Abundance Surrounds Me

Abundance. That is the word that goes through my head every time I am outside in my garden or walking or driving down the roads. We have so much abundance in this part of the world and few of us know how to use it. I have not written for a couple of weeks as I have been making body products with flowers and plants that I gather from my farm and from local meadows. I have been selling my products at the Austin Farmer’s Market, the Blooming Prairie Farmer’s Market, and last week I went to the Owatonna Farmer’s Market. I am having a great time being outdoors and smelling all the wonder scents. I first started out making a healing salve for cuts, abrasions and rashes out of calendula, comfrey, strawberry leaves, plantain and mallow. I infuse the plants in olive oil and then add melted beeswax to make the salve. My brother Tim showed me how to make this salve over ten years ago. I have made it every year and this year I decided to start marketing it. Since I started to make the salve, I have expanded my products and make a calendula face cream and also a cream for the body made with chickweed. Last week I started to gather bergamot flowers as I love the smell of them and I infused them with canola oil and am now making a shaving cream out of them. It smells great. I have been walking around the past 29 years identifying the wild plants in my area and learning their healing products. I have always used them for my family. I continue to be amazed at the pharmacy of plants that is right outside my front door. I have used the wild plants medicinally for my family for years and now I have decided to use this knowledge to make wonderful natural products with the abundance that surrounds me. My house smells wonderful with all the different infused flower mixtures. Since I started to create my body products, I keep thinking of new products to make. It is such fun and the products are so fresh and they work great. I call my new venture, Sheila’s Pasture Herbs.

Today on my list for a new product is I am going to gather sage, bergamot and chamomile flowers to make an aftershave for men and I will mix the plants with vodka and witch hazel.
The other day at the Farmer’s Market in Austin, a woman asked me if there would be anything worthwhile to gather from a meadow that has remained untouched near her parent’s homestead for the past twenty years and if I could name any plants that are possibly there. I didn’t know where to begin, as there is so many different plants to name that are most surely in that meadow that most people don’t know how to use.

My favorite plant right now to use is the lowly chickweed. It grows low to the ground and spreads like a tangled carpet. It has tiny flowers and it tastes like sweet corn when eaten raw. My neighbor uses it to control her fibromyalgia. She takes it in capsules. I am using it to make a cream that diminishes cellulite. It is a light cream with a green tinge that is cooling and absorbs into the skin wham bam. I call my new concoction, Chick Cream. I will see how my new business venture goes. Right now my main problem is trying to figure out the software for making labels for my products. I really believe in what I am doing and Mother Nature and the plants are telling me how to make use of the abundance that is all around me.