The Best Laid Plans of Herbalists

            When I launched the website back in the summer, I had great plans for posting a new blog every two weeks or so. I was going to share all the cool things that I’d been learning about herbs, my triumphs (and occasional missteps) in developing new products, the joys of my small herbal garden. It was going to be grand.

            My last post was August 23. It was about the awesomeness of lemon balm.

            So where have I been for the last four months? What has so utterly derailed my best laid plans?

            All the many facets to developing and running Wise Cat Apothecary. Making products. Marketing. Taking classes. Sanitizing the kitchen. Learning and implementing the many, many FDA rules for herbal products. Making products. Sanitizing the kitchen. Making labels. Revising labels when I change label brands. Writing batch records for every batch of product I make. Revising formulas. Marketing. Sanitizing the kitchen. Developing bookkeeping and inventory tracking strategies. Revamping those strategies when they don’t work. Recreating a month’s worth of files when the hard drive was corrupted. Sanitizing the kitchen. Making products. Sometimes I sleep.

Sometimes it seems all I do is make labels. In a recent class on FDA label requirements, I learned that I needed to revise all the labels I’d created.

            I love my business and making herbal products. I am thrilled when people who’ve bought my products come back and tell me how much the products have helped them. My heart sings with joy and gratitude! I’m able to help people feel better! How amazing is that?! I love talking to people about herbs and how they can support our health and well-being. It’s so cool when someone learns that a plant they thought was “just a weed” can make them feel better.

Common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia)–one of the most hated plants of late summer but one whose leaves are rich in natural antihistamines!

            I love what I do, but I’m also learning that as a one-woman show I’m always behind. I get an amazing amount of support from my husband, friends, and family. I certainly couldn’t make this endeavor work without them. But day in and day out, this circus really is all mine—and so are the monkeys. I’m the one developing formulas and making products. It’s my job to figure out marketing strategies–how do I let the world know about my amazing products? It falls to me to decide what to order, when, and how much. I’m the one taking the classes and trying to apply that knowledge to make the best herbal products possible.

            The bottom line: I can’t do it all. Or I can but seldom on the timeline I set for myself. Partly because there is so much to do, and partly because, for the first time, I’m giving myself permission to slow down, to pause and reflect. With all the push of running a business, the reality is the practice of herbalism forces you to slow down. You simply can’t get in a hurry when you are waiting for plants to grow so you can harvest them. Straining a glycerin extract is not a process that can be sped up–not without making an unholy, sticky mess. I’ve learned to use a water bath to speed up herb-oil infusions. Five to six hours in a warm water bath is much faster than six weeks in a window—but that’s still a day of waiting for the infusion to take place. Then it must be strained (usually more than once) before it can be made into a salve or lotion. So if you need lotion on Wednesday, you’d better start the process on Monday—and realize that there’s a lot of waiting between Monday and Wednesday.

            I work during those periods of waiting. There’s plenty to do. But I also give myself permission to sit down and rest sometimes. I give myself time to read for pleasure in the evenings. Some days I don’t work at the business at all. I want and need time to think, to consider what I want Wise Cat Apothecary to be, who I want to be as an herbalist, who I want to be as a person. Sometimes I need to have coffee with a friend. Other days, I need to take a walk in the woods.

From an overlook on Sparrow Hawk Mountain–the Illinois River is meandering below. This is one of my favorite places to hike.

            I know these pauses push me off schedule. So much so that I’ve not written a blog post in four months. Yet I find these pauses give me moments of clarity and insight, or the little bit of charge I need to keep going. I think these pauses make me a better herbalist. I hope they make me a better person.

            So where have I been for the last four months? Learning my craft as an herbalist, building a business, practicing pausing for reflection and clarity, sometimes thinking about the next blog I’d like to write.

            And sanitizing my kitchen.