Do you suffer from fall allergies? Buy extra boxes of tissues? Stock up on allergy medication? This should be a wonderful season because of the temperate weather, so it is unfortunate that allergies can hamper our enjoyment of a beautiful fall.

Every year, my ragweed allergy seems to hit harder than the year before. I have tried all kinds of anti-allergy medication with varying results. With sinus infections that made me feel as if the only place I wanted to be was my bed, I could hardly get to those fall jobs that awaited me outside.

Imagine—all these years you have been paying for vitamin C and it just stood in your yard!

Well, it seems that the native Indians knew more than we do about curing sinus congestion.

Skeptical, I watched a video online of a woman in Canada making pine needle tea. It does not sound appetizing, but the fact that pine needles contain 3-4 times as much vitamin C as the store pills enticed me to try it.

How do you make the tea? I am glad you asked. It is worth mentioning because I had to throw out my first pot. Believe it or not, there is a right way.

The best needles to cut are the long, thick ones at the end of the branches. In Georgia, you will want to weed out any needles covered in black mold. Rinse them. Cut them into 1-inch pieces and drop them into your teapot. Be sure to throw out the brown bit that holds the needles together.

Boil your water and then pour it over the diced pine needles. Let it steep for 15 minutes to maximize the vitamin C. Pour a cup. Add sugar and enjoy!

I thought the taste would be overpowering, like the strong scent of pine, but it is not. Within two days, my sinus infection disappeared. The vitamin C gave me a boost in energy. I found I suddenly had three times the energy to get my chores done in a more cheerful mood to boot.

The flavor has grown on me. Now I look forward to one cup of pine needle tea per day to keep the sinus infection away.

Today, when I realized that my son's asthmatic cough was caused by a sinus infection, I handed him my cup of pine needle tea, expecting rejection. We were on the way to a parent-teacher interview and I noticed right away that he stopped coughing. While he liked the Echinacea tea, he said it was the pine needle tea that helped him the most.

God the gracious, the merciful, gave us ragweed on every corner, but pine needles abound all around us to cure those allergies that threaten to incapacitate us.

Try this free remedy and let us know what it did for you. If you have a native recipe, please share it.