Don’t kill, spray, tear up, or destroy the weeds in your garden, yard, and fence rows. Many of them are actually highly-regarded, widely-used, and extremely-valuable medicinal herbs! What could be easier than growing an herb garden with no effort? Of course, you’ll have to harvest your edible weeds, but you would do that anyhow: it’s […]
It’s that time of year again: The time when I dream of eating a hearty bowl of venison-chanterelle stew. And while we’re at it, let’s add some homemade bread and a mug of dandelion tea. Now, this isn’t a stew that came from a can or one of those soymilk-looking containers. This is a stew […]
Why do I love dandelions so much? You know, I could write a book on that. For now, let’s just say dandelions are another one of those amazingly delicious and nutritious herbs. Dandelion is the plant that inspired me to study herbal medicine. So it MUST be an incredible herb! “If you want to take […]
Fall is a wonderful time to harvest the roots from Burdock, Arctium lappa. Burdock root is extremely nutritious and a deep healer. It is a long-term immune system strengthener among many other things, which makes it a wonderful herb to use for the upcoming cold and flu season. My favorite way to use healthful herbs […]
Harvesting black walnuts is enjoyable and well worth the effort. Black walnuts are very nutritious and delicious! This is a messy activity, so be sure to wear old clothes, old sneakers and cover your hands with gloves, unless you want to be dye-stained for several weeks. The black walnut tree is pictured above. Here’s a […]
I was on the first week of my field biology job in the mountains of North Cascades National Park when I got a message from the trees. I had been doing Wilderness Awareness School’s naturalist training series for a few years, but it still took me by surprise to hear trees talking. Or maybe it […]
This past week I had the opportunity to join a small group of my Immersion classmates on a voluntary, 3-day survival trek. This practice is meant to prepare for a survival situation in which the group is traveling, hopefully towards rescue. The other type of survival trip we practice is “basecamp” survival. This is where […]
One of my housemates brought home a big mushroom for the dinner table. I sniffed at it suspiciously, nervous about the edibility of an unknown (to me) fungus. A friend came in and buried her face in the plate-sized cap. “It smells like…” she searched for the term. “A beautiful woman’s hair,” she claimed decisively, […]