Happy Dance and Foraging Escapades – Biblical Natural Health Coaching

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Doing an internal happy dance over here! I don’t dance, but in my head I am, or maybe if you see me in person, it might look like the happy little gerbil bop they do when they’re excited over something (daughter used to keep gerbils, we may have picked up some habits from them). So what am I gerbil-dancing over? I have managed to reach the halfway point in my historically modern materia medica for that herbalism textbook I’m writing! A few herbs got deleted due to references suggested by translators as not referring to the herb I was intending to cover. A couple herbs got added because in hunting for others, I found references in ancient books to herbs we use today for food and medicine. Then recently, I was reminded that Mace is the bark of the nutmeg tree! I knew that, but clearly I’d forgotten because it has it’s own entry in my database separate from nutmeg! I should fix that. . .

For a little while, the total herb count for the textbook was looking to be near 220 or so herbs, but after all the subtractions, additions, and merges, we are halfway through the historial reference part, with a count closer to the original forecasted number of 218. This section is already well over 300 pages long, and I may have to change up the book format to make it more managable. I still have to add present day findings and understandings to all these herbs, AND add each herb’s nutritional/medicinal profile! But I’m celebrating because the historical effort is half done!

I’m also pleased to announce that we have our first registrant for the September Advanced Foraging Workshop: Personal Hygiene. There is no foraging for this workshop as the various herbs need to be harvested at different times of year. We will supply them as a result. If I can get another 7 to 9 more registered between now and the 13th, (closer to today would be better), I may be able to swing this workshop as an indoor event. But I have to be sure kitchen rental can be covered. This is a single-day event from 9am to 3pm where we will make a few different personal hygiene items, and learn about the various herbs used. Unlike my 3-day Make Your Own Trail Kit workshop, the number of herbs is smaller, and the number of items being made is smaller as well.

If you live in the Central Okanagan and want to take in this workshop, please use this form or send in your $70 registration fee by etransfer, referencing this workshop in the memo field. There currently is room for a maximum of 10 people, with one seat already taken. This takes the DIY craze and pairs it with wild herbs.

In foraging updates, we went exploring again the other day, and found buffalo berry with the berries still on the bush! We harvested enough for a frothy treat (that we very much enjoyed a few days later). The rosehips in that zone have mostly reached the orange/red ripening stage, and as we’ve been seeing bushes at this stage start to shrivel up and rot in years past, we have begun our rosehip harvest. Not all bushes were at this stage, so the harvest is only barely getting started, but we began this aspect of our gathering, because 5 of Ashley’s teas require rosehips to some level! We are prepping for the Rock Creek Fall Fair in mid-September, and need those teas out on the table in bags and sample collections!

We found more Sarsaparilla as well, which had us both almost dancing again. We were high enough up a nearby hill to find cedars growing wild in the area.

wild cedars in central okanagan — wild cedars in Central Okanagan

A young one caught our attention and we had to take a photo. The field guide is there for context. We harvested some kinnickinick, more lichen, and found an entire field of first and second year Great Mullein! We ran around that field and gathered one leaf from many of them. We’d run across quite a number of them earlier in the day too.

Mullein has a 2-yr growth cycle, and this year’s 2nd year growth is preparing to die off, so if you need more mullein, now is the time to grab it before it’s dead. Thankfully, there were a number of baby first year plants, which means more 2nd year for next year.

We’ve also added a new plant to our growing repertoire – Wolf Willow and Russian Olive. These both belong to the Oleaster family, and while history shows First Nations making beads out of the seeds of Wolf Willow, the European continent was very busy making oil out of the seeds of the Russian Olive. Many sources today talk about them as if they are close siblings, and also speak of them in a manner that makes me think we might have a North American alternative to olive oil. . . except that our first attempt to follow how-to’s royally failed. We have some wolf willow berry juice in the fridge I should turn into a jelly before it goes bad. The berry itself has a mealy texture similar to kinnickinick, but a more pleasant, apple-y flavour more reminiscent of macintosh or other breeds (kinnickinick tastes like red delicious apples). The seed or kernel is easily bitten through, similar in effort to crunching on a peanut, and personally, tastes better than the flesh of the fruit. A bowl of these berries has the same colour variations as looking at a bunch of transparent apples.

We’ve kept the pulp from our first attempt at wolf willow oil, and plan to pick out all the seeds to preserve them to use in a second attempt once further research has been done. Oil presses aren’t cheap, and we wanted to experiment before investing in one. The learning never stops.

What I can say is that now I’ve met two local, wild herbs whose fruit taste like apples. If this keeps up, I’m going to create a new cliche,