So, we decided that indeed, Tanker does have pneumonia. He’s been on Penicillin-G for about a week now. He’s doing much better! He’s even feisty-er than he was before and enjoys playing with The Hound.

However, now Ray has had a few little coughing and sneezing episodes… We are keeping a particularly close eye on him, since he’s already had pneumonia once and we don’t want him to get as sick as he was last time.

I can only imagine how much more of a jerk Frank will become, if Ray does get really sick again… *sigh*

In other news… Our cat, Spot, is still hanging on. He is absolutely nothing but skin and bones and fur, but he’s still kickin’. The Force is strong with that one.

My new job is going very well. I received my first full paycheck yesterday; what a relief it was to be able to pay the bills that are due in full AND put some in savings (which had been completely exhausted) AND have some money leftover! I am so thankful!

The cooties that were floating around the household finally got me. Since Thursday afternoon, I’ve been a snot factory and had a sore throat and slight fever. I’m so glad that it’s Saturday! I slept in a little and can rest up. I do, however, need to do laundry at some point.

I see that I failed to mention my first attempt at making an herbal healing salve. You have my sincere apologies for this neglect…

I found this recipe for “Healing Boo Boo Salve“. I’ve been wanting to make something with comfrey and calendula, for quite some time. About a month ago, I finally went for it! The only difference between the recipe and my version is that I used comfrey ROOT and doubled the recipe.

My infusion process was a little different, because I was using the comfrey root; it needed to cook longer. I’d say I cooked the comfrey for a total of about 6-8 hours over a period of three days. And then I let it sit for about a week before straining. Due to the lengthy cooking process, it ended up scorching, but that didn’t seem to affect the end result. I have decided that I will invest in a small Crock-Pot for the purposes of cooking herbs.

Speaking of the end result… This stuff is great! It has been used – to good effect – on sweetie’s carpal tunnel pain, on razor burn, on cuts, bumps and bruises, and on a fractured leg! I bought a journal (for medicinal purposes) and wrote down the recipe and have been documenting the uses and results. I will devote a few pages for each recipe/uses/results.

The fracture was the one that I was really looking at. I know comfrey has a reputation for knitting bones (which is why I used the root – it’s stronger) and my friend tells me that her leg is doing much better (applying the salve once per day). The pain is much reduced and that’s what I was going for! However, she has been advised to use the salve twice a day, for best results. The only way I could be more pleased would be if we had a series of X-Rays to document the healing of the fracture. Ah well.