found in meadows: RED CLOVER

I spent the morning in meadows, grateful, picking red clover flowers.

Trifolium pratense

According to wikipedia), in Latin, pratense means "found in meadows."

And it's true!red clover

On the last day of June, I drove out to a friend's farm here in central Kentucky. There are a few old horse pasture fields where now chicory, clover, daisies, thistle, poison ivy, etc. grow.

old tobacco/horse barn & daisies

Red clover is the first flower I ever harvested at herb pharm, and for that I feel a special connection to it. It's a warm, nourishing herb, and a delicious tea. I like it for menstrual cramps (sometimes with a shot of brandy) and Rosemary Gladstar says it's an 'excellent detoxifier or blood purifier,' and is used also for respiratory problems. It's a very strong, feminine herb, and the bees like it too.

Another thing I like about red clover is that it grows everywhere. Good medicine from the good earth! It's easy to find, especially on farms and in pastures. On my friend's organic farm there was so much I was able to easily follow overharvesting wildcrafting guidelines and leave plenty for the earth. I mostly stayed away from tractor paths, too.

inspired by m. blankets' 'harvesting apron' and my wildwoman ancestors
who have for eons gathered flowers in their skirts as they roamed

I also had for company Luna who has taught me how to live with abandon, leap through fields, follow my nose, and smile into the wind.

luna: LA LOBA

The days have been hot, and since I'm still sojourning and don't have my own herb shed [yet!], the best place to dry these flowers, I figured, was my car.

north lexington's favorite place to dry herbs

And then we'll have tea.

M. Bankets vs Staph

So this story is kind of gross, but if you push through, there's a happy ending.

There is a show space here in Columbus that is practically a superfund sight (really really dirty and nasty). My boyfriend returned home one night from said space with a medium sized gash on the front of his leg close to the ankle. Being a terrible herbalist, and also drunk, I didn't clean it out or anything. One night later he got a fever. We took his temperature at 101. I remember something about fevers being the bodys way of trying to fight infection. Most herbalists ive talked to are against suppressing fevers unless the person with one is a baby or an old sick person. Instead a lot of people talk about helping the fever untill it breaks itself. this sounded like a good idea to us because his ankle was clearly infected and that was the only reason we could figure for a random fever. I know yarrow is good for this but i didnt have any so we used wild ginger. a dropper full in some water. a half hour later his fever was 102! I dont know if the ginger did it, but i like to think so.
The next morning he woke up totally fine but said to me " i had this really weird zit on my foot this morning" Hmm.. thats funny I dont think ive ever had a zit on my foot. The "zit" was about three inches away from the original wound which was looking really really bad. I've had staph before and knew right away thats what it was. We started spraying goldenseal on the wounds and i had him take it internally 4 X's a day. We also tried using lemmongrass essential oil topically and internally (just one drop in some water) because we had some stuff in our notes about that being the best essential oil for staph but about 5 days after starting the lemmon grass he overdosed on (just felt sick and somehow knew it was the lemmongrass) so we stopped taking it internally and just stuck with golden seal and oregon grape. We also cleaned it as much as possible.
its a week and a couple days now and that shit's almost gone! I'm sure antibiotics would have done the trick a little sooner but staph cant become immune to herbs because every batch of herbal medicine has tons of variables that make it diffrent everytime whereas pharmacuticals are chemical identical batch to batch so the virus can "figure them out".
If i had it to do over i think i would have not sprayed tincture directly on the wound because alchohol kills healthy tissue too, maybe instead burned out the booze or put it in a little water.
Can anyone remember what the deal with activated charcoal and staph was? i didnt have it in my notes but remember Tyler talking about it.
now if only i could figure this cough i have out...

Lets hear about other peoples herbal triumphs!