Surfacing for a near-end of October Update – Biblical Natural Health Coaching

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Coming up for a little air before diving down into prep for all the fall fairs and markets descending on us in short order here. The bulk of our fall harvest is largely dealt with now, the drying shelter put away, etc. The latest round of rosehip gathering should be our last. I’ll know for sure once it’s crushed into it’s final storage container. The remaining crab apples turned quickly over this past weekend, so now they will be turned into apple sauce instead of being dried. But we were only two or 3 more dehydrator rounds away from emptying that final bin anyway, so no loss. The second 15 litre tub is already full and I’d been wondering if the next couple rounds would fit. Each round is 5 trays. Now I don’t have to worry about that now, and we’ll enjoy crab apple applesauce instead. We will be able to tackle the dried forage hanging in Ashley’s room, as time permits, but the crashing effort to get everything outside handled, is finally wrapping up.

In book efforts, I’ve reached the letter W, and because of how the old books talked about some herb families, there may be some concatenation (read: deleting of herbal entries) due to herbs being grouped together in the old books. I have one letter Y entry, then I circle back for the two North American historical references, and go through everything one more time on the historical side, which may expand the herb list again. Then I get to start writing the modern side for each herb. My bibliography was already at 46ish resource entries, but that will explode with all the references for modern sources I’ll be pulling from. The source materials folder, which features occasional extended reading if the student wishes to do it (ie: not all references are in the source materials folder), will probably grow too. I don’t know how many textbooks come with an optional source materials folder they can download, but mine will. I actually refer the student to this folder a few times in earlier chapters. As with supplemental material, there may be a cost involved because of the storage space I have to pay for to make it available.

We are spending this week prepping for the Vernon Wellness Fair on the 25th and 26th at the Vernon Rec Centre. Some of that prep is unfortunate. We had a guy try to help us this past Sunday with unloading, only to snap off one of the wheels on our heaviest trunk! The jars of our apothecary needed topping up before we do more custom tea blends. Printing more brochures and business cards and maybe more natural health monthly retainer cards will happen this week as well. By the time I got to posting this update, the wheel had been put back on, jars topped up, and one ingredient prepped ahead of a brand new tea about to hit the table.

I’ll also be prepping a Christmas-only Sample Collection called, “The 12 Days of Christmas” and it will feature 12 of our teas. After the Christmas craft fair season ends, this sample collection will disappear until next Christmas.

The sample collections make great gifts! When the envelopes of tea samples are empty, the recipient will have a small chest they can decorate however they wish and put to further use holding something else.

We’ve sold two mini-apothecaries so far, and they too make great gifts, or a gift to yourself that you’ll showcase on a shelf, mantle or end-table. The tiny materia medica that comes with it, introduces you to the 24 herbs we foraged ourselves around the Central Okanagan.

Every single Sunday and all but two Saturdays (so far), are spoken for this season with a fall or Christmas craft fair of some stripe. I’ve updated the Where We’ll Be card again, and corrected one entry that used to be at Trinity Baptist and is now at the Kelowna Event Centre instead. Feel free to download, print and post this to your fridge, so you know where you can find us in person over the next two months.

Other than the upcoming child-friendly advanced foraging workshop planned for November 26th, we now turn our calendar’s sights to 2026. There are some spring fairs we hope to visit again next year, but then there’s planning for more workshops and such as well. Most advanced foraging workshops for 2025 got cancelled due to no sign-ups by the deadline for each event. I’m not sure if I should be planning a new list of advanced foraging workshops, or simply saying they CAN be planned if the requesting person pays at the time of request to ensure the event will actually happen. From the planner’s perspective, it is disappointing to say the least, when you put a list of offerings together, people take the card you have been spending card stock and ink to produce, get excited for those who might respond after taking those cards, and then listen to crickets as the dates come and go and one by one get removed off the list.

If there are foraging topics you’d love to see a workshop built around that you’d be willing to attend, please let me know with the dates you are sure you could commit to. I put on these events with Ashtree Wildcrafting as my partner, so we would compare your desired dates to the master calendar, and then ask you to confirm by being the first person to pay for your seat in the workshop so that we can tell people this date IS guaranteed to happen as the requester has paid to be there! Because not everything grows in the same region, some herbal outings may not be possible if they are out of our foraging range. The only exception to this would be if close to 10 people in that region are so determined to have us travel their direction, that they will pay our travel expenses as well as the workshop fee to bring us over.

I may create a new promo card that shares the kinds of workshops, classes or talks I am wiling to do. I’ll be giving this some thought between fairs this fall when I’m not shoring up stocks between fairs or processing dried herbs hanging around the house.

If you are in the Central Okanagan this fall/Christmas season, hope to catch you at one of the fairs we’ll be at.

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