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Amy K Fewell | Homesteading for the Kingdom

Amy K Fewell | Homesteading for the Kingdom

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sterilization

Canning Safety | Sterilization, Lids and Rings

February 8, 2016 · In: canning, homesteading

I know that so many of us are just beginning to plant seeds indoors, and some are starting to plant seeds outside as well. Canning isn’t that far off in…

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meet amy

meet amy
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I'm Amy. I love organic food but I love cookies too. I love Jesus and His grace. I believe broken people make the biggest impact in the world when Jesus makes them whole, and when they share their stories. I believe in stories, and I'm sharing mine.

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@amy.fewell

The truly traditional practitioner and herbalist d The truly traditional practitioner and herbalist did not have a need for asyra machines or muscle testing. These things are based on falsities, not skill and trade. The world of wellness is truly a skill and trade. Energy “healing”, and energy detecting machines either dabble in new ageism, or put the skill on a man made machine that can get things wrong many many times. 

The experienced practitioner and family herbalist will evaluate the indications of the client or patient. What does the tongue look like—is it red, elongated, covered in film, dry? Are the extremities cold or hot? Is the skin pale and blue, or pink and inflamed? What organ affinities are being affected? What is the state of the internal and external tissue? A whole body assessment is required. 

Modern holistic wellness has become more like allopathic medicine than it should. The practitioner should be able to access the subject, and make corresponding recommendations based on that evaluation.

Everything else is a cop-out. 

For years I treated herbalism the way one would treat modern medicine. Oh you have a headache? Try this. Fever? You need this herb. But as I’ve grown in skill and knowledge, I’ve realized that while in God’s mercy, much of that has worked, I have seen it work better when I have crafted the skill of the traditional practitioner.

Don’t get me wrong—modern medicine has its place. That’s not what I’m saying. But there is more. Much more. 

I aim to teach you this, friends. What should herbalism and natural wellness truly look like? We must redeem the original design for health. Health is not treating symptoms. True healthcare says things like “the body indicates it is cold and stagnant—how do we move the body towards dispersing heat and releasing stagnation?” 

The germ is not the issue—it is thriving in a particular environment.
The disease is not the enemy—it is the indication.

This is the way.
I don’t know why it surprises me but every time I I don’t know why it surprises me but every time I see or hear something like this, it reminds me how EXTREMELY ignorant Americans are about finances and the food system. 

The farmer gives his or her entire LIFE to put food on YOUR table, just so he can make MAYBE $2/lb while the store charges $10/lb. Through rain or snow. Heat or cold. Sun up to sun down. And you think beef prices need to come DOWN?

How about this instead:
Fight for lower state and federal taxes.
Fight for diminishing the hundreds of things we pay the GOVERNMENT.
Stop buying mindless things. Know where your food comes from.

You pay taxes on your home, your food, your clothing, the Starbucks coffee, anything you buy from anywhere. You pay taxes on your income and beyond. 

Hello? Tap tap—is this thing on? 

Have we not considered how it is CHEAPER to IMPORT beef and pay less for it when it travels thousands of miles from out of country to your grocery store? 

Ludicrous. We will become a nation that is dependent on other nations (hello China, the largest pork producer in America), the big 4 oligarch packers, and whatever the government wants to feed us.

Dear America, your mindset needs to shift and change. Otherwise we are doomed. You’ll be living the hunger games before 2030.
This does absolutely nothing to fix the declining This does absolutely nothing to fix the declining American beef herd.

Just so we’re all on the same page.

Flooding the market with cheaper imported beef doesn’t rebuild American herds. It doesn’t shorten the supply chain. It doesn’t help cattle producers recover from years of drought, high feed costs, high input costs, land pressure, and shrinking margins.

What it does do is train American consumers to expect beef at a price that may not reflect what it actually costs an American rancher to raise it.

You cannot say you want to rebuild the American beef herd while simultaneously undercutting the market American cattle producers depend on.

Cheap beef today does not necessarily equal food security tomorrow.

If we actually want a strong domestic beef supply, we need more cattle raised here. More processing capacity here. More resilient regional food systems. And ranchers who can actually make enough money to keep raising cattle.

Because once the American rancher is gone, bringing in cheaper beef from somewhere else isn’t a solution.

It’s dependency.

And that is the exact opposite of food security.
I have found myself increasingly unfollowing so ma I have found myself increasingly unfollowing so many voices and ministries online recently. Not because I disagree with them. Not because I think they are false. Although there has been some of that, too. 

No, I’ve not been unfollowing because of any of that. I’ve been unfollowing because when I see the post, it influences my thoughts. It could be a true post, or it could be partial truth, but here’s the thing…

1. I don’t need to constantly have a “yes-man” influencing what I’m thinking or saying. We all know this is how the algorithm works, even in ministry. 

2. I don’t constantly need a super generic “prophetic word” that I can apply to my life and be side tracked by said “prophetic word”. Totally over those, and the lack of accountability in that, by the way. 

3. I don’t need to constantly see the same false or over exaggerated reports that are created to incite emotion or action without intimately knowing the situation.

4. I don’t need to see people who have an opinion on everything yet they rarely lift a finger to actually do what they believe in the advancement of the church. It just makes me angry. 

5. I don’t need to know the next big thing in life, the major trends, the territory wars, or the divisiveness. 

One of the greatest quotes someone said to me in my teen years was this—be informed but not consumed. 

It’s ok to know. But when it becomes influential, it’s time to reevaluate. 

I want to hear what God is saying to ME—not the popular people that sit in an echo chamber with each other and fuel off one other online. 

I want to read trusted voices, not just people I followed because they said one good thing that I agreed with. 

I want my feed to be full of people that know how to do confrontation, exhortation, prophecy, and theology well. 

I want to follow accounts that aren’t full of fake homes, fake families, and fake kindness. 

I want the imperfect people who know they didn’t deserve mercy, but received it, and that breaks and restores them daily.

And you know what I’ve noticed? 
I hear God better.
I read the word more.
I cry almost every time I read scripture.
And I see myself more clearly, because I see Him more clearly.
We harvested elderberries this week, and there’s m We harvested elderberries this week, and there’s more where these came from!

Everyone makes the syrup. Almost nobody knows what’s actually in the jar.

Elder (Sambucus nigra, and our native S. canadensis) earns its reputation on chemistry, not just folk medicine. The dark pigment in those berries is anthocyanin—mostly cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyanidin-3-sambubioside—alongside quercetin, rutin, chlorogenic acid, and vitamin C. That color IS the medicine. Pale syrup means weak syrup.

Fun note: the branches of elder fans out like bronchial passages of the lungs. This “signature of doctrine” often points to elderberry and flower having an affinity for the lungs and respiratory tract. We know now that elderberry is a cytokine modulator, and we saw it help throughout the 2020 pandemic for this reason. 

📖 Human trials: A small 2004 influenza study found symptom relief roughly four days sooner. A 2016 trial of 312 air travelers found shorter, milder colds. There was also a trial during the H1N1 outbreak that showed significant help!

🦠 Lab work: Elder’s flavonoids appear to bind viral surface proteins and interfere with entry and replication.

🌼 Traditional use: Centuries of European household medicine, where the flowers were the fever remedy—a relaxing diaphoretic that helps the body sweat through a fever rather than suppress it. The berries were food and winter tonic.

Important to note…

• Berries should be in a decoction, not an infusion. Simmer covered, low, 20–30 minutes. Boiling hard destroys the anthocyanins.

• Plant two cultivars. Elder is poorly self-fertile and yields are dismal without a partner.

Your hands will stain when you harvest them. But it’ll be worth it.

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