Testifying of Plantain

...no...not the banana kind...plantain, the weed....its in YOUR yard too! It's everywhere! It's that little weed thing you used to pull the stem out of, wrap it around the seed head top and pop it off at your sister or brother. Remember that one?


That's plantain. Ok, to the story.


Tommy and I have a friend we've known a long time. He was even in our wedding party, so yeah,...long time. He has 4 horses and a mule that he loves -- and he has a toddler whom he also loves. The toddler got preference this week. Tim took him to the zoo....the one in SAN FRANCISCO! (Lucky kid!) So in the meantime, the horses need to be cared for. Manti and Mesa adore horses. Tim lives near us. This is a workable situation for all involved.


So we do the neighborly thing and learn the schedule these beasts are on and yesterday we show up at the barn to feed them and show them attention.

Manti and Mesa get the horses fed and are shovelling out the potty bizness from the stalls while Jared and Morgan watch. Jared decides he needs to water a tree and before he can get himself straightened back out, a bee flies up inside his t-shirt and stings him. He takes off like a wounded animal, screaming and slapping at his side and I take off after him hoping his outburst doesn't disturb those gigantic horses and crazy mule my two teens are walking around. I got hold of Jared and looked around me desperate to find some sort of weed that would help him at least to refocus till I could get him home and doctor his booboo.


Well I didn't see any of that kind in the top picture,...but I did see this broadleaf variety. So I picked a big fat leaf, dusted it off real quick and took a bite out of it. I chewed on it for a couple seconds and then pasted it onto Jared's side. I got him to hold it on with his hand for a few minutes while we walked back up the hill to the driveway where our car was. When we got there, Tim's mother was outside with one of her dogs. (She recently had some major surgery, so she can't care for the horses herself and didn't go on vacation with Tim.) We stopped and talked to her a minute. As we did, I noticed Jared (who is now shirtless) running around with no plantain poultice on his side. The sting spot had swelled up real fat and red with a bright red center where the little hole was glaring. I grabbed him by the hand and walked out into the yard a little ways till I found some more plantain. This time I got some like the one at the top of this page. I picked 3 leaves, chewed one and pasted it onto his side again and made him hold it there. He might have kept it on for a full 2 minutes before wiping it off. So I chewed another one, pasted it on and told him to HOLD IT THERE! He left that one for about 2 minutes before wiping it off too. We went through all the leaves I had picked in just a few minutes.

We left for home just after that, which takes 5 minutes by car. We got into the house and of course Jared had no poultice on him anywhere. Fortunately, I had made some plantain salve a few months ago. So I got out the jar of dark green ointment and smeared it on him and immediately covered it with a Handy Manny bandaid. Jared kept telling me he didn't know WHY he needed that,....his booboo was gone.

Today I'm at work, and Tommy had a doctors appointment. All the kids went with him (makes sense since Tommy can't drive yet) and on the way home, they stopped here to see me. I asked Jared to show me his bee sting. He has a red splotchy area, but there is NO whelp and there is NO hole in the middle. It's just a red splotch. He had forgotten about it till I asked! So no itch, no pain, no heat,.....

Plantain is amazing stuff!