12 March 2013

Sovereign Silver Part II

Okay, after a ton of sleep (and Sabrina The Teenage Witch) yesterday afternoon and last night, I feel doubleplusgood.

I know sleep is an integral part of the body's healing process, but I also think the Sovereign Silver nasal spray had something to do with it as well.  I had been masking my symptoms with cold medicine all weekend, which did me no good and I kept feeling worse.

I used the nasal spray 5 times yesterday (7 times is the recommended for short term immune support - being sick).  By the time I went back to bed last night (I spent most of the day in bed), I was able to breathe through both nostrils and the crud was making its way out of my body.

I had been trying desperately to netti pot for days with no real luck getting anything through.  Well, it started moving yesterday evening after 2 doses of Sovereign Silver.  By the late evening the crud was no longer chartreuse, it was only a pale green.

This morning when I woke up, I could actually breathe.  Through both nostrils. I didn't wake up all night long due to congestion.  I felt well enough to go put some seeds in the ground (only some chard seeds this morning) while walking the dog.

Oh by the way, I did another round of Lavender essential oil/cotton in my ears when I went to bed.  My ears do NOT hurt at all today.

Seriously, I feel doubleplusgood today.

I'll keep track of how I feel for the rest of the week.  Sovereign Silver may be worth adding to my usual arsenal of immune builders that includes ferments, cod liver oil, coconut oil and honey.

11 March 2013

Sovereign Silver

I don't get sick often, but I have been fighting something off for more than a week.  I have to say over the weekend, I lost the fight.  Hard.

I had been feeling under the weather (mostly congested) for about a week and then over the weekend the congestion increased even more and spread to my chest.  When I was first feeling ill, everything was still clear... over the weekend it turned green.  I had homework to complete and worked diligently through the weekend even though I was exhausted, cranky and just didn't feel good.

This morning I woke up with a wicked ear ache. I'll suck it up most of the time when I'm sick, but when my ears hurt, I am a baby.  I did some looking around online and found some herbal/natural earache remedies.  I didn't want to take the time to infuse olive oil with garlic or place half a clove of garlic in each ear (there were also some smelly onion based remedies as well).

I finally found a suggestion of putting a few drops of essential oil on cotton and placing that in your ears.  I used lavender (still pungent but not quite garlic).  I put the cotton in my ears, put on a hat to cover my ears and went to work..

I have to say that my ears hurt slightly less by the time I got to work, but overall I was feeling entirely worse.

I left work to go home and rest, but first I made a stop to the vitamin shop in Redwood City.  I picked up some Sovereign Silver nasal spray.


I've heard good things about colloidal silver, especially when it comes to fighting infection, in the natural health circle.  Sovereign Silver is a silver hydrosol.  Here is what their website has to say about it:

"A Bio-Active Silver Hydrosol™, such as Sovereign Silver or Argentyn 23, represents the ultimate refinement and purity of the colloidal silver category. It is the suspension of a high content (96%) of ultra-fine, positively charged silver ions (Ag+) in only pharmaceutical-grade purified water. This is not to be confused with ionic silver, an inferior form of neutral silver/silver salt that is in solution (dissolved), rather than in colloidal suspension. The positively charged silver ions (cations) in a Bio-Active Silver Hydrosol™ remain in suspension, maintaining their fully active state for use within the body."

A dose is 20 sprays for an adult up to 7 times a day depending on your needs. Here's the dosing schedule:
20 sprays x 7 times a day for short term immune support (when you are sick)
20 sprays x 5 times a day for long term immune support (long term stress on immune system)
20 sprays x 3 times a day for immune building (when you are surrounded by sick people)
20 sprays x 1 time a day for maintenance (otherwise healthy)

I took the first 20 sprays in the car before I left Redwood City.  

It started to feel like I was getting some of the crud moving, but I just assumed it was because I sprayed a liquid up my nose.  

I came home, made some tea and went to bed still feeling awful.  After an hour or two, I got up to use my netti pot (which really hadn't moved much mucous in the last few days).  The crud started breaking free.  

I used another dose of the Sovereign Silver spray and went back to bed. I've spent the entire afternoon/evening in bed, which I detest.  

I have to say that by about 8 p.m. I am breathing a bit better, the mucous is a far less toxic shade of green and my ears hurt far less than they did this morning.  

I'm not sure if it's placebo effect or what, but I definitely feel better than I did when I got up this morning and when I got home from work this afternoon. 

10 March 2013

The plot thickens

The other day we spent a bit of time in the garden (we being Justin, Pi and I).

This was my space on Sunday after it was assigned.
I finished weeding for the most part (those clovers are hard to get rid of!) and pulled the old kale plants.

Speedy's Hardware is just around the corner so I sent Justin over for some Black Gold to amend the soil.  Justin surprised me with a cute little gardening bag and some new pruners.  Pi was overly excited about being in the garden and ran laps for a bit.

Here's Pi sitting like a nice girl while I weed. 
I must have missed the tool shed code during the meeting, but Justin made do with a T post to till the soil and mix in the Black Gold.
Doin' work! 
I still haven't planned out my plants, but we got some weeding done and added some nourishment to the soil.  I also took some coffee grounds to the plot as well (I've got some vinegar-y Kombucha that may be headed over there too).

Speaking of nourishment, I've started a hydroponic garden at work with the kids. I'm having them chart the progress of Tomato and Purple Tomatillo seeds.  We'll be allowing them to grow large enough to transplant and hopefully start a small garden in the back courtyard.  In another week or two, we'll start some lettuce and spinach seeds as well.  I think the kids may be of more interest than the tomatoes/tomatillos because they take off a lot faster.  I do have the kids asking to observe and take notes each day. It's so exciting to me that they are getting interested in our "garden" and they are learning to track data.

I'm testing out Smart Gardener and a few of the add ons.  The overall website is free to use to plan your garden (or gardens if you are lucky enough).  It can recommend plants based on plot size, location, personal preference and the like.

I got a SUPER shady plot and Smart Gardener doesn't do recommendations in the free version for shade. Since my plot is SO shady, I thought it was worth it to add on the "Smart Shade" bundle for $1.99.  I've been a bit on the busy side with school and work this week, so I haven't been able to play with it as I would like (and I've been under the weather for the last week), but it did make noticeable changes to recommendations based on the shade factor.

The other add on I purchased was the "Smart Squares" for $4.99.  Smart Squares allows you to plan for square foot gardening by calculating using the square foot method.  You can also choose between spacing methods when you add a new plant (square foot v. standard).

I've got to start doing a bit of planting.  We've (well, Justin) turned the soil and pulled the clovers.  The lemon tree looks lovely (but has no lemons).  Based on the shade, I know I don't have a ton of options.  But really, I just like to play in the dirt.

03 March 2013

I've got dirt!

I'm so excited.  Today I was assigned a plot in the community garden at Victoria Manalo Draves Park!

This is a park about 1/2 a block away from us.  We take Pi there every day to play.  There had been no changes to the bulletin boards for a couple of years (I think the last postings were from early 2011), but I always would check to find out where to sign up for the waiting list or who to contact to find out how long the list was.

Most of the community gardens in San Francisco have wait lists that are several YEARS!  So when there was finally some updated contact information on the bulletin board in January, I practically ran home to email.

When I got an email saying there were 6 plots opening up (and there were only 5 people on the email list), I was practically jumping for joy.

We had our first garden meeting this morning.  It was a good chance to meet some new people with common interests in the neighborhood.

Here is my plot.  It's pretty shady, but I have
a lemon tree!  
I am a bit under the weather and I had a horrendous amount of homework to finish today, but I allowed myself 2 hours at the garden including the meeting.  I did some weeding (okay, a LOT of weeding).  There were a couple of kale plants in that jungle and I even ended up pulling a few tiny carrots out of the ground.

Here I am with Pi and my plot
(only a bit more clover to pull out!)
So at the moment I'm not entirely sure what I'll be planting. I have to do some research, I think this garden has even more shade than my last garden.  I know that greens will do well, so kale and chard are a must (and I eat a lot of both!).

I'm going to try out using www.smartgardener.com to plan my garden.  I haven't reintroduced any nightshades to my diet, so a lot of things I normally grow are out (peppers, eggplant, etc.) plus we don't have much of a hot growing season here.  It's basically cool aside from a few weeks in July and August here.  I have to say, based upon the recommended plants, I'll be growing greens and lettuce.  Lots of greens and lettuce.

I just found some add ons to Smart Gardener that I am going to try out.  They are the Smart Squares and Smart Shade.  My garden is only about 8x3 and is in the shade most of the time.  I think these would be worthwhile add ons to try out.

I'll admit though, my excitement isn't because I think I'm going to have loads of veggies or fruits.  It's more because it's a ray of sunshine and nature in this grungy place. It felt awesome to be outside, in the sunshine and getting dirty (actual dirt not all the other stuff that makes this city dirty).  It was nice to be with people who feel the same way.  I've never really had a substantial harvest of anything in all the years of gardening, but I love to do it.

And Pi is going to love basking in the garden while I work.  It's fenced in and there is plenty of room on the opposite side of the garden that gets sun for her to enjoy.