The Top Ten Posts of 2021

I have to say, there is absolutely no way I anticipated to be writing this blog for this long.  I didn’t think there was so much to learn, and I didn’t think there’d be that many other people interested in what I had to share.  I really only thought this would be for my children, maybe some extended family, and a few friends.  The number of readers, about 1000 per day, is 50% higher than it was at the beginning of 2021, and double what it was two years ago. 

The trend on what is most popular is gradually changing as well.  During the first 18 months, medical articles were more popular.  In the past year and a half, posts on food storage have gained the advantage.  I found that a little surprising, but maybe seeing empty shelves at the grocery store has had an unsettling effect on people and driven home the need to store food and store it properly. 

Some articles are repeats.  Sundays have always been repeats—I need a day of rest, too.  But as gardening season began last year, I just couldn’t write a new article every day.  Growing food in an area with absolutely rotten soil that needed to be replaced takes a lot of time.  I hated having to run repeats during the week, but I came to realize that we all need reminders.  So I decided the repeats were acceptable and I didn’t need to beat myself up over the issue. 

Unsurprisingly, the most read medical articles center around antibiotics.  Food articles gaining in popularity now concern the growing of food and storage of fresh food as much as long-term storage.  It seems people are waking up to the idea that grocery stores may not always have what they want on hand. 

So below are the top ten most popular articles that your fellow preppers who read this blog found most interesting.  If you haven't read them yet, go ahead and check them out.  And share them, if you are so blessed to have like-minded friends and family.  The more we all prepare, the better off we'll be. 

10.  Best-By Dates:  What Those Numbers Stamped on Cans and Packages Really Mean  

9.  Rationing:  Are You Ready?  

8.  Which Antibiotic Do I Store?  

7.  Preparing the Refrigerator When You Anticipate the Possibility of Power Outages

6.  Pneumonic Plague—Are You Ready?  

5.  Four Ways to Maximize the Shelf Life of Cooking Oils  

4.  Learning from History:  Lessons of Past Societal Upheavals  

3.  Amounts of Various Foods That Buckets Will Hold and How to Store Them  

2.  Stealth Gardening—Hiding Your Vegetable Garden in Plain Sight

1.  Antibiotic Chart to Guide Acquisition 

2021 brought changes to our nation that even those whose tin foil hats are tightest couldn’t have imagined.  Families that appeared to be so solid are dividing over the issue of the COVID vaccine, whether it is right to force people to be vaccinated.  God-given rights are being systematically stripped away.  Russia and China seem to be well-poised to take advantage of unprecedented ineptitude and corruption everywhere in the US.  I suspect they’re behind many of the recent hacking attacks.  We’re at war, most of our fellow Americans just don’t recognize it. 

How much different will 2022 look?

Links to related posts:

Top Ten Posts of 2020  

Top Ten Posts of 2019

 

Leaving the Armchair Prepper Behind

One of the greatest concerns I have as I prepare for future challenges is being able to implement what I have “learned.”  My recall isn’t what it used to be.  I write things down to help me learn, and I can remember having studied and written on a subject so that I can find the article and refresh my memory.

However, whenever I “do” something that I have written or read about, I not only remember it better, I add it to my database of skills.  It is the same for all of us, and I fear that too many are not taking the time to practice new skills now.  It’s time to leave the armchair prepper in all of us behind. 

Of course, some things can’t be tried out now.  No one wants to get injured just so we can practice wound cleaning, bandaging, or suturing skills in real life.  Those have to be practiced without the actual injuries, but it just isn’t the same. 

Fortunately, much newfound knowledge can be applied before disaster strikes.  I feel so blessed for the opportunity writing this blog gives me to actually practice things now.  And while I am grateful each day for each new bit of knowledge, the following topics made my top ten list of favorites for various reasons that I will share below.  Only one of them actually made the top ten list of most read articles this year. 

My favorite articles of 2021:

10.  Reusing Exam Gloves.  This decidedly unexciting topic made the list because I have not been able to find any boxes of exam gloves in stores this year.  Because we have a generous supply here, I don’t know that I would have purchased any, but I don’t like the idea of not seeing them in stores.  To be fair, we only had two or three trips to Sam’s this year, so maybe we just hit them at the wrong time.  I avoid Walmart like the plague, but it’s possible that gloves are in stock there.  At any rate, it’s comforting to know that in dire straits, exam gloves can be washed and reused to some extent.

9.  Water Pie was my favorite of the several Depression-era recipes I tried for the first time this year.  I loved the intriguing name, the fact that it involved only basic ingredients, and it tasted like a sugar cookie.  And the family all liked it, too.  I’ve been trying to be more open towards Depression-era cooking.

8.  Nasturtiums protected much of my broccoli and cabbage from cabbage butterflies this year.  I loved learning and implementing that tidbit of knowledge. 

7.  The Rabbit Effect reminded me that some of the most important preventative medicine lies in caring family relationships.  And I need to express that better to my family and friends.

6.  DIY Soil Tests were an interesting science experiment we performed on our really poor soil.  They’re just as easy as the store-bought tests and every bit as accurate. 

5.  Nursemaid’s Elbow as one of my favorite topics is raising your eyebrows, I’m sure.  However, my daughter-in-law called while I was out grocery shopping last month.  Buttercup had been playing on the floor with eight-month-old Sweet Pea and gently pulling her to a stand.  Then Buttercup heard a loud “pop” and Sweet Pea started wailing.  It had been about 15 minutes and Sweet Pea was refusing to use her arm.  Buttercup was starting to freak out.  I told her exactly what had happened, that it was called nursemaid’s elbow, and that we could pop it back into place (even though I was pretty sure she’d want to go to urgent care).    I also told her what the doctor would do and that Sweet Pea would cry briefly, but then all would be well.  The doctor there “wasn’t quite sure” it was nursemaid’s elbow, so of course he needed an x-ray.  And then after the x-ray ($$$) he popped it back into place. 

4.  The Medicinal Uses of Elder.  I loved learning about the medicinal uses of this plant, and especially love that the leaves are more medicinal than the berries.  I planted four in our yard this past summer.  I also learned that the deer are illiterate.  The labels on these shrubs clearly indicate that elder bushes are deer-resistant.  So I had to drape netting over the branches after freezing temperatures hit and the motion-activated sprinklers couldn’t be used anymore. 

3.  The Medicinal Uses of Isatis.  While I didn’t get to harvest any of the roots and leaves this year, I did collect the seeds and scattered them in the front along the driveway where the soil is poor and the sun abundant (their favorite place to grow).  This coming summer we should have an abundant harvest.

2.  Zoodles became an instant favorite around here.  Whereas 2-3 zucchini plants were previously more than enough for the family, now I’m thinking we’ll require about 25 to satisfy our needs for zucchini noodles this year.  And I’m trying to figure out the best way to get a jump start on at least one plant, something I never considered in the past.  It’s a good thing zucchini plants are a beautiful addition to the yard.

1.  Stealth Gardening is actually the only article in my personal top ten list that made the list of most read articles for 2021, coming in at #2.  We filled the entire back yard with vegetables, medicinal shrubs, edible and medicinal flowers, a couple of fruit trees, as well as structures and some strictly ornamental flowers to aid in the camouflage.  It was beautiful and I’d say entirely successful.  The few visitors we had saw only the flowers and didn’t recognize the vegetables growing everywhere. 

I hope you’ll consider reading some of the articles you might have missed and trying a few ideas out in order to get better prepared.  The world situation isn’t looking all that good and our window for preparing is closing.  It’s time to leave the armchair prepper behind.

17 march 2024

Benadryl for Treating COVID?

Realizing that there are so many people in power who truly want to kill a large proportion of the population is a hard pill for many of us to swallow.  And yet, the news reports and evidence from around the globe cannot justify any other conclusion. 

Ivermectin has been shown in countless cases of COVID worldwide to significantly improve recovery and reduce mortality.  It’s extremely safe and effective.  It’s also very inexpensive, and thus Big Pharma won’t make any money if people use it instead of their costly drug cocktails and vaccines.  Because ivermectin is so inexpensive and widely available, it has been used in those countries that simply cannot afford the pharmaceutical industries’ financially prohibitive options.  And it works.  Their people don’t die, assuming they begin treatment quickly enough. 

Naturally, that makes ivermectin a threat to Big Pharma, and so we have the US FDA and CDC warning against its use to treat COVID.  Even though it is perfectly legal for physicians to use medications approved for human use in the off-label treatment of other medical conditions, in some areas doctors are threatened with losing their licenses if they treat their patients with ivermectin.  Some pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for it.  And though ivermectin can be purchased from overseas pharmacies, US Customs and the FDA are apparently working to stop that.  While inspecting every package from the overseas pharmacies probably isn’t going to happen yet, it’s something our nanny state would surely like to be able to do.

This all makes some interesting research published last month even more welcome.  Immunologists at the University of Florida, David Ostrov and his colleagues were searching for alternative treatments for COVID among existing substances with a long history of safety.  And they found what may be a match made in heaven.

Benadryl, regular OTC Benadryl, inhibits COVID virus replication by 30%.  It costs about 1-2 cents per tablet when purchased in those large bottles.  Lactoferrin also inhibits COVID virus replication by about 30%.  Lactoferrin is a little pricey on Amazon.  It seems like something that would be carried in health food stores, but I don’t have any around me to verify that idea, and the little vitamin and supplement section of my grocery store definitely didn’t have it.  However, there’s a much easier source for it—cow’s milk.  (Sorry, it’s not in soy milk, almond milk, or any of those other plant-based “milks.”)  One quart of cow’s milk contains about 150 mg of lactoferrin.  Benadryl and lactoferrin combined reduce COVID virus replication by 99.97%, making it more effective than remdesivir.  Sounds like a winning combination to me.

Unfortunately, these are just laboratory results.  No clinical trials in people have yet been conducted.  Hopefully they will be forthcoming.  As far as dosages go, the article only indicates that Benadryl was used in “therapeutically relevant concentrations”.  Lactoferrin was used in a concentration of 400 mcg/ml (that’s micrograms per milliliter, just so there’s no confusion), and according to Wikipedia, there are 150 milligrams of lactoferrin in a liter of cow’s milk.  If I have done my math correctly (and I’m not convinced of that—it’s still early), I think that’s a little less than three liters of milk.  That might be a bit much to drink.  Lactoferrin can also be purchased as a supplement, at a cost of about 60 cents per capsule.  It seems expensive, but it’s cheaper than drinking that much milk, not to mention lower in calories. 

If the jab and Big Pharma’s solutions fail you, and ivermectin and the additional recommended supplements are unavailable, some combination of Benadryl and lactoferrin or milk may do the trick.  Of course, as with everything on this blog, you should consult a licensed physician before doing anything more than applying a band-aid.  If and when I see any further research on this topic, I’ll be sure to post it.  In the meantime, be sure you’re stocked up on Benadryl.  And if you think this treatment may have merit in treating COVID, you may wish to consider purchasing some lactoferrin as well.

Links to related posts:

Ivermectin for Parasites  

COVID Treatment Protocols

Alternative Uses of Benadryl  

References:

https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2021/12/interesting-old-is-new-again-covid-19.html

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/10/11/1514

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19

https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/pdf/CDC_HAN_449.pdf

https://uncoverdc.com/2021/12/13/fda-works-with-usps-to-hold-packages-containing-ivermectin/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactoferrin#Antiviral_activity

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1793702/pdf/archdisch00638-0105.pdf