Part 5: The Winter That Almost Broke Us

January 2024 was not a normal cold snap.

We were living in our RV, and the temperatures had dropped so far below zero that surviving inside wasn't really an option anymore. Our small electric heater and heating pads couldn't keep up. The walls of that little home on wheels were no match for what was coming in from outside. We had six dogs — six — and nowhere to go.

That's when Mimi stepped in. Her friends managed a hotel, and without hesitation, they opened their doors to all of us. All eight of us. For a week, we were warm. We were safe. We slept without worrying about the cold creeping in overnight. It was one of those moments where you feel the weight of other people's kindness in a way you never forget.

When the temps finally climbed back above freezing during the day, we returned to the RV. It wasn't comfortable, but it was survivable. We were grateful. We were relieved.

And then, the day after we got back, I started to feel sick.

Within 12 hours, Amy and I were more sick than we had ever been in our lives. We're not talking about a rough cold or a bad few days. We're talking about crying from the pain. About Amy having to practically crawl outside of the RV in the morning to get the generator started, terrified she wouldn't have the strength to pull the cord. We were both so weak, so hollowed out, that the simplest tasks felt impossible.

We survived it. But we never wanted to feel that way again.

When the fog finally lifted and we could stand without holding onto something, we started asking questions we should have been asking all along. What were we doing to actually protect ourselves? What did we have in our corner when something like this hit?

The answer, honestly, was not much.

We started researching. We started reading. We started making.

Fire Cider was first. It's an old folk remedy — the kind of thing your great-grandmother might have kept in the back of the cupboard — but we made it our own. Flaming hot peppers. Turmeric root. Fresh ginger. Lemons. Honey. A whole collection of immune-boosting roots, herbs, and aromatics, all steeped low and slow in raw organic apple cider vinegar. It's bold. It's fiery. It smells like something that means business. And that's exactly the point.

Then came the elderberry syrup — rich, dark, and packed with antioxidants that have been used for centuries to support the immune system. Then fermented garlic honey, which sounds strange until you try it and realize it's one of the most quietly powerful things you can make in your own kitchen.

And then we found the sweet gum trees.

If you've ever walked through a Missouri forest and stepped on one of those spiky little seed pods, you know them. Most people curse them. We started studying them. Because inside those pods is something remarkable — shikimic acid, the same compound that forms the basis of Tamiflu. Nature had been growing its own antiviral right under our feet the whole time.

We started making a tincture. Carefully. Intentionally. With the same respect we bring to everything we grow and make here on the farm.

Since that January — since Amy crawled to the generator, since we both cried from the pain, since we made a quiet promise to ourselves that we were going to do something different — we have not had a single cold or flu. Not one week lost to fever and aching and helplessness.

We're not here to make promises about what these remedies will do for you — that's not our place. What we can tell you is what they've done for us. And we can tell you that we make every single batch with that January in mind — with the memory of how bad it got, and the determination to never go back there.

The Fire Cider. The Sweet Gum Tincture. The Elderberry Syrup. The garlic honey. These aren't products we dreamed up to sell. They're what we built out of desperation, out of pain, and out of a deep belief that the land around us has more to offer than we'd ever given it credit for.

We make small batches. We make them carefully. And we make them for people who are ready to take their health into their own hands, the same way we had to. That January taught us something we carry into everything we do here at WestLand Farms: when you commit to something — really commit — the path has a way of showing up. Dream big, and the resources will come.