Late fall foraging

We seem to be having what the country folk call a 'long, open fall' here; no snow yet. And as this comes on the heels of the best wild fruit summer we've seen in our 10 years here, I am one happy camper these days.

I keep going for walks and coming home with the likes of this:

Top - dandelions
Left - nettles good for eatin' (and we did) Right - rosehips and wild grapes for juice

Garbling the message

Herbalists use the word "garble" to describe the process of preparing plant material for use. Dictionaries call this definition "obsolete". (sigh)

To everyone else, to garble is to mix up words or ideas so badly that the original meaning or intent is obscured.

I can tell you, when it comes to all things herbal, the message out there on the internet is garbled in the second sense. Pretty badly, too.

"Herbalists have always been strange"

That's a line lifted from a talk by the much loved herbalist David Hoffman that I just tripped over on youtube.

Here's part one:

A musical interlude

Yarrow

I know this blog is supposed to be 'snippets from a wildcrafter's journal', but this wildcrafter doesn't have a lot of time to write a journal when she's in the thick of it.

This is the beginning of the busiest, and therefore sweetest time of year for me.

Commercial break post that became a furious rant

(this is the not-ranty part)

Remember last year when I had tinctures and other wild crafted, home made products for sale?

I am so NOT going to do that this year. (Although I do have a few things left over, if you want to know what's still available, write me)

It's not that it wasn't successful. It's not that I didn't kinda sorta enjoy certain aspects of it.

It's just that it's so. not. me.

Roses - part one

Remember, click
to embiggen!

Well this comes under the heading of "what was I thinking??" 

I blurted out in comments earlier that some day I would do a rose post. Oy vey, I can't fit everything I do with roses into one post! And for all I do with them, I barely scratch the surface of what can be done with roses.

But then this blog was never intended to be a comprehensive teaching tool, just a sort of journal of my wildcrafting adventures meant to pique your interest. You, my clever reader-friends, know how to do a Google search, and (as I'm finding out) you're a creative bunch, too. So I'll just share what I do, you guys share back about what you do, or would like to do. Leaving links of cool rose stuff in comments is encouraged!!

Go ahead, get a little wild

The mass of green on the left there
is red clover, just about to come into bloom.
 Mow around it!

It's mostly because we're just too tender-hearted. We've just never been able to mow down something we know to be medicinal, or edible, or will feed the wild bees or the humming birds. It just seems bad form to reject what nature offers up so generously.

So for the first few years we lived here, we'd notice some particularly weedy patch in the lawn, and go around it with the mower. Islands formed, miniature eco-systems. I got the chance to learn about plant succession, about "guilds", and about all the ways these new friends of mine could balance my hormones, relieve my fibro-like pain and how some of them were just downright fun - popping the seed capsules of what is locally known as 'himalayan honeysuckle' is irresistible.

Lambsquarters aka wild spinach. Reliable,
delicious, and carefree.