Happy Holidays Everybody!

For instructions on how to built this beautiful wreath, go to www.Hawk-Hill.com Click on "Tips and Tutorials." There are two different designs. I love this wreath!

Athlete's Choice Sports Massage Oil By Zen Planet Herbs

Take a peek! I haven't even had a chance to have the bottle professionally photographed yet. This is my new sports massage blend that I've been working on for many years. The blend of Arnica, Olive, and a variety of specially selected essential oils is absolutely perfect for athletes and those with sore and heavily challenged muscles.

The combination of incredible aromas contains herbs that are known to be relaxing, anti-spasmotic, and anti-inflammatory.

Having performed thousands of massages in an almost 40 year career, I've used many combinations of oils and I am positive that this is the one! I've gotten input from many therapists and athletes, and at last, I'm ready to commit!

Like wine, or even an orchestra, essential oils have specific"notes." This blend contains a balanced blend of top, middle, and bass notes. According to our focus groups, this blend not only smells incredible, but relieves pain, brings relaxation, and with it's anti-inflammatory ingredients, helps with stiffness. Watch for more about the launch in September!

Claiming Your Age

Oh, God, what a subject. It seems like only yesterday that I was a cool 18 year old dating cool 18 year old guys. 21 wasn’t so bad, even 40 for that matter!

Once I passed 50, I denied being related in any way to the bald and fat crowd. When I went to my last high school reunion, I followed the signs in the nice hotel to the ballroom with a big sign that said “Class of 1970 Reunion.” That seemed like my group until I looked in the door. “No way, Jose” was that MY group I said to myself, but indeed, it was.

Last year when I went to the doctor for my Autumn checkup, I had planned on getting

a flu shot for the first time. I see the commercials on TV about Shingles, Pneumonia, and all of the other older person shots, but I settled on a flu shot for now. After all, I’m healthy and much younger than everybody else my age. I told the doc that I wanted to get a flu shot in addition to the other checkup stuff on my list, but we both forgot.

In mid February, I came down with the flu that everybody else had. It was an upper respiratory flu with a severe cough. No problem. It would clear up in a few days. The problem was that it didn’t. The cough went on until mid March with an accompanying wheeze and whistle. I went to the doc to get it checked out and was told that it was Bronchitis which is a virus often coming on at the end of the flu. No meds, just get some rest.

At the beginning of April, I was exhausted. I had been coughing for almost two months, my chest was so sore that I had to wrap myself in an ACE bandage in order to accommodate the coughing, and it wasn’t going away! Sleep? How can one sleep when their chest is making a whistling and moaning sound?  The worry about dragging an oxygen tank around for the rest of my life was really giving me anxiety. When I laid down in bed at night I had a tough time breathing. For several nights I was on the verge of the E.R.

When I went back to the Doc, he said that Bronchitis is a virus and to give it more time. There was the possibility of spring allergies getting involved, possibly asthma, try an inhaler …

I started using a steamer with eucalyptus essential oils at night, started seeing the acupuncturist, drank tons of water, stopped eating dairy products, and did everything that every book and article said to do for Bronchitis, Allergies, Asthma, and the like.

Hooray! It’s April 23. The cough is gone, the wheezing is gone, and I’m back to health! My lesson is learned. I spent so many nights laying awake picturing myself with an oxygen tank for the rest of my life because I ended up with chronic Bronchitis or Asthma because I couldn’t recover from the flu.

I will no longer deny that I’m not 18 and that I AM 65. I AM healthy, I don’t smoke, hell, I don’t even drink coffee anymore, but I won’t deny that I need to do those extra things to prevent health problems overall. My advice is that if you are over 60, GET A FLU SHOT. Do everything possible to be strong and healthy. Something as routine as the respiratory flu can take you down permanently. Take it from me.

Compensatory Pains And Herbal Pain Relief

Compensatory pains? What that means is that you might wake up with a sore neck for no apparent reason. Maybe you injured your shoulder, or maybe you hurt your back. Your body is consistently working to find homeostasis. This means that you have a balance that your body is consistently trying to find.

If, for example, you injured your spine and are walking with a bit of a tilt, your body will work to find the horizon. While your eyes are looking for that horizon, if you’re having to tilt your head to find it’s normal balance, your neck will become sore.

I can’t advocate enough for massage therapy. If you’ve never had a full body massage, may I suggest that you get one? I can’t imagine carrying my injured body around without a periodic massage.

When talking about compensatory pains, they can become chronic ailments if you don’t work to correct the reason for the compensation.  In the mean time, I am in the process of creating a natural and enjoyable solution to pain relief.

For many years I’ve used pain relieving herbs in my massage oils and I am so happy to report that I have finally come to a place where I have created a sports massage oil blend that I am in the process of patenting.

My Sports Massage Blend smells SO good and is laden with ingredients that are relaxing, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, nourishing to skin, and down-right euphoric!

Stay tuned for the release of the “Athlete’s Choice” Sports Massage blend.

Cancer Rates Up In Younger People

News reports came out yesterday claiming that colon and rectal cancer rates are up in younger people but no explanation is available. These are reports that always make me angry because of the way that research is done.

For example, “studies” show that genetically modified foods are safe. The truth is that genetically modified food research has not been done long term on humans. What happens to the lab rats AFTER four months? They grow large tumors all over their bodies! There is clear evidence that studies are consistently concluded before the danger deadlines have been reached.

To make me even angrier, laws are being passed all over the country that do not require products containing GMO’s to be labeled. Of course young people are having more cancers and nobody knows why!

As family managers it is our responsibility to buy and prepare food for our families in the safest way. I can’t say enough how easy and affordable it is to grow small amounts of vegetables on your own porch. If you grow lettuce and spinach in pots on your own front porch, you can assure that the vegetables used in your salads and on sandwiches are organic and pesticide free.

People think that organic and GMO free foods are more expensive than regular packaged foods, but that’s not always true. Some grocery stores now have store brand organic foods that are the same price as regular products.

 

To have suspicion about our foods and government regulation is valid. Without labeling, items that you don’t suspect are laced with dangerous ingredients. We must DEMAND that our food and water sources are deemed to be safe for consumption. The government MUST budget for food and water safety. If there is enough money in the budget to increase military spending, there should be enough money to protect the people of Flint, Michigan who are still not receiving clean and safe water.

Young people should not be burdened with potentially life threatening diseases caused by the food and water that they consume. We must STOP the delivery of tainted foods to our children.

I encourage you to buy and grow organic foods, read labels, and know that foods labeled with the green USDA Organic label have passed Governmental requirements to wear such label.

WRITE to your representatives. DEMAND that they continue to protect our families against contaminated food, water, air or they will be exposed and held accountable. Scrutinize our new Environmental Protection Agency leader, Scott Pruitt, who openly plans to threaten our air and water by lifting regulations that will in turn, affect our food.

You Don’t Need A Handyman To Have GREAT Planter Boxes

In 5 bookshelves from the local thrift store I can grow enough vegetables to feed a family of 4 and then some!

Most bookshelves are at least 9 inches deep to accommodate books with a few additional inches in the front. Most vegetable roots don’t need much more than that. Bookshelves with the shelves in or out make perfect vegetable, flower, and herb planters!

If you go to your local hardware store looking for large planters to plant veggies in, they run pretty expensive. I mean, you can spend a couple of hundred bucks on deep pots that are far more depth than you need.

Your local thrift store has old wood bookshelves for $10 - $20 each. The reason that I started buying them was because our ground was so hard and packed I would have had to hire a commercial excavator to get through it. Now, I have vegetables growing all over the place!

When you get the shelf home, you can leave the back on, or soften the ground under it, and lay the frame down with no back for deeper veggies like carrots.

Here’s a cheap and simple project. Go to the thrift store and buy a bookshelf that is sized to a nice area of your yard. Go to the hardware store and buy enough soil to fill the shelf, and some organic seeds. Voila! You have an organic garden. Flowers, herbs, or lettuce are great choices if you’re just starting out.  

I give a lot of organic vegetables away during the summer months which means that ours and our neighbors vegetables are not trucked in from anywhere and are not pesticide riddled. Try it!

It's About Clean Food And Water

I can’t figure out why anyone would call global warming a hoax. Some call it a Democratic conspiracy to kill jobs. Why would somebody, or let alone an entire party making up half of the country’s people try to kill jobs, or lie about climate change?

Science shows that certain pollutants created by MANY polluting factors have caused the globe to become warmer. Factories, energy exploration, cars, and even cattle farming are only a few of these polluters. These climate changes that are taking place on our globe have changed the temperature and acidity of the oceans. Without regulation and working with the rest of the world, the pollution that many people of the world endure could be worse. I’m pretty sure that the “kill jobs” theory is a conspiracy of its own. The Trump administration is doing away with many environmental regulations in order to expand jobs through heavy gas, oil, and coal exploration.

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My conversation today isn’t about global warming or polluted air, it’s about our waters and the man made pollution that threatens them and the food and wildlife that live in them. Think about this; Our oceans grow food, they provide passage for ships that carry food and products, and they provide gems, jobs, and an economy of their own with fishing jobs, coastline resorts, and many food items for nutritional supplementation.

Our rivers and lakes provide fresh water for drinking, irrigating, fishing, recreation, and more. If you leave global warming out of the discussion, let’s just talk about the man made pollution in our waters. In recent years some fish in the Colorado river have come up showing characteristics of both genders. They say that drugs from urine that finds its way to the rivers do not break down in the water when run through sewage treatment. In addition, fish in commercial hatcheries are fed genetically modified food. Trash can be found on the shores of most American rivers. lakes, and the ocean, and the oceans around the world are filled with floating plastic that kills birds, fish, and other wild animals.

You don’t have to be a tree hugger to see the damage to our planet that is caused by man. You can be a redneck hunter and fisherman and I assure that you have seen the changes in your own environment with fewer animals to hunt, fewer fish to catch, and trash along the banks of the lakes and rivers.

Of course, I’d be irresponsible to write that “the sky is falling,” but it is a fact that water shortages are becoming more common, and many of the earth’s rivers and oceans are highly polluted with toxic waste. I saw a recent documentary that showed well drilling companies in California claiming to drill several hundred feet deeper than the past because the water tables are dropping.

Water is one of our most precious medicines. The disappearing water that we are consuming, bathing in, and growing our food with must be clean! Our organs rely on clean water! According to H. H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, the lungs are about 83% water, the skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones contain 31% water.

The nominee for new EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, is against many of the EPA regulations regarding mining and the environment. He hasn't mentioned a word about environmental stewardship, and has sued the EPA over regulations in the past.  The Standing Rock Souix Tribe in North Dakota are fighting to prevent the Dakota Pipeline from going through their land. Although there was a temporary shut down, President Trump has signed an executive order to start the project back up and go under the Missouri River with the pipeline full of toxic tar sand. If this were to seep into the drinking water, all of the peoples water will be threatened. YES, leaks DO happen! They have asked respectfully to have their water and sacred land bypassed by the pipeline but to no avail. I pray for them every day.

I have lived in a part of Colorado where gas exploration has caused seepage into local creeks and drinking water aquafirs. Mostly, the gas companies denied being the cause.

Without clean water, we have no planet, no food, no civilization. Please write to your representatives to prevent the Trump Administration from capitalizing on our lives. There are cleaner forms of energy that are not a threat to our water and our food. If this administration were in touch with environmental issues they would have made clean drinking water in Flint, Michigan a first 100 days priority for the administration. Instead, they are building walls and hating while some people are still operating their homes and families on bottled water donated by others.

Please write to your representatives and to Scott Pruitt, the nominee for new EPA Czar, and tell them that environmental irresponsibility will not be tolerated by the American people. To confirm an anti environmentalist as the head of the Environmental PROTECTION Agency is wrong. It’s hateful. It’s irresponsible all in the name of job creation. Scott Pruitt has made a career out of fighting the clean air and water acts. There are plenty of clean energy jobs just waiting for people to fill them along with plenty of workers willing to be trained.

Please, stand up for your planet and the health and well being of our food and water. Tell your representatives to vote NO for Scott Pruitt! Your body cannot sustain without it.