The Blawg

August 16th, 2025

I guess I'll just use the main page as a journal page for now until I sort out
coding in a "blog" section for myself or whatever I'm gonna call it.
Today was a decent day, slept in til 9-ish. Went out and took the dog for a swi
-m and a walk. It takes forever to drive out to nature around
here. It's always been my gripe with this city. But then again that's because
I've been a country rat my whole damn life and I'm still not used to this after
four years of being here. Anyways, God (dog) had a good time. He ran all over t
-he place and tromped around in the water. While we were there I was able to sc
-ore some jewelweed that was already kind of wilted. I had been planning on mak
-ing a salve for a week now because, get this, I got poison ivy for the first
time in my life finally! It wasn't really all that bad, just a little patch on
my elbow and a few little bubbles on my right arm. At first I thought maybe it
was just irritation from the stinging nettles I had harvested that weekend but
then it got pretty itchy and stuck around for up until maybe like yesterday-ish
- honestly it's incredible it's taken me this long to get it. I'm constantly in
the woods around the shit. I am the designated poison ivy remover from our
fence at home because I just seemingly am immune. Our neighbor's entire front
yard and some of the back is just straight up a poison ivy field. Understandabl
-y- he just has the vibe of "please god leave me alone" and maybe poison ivy is
just helping a homie out. He's a strange one for sure, but aren't we all. But-
anyways where were we- JEWELWEED.
Fabulous plant. Excellent for treating poison ivy rash and/or preventing when
the shit from forming on you when you know you have the oil on you... now all
this is allegedly true. However, I can't vouch for it cause as we know
never had it til now! Anyways, under the assumption this is true (hmm..)
jewelweed and poison ivy are star crossed lovers in the world- where one is
found, the other can, quite often be found real close by.
"How do you make jewelweed salve?" you ask
Well, let's talk about it a little...let's see, what ingredients do you need...

• Jewelweed plant matter - stems, leaves,flowers, the whole shit. Roots?
  meh maybe not. But the other stuff!
• Carrier oil - I used olive, cause it's what I got!
• Beezwax - approx 2 tbsp(?) per cup of carrier oil
• Optional essential oils... for smeeeeellz!!

1. First step is getting the plant material. Wherever you find the stuff,
   it's generally pretty abundant. Cut the top half off, leave the rest so it
   can continue to create more medicinal magic for the world. Ask before you
   do and say thank you- it's just the thing to do. Don't be an ungrateful
   leech. If you really know what you're doing, cut right above nodes and
   give them the best shot at nice bushy regrowth. They'll probably be good
   either way.
2. Sorry for the wollop of a first step, I know, exhausting. Anyways, so
   next you'll want these guys to wilt down a little bit-if they aren't alread
   -y like mine were (it's sooooooo hot here right now). The reason for this
   is that when we are doing our hot infusion, we don't want a lot of fluid
   (plant water) to get mixed into our oil solution. You know oil and water
   don't mix-and maybe you also know that oil + water +time = mold at some
   point. So we are trying to reduce moisture overall as much as we can here.
3. Third we'll chop up our plant material- again keeping thoughts about
   moisture and mold in mind- with a very sharp knife, so as not to crush the
   cells but slice through them cleanly.
4. Fourth, grab your double boiler (shit I forgot that in the ingredients)
   slap some water in the lower decker of that baby, stick 'er on low and then
   load up the top with your chopped up jewelweed.
5. From there we will take our carrier oil (olive) and pour enough to cove
   -r our jewelweed. We'll let this simmer on low (I mean REALLY low) for 4-6
   hours. The reason for the low temp is that jewelweed, like other plants,
   have compounds that are sensitive to higher temperatures and this is what
   we are trying to preserve in our infusion.
6. Ok so, we've let our stuff do the thing for 4-6 hrs. Hopefully there is
   little to no water in oil infused oil after heating for
   the allotted time. If there is some, we can probably deal with this. Next
   step is to strain out your plant material, leaving the infused oil on it's
   own. Use a fine mesh strainer/cheesecloth/linen bag/whatevah ya got, ya hea
   and dump all that shit out into it over a bowl or some other vessel. After
   cleaning out your double boiler, pour the clean oil back innit.
7. From here, we should be able to deal with the problem of maybe having
   a little bit of plant juice in there... letting the oil keep heating on the
   stove for a few more hours should help it evaporate out if any is in there.
   If you are fluid free- grab your beezwax and dump in a chunk. I had about a
   cup of oil, so I chopped off a 2 tbsp lookin' size hunk off my beeswax chun
   -k. From there, add your beeswax to the oil and give it however long it nee
   -ds to melt.
8. I should mention that at this point I've already dumped in copious amts
   of lavender essential oil, because, why not? Also, smells! Also, I think my
   oil got a little too hot and smells extra plant olive-y...so let's just
   cover all that right there up with some smells. Make sure you use quality
   essential oil. Don't get crap that doesn't belong on your skin... yea yea
   you know, just making sure. Anyways, add to your hearts desire, but you don
   -'t really need to go too overboard with it either.
9. Ok, we're almost there. At this point everything should be given a nice
   little stir, to make sure everything is homogenized and all that. This is
   where a nice little glass stirrer like from in the lab in college comes in
   use. Do you know the fun ting about being an adult? You can buy lab equipm
   -ent if you want! It makes all this stuff a little easier, but also, fancy.
   I think it's worth checking out thrift stores for the stuff too though-glas
   -s does not need to be new.
10. Ladle the shit out into tins or whatever container you plan on storing
    it in. Let cool in peace and it should harden up a bit assuming you put the
    right amount of beezwax in it. Voila. You did it ! Or really, I did it. My
    ankles are kind of itchy.... hopefully.... not more from our walk today...
    

August 23rd, 2025

Decent weekend. Switched the bedroom and the sewing studio around so now I get
to wake up to the sun rising on the east side of the house. Sounds silly but getti
-ng to watch the sun rise is always such a profound experience- it was cool just
to roll up to sitting and see it peeking up there over the roof of the neighbor's
house. The city. So many roofs. I may still be in this godforsaken place but at
least I still get to see the sun come up over close to a horizon.
I opened up the ginger beer for dinner tonight. My whole head is warm from it. So
gingery. I feel a little dopey. Ok night night.