Camping Lessons: making tinctures

I think one of my personal favorite parts of our trip to the Florida Caverns is the abundance of this...

Lecanorales

And where there is Lecanorales...there is an abundance of Usnea.

If you have coughed, or sneezed or complained of a sore throat around me in the past year my response has been a resounding 'Usnea, Usnea Usnea!'

Thanks to one of my soul sistahs, I learned the wonders of this remedy last year when our son had strep...and the next day, he didn't!

Well the ground was covered! No need to harvest from the trees, because they still need it, but the wind knocked enough off the trees that we filled an entire gallon size bag on one of our hikes and in 6 weeks we'll have enough tincture to share!

Of course, that doesn't help me right now...when I could REALLY use some!

photo credit: ME!