with essential oils of camphor, eucalyptus, rosemary and clove bud. Note: some people are sensitive to arnica: STOP using if adverse symptoms result. Do not use arnica on broken skin.

• Stops swelling
• Prevents bruising
• Relieves aches and pains

Liniment for Poison Oak/Ivy/Sumac: Jewelweed (impatiens) specifically neutralizes the Rhus toxin and works well. Use fresh or tinctured, but jewelweed can be hard to find. Other remedies include grindelia, combined with echinacea, calendula and white oak bark.

• Stops swelling
• Prevents bruising
• Relieves aches and pains

Bruise Relief Liniment: (For wounds where the skin is unbroken), Use a combination of tinctures, including Tienchi ginseng, hyssop, myrrh gum, prickly ash bark, cayenne, calendula, comfrey and arnica. Helichrysum italicum essential oil, applied externally also works very well and is non-irritating. Do not use these remedies on the eyes or mucous membranes and wash thoroughly after use.

Fresh Herbs
Garlic:

• Use as antibacterial
  • Too many uses to name ?

Aloe Vera:

• Apply directly to burns. Add 5 drops of Lavender oil for each tablespoon of Aloe Vera
  • Soothes the inflammation of sunburn and common kitchen scalds and burns
  • Cools and heals
• Can be used internally as a purgative, but be careful, too much will cause hemorrhoids

German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita):

• Break up a few heads, squeeze them and put them in a cup of water. Give the mixture to a child with an eyedropper
  • Used as a relaxing tea
  • Provides instant relief for colic pain in newborn babies
• Used as a hair rinse to highlight the blonde strands in fair hair

Calendula Petals:

• Make a soothing emollient by infusing petals in olive oil; leave in a sunny spot for a couple of weeks before using directly on the affected skin.
  • Use for diaper rash, eczema or other skin problems

Calendula Succus: Succus is the Juice from aerial parts of the plant preserved in small amount of alcohol. Can be used externally on either open or closed wounds that are tender, red, swollen and tending toward the formation of pus .

• Use It to clean wounds
• Stops bleeding
• Promotes tissue healing
• Used for inflamed skin conditions like lacerations and burns (including sunburns) and other skin irritations such as diaper rash or eczema.
  • Place the Calendula succus onto the pad of a bandage and place over the wound. Keep the wound covered with a bandage and Calendula until new skin forms. If the wound is very painful add Hypericum tincture for pain relief.
• When used early on in the wound healing process Calendula can also prevent the formation of scar tissue.
• Used to treat bug bites and stings.

Infusions
Ear Oil: Dilute a combination of tea tree, garlic, oregano, & lavender oil in olive oil and
infuse in ¼ cup of dried mullein flower petals.

• Add a few drops directly into the affected ear. Use whenever an ear infection is suspected for pain relief and to reduce complications. Do not use if the ear drum is perforated.
  • Soothes earache and heals infection
  • Use to clean excess earwax out of ears

St. Johns Wort: infuse dried herb in olive oil.

• Rub directly onto skin.
  • Soothes sunburn
  • Use for minor burns

Arnica: infuse dried flowers in olive oil.

• Rub directly onto skin.
  • Soothes and prevents bruising
  • Reduces swelling
  • Relieves pain

Poultices
Grated Potato or Mud:

• Put directly onto the wound. Keep it in place with a gauze wrapping
  • Draws out insect venom and sooth inflammation.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris):

• Pulverize leaves in a mortar and pestle. Put this mash directly onto the wound. Keep it in place with a gauze wrapping
  • Used to heal bruises and wounds.

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale):

• Cover the wound with muslin and lay the comfrey on top. (never allow it to come in direct contact with the skin.) You can use the leaf, but there is more healing power in the root.
  • Good for healing ulcers

Compresses
Keep squares of gauze or cheesecloth on hand to make compresses. Use comfrey, witch hazel, or arnica for sprains; St. John’s Wort for deep cuts, and comfrey or witch hazel for burns.

Sprays
Insect Repellent: Use essential oils (lavender, citronella, eucalyptus, cedarwood, lemon grass, and pennyroyal) suspended in a base of water and alcohol. Note: eating sugar and sweets increases your attractiveness to many insects! Caution: Although pennyroyal essential oil is widely used for insect repellants, It can be toxic even in moderate doses and should not be used by pregnant women. It is powerful and can effect people and pets in the vicinity of the user.

• Apply liberally and frequently (as often as every two hours)

Other
Honey:

• Useful as base for ointment due to preservative and antiseptic properties
• Add to hot ginger tea to soothe sore throats

Beeswax:

• good for adding to infused oils and essential oils to make salves and ointments.

Vodka:

• use vodka or 100% grain alcohol for the purpose of making tinctures or as a disinfectant.

Sore Throat Remedy:

Use Sage (Salvia officinalis) and Thyme (Thyme vulgaris or T. serpyllum). Chop them up into a stainless steel saucepan, just cover with water and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain out the herbs and add half as much honey as there is water to sweeten and preserve the mixture. Pour into a dark jar and keep in the fridge for up to two months. Use the syrup as a gargle for a sore throat or coughs and colds.

Hardware

• Capsulator
• Mortar and pestle
• Band Aids
• Bandages
• Ace bandages
• ½ inch surgical tape
• A small pair of scissors
• A single edged razor blade
• Tweezers
• Cold pack (cools on impact)
• 1 and 2 inch Ace bandages
• Moleskin
• An instant read thermometer
• A bar of soap
• A bandana
• An eye cup (or shot glass)
• A flashlight
• Colloidal Silver
• Safety Pins
• Needles
• Paper Cups
• Baking Soda
• Cotton balls
• Q-tips
• First Aid Guide
• Hot Water Bottle
• Matches
• Tongue Depressors
• Ear Scope
• SAM Splint
• Space Blankets
• Salt
• Paper & Pencil
• Gel Capsules
• A birth kit
• A suture kit
• A stethoscope
• A blood pressure kit
• A blood glucose monitor
• An inhaler (in the case of a life threatening asthma attack)
• A spring loaded epipen (in the case of extreme, life threatening allergic reactions)

For camping, backpacking trips, or for the car, pare things down to:

• Arnica gel
• Echinacea tincture
• Peppermint and chamomile tea bags
• Crystallized ginger
• Insect repellent
• A tin of herbal salve
• A bottle of lavender oil
• An assortment of bandages and moleskin.

Dosages for Children: Dosages for children are not provided in most herbals. To determine the correct dose you need to consider the size of the child, the ailment, the power of the herb you intend to use, and the adult dosage. Clark’s Rule for determining dosages divides the weight of the child by 150 to give the approximate fraction of the adult dose. Dosage for a 40 lb. child: 40 /150 = .26 or approx. 1/4 the adult dose.

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Mind you, she did kick and scream during the stitching process, but only after my 12-year-old shouted “What are you doing? Are you sewing up her head?!” After which the first stitch that I was just getting ready to tie off was yanked out because that is when she started the kicking. And the screaming. Good grief! So I had to start all over again.

The most screaming was done by the kids who were not actually being stitched up. My 15-year-old daughter yelled at me and then stomped off to her room and refused to speak to me until the next morning. I think her exact words were “If she needs stitches, why aren’t you taking her to the emergency room?! I’m never touching that needle again! (I used one of her beading needles, because they are really sharp)

Ok, her question may seem logical to most people, but in my defense, a trip to the emergency room would have meant trying to keep all that bleeding at bay in the van on the way to the doctor’s office. Then holding her still and keeping the bleeding at bay while waiting in the waiting room for an hour so that a doctor could then come and put a couple of stitches in her head. I had the tools, I had the know how, and best of all, I did it all in less than 5 minutes right in my own living room. Without the extended drama. I mean we had some drama, but it was really more of a mini matinee and not a 5 act play.

I know that scalps are not like the most sensitive part of the body. I remember in my old punk rock days seeing punks with mohawks bopping around with safety pins in their scalps in the mosh pit. Granted they were probably drunk when they put them there, but considering the fact that Bee didn’t even know her scalp was being pierced until my son shouted it out for the whole world to hear, I don’t think it hurt her much. Maybe next time I’ll use orajel first – I think I still have some left from the good ol’ teething days . . .

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Stop buying into the low-fat lie and eat FAT! The thing about fat is not cutting it, but the types and quality of fats we eat. For example, raw butter from grass fed cows can actually help your LOSE weight. That’s right . . . lose. The cream on raw unprocessed milk helps build myelin which is the coating around nerves that is 70% fat. Our brains are made of fat, our cell membranes are made up of lipids, which are fats. Get over the popular media already! Our bodies NEED fat!

But we can’t just start scarfing down hotdogs and margarine, the fats we eat need to be high quality REAL fats. There is a difference between butter and margarine, and butter is NOT the bad guy. I know we have been told by doctors and scientists that margarine is more healthy. That is a lie. Here is a little experiment from bestandworst.com

Try this:
Leave a tub of margarine in your garage or a shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things: no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something) It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value. nothing will grow on it. Even micro organisms will not a find a home to grow because it is nearly plastic. Might as well melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast.

Have you ever seen mold on margarine? There is a reason for that — Margarine is one molecule away from being PLASTIC! My cat is a butter licker, and she will not touch margarine.

So how about those vegetable oils that have not been hydrogenated then? Like ‘heart healthy’ canola? Well, if you have read about how those oils are chemically extracted with industrial strength solvents, sure, you can believe they’re good for you if you like. I for one choose not to. And even if you use expeller pressed canola, consider the fact that these oils may be fine out of the bottle, but heating them as you do in cooking, causes the oil to change. You know how your pan gets this sticky coating on it that you have to scour off with a brillo pad? Try getting a brillo pad in your arteries, because that’s where you are going to need it the most. Olive oil is one of the only oils that is liquid at room temperature that can withstand heat enough to cook with it.

So, lets ditch those sissy fats, and get cooking with some REAL fat. Lard, suet, butter, and organic coconut oils. Yeah, I said lard. Let’s have some fried chicken! And for breakfast, how about some cracked wheat cereal slathered in butter, cream and raw honey? Mmmmm! Build your brain!

2. Switch to raw dairy products.

You may have noticed that I specifically stated RAW butter while talking about fats. Raw dairy is good for you. DO NOT skim the cream! Not only is it yummy, it’s good for you. Raw milk has vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and nutrients in it that are destroyed by heating. Vitamin B12, C, and D are destroyed by pasteurizing. Calcium from pasteurized milk cannot be absorbed, because the magnesium, which your body needs to be able to utilize calcium, is destroyed. Lactoferrin, which helps your body absorb iron, is destroyed by pasteurization.  Lactobacilli, which enhance mineral absorption, are destroyed.

“Pasteurization destroys all the enzymes in milk— in fact, the test for successful pasteurization is absence of enzymes. These enzymes help the body assimilate all bodybuilding factors, including calcium. That is why those who drink pasteurized milk may suffer, nevertheless, from osteoporosis.” — Sally Fallon-Morell, RealMilk.com

These enzymes also facilitate digestion of lactose, which is why people who are ‘lactose intolerant’ can usually drink raw milk. This is also why people with milk allergies and asthma can often find relief by drinking raw milk, and why many autistic people see a reduction in symptoms when using raw milk. People have used raw milk for thousands of years, and the human race has survived. It has only been recently in human history that milk has become ‘bad for you,’ but that couldn’t possibly correlate with the relatively new processes of pasteurization and homogenization. Nah . . . it’s gotta be something else . . .

3. Cut white processed flour.

This is one thing that the health industry does get right. Whole grains. In lip service at least. Because the whole grain label is slapped on everything from fluffy sugar coated cereals to fake brown bread. The best way to get REAL bread is to grind your flour and make your own, which is great if you are at home all the time, which I wish I could be   To get the most out of your grains, you should have a good grain mill, because you will get the most nutrition out of flour where the grain has been soaked and sprouted before grinding. If you can’t make your own flour, you can still soak your flour before using it to bake with.  Wheat comes in many varieties, and wheat is not the only grain! Get to know your flours. Bob’s Red Mill has a fantastic whole wheat pastry flour using a finely ground soft white spring wheat that makes awesome pie crusts! They also have spelt, rye, quinoa, oat, and a whole range of specialty organic stone ground flours. If you live in Oregon I am sooo jealous!

The lie here is that using whole grains means you have to sacrifice and give up that nice soft fluffy bread that you know and love. Just remember all of the many grains we have. The higher the gluten content in the flour, the better it will rise, (sorry to any celiacs ) so use very fine grind soft white spring wheat for quick breads and use a nice hard red turkey winter wheat for baking yeast breads. Soak your flour overnight, and then beat the sponge (dough that has not had all of the flour added yet) with a good industrial strength mixer until it starts to get stringy. Then, only add enough flour so that the dough is still really sticky, and then butter your hands really good to handle it. That is how you get nice soft whole wheat bread

If you don’t have time to bake, you need to become a super label reader, and make sure you know what all of those long words are on the bread bag, because the second best place to canned goods for hiding food additives is in baked goods. The fewer ingredients the better.

Always use whole grains and don’t listen to that fat bottomed little food pyramid guy that’s running after you whining “Hey, you only have to eat whole grains 80% of the time! C’mon don’t make my buddies Nabisco and General Mills mad at me!” Make the switch from white rice to brown rice, use whole steel cut rolled oats instead of quick oats, find recipes that use whole grains, or add whole grains to recipes you already have!

4. Eliminate refined sweeteners such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

If you want to see your body stack on the pounds, this is the way to go! Refined sugars not immediately used by the body for energy go straight to fat. And here we blamed fat for that! Well, when we eat sugar, our bodies create a bunch of insulin to stabilize the rise in blood sugar, and bam! It starts stacking up. Most people do not use the amount of energy in one day that would be necessary to burn all of the extra sugars that we eat. High fructose corn syrup is in almost everything. Read the labels! It is even in places you might not expect, like in processed meats. If you have food allergies, you have learned this already.

Raw sugars, like raw honey, contain minerals and enzymes, and are less likely to cause severe fluctuations in blood sugar and insulin levels. Our foods already have many natural sweeteners already built in. When you cut back on added sweeteners, or forgo them altogether, you will find that things like candy, or baked goods with a lot of sugar are now much sweeter than you like . . .  for recipes calling for sugar, you can often cut the amount of sugar called for in half without compromising the results.  Or you can substitute raw brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup. Some things you should know for substituting natural sweeteners in recipes:

“A cup of granulated sugar weighs 8 ounces. A cup of brown sugar weighs only 6. But a cup of maple syrup weighs 11 ounces and a cup of honey weighs 12. So if you were to substitute honey in a recipe that calls for brown sugar, you’d be adding twice the amount needed.

In addition, honey and maple syrup add moisture to a recipe, which can upset the texture of what you’re making. Honey adds acid to a recipe, which you might have to neutralize with the addition of a pinch of baking soda. And honey can cause baked foods to brown more quickly. Brown sugar, on the other hand, attracts moisture, so it will keep baked goods from drying out so quickly.”

• In spite of their difference in weight, you can substitute raw brown sugar for granulated white on a 1 to 1 basis, and the most significant difference will be taste.
• To use honey in place of sugar, use 7/8 cup for every cup of sugar, and reduce the liquid in the recipe by 3 tablespoons.
• To use maple syrup in place of sugar in cooking, use 3/4 cup for every 1 cup of sugar.
• To use maple syrup in place of a cup of sugar in baking, use 3/4 cup, but decrease the total amount of liquid in the recipe by about 3 tablespoons for each cup of syrup you use.

(Taken From O-Chef)

5.  Switch from canned vegetables to fresh locally grown organic produce.

Canned vegetables are cooked to death, have a LOT of added salt, and have lost most if not all of their nutrients. If you have a freezer (which I highly recommend) switch to frozen vegetables. Of course fresh is best, but I find I have a lot of waste if I buy too much at once, and it is really hard to find time to go shopping as often as you need to to keep fresh vegetables on the table. That doesn’t mean frozen are best. . . Definitely the ideal is fresh, and the best way to have fresh veggies is to have your own garden. This gives you fresh vegetables as long as they are in the ground without the worries of spoilage. Of course some get to big, overripe, etc. A few hens running around will take care of that – and the side effects? Fresh eggs! Just make sure that you fence in your garden, because a few hens can decimate an entire garden in less than a day. You can read more about chickens in my backyard chickens series. Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is the best for getting high organic yields out of very little space.

Another way to find less expensive fresh organic produce is to check your local classified adds. I have found potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, green beans, free fruit (u-pick in someones back yard) berries, and many other things in my classified ads!

These are just the basics. Some other fundamental switches would be to change your iodized table salt for unrefined sea salt, switch your meats to natural free range grass-fed beef, free range chicken, wild caught fish, and wild game, use water filtered with a reverse osmosis water filter, and quit using fluoridated toothpaste that contains glycerin. Using raw unprocessed dairy and natural foods will also eventually free you from the need for chemical underarm antiperspirants. (Yay!)

I’m sure that there is so much more that I could add, but for those of you just starting on this journey, this could possibly be really overwhelming.

So, God speed in your quest and start enjoying your new found health – You can use that extra energy to kick the big five (General Mills, Nabisco, Oscar Meyer, Meadow Gold, and Monsanto) a swift one in the rear!

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Well, I am going to tell you why. First of all, everything you eat could potentially have dangerous pathogens. You could seriously slip and fall in the bathtub and break your neck. That doesn’t make bathing inherently dangerous, and neither does the bacteria in milk make it dangerous. Our bodies are full of bacteria, and guess what? Not all of it is bad. our bodies need bacteria to digest food and complete a variety of essential tasks. We can’t lump all bacteria together–There are dangerous bacteria, and there essential bacteria. Raw milk contains essential bacteria.

It isn’t impossible for raw milk to contain dangerous bacteria, but pasteurized milk is actually responsible for more cases of food poisoning than raw milk. My daughter got food poisoning from pasteurized milk that she drank at her day care when she was 5. She was sick for a week, and we are very blessed because it could have been very serious — especially since I don’t have all of the knowledge about healing that I do now.

I was raised on raw milk. We had our own cow – her name was Jennifer, and she was a Jersey with big brown eyes. She let us ride her while my dad led her to get water. I remember leading her to the water trough myself with a rope attached to her halter and getting her into the milking stall and milking her into a bucket myself with a cloth over the top when I was probably seven or eight years old. She was part of our family and when we had to sell her when I was older, I remember crying.

We never got sick from her milk. I have 11 brothers and sisters, and none of us has ever had a serious fracture. We were never seriously ill and we rarely had cavities.

But when my parents divorced when I was 11 we had to give all of that up. And our food changed. I still never got really sick until after i had my first child and that is when I really started noticing that I wasn’t where I used to be. I didn’t really understand it though because when I was growing up, the homestead that we had was more out of necessity than for healthy living, so when we moved to a house without property and we no longer had the animals, there wasn’t really any discussion about the change in where the food came from, just that we were going to have to buy store milk.

My second child was born when I was 27. I knew I didn’t feel well, but it didn’t really click so much until he quit nursing and I never got my period, except for spotting every once and a while. I started having hot flashes and night sweats. I didn’t know what was wrong, and I was too young for menopause. I thought maybe I had a thyroid condition, because thyroid problems run in my family, and I had checked all of my symptoms and looked them up. But after going to the doctor, he told me I was normal. I didn’t feel normal at all. I never went back to the doctor, but I suffered with my symptoms because I couldn’t bear to go back for more humiliation. When I was 30 I decided enough was enough, and I started researching herbal remedies and nutrition. I started taking flax seed oil, and I regained my fertility (much to my surprise) and was pregnant with my third child. I read about Dr. Weston A. Price, and I had this unexplainable drive to look for raw milk.

I called dairies. They told me I was nuts. I called health food stores. They said if I found some to tell them, because they would really like to know. I finally called a goat farmer who told me about a family who had raw milk, but it wasn’t certified dairy so it was all hush hush. I picked up my first gallon from a little shed at the back of a farm. I put my money in a box and took the milk out of a cooler and I was pretty much sworn to secrecy. We got our milk that way for a couple of years, before we finally had a certified raw dairy open in our area (and by that I mean within an hour drive).

I noticed a big difference in my energy levels, and after a few months, I had regained my muscle tone. When Zee was 1 I discovered that he was severely lactose intolerant. I feel I was led by the spirit to find the milk when I did, because of his special needs. I only found out because the childcare I was taking him to at the time kept giving him milk (UGH!) and he would come home with horrible diarrhea.

“Did you give him milk?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? He had really bad diarrhea when I brought him home yesterday.”

“Let me check his card . . . ok, no, it doesn’t say he had milk.”

agghhhhh I wanted to run screaming from the building. “I brought milk for him to drink while he was here. Regular milk makes him sick.”

“Oh, well, we’ll make sure no one gives him any then.”

This happened a couple of times and then we didn’t go back. (This is a whole other story, please don’t judge me! I would never under normal conditions ever take my child to a day care, but life happens while making other plans . . .)

I now have two younger children, who didn’t get cavities and were never sick until this last year. We moved to an area where we were not near a raw milk dairy and I continued to get milk from a nearby farm on a tip from a friend, but their cow dried up and so we were left again without a source of milk. After a year, Zee ended up with 5 cavities, and Bee 1 serious cavity that I could see a black hole in her tooth. I was starting to notice that my teeth were very sensitive and I had a sore place on one of my eye teeth. I started searching for a raw milk source again.

After 1 week I noticed a difference in my teeth, and the one really sensitive spot is now gone. Why would I drink raw milk and give it to my children? Because I have seen first hand the difference it makes. But if you want stats and figures, you should read Top 10 Reasons to Drink Raw Milk by Cheeseslave. If I can’t convince you, maybe she can.

The problem is that we have been so inundated with information from the media and what I call the ‘pop heath’ culture of America that it can be very confusing to try to eat healthy. For example, why is it that when you cut all of the salt and fat, and follow that elaborately crafted food pyramid, that all you want to do is go find something that is chock full of fat? The next thing you know, you find yourself coming out of the drive through with a super-sized double bacon cheeseburger and a giant chocolate malt with a huge pile of greasy fries, or sitting in the middle of a pile of chocolate wrappers, holding an empty giant-sized bag from Costco, thinking “Did I really eat all of those?” So the next day, you go on a rampage to get rid of all the junk food in your cupboards, and you replace them with all of those ‘healthy’ no fat, no sugar junk foods that you can find at your local heath food store. And then you find that you still manage to eat a whole bag all at once, and you feel all bloated and after a week you have gained at least 5 pounds. So you decide that you are really going to start being ‘good’ and you apply the stringent self discipline of a monk. After forgoing fat for a while, you may find that you itch all the time, and you start finding more of your hair in the brush, shower drain, laundry;  and your energy levels drop and you can’t seem to get enough sleep. You are yelling at your husband, your kids, your dog, AND inanimate objects, you’re having fits of road rage, and pulling even more of your hair out.

So then you try the no/low carb diet, and replace your ‘artery hardening’ butter with a margarine spread, start drinking low-fat skim milk instead of diet soda, and you lose the weight you gained eating diet snacks, but you find that you are having insatiable cravings for sugar.

The next step is to go to the doctor, because there really must be something seriously wrong with you. . . after all, the healthy diet just isn’t working and you are pretty sure they work for everyone else, because you saw the before and after pictures in Woman’s Day. He takes one look at your lab results and says, “You’re fine. Just get more exercise and lose some weight,” in a very condescending tone, (how hard can it really be?) and he looks at you like you are some kind of deranged hypochondriac wasting the time he could be spending with ‘real’ patients. You look at him and you are pretty sure he has never had a weight problem, or any other kind of real health problem in his life, so how can he possibly understand yours? And geez, they guy just gave you a breast exam, so you go home and ball your eyes out, and when your husband asks what the doctor said, you wail, “He said I was fine!”

Eventually you figure out that all of these popular health fads that you read about in Prevention or Woman’s Health don’t ever offer any real lasting diets that can offer you permanent solutions and that your doctor can’t and/or won’t do a single thing for you. They rarely know anything about nutrition other than what is in the food pyramid, and you already know everything about that because you learned about it every year throughout your entire public school career, starting with preschool, and then again in college health class.

So, do you give up? Or do you practice insanity by trying to do the same thing over and over and expect different results? Of course we all practice insanity . . . what else can we do?

There comes a point where we either accept that there is nothing we can do about it, and we endure our poor health (even though the doctor says we are perfectly fine) and we live life dragging our bodies from one day to the next, and we start taking medications for this that and the other because the doctor advised it, OR we do something different.

So, if there is nothing else that can be done, what can you do? WHAT IF THEY ARE ALL WRONG?

This is the question that you ask right before you experience paradigm shift.

You suddenly realize that all those diets you have read about that have nifty menus like 1 scrambled egg white, a half a piece of toast with a quarter teaspoon of buttery flavored canola spread, and 1/2 of a grapefruit for breakfast, with all of these new unfamiliar recipes, DO NOT WORK! (at least not for most people.) And they especially don’t work if you have a husband and kids. Unless you want to fix six meals a day instead of three.

Almost EVERYTHING that I thought I knew about healthy lifestyle was wrong, and I’ll tell you why. It is because all of the pop health propaganda is influenced either by big pharmaceutical companies or the food industry. These corporations only care about one thing, and that is NOT your health.

“So, what are you? Some kind of anti-capitalist conspiracy theorist now?” you may ask.

My answer to that is no, but that’s a whole other blog entry. Just think about this for a minute — and use some common sense. Big Pharma does not make any money if you are healthy, they only make money if you are sick. Food companies do not make money on natural, healthy foods, because they can’t sell them fast enough to prevent spoilage from cutting into their profits.

So, what can you do? Do you have to make drastic changes like becoming a raw vegan? My answer to that is also NO. In fact I don’t recommend that at all.

So what do I recommend? Well, take a seat because this is where it starts sounding really crazy. If you have just gotten off the merry go round, this is really going to twist your Twinkie. Stop eating margarine and  ‘heart healthy’ processed vegetable oils. Replace those with cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil, butter, lard, and beef fat from healthy animals. Replace your white sandwich bread with organic stone ground whole wheat bread (watch for the fake brown bread with caramel coloring.)  Cut out processed foods, white flour, high fructose corn syrup, pasteurized milk products, and refined sugars. Stop buying cold breakfast cereal and start reading labels.

Now before you say “I thought that there weren’t going to be any drastic changes,” take a deep breath and read on.

One universal truth that our parents have taught us is that we are what we eat, and if you are going to be healthy, we need to eat healthy foods. Your grocery list will still look about the same as it did before, but you will change out your ingredients for higher quality ones. You MUST read labels. You have to switch from processed flour to whole grain flour. Buy another brand of peanut butter that doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. Switch to whole grain pasta, buy fresh or frozen vegetables instead of canned ones. Buy fresh organic food whenever possible. Find out where your local farmers markets are – these are the best places to buy organic produce. Find a local dairy that sells fresh unprocessed raw milk.

“RAW MILK?! are you CRAZY?” You might say this, but remember that we have been lied to by the food industry. We have been taught to be afraid of wholesome natural foods. Be smart about it, sure. I mean don’t buy from a farm you have not visited in person and seen for yourself the condition and state of health that the cows are in. Ask the farmer what he feeds his animals. And, if you can’t handle the idea of raw dairy products, forgo dairy altogether. (Look for a future post to explain the benefits of raw milk and how to choose a good raw dairy.)

The best part about this is that for the most part, you can use your old recipes! You can have your comfort food, and maybe you won’t get skinny like Angelina Jolie, but you will start feeling better. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Upcoming Posts: Why Would Anyone Drink Raw Milk? and 5 Easy Changes for a Healthier Life

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A Pink Baloon Arch marked the starting point for the 5k

One of the Bikers Who Were Helping With Crowd Control

A Group of Walkers Dressed Up for the Cause

Geeks for a Cure

C@nc3r D03$ N0t C0mPut3

Sorry LInda, They Wouldn't Let us Run Naked

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