I can highly recommend a OTC prepared liquid called ALKALOL Nasal Wash. My husband and I have been using it for several years and I've recommended it to family and friends all with wonderful success stories. It's an old saline based formula with invigorating extracts and essential oils that both clear and moisturize. Their own description is "a nasal wash and mucus solvent to help clear blocked nasal passages and provide drug-free relief from nasal congestion and irritation caused by sinusitis, allergies, head colds and post nasal drip." I discovered it several years ago and my husband switched to it from ever increasing serious prescription medications that weren't really working. He was up to being prescribed four combined drugs at a time and was tired of the cycle it put him in. We did some research and found this amazing natural product. He has much better results with this and no drug side effects or dangers. It seems relatively unknown although it's been around since 1896! (no typo on that year). It has an interestingly moisturizing and stimulating effect and with its mild combination of menthol, eucalyptol, thymol, camphor, benzoin, wintergreen, spearmint, pine and cinnamon and no preservatives. It has a mild pleasant herbal / menthol smell and not medicinal. I don't work for the company or anything, just sharing a great product that's made a huge difference for us. I have not had a sinus infection since I started using it several years ago and it was starting to get to be twice a year. My husband can breathe now and does not have to worry his solution is damaging or harming him. My sister raves about it too since I told her about it as she was starting to get that twice a year serious sinus infection too. Sorry to sound like a commercial but this stuff has made a huge improvement in our life. It's prevented serious sinus infections in me that would frequently turned into bronchitis, which was getting worse every year. Now I have none. It's sold at Amazon, CVS, Walmart with rave reviews and there are great testimonials on You Tube. If you get the boxed version, it comes with a small plastic mini passive cup / neti pot, but I don't use it, (too small for me but my sister likes it). I just use it as a nasal rinse or spray and also gargle with it or spray it to get rid of a sore throat on Day 1. If you try it, hope it works for you like it has for us, our family and friends alike. https://www.alkalolcompany.com/how-to-use/ 

Have you had any trees removed withn the last year? That looks very much like some suckers we have coming up-even though we had the stump ground. Guess they didn't do such a good job. As much as I avoid using chemicals, I am going to spray mine. I tried digging, but can't seem to get all.

I disagree, partially. You should only trust your instinct when science hasn't provided an answer for a while. Instinct is a decent "backup". Science is essentially instinct, backed up with evidence. "Trust your instincts" is basically a nice way of saying "go with your gut". I think that's a crazy way to poke your way through the darkness when you're dealing with a child who looks like they can't breathe. I just spent a sleepless night worrying about my boy's ragged, irregular breathing, and snotty coughing interfering with his feeding. I was scared, nervous, and didn't really ever feel like I was doing exactly the right thing. But frankly, that's just tough for me. I pulled an all-nighter of fear so that my wife, a doctor, could finally get some regular sleep. She woke up, walked into the bedroom, and basically diagnosed the problem as a non-problem in minutes with an aspirator, warm water, and a minute or two at the breast. As a parent, you just have to accept a certain amount of uncertainty, and the notion that some problems don't have obvious, immediate solutions. My boy's a premie, so nobody's more scared of the sniffles or apnea than I am. But MAN, I was amazed the way some of the other parents treated those poor nurses in the NICU. I'm not calling doctors infallible. I think we're just going through a cultural swing from one ridiculous extreme to the other. Fifty years ago doctors could do no wrong. In movies and books they were treated like demi-gods who could talk to anyone like they were illiterate peasants. Now the opposite absurdity is coming into effect. Now, in our hyper-commodified society, where everything has a price, we treat doctors like we treat a waiter at a cheap cafe. Like some pack animal that's there to suit our every whim, immediately. I've also noticed that, with our criminally inefficient health care system for the rich, we tend to take that frustration out on the nurses and doctors who are basically just the public "face" of our system. Parenting, though, is still the same, more or less. It's nervewracking, and makes you feel sometimes like you're just sitting there watching someone asphyxiate. But you're not (mostly). And thank God we don't just "trust our instincts". If we did, we'd still be burning women at stakes for "witchery" and bleeding people when they sneezed too loud at parties.

I called the doctor this morning. My fever is down completely, and my cough isn't nearly as bad. But my chest feels so congested, my head is beyond stuffed, and my throat is still awful. I had to walk across the road to the barn this morning, and that little bit of exertion was enough get me out of breath and in a cold sweat. So I called the doctor. The nurse said I definitely need an antibiotic. I think she based this on the stuff I had been coughing up for the first four or five days. They'll probably give me Zithromyacin, which is what I was going to get for the Babesiosis before I came down with this. Zith has been in the news lately for causing heart attacks. Normally that would put me off, but the risk is low and I would like to get both these things cleared up, or at least improved, if possible. Thanks, all!