Over the years…a few things have ACTUALLY helped my dry skin. None of them were lotion. And none of them were given to me by doctors. I have had really itchy dry skin for as long as I can remember, my mother says since I was born. It is EXTREME! Like scare off other kids at the playground kind of extreme. I have prettymuch had scales since the 2nd grade. Now, somedays, my skin would even be considered beautiful…other days, it is a bit dry. I wish someone had shown me these things when I was just a little itchy skinned kid squirting lotion all over arms and watching them turn itchy & angry and red from it.

1. Olive Oil & Raw Cream Combination
The best way to do this is take a hot shower, scrub your skin, get it nice and warm and ruffed up. Get out, dry off. Rub Raw cream into your skin like lotion, rub it in nice and warm. Let your skin drink it…it will probably only take a few minutes.

After it has soaked in, rub a slight layer of olive oil, (unprocessed, REAL cold-pressed, not alcohol extraction if you can get it). Again get it nice and warm with your hands and rub it in. This technique doesn’t do much longterm, but it WILL make your dry skin feel(and look) wonderful for an entire day, providing peace of mind if you’re naked in public, and just plain general relief from the itchiness/pain.

2. Diet
Over time I think this and your circulation have the most to do with having soft, supple, warm, living skin that is fun to BE in, and fun to touch. I am convinced that periodic really fresh alkaline vegetable green juices work some kind of miracle. It can be a bit of work to make the juice, but if you turn it into a routine, it’s just fun and relaxing. I usually make green juice once every 2-3 days, and my favorite times to drink it are at night right before I go to bed, and in the morning right when I wake up.

3. Humidity
I live in Montana. It’s very dry here. I have long since noticed that if I spend a month in a humid place(florida for example), my dry skin definitely seems to have improved and doesn’t bother me as much.

4. Water / What are you feeding your skin?
I have never really liked taking showers…because it makes my skin feel so bad afterward…since I have learned about #1, I can much more readily take showers. But when you run out of raw cream & olive oil…? Well then I try not to take showers. Different water is different for sure. In the summertime here, I ride my bike down to the river and take my baths their. It doesn’t hurt my skin…quite the contrary it feels really nice and rejuvenative. I don’t know for sure what gets into our city’s water supply, but my skin absolutely does not approve of it.

5. Circulation
This is a new one to me. But having good circulation(or getting it) IS a REALLY powerful way to fight back against your dry skin. It was by an accident that I noticed this. I’ve always had rather poor circulation I think, but haven’t paid much attention to it over the years. I had some of this cream called Sombra. It is marketed like a natural alternative to topical pain relief such as biofreez. I started using it on and off around my neck(which gets stiff from working on a computer all day). I really liked how it felt. And the ingridients were surprisingly authentic…whoever ‘designed’ it really knew what they were doing, and implemented a very fine product.

Now…I can be a bit slow at times…and I probably used Sombra around my shoulders for a few months, during which I began to notice radical fluctuations in my skin. Some days it would just look GORGEOUS! There wasn’t even a hint of dry, itchy, flakiness. I was very confused to say the least. And after a really embaressingly long amount of time, I made the correlation. This sombra stuff was really helping my dry skin. More Immediate effects then I’ve ever seen. It made sense right away. It was the circulation. Here…this is whats in Sombra. It really packs quite the ‘punch’!

Camphor 3%
Menthol 3%
Aloe Vera Extract, Capsaicin, Carbomer, Decyl polyglucose, deionized water, grapefruit seed extract, green tea extract, orange peel extract, queen of the prairie extract, rose water, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate, vegetable glycerin, witch hazel, yucca extract.

The Menthol, Camphor, and Capsaicin(the compound that makes peppers HOT) really are quite the trio. Definitely gets your blood boiling!

Okay so also in there are some big old words in there that usually turn me off, but I’ve written it off to the fact that they need it to be somewhat lotionlike in texture and storage. I can accept that, especially when it feels so nice!

This isn’t supposed to be about Sombra, I just get a little excited when I find new things that actually help heal my dry skin. It’s been a long, dry road I must say. But I have made good progress in those 20 years. Hopefully my experiences will lend themselves to some use for someone else now and again.

J

I was talking with my father a few weeks back about population densities. One of the things that always comes to mind when my father and I talk, is how would we survive if the modern infrastructure around us began to seriously crumble?

Over a lifetime of casual discussion, we’ve come to the conclusion that the most immediate danger would not be starvation, it would not be water, it would not be shelter…the most immediate danger would be the fear generated when people begin to realize that there is not an endless supply of these things at hand.

Our discussions invariably arrive at the conclusion that more death will be delivered on the hands of our fear, many times over any caused by famine, drought, disease, and exposure.

I am impressed…I put an advert on craigslist.com a few weeks ago letting people know that I have kefir grains, kombucha mother, and sourdough to give away. Over the next 4 or 5 weeks I have received 20+ phonecalls/emails for people interesting in getting some. A lot of folks from smalltown Montana too, I didn’t mail anything out to you all, my apologies, It takes me months just to send a package to my family….but a fair amount of people here in local Missoula also wanted some culture gems.

I’ve given out kombucha to 10-12 people, and fewer for kefir and sourdough. But I met lots of neat people!

I think I’ve discovered the secret to good kefir. It’s a lot like the secret to good beer. Bottle conditioning. Everyone wants a smooth, thick, and creamy kefir right? Well..the trick is…to mix in your starter or your grains to your fresh(unpasteurized if you can get it) milk and let it sit out for about 12-36 hours depending on the heat. 18 Is a good medium if you don’t know where to start. If you can’t get unpasteurized milk, then just feel grateful that you know how to kefir things, it will seriously improve the ‘goodness’ of your milk.

Shake up as much or as often as you remember. Give one last shake before you move to the fridge. If you want to add any honey, berries, or whatnot now is the time.

Let it chill for at at least 3 days. Several weeks is even better…but somehow the kefir in my house never lasts that long :P

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — A farmer’s fight to produce raw milk will continue today in a Newmarket court.
Michael Schmidt will argue that the evidence against him is inadmissible because it was based on a faulty search warrant.
The raw milk war began in November, 2006 when health officials raided Schmidt’s Grey-Bruce County farm.
Schmidt now faces 20 charges for selling and producing the unpasteurized milk.
If he loses his case, the fines he’ll face could bankrupt his 20-year old business.
Raw milk advocates say they drink it for its flavour, organic properties, and health benefits.
But it’s illegal to sell raw milk in Canada because it can carry hordes of potentially deadly bacteria, including salmonella and E. coli.

Lovely…at least they haven’t started throwing them in Jail…yet.