Just a quick post today – Chestnuts forming…

on a beautiful old Horse Chestnut tree.

In contrast to the Sweet Chestnut tree I showed yesterday, this tree yields very hard inedible nuts which, when carefully strung with a shoe lace (and further hardened if you are a real pro) serve as a fun autumn toy for children – Conkers!

Medicinally speaking, Horse Chestnut is widely reputed as an effective external treatment for varicose veins and broken capillaries (such as thread veins and hemorrhoids). The ointment is quite simple to make. You need to make infused oil using the leaves and/or conkers first of all. Then when your oil is ready, warm it up gently and blend in enough beeswax to make an ointment of acceptable consistency. I bought some once and it was almost rock hard, not handy for gently smoothing over delicate thread veins…

I’m going to be making a double tincture and double infused oil this year; adding the leaves to both vodka and oil in summer and then add the conkers to the same carriers come autumn. I’ll make my ointment from the oil, beeswax and a little tincture for added effectiveness. Of course varicose veins and hemorrhoids can be extremely serious conditions so this remedy, although trusted by many, shouldn’t be used without firstly checking that more radical treatments are not immediately necessary.