There are other ways Safran could come up sick or lame as well. Bonus to this - built-in reason for interaction with Leof as well as our new herbs-woman.
Honestly, though, if I was you I would probably be trying to think of a reason to keep Elfthain at the Hall longer term, since (in the past, anyway) the timeline does not usually go day by day but jumps (a week, a month, several months sometimes) according to what's going on in the Hall and what suits the characters.