Next Wellness Fair This Sunday, and Practical Foraging Thoughts

Well, it’s the eve of wellness fair weekend again. This time, the wellness fair is at a winery in South East Kelowna, at The Vibrant Vine on Sunday from 12pm to 5pm. I will be there offering my Biblical Natural Health Coaching along with my daughter selling her wildcrafted looseleaf teas. I’ll have three of my books out on the table as well: My Foraging Notebook, 38 Nutritional/Medicinal Profiles, and Mom’s Little Black Book of Skincare & Make-up. I’d hoped to have these on the table at the June wellness fair, but they didn’t arrive in time. These books are also available on my website via Lulu, or direct from Lulu, AND Lulu ships to Canada! That’s big news for me these days!

In addition to the heat that will still be with us that day, I might be a little “out of it” as my daughter needs to do a hay pickup that morning! I have yet to find a herbal concoction that acts as fast as ventolin does, in a safe manner. The closest so far is Ephedrine, but a) it takes 20 minutes before it hits and b) not only can it burn in the lungs, but the amount of mucous you start kicking out can temporarily leave you feeling like you’re drowning, which isn’t fun! The next closest is a very strong lung clearing tea, takes the usual 20 min to kick in, and it too can cause a burn in the lungs, but typically without almost drowning you in mucous. Neither answer instantly opens the airways, although the tea is a homemade blend of wild herbs. So I’ll have my manmade lung meds with me that day due to all the hay dust I’ll have breathed in while helping Ashley with her hay run. You can bet I’ll have a mug of my lung tea in hand that afternoon as well! Various herbs do have anti-histamine effects, but they are not quick-acting, nor first-aid quality. I’d need to be laying on my back with a mustard poultice on my chest to get close to the instant action I require. To that end, chewing on arrowleaf balsamroot leaves alongside wild mustard leaves and pineapple weed does offer antihistamine calming, and calming is necessary so the body stops freaking out. So we’ll see how I am when 12pm rolls around on Sunday.

I finally dug up the purslane recipes I’ve been pdf’ing from around the ‘net, and only one requires cooking, so minus that one, I think I have what it takes to make a good stab at the neighbour’s purslane-covered paddock. I’m considering approaching them if they want to join in on the processing. My recipes are purslane chimmichurri, purslane pesto, and purslane relish. Other ingredients would have to be purchased or obtained somehow, things like tomatoes for the relish, herbs and spices, lemon juice concentrate, etc. We have everything except the tomatoes, so need to go buy those.

The salt can be made by burning lamb’s quarters plants and using the ash as the salt seasoning. Imagine, wild-sourced salt and peppergrass instead of store-bought salt and black pepper. . . I finally remembered to set out the pepper grinder with the peppergrass seed in it. It’s a milder flavour when served that way, so I have to remember to add more for the usual kick I like from black pepper. Now I just need a metal tin to burn the lamb’s quarters in and collect the ash. I don’t drink coffee so I don’t have any of those tins kicking around.

While my kids didn’t like my attempt at wild mustard from the leaves of the wild mustard weed, others out there make their own mustard that way. I guess I just needed to sweeten it more than I did, maybe use a honey-mustard recipe instead.

We ate simple burgers for dinner tonight, with Ashley and I adding wild mustard weed, dandelion, and prickly lettuce to our burgers, and both of us really liked how the flavours went together. I found myself wondering what it might taste like if I made my curly dock bread and used that for the bun. Then of course my brain added the wild ash salt and peppergrass. I did spread my bun with my riccotta cheese sauce.

The need to go shopping is still there, but I’m figuring out how our foraging can do more than just teas, salads, medicines, and personal hygiene.

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