RJ Homestead

Let me first apologize, we’re bad bloggers. When stuff happens in life, my first thought is not to grab my camera and document it. We’re learning, and after the fact, we were like, we should post about this. So apologizes for the lack of pictures during this saga, it just wasn’t the first thing I thought of.

So, with that said, about a week and half ago, maybe closer to two, I was chopping the firewood for the upcoming season, and in the freakish of accidents, which I’m still not sure how it happened, a branch on a log punctured my forearm. It snapped back and hit, hard enough, that the end of it broke off with about a half inch sticking out of my arm and a quarter inch in. My initial reaction, I tried to pull it out, thinking it was no more then a crazy splinter. It would not budge.

I went inside, got my wife, and a pair of needle nose pliers and had her try to pull it out. And still it would not come out. Long story short, I ended up using a clean razor blade, to cut the skin around the puncture so Rebecca could pull it out. I bandaged the wound, and went and finished the firewood for the day.

The next morning, my arm was extremely red and sore. Pushing on my forearm near the wound produced a good bit of infection from the wound site. I began a treatment using a compress, soaked in tinctures of yarrow and oregano. Yarrow helps with the wound healing, and oregano is a powerful antibiotic. So for the next week, I would use the compress every couple of hours, leaving it on for about a half hour to an hour. It would soften the scab, and I could push out the infection. At the same time I was using a tincture of Nasturtium and Echinacea as an oral antibiotic. I would take that about every two to four hours. The redness of my forearm shrunk down from a considerable size to about a half dollar size around the wound.

Now, in hindsight, I probrobly waited too long, but I did that routine for over a week. At the end very little infection was being drained, but I had a couple of spots that had hardened under the skin, near the wound. It was a bit painful to touch and still red. Honestly I was a little nervous about the infection spreading, but I am not one to go to a doctor, and even less so in recent years (*wink *wink*). And I was beginning to think there was still more of the branch embedded in my arm. So I switched my regiment up.

My arm was hurting, nothing was coming out of the wound, and when I got home from work that evening, I grabbed some plantain leaves, went inside and made a poultice. I ground the leaves in my mortar, added a few drops of water, and ground them up good. I asked Rebecca to help and I put the poultice on the wound, and she wrapped it with gauze. The next morning roughly 10 hours later, I removed the plantain. It was dark almost black which is expected (the plantain), and gathered some more and she wrapped my arm with another poultice before I left for work.

About 10 hours later, at my second job, I had a few minutes free, I thought I would check how things were going. I unwrapped the gauze, the plantain was black, and I peeled it off. Now, mind you, I’ve been pushing on this wound for over a week and aside from some infection in the beginning coming out the last 2 days nothing had come out. With the slightest amount of pressure, part of the branch came flying out. I cannot stress this enough, it was crazy how it popped out. It was far enough out, that I pulled it out, and then pushed on the second spot, and another part of the branch flew out. After that it was nothing but blood, and I put a bandage on it.

When I got home, I grabbed some more plantain, and wrapped it again. Just in case. The next morning, I unwrapped it, and nothing. The wound was healing, the redness was gone. I wrapped it again with a plantain poultice before work, and gave it one more go. That night, nothing. The wound is healing, the soreness gone, and no redness. It looks so much better.

So for those that do not know. Yarrow will stop bleeding and help heal wounds. Oregano is a powerful antibiotic, which is why I used both topically. But plantain has an amazing ability to draw things out. It will draw out infections, it will draw out splinters. I have a previous post about plantain, we grow it here in our yard, and next year I’ll have a book about it out. It is truly an amazing herb, and my arm is on the upswing. We missed blogging the progress of this whole ordeal, but still wanted to put something up. God has given us what we need, we just need to remember how to use it. The herbs and “weeds” we have growing around our yard are simply amazing.