Petition: Ban Salmon Farms in B.C. │ Wild Leeks or Ramps (Allium tricoccum) to Protect Against Heart Disease

The despair of the degree of debt that my wife has brought upon us was especially heavy last evening as I watched just a little T.V. by myself.

My eldest stepson was home, but I kept to myself.

I was into bed a few sparse minutes past 11:00 p.m. after some frivolous dallying here at my computer, and eventually some sleep came upon me.

I had shut down my computer, so I rose overnight simply to turn it back on and log into it in order for it to be warmed up for later use. This preliminary step also sees me disconnecting the mouse ─ I feel it bears blame for some of the initial freezes that can occur if the machine has not had time to load and warm up.

When next I rose, I don't think that it was yet 4:00 a.m. And soon, I was at work discharging the days' content assignment at the new post I have under construction at one of my six hosted websites.

Throughout, I nurtured the hope that I would maintain enough drive to see me get away early on a small grocery shopping expedition to the Save-On-Foods outlet (Google map) at least 1¼ miles away in Whalley.

I believe that it was earlier this year that I discovered the store to have a 7:00 a.m. opening, but the one time I did go there soon thereafter, I determined I would not do so again. None of the store's tills were yet in operation ─ it was strictly self-serve, and probably until the cashiers started their shifts at 8:00 a.m.

So I made the decision not to subject myself to that frustration again. Self-serve is perhaps okay if one only has a few items that are sold in containers and packages; but if the shopping list includes some produce, then things get too involved.

I also bring my own carrying bags, and I detest how finicky the self-serve stations are where these are concerned. Sometimes the stupid things 'think' that the tote bag is perhaps some product that must first be weighed and registered as part of the sales process.

Anyway, I finished the website post content assignment around 7:30 a.m., and then I began readying for the hike (I do not drive).

I don't know if my youngest stepson rose especially early, or if maybe he worked a night shift, but he was suddenly making his presence known downstairs ─ he is suffering a bad cough from a recent cold he developed, so he is easily distinguishable from his older brother.

When at last I stood outside the locked front door and was about to embark on this enterprise, it was exactly 8:00 a.m. 

I have done little walking of late, and this was apparent. The biomechanics of the simple act of walking seemed almost unnatural for me.

I also found that the ends of some of my toes were sensitive after I was back home ─ they are not accustomed to the repetitive pressure of being forced against the toe-ends of my boots as I  make my strides.

The only other notable event of my excursion was the interaction I had with the naturally attractive cashier. I was the relatively young Asian lass's only customer, so she was almost doting.

I had handed her my two carrying bags and requested that she use them to bag my purchases, and further asked that she do her best to evenly distribute the cargo because I had to carry the load for over a mile. 

She was so helpful and sweet-expressioned that at the conclusion I had to declare that she was delightful ─ she broke into a huge and clearly appreciative grin when that had been tendered to her.

Her lovely graciousness practically buoyed me all the way home.

In all, I was gone barely over 1½ hours.

The morning was sunny, as would be the day. And I suspect that my sunning session for just over 40 minutes yesterday was the encouragement necessary to get me out on the errand this morning ─ my face looks quite coloured and healthy from the sunshine I soaked up last afternoon.

I decided to fix up and have myself a breakfast before making my return to bed. And at the conclusion of that meal, my younger brother arrived home ─ he had spent the night at the home of his girlfriend Bev.

I am no longer certain just when it was that I returned to my bed, but perhaps it was around 10:30 a.m. or soon after.

I had just about fallen asleep when I heard a text arrive on my cellphone. I didn't check it, but when a reminder sounded a minute or so later, I decided to look.

It was from my wife in response to an E-mail and text I had sent her last evening concerning the ongoing pestering I am receiving from a bank over a credit debt that she is responsible for, but which I keep getting bothered about by the bank because evidently I am the primary in our joint account.

The bank keeps phoning and E-mailing me, but I do not respond to them. However, it is unsettling, and I am one who is prone to depressions.

The text she sent arrived just after 11:00 a.m., and it had taken me awhile to manage to slip into a sleep state...and now I had to try to get there all over again.

I finally succeeded, but early into the noon-hour I was awake again, possibly too keyed up to maintain a state of relaxation.

My brother had not yet sought his own bedrest, but he soon enough did, for he doesn't tend to head away for the afternoon without the fortification ─ he will end up guzzling beer somewhere, after all, and not be home until the evening.

I wanted to get in some further sunning, so around the end of the afternoon I was out in the backyard ad slouched down in a lawn- or deck-chair while facing directly into the Sun.

As yesterday, I was bare-footed, shirtless, and wearing cut-offs.

Unfortunately, I was well into my Sun exposure when I suddenly realized that I had failed to take note of the time that I began the session ─ I like to try and remain out there for a minimum of 40 minutes.

So all I could do was guess that maybe I had already spent 15 minutes out there, and I rendered a calculation of remaining time from that assumption.

At returning into the house, I found that my younger brother had already gone for the afternoon. He has no excuse not to get in a good walk at some park before he involves himself in his beer foolery.

Quite early this morning I received notice in an E-mail about a petition that I could not pass up adding my name to. The petition was a call to have the federal and B.C. provincial governments ban these infernal salmon fish farms:

We could be on the brink of seeing the end of salmon farms in BC, with 17 farms banned at the end of last year. But there are still over 100 more open-net farms that are threatening wild salmon populations with parasites and disease.

Timing is critical to ban the destructive open-net farms before the next migration season. We need to prevent wild salmon from being contaminated with sea lice and deadly viruses from fish farms.

Pressure is mounting from all sides as the Federal fisheries minister pushes to take a more precautionary approach to fish farms. If we all work together we can ensure we keep his feet to the fire and protect the wild salmon for good.

Tell the Federal and B.C. Fisheries Ministers to ban open-net fish farms on the West Coast!

Wild Pacific salmon populations have been in decline for decades, and fish farms are making it worse. For too many years, open-net fish farms have been polluting the marine environment and failing to control the spread of piscine orthoreovirus (a super infectious virus found in both farmed and wild salmon), as well as other diseases like sea lice, which attach to young wild salmon on their migration out to sea and threaten their survival.

Despite the well-documented risks associated with open-net cage farms, there are over 100 of them along the BC coast, polluting the surrounding water and seabed with waste, chemicals, diseases and parasites. After the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation sued the Federal Government in December, all 17 fish farms in British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago will either be closed or relocated. Fisheries will need to get First Nations communities’ consent to operate within their territory, as well as the approval from Fisheries and Oceans Canada that these operations do not threaten wild Pacific salmon.

With these new developments, now is the time to act and call on the Federal government to completely ban open-net fish farms on the West Coast, and prevent fisheries from exploiting people and the planet for their profit.

Will you call on the Federal and BC Fisheries Ministers to ban open-net fish farms and protect wild Pacific salmon?

We’ve fought and won these battles before. When disgusting footage shot by Tavish Campbell was released, over 26,000 members like you rallied for change. Because of the response, the federal Fisheries minister announced a complete review of the Fisheries Act and put in more protection for wild salmon.

We know that people power has worked to protect wild salmon before and now it's time to come together again and ban fish farms once and for all.

 Sign the petition

These unnatural, wretched disease factories should not exist.

Besides, the fish that are produced are pathetically inferior nutritionally to wild salmon, and those prized, health-bestowing oils are probably ─ at best ─ half as abundant as they are in wild salmon.

Most of us have at least some awareness that those rich oils can protect against heart disease; but quite coincidentally, I read an article today proclaiming that a certain wild leek (Allium tricoccum) can also protect against cardiovascular disease:

HSIonline.com

Reverse coronary heart disease with wild leeks, a.k.a. ‘ramps’ │ REVERSE hardened, stiff arteries with this onion of the ‘mountain folk’

A couple of other articles more-or-less back up that claim:

• Chatelaine.com: Ramp up your heart health with wild leeks
• DoctorsHealthPress.com: Wild Leeks (Ramps): Facts, How to Grow, Benefits, How to Cook

And this article ─ although quite short ─  provides some history into the plant:

• Simcoe.com: Over-harvesting threatening wild leeks

I guess I'm on the wrong side of the continent ─ I can't say I have even seen any ramps in the marketplace anywhere that I've shopped. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't be planted here in Surrey where I live.

I've just done an Amazon search at the top of this post using the botanical name Allium tricoccum, and the plants seem readily enough available for anyone interested enough in gardening to give them a try.

But let's move on to something else ─ in fact, physical movement.

Early into this post I spoke of how it almost felt unnatural for me to be walking ─ I so seldom seem to do it anymore.

That wasn't always so.

Nor would this continue if only I was not basically serving a life sentence of house arrest here in Surrey because of my insurmountable debt.

When I watch shows like the Ninja Warrior franchise, I wonder how I would have fared as a young man if only I had the means of practicing the challenges. (I am now 69 years old.)

I lived in a physical fitness vacuum ─ I did everything by myself, for I had no fit friends, and I was not a gym-goer. I have never in my life had a gym workout.

As a result, I was not exposed to things that other people were doing ─ I only knew the basics, fitness activities that I could devise for myself locally that I could pursue as unseen and unnoticed as possible.

Had I known of parkour, I might have gotten into it as best I could.

I never knew much about the physical culture movement either, but what I did know quite appealed to me. I identified more with it than I did with gym-confining bodybuilding ─ as much as I admired those physiques.

I enjoyed the following article by Dr Marc S. Micozzi:

DrMicozzi.com

The no-equipment, no-cost approach to getting fit

He didn't link to the article that he heavily referenced, so I will:

Parade.com

FItness Trainer and Modern-Day Tarzan Erwan Le Corre Says Gyms Are a 'Travesty of Fitness'

I have not before heard of Erwan Le Corre, but he is advancing some commendable ideas.

But I seem doomed never to have financial independence, nor the financial miracle that will liberate me from the shackles that my home and family life have become.

In the past few post, I have finished up with some photos that were taken on February 25, 2018 at a wedding that was being celebrated in a venue that was probably in the city of Udon Thani.

The bride was and is the daughter of Lumpoon, one of my wife's two sisters.

In all six of the following photos, the bride is essentially at the bottom right corner of each, and the young man at the left corner is her cousin ─ he is the son of Santi, the only surviving brother to my wife and  her two sisters.

Lumpoon herself appears in the third photo as the woman wearing the pink dress, and with a flower at her left breast.

The woman in the white dress is my wife ─ I have never seen her looking so beautiful. Apparently it was the handiwork of her old friend, Daisha:

My wife's nephew was tying string around the wrists of the bride and groom ─ the string was probably blessed by monks. Quite typically, the recipients of such string will wear it for as long as they are comfortable doing so. I was even told that some people will wear it until it falls off naturally.

I tried doing that when my wife and I got engaged back in early 2014, but I gave it up after several days because the string had become drab or dirty in colour, and was starting to become malodorous.

Cough and Cold Relief with Mugo Pine (Pinus mugo) │ Health Benefits of Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum and Adiantum capillus-veneris) │ The Benefits of Chocolate and of Eggs

Last evening after my younger brother was home from wherever he had been drinking, he almost immediately asked me if I had heard anything about two people having been shot and killed earlier that day.

When I replied that I had not, he then went on to tell me that a woman and man had been killed, and my brother's girlfriend Bev had known the woman for many years ─ they had even been co-workers.

Bev also of course knew the man ─ the two dead were a couple.

My brother went on to suggest that there was some scuttle that the police many have been responsible for killing both people ─ they were definitely responsible for shooting the man.

This is an account in the local twice-weekly free community newspaper the Surrey Now-Leader: Two people dead after hostage taking in Surrey ends with gunfire.

Please keep in mind that my brother was clearly very drunk as he presented this account of his.

He then went on upstairs to his bedroom to change into his home wear.

When he came back downstairs, the first thing he asked me was, "Did you hear anything about a shooting in Whalley today?" 

In the short time ─ less than 20 minutes ─ that it took him to go upstairs to change his clothes, and then come back downstairs, he had lost all memory of having already spoken at length to me.

This is often the level of companionship that I have on any given evening. I have absolutely no friends near ─ no one with whom I can spend some quality time socializing with on occasion.

I am so deep into debt thanks to not being able to stand up to my younger and frivolous wife, I struggle to even afford a can of beer an evening here at home ─ to drink out anywhere is an impossibility, and I have not spent a cent in a pub or bar in years.

Anyway, he managed to remain conscious the evening through, so we watched a few episodes of the T.V. series we follow right on into the midnight hour ─ I fetch the programming via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that my brother does not understand how to operate.

As has become my lot, I only enjoyed some broken sleep overnight until around 4:00 a.m. when I rose to get busy with the day's content assignment for the post I am constructing at one of my six hosted websites.

I had already risen an hour or more earlier just to turn my computer on in order to have it warmed up and loaded for use ─ a precaution I have to take, or I will probably have the machine freeze if I attempt to use it after turning it on once it has grown cold following a previous shut-down. 

I held fast with that task until the content assignment had been met, and then I returned to bed at some point after 8:00 a.m. to seek further sleep.

Since there was no need to rise at any specific hour, I forced myself to remain in bed for possibly over 2½ hours, enjoying a succession of several short naps.

It was after 11:00 a.m. when I was up from bed again. My younger brother was at the dining table enjoying instant coffees and reading the Saturday morning edition of the Vancouver Sun that I subscribe to. 

I fixed a large mug of instant coffee for myself, and then came back upstairs here to my computer.

Eventually my brother came upstairs to his bedroom to seek further rest ─ this is what he typically does before he heads away for the afternoon to once again end up drinking somewhere. The day has been beautifully sunny, so I hope he chose to get in a walk at some park before he began his daily dissipation.

However, while he was enjoying his midday bedrest, I donned cut-offs and went on out to the backyard tool-shed for some exercising.

And then at exactly 12:56 p.m., I began just over 40 minutes of sunning while slouched into a deck- or lawn-chair, my bared feet on the ground, and my torso shirtless.

Upon returning into the house, I found that my brother was already gone.

He often remains away on Saturdays, spending the night at the home of his girlfriend Bev. Perhaps he will do so this evening. He and I never exchanged a word today, so I know nothing of his intentions.

I had not yet eaten today, so I fixed myself a small but substantial meal, and then I became too overcome from it's burden to do aught but return to my bed to nap for awhile yet again, lying upon my left side to facilitate the meal's digestion.

It is nearly invariable that my first meal of the day will have this result. I am not much like my younger self as I now watch the months of my 69th year slip past and bring on the approach of my 70th birthday in the Fall. 

When I was a teen and also throughout my 20s, I used to pour through books about living off the wild and surviving in the wilderness.

Alas, I was never able to actually experience life in Nature to learn and apply these things for myself, for I have never had a choice but to live here in Surrey (and New Westminster for maybe eight years beginning near the end of the 1960s). And since I never got a driver's licence nor a car, I have been grounded here.

I lost recollection of nearly everything I used to study, but I do remember a few things, such as the fact that certain evergreen needles can yield some nourishment under survival conditions.

But they can also have health properties most people are unaware of:

HSIonline.com

Ease respiratory symptoms by taking a big whiff of the mugo pine │ Stop SUFFERING from cough and cold with this IMMORTAL tree

The article is about a specific pine ─ the mugo pine (Pinus mugo); but others also have varying value.

Unfortunately, there is so much chemical spraying going on for various reasons, I would never try to prepare anything with any of the pine trees I might find here in Surrey ─ nor anywhere in this region of the country.

I performed an Amazon search at the top of this post using the term "Mugo pine essential oil" in order to see what might turn up, but I am in no financial position to ever be purchasing any such product.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that so many health benefits are attributed to Pinus mugo and even other pines ─ here are some further articles, if you are interested in finding out more:

• OrganicFacts.net: 5 Incredible Benefits of Pine
• NaturalMedicinalHerbs.net: DWARF MOUNTAIN PINE - Pinus mugo
• Nature-and-Garden.com: Pine tree health benefits and therapeutic value
• SelfHacked.com: Top 7 Health Benefits of Pine Needle Tea & Essential Oil
• Mercola.com: Pine Oil Benefits and Uses │ Pine Oil: A Potential Panacea?

I want to again stress that unless you live in a remote area where the government is unlikely to have been spraying chemicals to kill things like beetles, moths, and mosquitoes, it's risky business harvesting pine needles and anything else from the trees. 

The trees will have absorbed too much ─ and that begins right from the roots. This isn't something that you can just wash off.

A second plant I want to showcase is the maidenhead fern (Adiantum pedatum), but apparently for supplemental purposes, folks are going to have an easier time of it accessing a different maidenhair species known as Adiantum capillus-veneris:

HSIonline.com

Ease rheumatoid arthritis pain with maidenhair fern │ Set up a pain BLOCKADE with this tribal secret

Naturally, maidenhair fern has properties other than that of relieving pain ─ here are a number of other articles about the fern:

• NaturalMedicinalHerbs.net: MAIDENHAIR FERN - Adiantum capillus-veneris
• AnniesRemedy.com: Maidenhair Fern Adiantum capillus-veneris
• WebMD.com: Maidenhair Fern: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Dosage, and Warning
• FrannsAltHealth.com: Maidenhair Fern health benefits: for hair loss, coughs and colds
• ElmaSkinCare.com: aidenhair Fern Adiantum capillus-veneris
• PaulHaider.wordpress.com: Maidenhair Fern – A World Wide Herbal Remedy
• MotherEarthLiving.com: Herb to Know: Maidenhair Fern
• TipDisease.com: Benefits Of Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum Capillus-veneris) For Health

I performed another Amazon search at the bottom of this post, this time using the botanical name Adiantum capillus-veneris. The results included a lot of rather extraneous returns.

Heck, there is even a musical piece (and named after the fern) that is an a capella number featuring nothing but vocal sounds and breath ─ I hated it. But you can listen for yourself ─ I located it at YouTube: Adiantum Capillus-Veneris (Maidenhair Fern) . Etudes in Fragility: II.

Two other health-related topics are only going to be a pair of references that you can access for yourself if you are interested in either of the subject matter.

The first is a rather extensive article about chocolate:

LifeSpa.com

Unwrap the Benefits of Chocolate

And the second involves itself in detailing why we should not pay heed to reports villainizing the regular consumption of ample amounts of eggs:

DrMicozzi.com

Egg study lays stink bomb of fake news (and it smells like rotten eggs)

I conclude today's post with more photos taken at the wedding of a niece of my wife on February 25, 2018 in the city of Udon Thani.

At least, I feel quite confident that the marriage took place there, for I don't think there is a facility at my wife's family village such as is suggested in the photos.

The first photo features a nephew of my wife ─ he is the son of my wife's brother Santi. The young man is kneeling, and tying blessed string around the wrist of the mostly unseen groom ─ the bride is nearest the camera:

I am unable to identify anyone else in the following photos, although I do think that it is Lumpoon ─ one of my wife's two sisters, and also the bride's mother ─ with her back turned, and who is beyond the smiling woman:

Aquilaria crassna's Agarwood (Oud) Resin as a Cancer Treatment │ Yellow Bedstraw (Galium verum) to Reduce Kidney Stones

Thanks to sitting up with my younger brother last evening and operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, my bedtime was well into the midnight hour.

I am doing so poorly at sleeping for any length of time. I doubt that it was much after 3:00 a.m. when I got up to continue laying the foundation of a new post at one of my six hosted websites ─ I began that project yesterday.

This work seems to take me two days now; and then I spend another 15 or more days adding content into such posts.

The only way I can double up and perform better would be by forsaking afternoon blogging, and instead continue working on whatever post I have in progress at one of my websites.

That may well be ahead ─ these Blogger (or Blogspot) posts draw scant attention. There is simply no profit for me to keep wasting so many hours on a daily basis doing this.

I cannot recall just what time it was when I returned to bed after finishing the post foundation work, but it was definitely past 7:00 a.m.

What sleep I got was typically broken, and it came to an end when I was roused by my cellphone around 9: 20 a.m. at latest.

Initially I was so dopey that I did not realize the phone was ringing ─ I thought maybe it was the cellphone's alarm, or maybe someone had texted me.

When I checked, I believe that I recognized the missed call as having come from the bank I reported about yesterday.

Nigh a decade ago, I opened up a joint account at it with my wife, but I never used the account. The debit card expired, and a new one sent to me never got activated because I just did not require it.

However, my wife merrily began racking up credit debt with the bank, and that has badly escalated over the past five months alone.

As a result, the bank keeps trying to contact me to have a conversation about the debt, but I have had nothing to do with its build-up.

They even began E-mailing me as of yesterday.

I have no intention of dealing with them.

But I most certainly do not appreciate the unwanted phone calls ─ especially when one of them pulls me from essential sleep. I sleep badly ─ it is robbery to have any that I do manage to achieve, snatched from me by an annoying phone call like this.

I didn't actually emerge from my bedroom until after 9:30 a.m., fully expecting that my younger brother was going to be downstairs watching T.V.

But he had not yet come out of his bedroom!

He did by around 9:50 a.m., however. And by then I had gotten a head start on the location of a documentary that I wanted to tune in via the YouTube application that is downloaded into our Android TV Box. 

I can have quite a fuss from him when it comes to me choosing to select a documentary for us to watch instead of a movie or an episode of one of the T.V. series we follow.

The documentary wasn't particularly 'in depth,' and was well under a half-hour in duration, but I feel he needs exposure to this sort of material ─ he does not know how to use a computer, so he only reads mainstream media such as an occasional newspaper.

The documentary was Unbroken Ground.

Since it was so short, I opted to watch yet another ─ the first of a four-episode documentary series by the BBC titled the Lost Highway. The episode itself was titled Down from the Mountain.

At one point I found myself spiritually and emotionally responding to a segment in that episode that detailed how the backwoods folk were so community- and church-based. One woman being interviewed claimed that it was common for families to gather at church on Sundays and spend the entire day fellowshipping together with singing, eating, and everything else that would have gone with that degree of isolated rural life.

I feel very isolated. Outside of the four people living here with me, I have no personal social contacts ─ other than occasional E-mails, and the sort of detached connection I may feel exists through my online presence with my websites and my blogging.

Anyway, my brother didn't seem to mind either of the documentaries, but I won't subject him to any further documentaries for a few more days. I'll of course continue with the Lost Highway series.

We watched some further T.V. into the noon-hour, and then he sought some bedrest ere he left for the afternoon.

I also felt in need of more sleep, so I was back into my own bed by just after 1:00 p.m.

I did nap, but was back out of bed not too much over an hour later. My brother was gone by then.

We've had a sunny day, so I hope he opted to have a good walk somewhere in a park or someplace similar before he begins his usual beer-drinking.

I had eaten nothing yet today, so I first had some exercise with my 43½-pound dumbbell. My meal was not large, but it was nevertheless quite substantial.

I wanted to take advantage of some of the sunshine, so I changed into cut-offs and went out to the backyard. And at 3:22 p.m., I began just over 40 minutes of sunning as I sat slouched into a lawn- or deck-chair with my face directed at the Sun, my torso uncovered, and my bared feet on the lawn.

About midway through that sunning, I began hearing some very busy kitchen activity in the house. It was too busy to be either of my stepsons, for I could hear some serious chopping going on, and also the unmistakable sounds of a mortar and pestle. 

Thus, I was not at all surprised when I finished my sunning and came into the house to find my wife in the kitchen.

She clearly must have not worked this morning at her friend's Thai restaurant, but she was expected there for later in the afternoon ─ I think the restaurant opens at 5:00 p.m. after a daily short afternoon closure.

My wife had bought a lot of produce on behalf of the restaurant ─ she is better situated for making many of these purchases than is her friend or other employees, since the restaurant is located somewhat more distant than we are from any markets with an Asian focus.

She did some cooking for all of us here; and then she was away on her fairly long drive. Only her youngest son was home all this while, and she left, telling us she mightn't be back until maybe Monday.

Such is my marriage. But that is talk reserved for my older and private blog.

I want now to bring up various discussions of three different plants with diverse health-related properties.

The first plant is indigenous to Southeast Asia ─ I was quite chuffed to learn that Thailand is one of the countries where it is found in any abundance. I can't help but wonder if my wife's family is aware of the tree and the special product that it produces?

The tree ─ and there are a limited few species in the genus of Aquilaria capable of producing the valued resin known as agarwood or oud ─ most commonly used commercially today is Aquilaria crassna.

So what is so very special about this agarwood resin?

Well, anyone who has cancer should at least be aware of the claims being made concerning it:

HSIonline.com

Agarwood kills multiple types of cancer cells and keeps them from spreading │ Strong-arm cancer into DISAPPEARING with this crazy Asian ‘tree trick’

There seem to be quite a few studies concerning its properties in this context.

An article at PlantationsInternational.com provides some illumination into how rapidly the originally renowned wild species Aquilaria malaccensis became so rare and valuable: Liquid Gold Rush Endangers Agarwood Trees.

And here are a couple of other articles on the strengths of agarwood or oud essential oil:

• TopHealthJournal.com: Agarwood oil to treat colorectal cancer naturally, research reports 
• Cancer.news: Agarwood essential oil demonstrates promising anti-cancer properties, researchers find

You may have noticed the results I obtained at the top of this post just using the term "agarwood" in a search at Amazon.

You could try searching further using your own terms, but I didn't find the non-perfume-related products to be anything like inexpensive.

However, if someone does have cancer, desperation will undoubtedly figure into any purchasing considerations.

The second plant I shall now bring into focus is one reputed to be of remedial benefit for sufferers of kidney stones. The plant is yellow bedstraw (Gallium verum).

According to that Wikipedia article:

It is widespread across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia from Israel and Turkey to Japan and Kamchatka. It is naturalized in Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, and the northern half of the United States. It is considered a noxious weed in some places.

Yet I am unfamiliar with it.

I was going to link to an article at the same website that introduced agarwood, but I now see that it has not been published there ─ quite odd.

Well, I still have the article sent to me via E-mail on March 19, so I will reproduce it here in full:

Some places consider it a pesky weed...

Trust me -- it's ANYTHING but a nuisance.

This sweet-smelling, cleansing herb can ease your "pee problems"... and ERASE the pain of kidney (and bladder) stones. 

An ancient 'sleep trick' for the bathroom 

Dried bunches of yellow bedstraw (Galium verum) were once used to stuff mattresses and pillows. 

It's said that in Bethlehem, the Virgin Mary lined Jesus's manger with it, earning it the nickname "Our Lady's Bedstraw." 

It smells sweet AND repels fleas -- and that makes it good to sleep on. 

But what makes yellow bedstraw your "cup of tea" is how it can turn your urinary health around. 

Not only is it a diuretic, which helps to relieve everything from swollen ankles to full-blown cases of edema... 

It's a detoxifying superhero. 

Scientists have identified yellow bedstraw as a "lithontriptic"... 

That's a fancy way of saying it can DISSOLVE kidney stones and other painful mineral deposits throughout your urinary tract. 

It doesn't make them disappear completely, but it can make them MUCH more passable. 

But yellow bedstraw doesn't stop there... 

It can even help break up the excruciating uric acid crystals that form when you've got gout. 

As if that weren't enough, this purifying plant also contains compounds that can support your overall urinary and kidney health, including:

• flavonoids, which act as antioxidants, and
• iridoid glycosides like asperuloside, which are anti-inflammatory.

And if you you're not eliminating all the toxins in your body through your pee, yellow bedstraw can help you sweat them out. 

Sleeping on yellow bedstraw in your bedding won't do a thing for your urinary tract... so drink it as a tea instead. 

Note that its pigments, called anthraquinones, are known for their laxative properties. 

Tread lightly so you don't develop a DIFFERENT kind of problem in the bathroom.

Once more, there are quite a few studies out there involving the plant, but here are a couple of other easier-to-read articles:

• FrannsAltHealth.com: Lady’s Bedstraw health benefits: vegan rennet and kidney stone treatment
• ElmaSkinCare.com: Yellow Bedstraw

An Amazon search I made using the botanical name Galium verum is at the bottom of this post ─ it's definitely affordable, unlike agarwood.

I see that there is actually an instrumental titled "Galium Verum" being attributed to a Swedish jazz saxophonist (Lars Gullin) who died in 1976 at the age of 48.

Well, I hadn't counted on needing to reproduce in full that second article, so I think that I will save discussion of the third plant until tomorrow (perhaps).

Yesterday I finished up that day's post with some wedding photos that were taken on February 25, 2018 ─ quite likely in the city of Udon Thani.

The bride was my wife's niece; and the daughter of one (Lumpoon) of my wife's two sisters.

I only have time for five photos today, and unfortunately I cannot identify anyone in the first four:

In that fifth and final photo, Lumpoon is the standing woman who is bending over, and wearing what appears to be a red flower near her left shoulder.

 

Betony (Stachys officinalis) for Relief of Headaches │ Nasya Essential Oils for Healthy Sinuses │ Twelve Bug-Repelling Plants │ CDC Flu and Vaccine Exaggerations

Although I was into bed last evening ahead of 10:00 p.m., the knowledge that my wife would be showing up at some point thereafter following her long day of work at her friend's Thai restaurant was probably responsible for disturbing me too much to allow the arrival of sleep.

I wear a makeshift blindfold and earplugs, but they are not perfect at blocking out the entirety of my environment.

I was awake when she first briefly entered the bedroom an hour or so later. And when she finally went to bed late in the midnight hour, I was awake then, too.

I was never to feel quite well, either ─ some general malaise that is impossible to describe.

What sleep I did achieve was very fragmentary ─ there were likely some instances of it before my wife came to bed, but I just do not recall.

Whatever the case, I was awake enough just after 2:00 a.m. that it occurred to me ─ as I lay there feeling sleepless ─ that I might as well just get up and get to work on the building of a foundation for a new post at one of my six hosted websites.

If I persevered, I might get in enough work on it that I would be able to return to bed before 6:00 a.m. ─ I do not like returning to bed later than that for concern of disrupting my wife's essential sleep if I expect that she has to work later in the morning (her usual start time is 11:00 a.m., but she has to ready herself and then embark on a pretty long drive).

Well, I barely succeeded ─ I was easing myself back into bed with no more than 10 minutes to go ere 6:00 a.m. But judging by how my wife stirred, she was probably not sleeping.

Soon enough, her eldest son was into the bathroom next to our bedroom to begin readying himself for his drive to work. His younger brother has an afternoon shift at his own job, and still seemed to be up when I had first risen ─ he must have been watching a movie or doing something else of a similar nature while laying in his bed (he has a monitor set up beside his bed).

Anyway, despite this return to my bed, I still had an abominable time of it trying to sleep. And shortly after 9:00 a.m. I was ready to get up again, even though I felt badly in need of proper sleep.

I was surprised to find that my younger brother had not yet risen ─ this is very unusual. He must have hit the drink especially heavily last evening.

My wife usually rises around 10:00 a.m. to ready herself for work, but she overshot that by nearly 10 minutes. And then instead of starting her usual workday preparations, she began fussing in the kitchen and was soon cooking a stir-fry dish for everyone to enjoy later in the day.

It was probably around 10:50 a.m. when she at last left on her drive ─ I counselled her not to be speeding!

At 10:00 a.m. I had turned on the T.V. to try and locate either of two documentaries I had in mind ─ I was using our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.

I wanted to do this before my younger brother turned up, for he is often very bitchy when it comes to having to watch documentaries, and I wanted to have one set up to go before he had planted his behind in his favourite chair in the living room and began complaining once he realized what I was seeking.

Well, like that bad penny, he suddenly made his appearance.

I ended up cutting my search short, failing to find any sources to either of the documentaries. However, I later realized that in my rush, I had forgotten to give the YouTube application downloaded into the Android TV Box a try, and I now know that both of them are available there.

But I shall speak no more of either of them in this post ─ it is a discussion that must wait until I have actually watched one or both of the features.

What I did settle on tuning in was a movie that turned out to exceed two hours in length (there are no commercial breaks when one uses an Android TV Box to watch an episode of a T.V. show or a movie).

It was just the sort of movie that my younger brother appreciates, and there is no question that it kept the viewer's interest.

I recognized the actor playing the shaven-headed lead character, but I was never able to pinpoint him with any precision. I knew I had seen him quite often before, but I could not think of even just one T.V. show or movie.

This specific movie was titled Brawl in Cell Block 99, and the actor playing an unbelievably tough fight finisher was Vince Vaughn.

I had never seen him shaven-headed before ─ that was what foiled my attempts to recall his identity.

And who knew that the guy is actually six feet and five inches in height!

His performance as an intelligent and rather soft-spoken tough guy who didn't like to see anyone get hurt who did not deserve it, was most believable.

And so was his fighting prowess. He seemed brutally indomitable and nearly indestructible.

But it appeared that he was on a collision course with only a dead-end ahead...and that was exactly how it turned out for him. There was no happy ending, apart from the utter and violent eradication of the gang of villains he had run afoul of.

Since the movie took my younger brother and I into the noon-hour, he then retired to his bedroom to rest up before taking off for the afternoon.

I waited until just after 1:00 a.m. before I also sought a nap.

When I emerged from my bedroom well past 2:00 p.m., my brother was gone, but my youngest stepson was finally up from his bed for the day.

I wanted to have some exercise out in the backyard tool-shed, so I first weighed myself dressed exactly as I would be for my exercising out there: 187 or 188 pounds.

I usually like to know just how much poundage I'm going to have to be hauling up and down when I tackle the pull-ups and chin-ups portion of the exercising.

The day was sunny, with a rather too cool breeze kicking up. I wanted to get in some time basking in the sunshine, but I was very hungry. Thus, rather than delay my day's first meal, I came into the house to have it.

My youngest stepson had already left, apparently for work.

I ate, and then went back out to the backyard; and beginning at 3:25 p.m., I spent just over 40 minutes seated in a deck- or lawn-chair while slouched down and facing directly into the Sun.

I wore cut-offs, and went topless, with my bared feet on the lawn.

However, just before, I had seen an E-mail from one of the three banks my wife has us involved with. This specific bank has been phoning me ─ sometimes perhaps several times a day; but I never take the calls.

I do not deal with that bank, but I did once get a joint account set up there with my wife nearly a decade ago.

And ever since, she has been racking up credit debt there, just as she has with one of the other banks ─ debt I shall never get out from under without a financial miracle.

It has become so serious now that I am considering ending things for myself sometime during my 70th year ─ and I turn 70 this coming Fall.

I cannot live indeterminately with this constant, wearing worry ─ it is a cancerous thing.

When first I was sitting outside, I was nigh trembling from the anxiety. And never throughout those 40 minutes that I sat out there did I not have the weight of that worrisome debt fully in my thoughts.

I suppose that I should feel grateful that I am not prone to headaches.

Coincidental to this, I read the following article that extols the virtues of a plant with a long historical reputation for efficacy with relieving headaches ─ and a host of other ills.

The plant has various names, one of which is betony (Stachys officinalis):

HSIonline.com

Banish your headache with this tension-relieving herb │ This medieval bishops’ trick LIBERATES you from a tight, pounding head

You can undoubtedly find lots of other information on your pwn, but here are three sample articles ─ the third is very mainstream and thus can provide cautions you might not read of elsewhere:

• HerbCraft.org: wood betony ~ stachys officinalis/betonica officinalis
• WebStu.ONU.edu: Wood Betony: Stachys Officinalis, Bishopswort, Vettonica, Crown Chakra
• WebMD.com: Betony: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Dosage, and Warning

I made an Amazon search at the top of this post to see what sort of betony products would display, and what the price ranges are. However, since I do not typically suffer headaches, I cannot deem myself able to afford exploring the potential of the plant.

I have read many articles in the past that have me convinced that I would benefit from cleansing my sinuses with essential oils via the methodology known as nasya.

The following article might just be the catalyst that goads me into making a purchase of the proper type of essential oils ─ it would be a worthy investment, by my estimation:

LifeSpa.com

Nasya: Sinus Cleansing and Emotional Baggage Releasing

It is simply not in me to involve myself with the prolonged therapy described as the full protocol in the article ─ something like that would have to be administered to me by someone else as a delightful pampering experience.

So it's never going to happen.

But I would very much love to try just the inhalation of the drops of the essential oils. I would be willing to at least perform that step upon myself, and on a daily basis.

I would have to use Amazon Canada for any purchases ─ and unfortunately, their offerings are more limited and expensive than Amazon U.S. But I think that I would only need to use up a single vial of oil and have the results that I believe I am after.

The Amazon search I made using the term "nasya essential oils" is at the bottom of this post ─ if you are also interested in giving this treatment a shot. However, I think only Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K. results will show.

Canadians will have to search Amazon Canada for themselves.

I wonder if this nasya cleanse might even unblock my left ear?

Ever since I suffered a bad case of the flu during the first half of February, my left ear ─ which had theretofore been my ear of sharpest hearing ─ has been 'plugged up.' The effect is exactly as if I had left an earplug or cotton wad stuffed into it.

Sometimes I now find that I have to cup that ear in order to clearly hear conversation on T.V.

It bloody sucks enough to be growing old and feeling helpless ─ it's only worse to be losing one's physical senses.

Over the Winter, I had high hopes of investing in various herb garden seeds to plant this Spring and have a wonderful array of these growing wonders here at home, but my recent discovery of just how profound my debt is has killed that project.

Nevertheless, you may not be in the financial restraints that bind me, and this article may be of considerable use to you:

DrMicozzi.com

12 bug-repelling plants to put in your garden this spring

Despite that flu event I mentioned, I would never willingly accept a flu vaccination.

Anyone of like mind will enjoy this commentary reporting on the liars at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S.:

JacksDailyDose.com

Flu scare: CDC warns of deadly new │ [URGENT] CDC Warns of Deadly Flu Threat

I close now with some photos that were probably taken on February 25, 2018 in the city of Udon Thani.

My wife has two sisters, one of whom is Lumpoon. Her daughter got married that day.

In the following photo, the bride is there at the bottom right corner of the photo; and the man approaching in the line-up is Santi, the only surviving brother to my wife and Lumpoon:

The red-headed woman in these two final photos is someone I have only ever known as my wife's "sister - cousin."