It’s Saturday evening in this ski town and our rural resort town is about to be slammed by Hurricane Hillary. Yes, a hurricane in southern California! Only in the year 2023, am I right? And (If you are conservative like I am) you thought Hillary could not do any more damage? Here on the West Coast, this first hurricane in nearly eighty years is bearing down on our small California mountain town. So of course the puppy had to get hurt last night. There was just one natural solution; That was turmeric for dogs.
On a weekend, and we have no emergency vet here in this rural town. The evening before the hurricane began, the puppy somehow hit her paw on the picnic table in the backyard and almost ripped off one of her front claws. Poor little forty-five-pound Catahoula pup. Well, we are just not going to face flash flooding during a hurricane with seventy-mile-an-hour winds to drive her to the emergency vet an hour away. Thank God for turmeric for dogs to the rescue.
With a hurricane bearing down on us here in Southern California we had to find a more natural remedy than driving to the emergency vet an hour away. A holistic remedy like turmeric for dogs, was the answer. We used a turmeric tincture to help pull out any infection if there was one. Turmeric Curcumin, a principal bioactive substance of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.), is reported as a strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral agent.
Did you know if you feel a cold coming on you can also eat a tablespoon of turmeric powder to help ward it off? That sounds God-awful to me and I would rather drink some freshly squeezed orange juice. I will however use turmeric in this case yesterday because driving through a mudslide to the emergency vet was just not happening. Turmeric for dogs was going to have to be the answer until our mountain vet reopened on Monday.
Hurricane home remedies
My boyfriend hails from a developing country where sometimes you find yourself in a village during a cyclone and you may not have a doctor nearby or a veterinarian. But there is always good old turmeric to pull out all those impurities and dry out the wound. Also, you can use it in this delicious Plum and Ginger pickle. Are you looking for Chinese medicine hacks here or perhaps a way to use up all those late-season plums? Perhaps you are just curious about turmeric for dogs and if it is safe for man’s best friend. Well, you have found some great info!
Aside from making a turmeric tincture how much turmeric can dogs have in their food orally? Turmeric is great for dogs as well as humans. Adding turmeric to your dog’s diet can help reduce inflammation, improve digestion, prevent cancer, improve cognitive function, and promote healthy skin and coat.
When it comes to turmeric for dogs, the recommended dose of turmeric for dogs is 15mg–20mg per pound of body weight per day, or more simply put, 1/8 to 1/4 tsp per day for every 10 pounds of body weight. This is a rough starting point, but you can increase the amount from there, up to about a tbsp for larger dogs.
Puppy problems and a plethora of plums
Aside from all those puppy problems, we have been readying the yard for this expected cyclone and yes that means stripping a lot of the plums from our Methley plum trees. We have so many plums on our trees they actually look like bunches of grapes. It’s wild. Kind of like the first hurricane to smack into Southern California since the late 1930s. Something has to be done about this plethora of plums. We can’t go anywhere with this wacky weather so I might as well get in the kitchen and start creating.
I had to cancel work, that is all my hiking tours and Jeep tours for the week. So I guess I’m headed to the kitchen to bake a Plum Ginger Cake and a Plum Ginger Chutney. And of course, I always add stone fruit like plums to my favorite Caprese salad. Why even buy tomatoes when there is such a plethora of plums in our household?
So what else can you do with plums? Have you ever tried a plum pickle? In India making pickles with leftover limes and mangos is a great way to use up seasonal produce. We made it through most of the hurricane just fine. By Sunday the puppy was even feeling better! Then, Hillary, oh she was up to something and I’m not talking about Benghazi here. Hurricane Hillary took down our plum tree as the hurricane after the eye of the storm passed our resort town. Our overladen plum tree went down and now we have even more plums to use up. And a very sad-looking injured tree. So yes, that is one injured dog and one injured tree.
Achaar or pickle is known to be the south Indian side dish. This version is easy to make as long as you can find curry leaves that seriously add to the flavor. Achaar or pickles are India’s answer to kimchi. Pickle is more commonly made with gooseberry, limes, ginger or garlic but this is a unique and spicy combination. I might have created this achaar just to use up that plethora of plums, but man is this a sour and delious pickle!
Plum Red Chile Pickle
2 cups of raw plums
4 dried red chilis, crumbled
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon grated fresh garlic
1/8 cup curry leaves
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 cup fenugreek seeds
2 Asian red chilis
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 a teaspoon whole black pepper
1/2 cup mustard oil
1/2 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons jaggery
1/4 cup water
Cut your plums in half and deseed. Put your plums in a saucepan with just 1/4 cup water. Let reduce for about ten minutes. Mix in the oil and then your red chiles until the chiles are blackened. Mix in your ginger and garlic. Cook just until the garlic is cooked and fragrant. Mix in the curry leaves and the mustard seeds just until the mustard seeds start to splutter. Add in the fenugreek seeds, the turmeric, and whole black pepper and continue to stir for a minute or two. Turn off the heat, add in the salt and the jaggery.
In a separate pan bring the vinegar to a boil and mix in the pickle. Allow to cool and spoon into sterilized jars and refrigerate.
