What is it!?

My project this weekend has been to make a salve. This is the salve almost done!

Years ago I had the privilege of meeting the aunt, Rosemary Gladstar, of one of our friends. After that, I read all of her books and selected some recipes I’d like to try, including this All-Purpose Healing Salve. And then, the books were packed for a move and forgotten.

This last year, I found the recipe and started collecting the supplies. The beeswax I got from my husband who had been given it from a fellow, primitive-skills-loving friend. The olive oil I purchased at the grocery store. The St. John’s wort flower I collected from my yard and dried in the summer sun. The comfrey leaf I purchased online. The calendula flower I purchased from a local apothecary. Done! With gathering the supplies that is…

Rosemary recommends making solar- infused oils from the dried leaves/flowers for this recipe. I did this next with the St. John’s wort. It was an interesting 2 weeks watching the red oil from the buds of the yellow flowers seep into the olive oil.

Today, I’m feeling in a hurry wanting to “finish the salve already!” So, I use the water-bath method to make the comfrey leaf and calendula flower, infused oils for the salve recipe. This method worked okay, but there is a much stronger olive oil odor which over-powers the smell of the herbs.

The next step was to grate the beeswax and melt it into the oils. This was not so easy. First, I tried shaving it using a serrated knife. Next, I tried using my flimsy plastic grater. That was better, but every stroke showered stray tidbits of wax on the floor, ugh. Finally, slowly and awkwardly, I used the grater turned at an angle so that the wax bits all fell into the cutting board. Thankfully, I only needed 1/2 cup! If you can’t tell, I’m still feeling impatient to finish this project.

To make matters worse, all through that process, members of my family kept walking through the kitchen worried about the dangers of my sawing with a knife on the wax chunk, asking all kinds of questions I did not have the answers for, peering into sterilized jars, and whining about wanting breakfast, and so on and so forth…Come on guys! Can’t you see I’m over-focused on this project as far as possible?! Stop slowing me down!

And finally, here I am with a pot of almost salve! The wax is melting into the oil and the consensus is, “That smells good mom!”

I agree.