Natural Alternatives to Pesticides

Our neighborhood is inundated with salespeople wanting to sell their services, such as yard work, tree removal, burglar alarms, etc. Today a salesman came by selling pesticide services. He said his company used pyrethins (chrysanthemum based) to combat spiders, centipedes, wasps, ants, etc. and the composition of the chemical was in a crystal form so that they could spread the crystals around the homes and around the properties. "It's perfectly safe, non-toxic to pets and wildlife, and it's a green alternative to traditional pest control," he said. Hmmm, I thought, not so much. We had a LONG discussion about the toxicity of pyrethins, and it ended with me asking for his business card so that I could send him info in an e-mail. He then assured me he wouldn't solicit my neighbors on my street so that my organic vegetable and herb gardens wouldn't be exposed to his "non-toxic" chemicals.

As soon as he left, I e-mailed his company asking for the MSDS on their chemicals and got a quick reply attaching the sheet (kudos to them!). They use a form of pyrethin called Bifenthrin, and here's what I found out about that particular chemical: "People may be exposed to bifenthrin through ingestion or skin contact, although dermal absorption has little to no risks beyond mild discomfort. Ingestion is moderately toxic for mammals. Bifenthrin, as with other pyrethroids, overstimulates electrical signals in nerve cells. This may cause tremors and paralysis. However, in the body, bifenthrin is broken down and excreted quickly. In a seven-day study on rats, excess bifenthrin was found accumulated in high-fat tissues, including skin and ovaries of females. The EPA listed bifenthrin as a developmental toxicant in the toxics release inventory(PANNA). The EPA has also identified bifenthrin as a class C carcinogen, meaning that it is a possible human carcinogen (EXTOXNET).

Symptoms associated with exposure to pyrethroid compounds include skin and eye irritation, irritability to sound or touch, abnormal facial sensation, sensation of prickling, tingling, or creeping on skin, numbness, headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, salivation, and fatigue. At very high levels of exposure, muscle twitching and fluid accumulation in the lungs may occur (PANNA)." (source: http://toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Bifenthrin)

I know many people won't be affected by this chemical; however, many more will be, particularly those who have immune issues, chemical sensitivities, the elderly, the young and pregnant women. Also any wildlife and pets will be susceptible. Pyrethins are toxic to aquatic life, water fowl and bees (bees are insects, after all). They can also cause harm in pets - there are numerous web pages from veterinarians giving advice on treating a pet who has been exposed to pyrethin.

I also know that in some areas of the country - the Deep South, for instance - bugs are abundant and can be deadly if allowed to flourish. Here in Virginia we're plagued primarily with spiders and centipedes; spiders eat other bugs and centipedes snack on spiders, so I'm seeing a win/win here! We also have ticks and fleas and all the normal garden pests. But there are non-toxic solutions to treating these pests, y'all!

For ticks and fleas: dust your pets with food-grade diatomaceous earth, and dust pet beds and areas of your home with it, letting it stay for about two-three days before sweeping or vacuuming up. It attacks the exoskeleton of the fleas and ticks and is definitely non-toxic. Instead of spraying yourself with OFF!, spray on some essential oils. The formula is 10:1 or ten parts witch hazel/olive oil to one part essential oils. If you use a sprayer, put in one cup of witch hazel or one cup a combined total of a mixture of witch hazel and olive oil (so good for the skin!) and add 2 to 4 teaspoons of a combined total of the proper essential oil. Here's the list of bugs and the corresponding essential oil to whack 'em out:

Specific Oils for Specific Insects 

ANTS Peppermint, Spearmint
APHIDS Cedarwood ,Hyssop, Peppermint, Spearmint
BEETLES Peppermint, Thyme
CATERPILLARS Spearmint, Peppermint
CHIGGERS Lavender, Lemongrass, Sage, Thyme
CUTWORM Thyme, Sage
FLEAS Peppermint, Lemongrass, Spearmint, Lavender
FLIES Lavender, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sage
GNATS Patchouli ,Spearmint
LICE Cedarwood, Peppermint, Spearmint
MOSQUITOES Lavender, Lemongrass

MOTHS Cedarwood,Hyssop, Lavender, Peppermint, Spearmint
PLANT LICE Peppermint, Spearmint
SLUGS Cedarwood ,Hyssop ,Pine
SNAILS Cedarwood, Pine, Patchouli
SPIDERS Peppermint,Spearmint
TICKS Lavender,Lemongrass, Sage, Thyme
WEEVILS Cedarwood, Patchouli ,Sandalwood

If your home is being invaded by pests, just use the above guide substituting distilled water for the witch hazel and/or oil, and spritz away! Cockroaches are essentially the same as beetles, so use peppermint and thyme for a roach spray. Caution is needed when using especially the mints, citrus, sages and pines:  these can be harmful to pets, so spray in areas that you know your pets can't reach, such as along baseboards (make sure the spray has dried before allowing your pet into the room and don't let him or her lick it!), behind the stove and refrigerator, and so on.

FLEA AND TICK REPELLENT FOR DOGS:

1 cup distilled water

1 teaspoon organic olive oil

5 drops geranium essential oil

2 drops Lemongrass essential oil

5 drops lavender essential oil

Shake well, spritz as needed. This can also be used on cats, but check to see if your cat can tolerate the smell - many cats don't like smelling like a flower!

FLY REPELLENT FOR HORSES:

1 cup distilled water

5 drops geranium essential oil

5 drops lavender essential oil

Here's to a happy, bug-free home and occupants!

Poison Ivy and Whole Body Inflammation Treatment

On April 21 I realized I had an outbreak of poison ivy. But not just a localized outbreak - nope, I got it all over my face, chest, neck, arms and in the waistband-area of my waist. It looked as if I had picked a bundle of poison ivy and buried my nose in it while I held it to my chest. UGH.


What I normally look like:

What I looked like on DAY 2 of the outbreak (don't gasp, y'all!):

my chin, nose and face were swollen out of the proportion, and that's before the blisters really popped up!

my right arm, just a little bit of redness but many itchy bumps


























DAY 3:

blisters are starting to pop out


























my right arm developed HUGE blisters




























DAY 5:

my right arm showing developing and popped blisters, but luckily no secondary infection. I refused to take any more pictures of my face :D






















DAY 12:

healed and healing! Again, no secondary infections


























TODAY, ONE MONTH LATER:

When the itching began, I started taking benadryl. While it helped me sleep for several hours through the night, it certainly didn't take the itch away completely, and I was miserable! So I started research holistic remedies and found an abundance of info on the web, but not everything worked and much of the information conflicted with each other. For instance, I read that never, ever take hot showers or baths when you get poison ivy because it makes the itch and inflammation worse (this was the official medical opinion). Then I read that you should take as hot a bath as you can stand in order to release the poison ivy oil under your skin. I went to a bicyclists' forum on poison ivy, and a doctor stated that yes, indeed, run hot water over the infection in order to get the oil out.


So here's how I handled my infection, and I'm delighted to say that exactly one month later I'm completely healed with just a slight pinkness where the worst blisters were, and those will fade shortly!


1. I took hot HOT baths every single day and soaked in the tub for about an hour each time. When you first step into the bathtub, the itching will be horrendous! It lasts for about one second, but that one second is utterly, blissfully painful. You just have to experience it to understand! I added Celtic Grey sea salt, baking soda, rhassoul clay and lavender, chamomile, patchouli and bergamot essential oils. The salt, soda and clay all draw out toxins/poison, and obviously it worked because I never had a secondary infection.


2. I took benadryl every night to help me sleep and to arrest the itching so that I wouldn't scratch in my sleep. It worked.


3. I had read that rubbing a banana peel on your bumps will alleviate itching and help healing. I did this the first day, but quite frankly I was so completely covered in bumps and the peel method was so sticky mixed with bits of banana and attracted my dogs (ha!) and I had a huge area to cover that I gave it up. For those who have smaller, localized outbreaks, this may be a very good thing to try. For the larger areas? Not so much, but eat a banana every day, anyway - it's chock full of yummy goodness!


4. By day 5 my husband insisted that I go to Urgent Care where the doctor put me on a 12 day prednisone treatment. It reduced the inflammation, and the swelling went down in my face pretty quickly. The doctor was VERY impressed that I didn't have any secondary infections, especially since many of my blisters were huge, and I had open sores. Prednisone is NOT a cure for poison ivy - it simply reduces inflammation, which means that your body isn't overloaded trying to fight the infection.


5. After my bath, I applied a mixture of my organic body lotion and pure honey. (I just signed up for an Etsy account, and I'll have the lotion for sale shortly if anyone is interested.) But I mixed half lotion and half honey and slathered it all over my face and body for the first week. I wore a long nightgown so that I didn't get the mixture all over the bedding, and I slept with a towel on my pillow so that the weeping sores didn't get on the bedding. Yes, you'll be sticky, but honey is an anti-bacterial, antiseptic, anti-fungal miracle agent. It kept me from getting any other infections!


6. During my bath (and I realize this is kind of out of chronological order), I used my skin scrub with a facial sponge. (The scrub will also be for sale on Etsy, and I'll include a sponge :D.) I put a little bit of scrub on the wet sponge and just started scrubbing - it really, really helped keep the poison ivy bumps draining and healing! It also helped tremendously with the itching. And whenever I wasn't soaking and the itching started up again, I'd wet my arm/neck/face/chest and rub it with the dampened sponge. I didn't have to touch the bumps with my hands, which is where a LOT of bacteria likes to hang out, and the sponge won't harm your newly-growing skin.


7. I started taking white willow bark to reduce the inflammation further. And I had a eureka! moment while I was taking it: so many of our chronic health conditions are caused by an underlying inflammation. Heart disease, asthma, arthritis, pain, fever, the auto-immune disorders all have inflammation lying at their core. Aspirin used to be made exclusively from willow bark, but now it's synthetic. From the website http://www.enotes.com/aspirin-reference/aspirin :

"To produce hard aspirin tablets, corn starch and water are added to the active ingredient (acetylsalicylic acid) to serve as both a binding agent and filler, along with a lubricant. Binding agents assist in holding the tablets together; fillers (diluents) give the tablets increased bulk to produce tablets of adequate size. A portion of the lubricant is added during mixing and the rest is added after the tablets are compressed. Lubricant keeps the mixture from sticking to the machinery. Possible lubricants include: hydrogenated vegetable oil, stearic acid, talc, or aluminum stearate. Scientists have performed considerable investigation and research to isolate the most effective lubricant for hard aspirin tablets.

Chewable aspirin tablets contain different diluents, such as mannitol, lactose, sorbitol, sucrose, and inositol, which allow the tablet to dissolve at a faster rate and give the drug a pleasant taste. In addition, flavor agents, such as saccharin, and coloring agents are added to chewable tablets. The colorants currently approved in the United States include: FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Red No.3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, a limited number of D&C colorants, and iron oxides."

I don't know about you, but I really don't need aluminum or GMO corn starch or the artificial sweeteners in my pain medication! The willow bark is culled without hurting the tree, and it's been a life saver! For the last 17 years - since my hysterectomy - I had been in constant neuro-muscular pain, along with suffering from asthma and two auto-immune disorders. While I was taking the prednisone, I realized that I could breathe normally, I didn't have any neuro-muscular pain, and I wasn't getting any headaches. Wait, what??? I've seen neurologists and rheumatologists and asthma/allergy doctors for the last 17 years and not one of them suggested I might have an underlying inflammatory disorder. Not one suggested that the inflammation should be treated, not even with prednisone. Instead they gave me prescriptions for all sorts of medications that treated the symptoms but not the root cause. I had been doing my own research all these years, but since it never clicked that perhaps I had an inflammatory condition that was causing the other conditions, I suffered. So it clicked while I was taking the prednisone for poison ivy of all things!, and I started a two caps twice daily regimen of willow bark. I no longer have pressure headaches - a dull throb at times, but not migraine-level. I can walk without limping. I can get out of bed every morning without feeling as if a truck ran me over during the night. I can freaking breathe! It's truly amazing, and I would recommend this for anyone. The only caution is that you shouldn't take it if you're on blood thinners or certain heart medications. I would urge anyone thinking about taking willow bark on a life-long daily basis to read the contraindications before doing so, and to tell your doctor/dentist you're taking this if they want to prescribe pharmaceuticals or before you go through surgery; willow bark is much like aspirin in that it thins the blood. But the good news is that it thins the blood! Your circulatory system will work better, your cholesterol may go down, you might be preventing a heart attack and stroke if you take it long term, even if you don't have arthritis or asthma or any other inflammatory condition. I still have some pain, but it's minor compared to what I've been experiencing for the last 17 years - eureka!

Australia and Japan

During meditation today I asked Mother Earth to show me what's happening/is going to happen in the near future. I was shown Australia and Japan, with a cliff surrounded by severe thunderstorms. I don't know if this means hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, and/or flooding, but for those of you who live in that part of the world, please make sure your emergency preparations are in order.

A Vision of Fire

Last night I asked my spirit animals to show themselves and take me on a journey, and what a journey we had! We traveled to the Rocky Mountains in much the same way that a movie camera zooms around the landscape via helicopter. We paused on a snow-covered peak, and looked down into a green, lush valley. It was awe-inspiring!


My next vision was one of fire. Much like my earlier vision of the Honduras prison fire, this fire, too, was coastal-resort based. People were swimming in a pool near an ocean. And then the scene changed to a bombing. More fire, more flames shooting into the sky. I'm unsure whether the two are related, and they may in fact be two separate incidences.


Just be cognizant of your surroundings if you're going on vacation or live in coastal area!

Dick Cheney's New Heart

Dick Cheney, the United States' most notorious war lord and purveyor of killing, received a heart transplant today. On Twitter and Facebook posts were not kind, to say the least. All kidding aside re Cheney, as someone who is intimately familiar with Death, I wonder why Cheney even wanted a transplant at the age of 71 (and wonder why he was even considered to be a viable candidate, but that's a medical ethics question for which I'm not qualified to answer). Is he afraid death is a finality? Is he afraid he won't be reincarnated? Does he simply not want to spend a kazillion earth-years in karmic reflection of how he lived this lifetime? Personally, if I live to be 71, I can assure y'all I'll be just as eager to begin my next great adventure in the Otherworld as I am at this age and time ♥

Earthquake Precog

metaphysically felt an earthquake last night (felt others in the last several weeks that came to pass, but since I didn't publicize them, I can't exactly claim prediction). My thought at the time was it will be large and possibly local, or at least US-related. But I don't want another local one, so I'm actively begging mama earth to NOT let us go through that again. As always, stay tuned...

2017 When The Sun Shall Meet The Earth

I was told in dreamtime: "In 2017 the Sun shall meet the Earth." Unfortunately I was awakened by one of my dogs digging at my shoulder before I could absorb what I was shown. After much reflection and meditation and being shown small after-glimpses, I believe I was shown glimpses of massive heat waves sparking fires and all the destruction that will follow should that happen. Time to start preparing ourselves for too much heat, y'all. And it wouldn't hurt to start converting homes over to solar power, either. As to crops, I would suggest learning how to use indoor/attached greenhouse hydroponic systems - at the very least you'll be harvesting organic veggies whether this comes to pass or not.

Explosion on the Beach

About two-three weeks ago I had a vision in which an explosion happened on a white beach. It was deliberately set and happened in the day time with many tourists around. I instantly thought Gulf of Mexico, but it could be any beach location with white sand.


UPDATE: The news today showed the prison fire in Honduras that happened today. The prison was surrounded by whitish-gray sand, the palm trees were similar to what I saw in my vision, and the townspeople were all gathered around watching (like the tourists I saw in the vision). The fire was also deliberately set.

Earthquakes (plural) and why we must be good stewards of the Earth

On Thursday, February 2, 2012, I wrote the following on my FB page: " Mama Earth has been speaking to me LOUDLY for the last two days. This may mean to expect an earthquake in the very near future, possibly a big one. I have the Girls' leashes ready by the door just in case..."

Within the next few hours a 6.9 earthquake struck Vanuatu. I stated that I kept feeling more earthquakes, and for everyone to expect them through the 7-day time period in which my visions for earthquakes usually occur.

On Saturday a 5.7 occurred off of Vancouver Island and a 4.3 in Oregon. On Sunday a 6.8 struck in the Phillipines. And it's only Monday morning - still 3 days to go. I'm not certain if the Phillipines' quake was the last one in the cluster or not, so as always, stay alert, be prepared!


UPDATE: 5.0 in Hokkaido, Japan happened today, February 7. I still think there may be at least one more....


I then stated that I thought the next quake would be in New Zealand, and it happened on February 8, a 5.3.


On Friday, the Earth spoke to me again. Today Costa Rica had a 5.8 quake.

---------------------------------------------------

I read the following statement from the Ecological Internet page: "WHY CARE FOR EARTH?

Because continuing 3 billion years of natural evolution's achievements matter, because Gaia is alive and hurting, because humanity's best may be before us, because of all the miraculous life suffering and being lost through no fault of their own, because to care for what you love is to be fully alive... and the alternative is narcissistic nihilism leading to gruesome mass death for all."

We all know this, right? I've been shown what the future will be like time and again in my visions if we don't stop the genocide against our precious Earth, her plants, her minerals, her creatures, and most especially her sentient beings. If you do nothing else in your life, for pity's sake take a stand against those greedy bastards who think not of Earth but of their own selfish desires. This life ain't about who can out income whom - it's about balancing what we have, what we give back and what we can do to ensure our future generations become good stewards as well ♥ 

A Dream of Murder

Quite a while ago I used to have dreams in which I was a victim of murder. It wasn't "me" - I took the place of the victim. I would fail to get street names or locations or even the names of the victims or murderers. But I would read about the murder a few days later, and it just seemed such an injustice that I couldn't help stop the event before it happened! I stopped having the dreams eventually until this morning, when I was murdered by two female friends and a man who looked an awful lot like Kiefer Sutherland. Again, I personally wasn't the real-life victim and this wasn't about the real-life Kiefer; most visions use symbolism in order to be interpreted. For instance as represented in this vision, the real murderer may have blondish hair or funny ear lobes or has the same voice as the real-life Kiefer or maybe even lives in Los Angeles, and one of the women had red hair. The weapon used looked like a straight razor or maybe some sort of switchblade, and the women were carrying knives. I have no idea if this will help anyone, but if you know of people who match these descriptions and are already leery of them, this may be the reason why.