sweasel.com

Alas, there is nothing sicker than a sick Badger. Poor fellow. Once you recover from your elderberry induced illness, make yourself and the Good Fellow some comfort food, with perhaps some warm apple cider, with cinnamon in it.

A personally favorite has always been “shouting groceries”.

Toss your cookies is my all time favorite!

It’s a “BUICK!”

Calling in the HUEY!

Feel better soon!

Driving the porcelain bus.

So glad there’re several thousand miles between us…I have all next week off and I don’t want to be sick. 🙂

Yodelling down the Great White Telephone

Spraying quiche lorraine all over the ceiling

Blowing chunks

When I get hypo, I get bouts of nausea that can last for hours. Did you know you can crack a rib by honking hard enough? It was an eye-opener, I can tell you. I still feel like I’ve been kicked two weeks later. And it’s always fun when the bile starts turning red.

Based on the graphic: The Flames of Weaselzilla.

Singing the ode of the Elderberry spew?

I feel fine today, but my face is sporadically covered in petechial hemorrages.

Fooning.

When the hubby is sick, the world comes to an end…..or so he thinks it should. The moaning, the groaning……and that’s just me! When I’m sick, the laundry still gets done, the trash still gets taken to the chute, the coffee still gets made…..in short, the world still spins albeit with a few breaks for heaving, hacking, etc.

Based on the graphic: The Flames of Weaselzilla.

Yeah, I thought it was GodWeaselZilla flaming the Democraps.

Shouting groceries…gotta remember that one 🙂

We always used to say ‘splashed’…or for long ongoing action ‘heave…splashsplashsplashsplash’

Technicolor yawn is another one.

Gotta be careful with that homebrew, sometimes it bites back.

Stoatie, I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. BUT I have spent a number of years working in ER’s. If you have access to such a place, I would take the cordial, and the container, to somewhere it can be analysed. My first thought would be that either the elderberries had been sprayed with some agricultural chemical, or something had gotten into the container they sat in. The petechiae in this situation would make me think that it was a result of the increased blood pressure caused by the vomiting. They should resolve by themselves. If they become a regular thing, y’all might want to have a doctor look at it because if it is chronic it could mean you have a clotting problem [platelets].

Hope you stay well, and that you and Uncle Badger find something cordial that is less stressful.

Delivering street pizza.

I always liked “praying to the porcelain god”

Singing Psalms at the Temple of Swirling Waters….. 😉

Giving mouth to mouth to the tidy-bowl man…..

Summoning the Spew-Dragon….. (ok, that one is a stretch)

Might be strange to say, but the subject, for some reason, got me TOTALLY revved for the Gormagon episodes on “Bones”

Wierd how the human brain works, eh?

Stoaty! That sounds dangerous. You should consider what Subotai Bahadur wrote.

Oh, and Armybrat – two words: Man Cold. ‘Nuff said.

The cordial was less than cordial….??

Feeding your inner Penguin chick!

Shouting at your shoes, lofting (or launching) your lunch…

And as an independent contractor cat, I know Badger’s pain. Supposed to be on semi-holiday this week and I’m unwell, of course. … get well soon!

Mew

Yes, you can get those on your face from vomiting severely. In fact, you can do even better – I’ve had bleeding inside the white of the eye, turning it blood red. Fun!

A ways back I used to have episodes of vomiting that would last exactly 24 hours. I would have some back pain, then throw up anything I ate or drank to the last drop or bit. Even saliva if too much went down. Turned out the issue was kidney stones passing mixed with hypertension causing a synergistic reaction in the stomach.

So while I was figuring out the pattern I did a lot of spitting up, and you can actually learn to do it well and with a lot less strain. The wierdest thing was Grape Nuts cereal and milk. It comes up like spackle, not liquid.

I once had one episode start just as I had to take my mom to the LA airport. By then I could feel it coming, pull over, lean out the open door, vomit, and go on driving. I had to do that several times on that trip.

reading the comments alone was awesome!

Being self-employed also, I’m with Uncle B. on this one. Having a cold means I’m even more miserable than normal while working. Having anything worse than a cold means I’m at least temporarily unemployed, sans bennies. Consultants don’t get sick days or vacation days.

Oh dear. My mother was a nurse, so we were rather clinical in my household. She said, and I still say “vomit.” No euphemisms for us.

For Uncle Badger: when you feel better, I hope you will look up Jala Neti—the yoga practice of nasal lavage. You use a little pot to pour warm salt water in one nostril and let it run out the other, thus washing out your sinus passages and nose. In 11 years, I’ve only had three colds.

Actually, I don’t use the neti pot anymore; I use a plastic baby bottle (with a hole drilled in the bottom so the saline will flow) because the rubber nipple is soft and fits better in my nose.

A few weeks ago I had a rather severe event of nausea and vomiting, and blew vomit out my nose. Mercy. I couldn’t do a neti fast enough!

Calling “EUROPE!”

Deborah, I think you underestimate my English Cousin’s toughness. When a Badger does such a thing, he merely insets the tip of the pressure washer into a nostril, and, after a quick blast, does the other one. Problem solved. Then you feel like a new badger, and you go and taunt dachshunds.

I snort salt water every morning as a part of my routine, Deborah. A herbalist recommended it to deal with morning congestion. I don’t think it makes a permanent improvement, but it certainly clears me out for the day. Whether it does anything to block colds…ask the Russians.

I wish I knew of such a place, Subotai Bahadur. I am completely and utterly puzzled by this. The berries are from our own garden, so I know they haven’t been sprayed. Put into a clean glass demijohn, our standard storebought vodka we drink all the time poured over them, and our standard everyday sugar added to the mix, then poured into empty vodka bottles. The taste was delicious, but it’s hard to argue with the cause-and-effect.

Also, I have three bottles of it 🙁

Anonymous was me, obviously. I’m test-driving the new integrated browser/FB/Twitter platform, Rockmelt.

If anyone wants to try it, speak up — I have two invites left.

Asked some friends, and got the following:

“Un-Eat”
“calling Ralph on the white courtesy phone”
“Laughing at the ground”
“Tasting the rainbow”

The very same thing happened to me with the last third of a bottle of zinfandel. There I was enjoying its sturdy brio, and the next hour I was decorating the wall with whichever end of me wasn’t on the can.

I guess I’ll say no more.

SCOTTtheBADGER—there have been times when I wished I had a pressure washer to stick up my nose! I have seen a nasal attachment you can use with the Water Pik, that shoots a pulsating stream of water through the ball-shaped tip. I don’t have enough courage to try my Water Pik by itself.

Scott Jacobs: I declare “calling Ralph on the white courtesy phone” to be the winner, if anyone should ask me.

Stoaty? I’m so sorry about the elderberry cordial; maybe you’ve made flea repellent!
Re: jala neti. I use a small pinch of baking soda in my neti water, along with salt. The baking soda chemically alters the natural pH of the nasal mucosa (very slightly, but it’s enough) which blocks rhino-viruses at the cellular level. And I’m using a large volume salt/soda water—20 oz. to pour through my nose. I know I sound like a zealot, but daily nasal lavage improved my quality of life enormously, because I was sick all the time before.

I’ve been thinking this over, and I think the alcohol content got reduced enough that a toxic yeast or mold was able to grow and produce its poison.

Try adding most of your sugar at the start of the soak next time. (If you ever want to try again.)

Perhaps you could sell it as “Stoaty’s miracle diet elixir?”

British vodka is slightly weaker — 37.5% standard strength — but it’s a hell of a thing that could survive in that.

That’s all I can think of either, though, Bob.

I considered maybe the stuff I used to sterilize the demijohn, but I’m not sure what that was, looking back. Since yeast wasn’t an issue, I may not have used sterilizer.

Weasel, what color were your elderberries? And may I say you made the cordial wrong. Let me know if you would like the correct way to make this and other berry cordials, which is different than say lemoncello, aprict or pineapple cordials.

I feel for your tummy, kitchen chemistry gone wrong really really sucks wind.

Dark, dark purple, FFFine. It was a friend’s recipe, but I’d be delighted to learn a better one. You know — one that didn’t make me firehose purple gunk.

Glad they were dark purple, the red ones are poison.

Bruise the fruit, boil in 1 gallon of water, when cool filter the juice with a jelly bag (use several layers of cheese cloth), do not squeeze let it drip through the night. Make a simple syrup water with a lot of sugar dissolved in it. Take your filtered juice put in demijohm, jug, bottle cask whatever you have, same amount of liquior (vodka, whiskey, brandy) add simple syrup to taste. Place in cool dark place, you have a cellar maybe? For two months maybe more. Taste, is it pleasant to the tastebuds? If it is, decoct into bottles, leaving any sediments in the bottom of the demijohn, let bottles age, the flavor will get mellower with age.

The last thing you want to do is put the berries in the vodka. You boil the berries making sure they burst open, if you have to help with a spoon do so.

Next time you make cordial and you want to add spice or herbs do it in the juicing stage.

How much fruit to a gallon of water?

About 1 gallon of fruit.

Also taste at every stage, so you can adjust accordingly. To much berry flavor add more water, the sweet, need to balance the alcohol, so neither is overwhelming the other.
(this advice from Omar the cordial maker) No matter what you are brewing up taste at every stage.

If you ever decide to use cinnamon or ginger, use stick or part of root, never the ground stuff.

You know this makes me think I need to add to my blog about cordial, mead and liqueur making.

Thank you for the recipe (I almost said “cordially”). Of course, it’ll be almost a year before I can try it out 🙁

Blog? Why no URL on your comments?

Try it out on some berry you can get, pomegranite the same way. If you don’t have quite a gallon of fruit judt go ahead and do it.

You can of course do this with vegetables you like, or try pumpkin spice cordial (that is if you like pumpkin pie).

You are most welcome.

http://laurihowitis.blogspot.com/

Silly me, I really did not think to put it there.

Stoaty, I hope you and Uncle Badger feel better soon! Being sick, regardless of cause, is not fun! Ferret hugs to you both.

I have kindly strains of yeast that don’t quit until ~25% ABV, and that’s just when they stop producing alcohol. They still produce all sorts of pleasant notes right up until you drink the hootch.

Come to think of it, I was kinda bothered when you began this project with uncooked fruit. I figured you were following an ancient folk recipe.

FFFfine, Love your recipe! I know an Extension agent who adds five squares of fragrange-free toilet paper to a very similar recipe in order to get a much clearer syrup.

I’m rather fond of the phrase “reviewing inputs”.

Doing the Big Spit

Commode Hugging

Looks like you might have found the recipe for Chateau Chunder: “a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.” (Monty Python’s Australian Wine Review)

Some variants from Down Under (where they have more terms for upchucking than Eskimos have for snow):

“Hurling your tucker”

“Parking a tiger on the lawn”

“Worshipping Ralph”

Shouting “Europe!” at the sink
Yakking
Blowing chowder

It’s simple. Weasel. You had mould/mildew on your elderberries. They cause all sorts of intestinal nasties.
Wash your berries first, after picking out any with soft, damaged or obviously mouldy skin.
The sluice for a minute or so in basin of very dilute bleach. Then rinse, rinse and rinse again.
The Saxons used to sluice in fresh urine, if you’re looking to be uber-green!

We always said “Blue Buick” – its code to your buddies at a party that you’re feeling nauseous [imminent lunch launch] and to give you a wide berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrth!

“Praising the Porcelain Goddess” – referring to when it is so bad, you gotta kneel in front of the toilet – because even when you think you’re done – you’re not done.