I’ve read Martin Shaw’s book Scatterlings a couple of times now and I keep finding hoards of riches. Here’s a good introduction to it, filmed by Ian MacKenzie:
Category Archives: medicine
Eggs, Elder Syrup
We may march in the Big Apple in the biggest Climate Action in the world, ever, but then we come home where our lives are (somewhat) normal and comfortably small. Here we concoct an elder syrup of elderberries, elder flowers, astragalus root, peppermint and homegrown, raw honey. In fact, over a quart of it! One …
Goings On
Wild strawberries, which are said to be deadly when overripe, as these were: deadly because you die of disappointment: no taste, whatsoever. Bummer! A surprise patch of St. John’s Wort – this after trying to grow it from seed (50 seeds, only one germinated). Thank you! Hive 3 swarmed on the 16th and alighted in …
Community Gardens Bean Plot
The morning sky was leaden with promised rain, but three of us were in the Community Gardens, raking, weeding and dibbling, sowing and raking in the seeds. Here’s me behind the wheel. The bucket, filled with water, weighs down the light-weight contraption, pushing the dibbles into the soft soil. It got quite a bit of …
Coltsfoot in My Garden
The other day Amie and I admired a pretty yellow flower with a scaly stalk in what we fondly call “The Pitt”: Â the front part of our garden that is mainly bramble. A friend of mine identified at as being Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), also known as cough wort. This was very exciting. Here I am …
Plantain for Stinging Nettle
Today I got to experiment first-hand with a remedy for Stinging Nettle stings. Some nettle was growing in my  mint patch and though I am aware of it and am careful when harvesting mint, my guests may not. I was tidying up that patch and thought I’d relocate the three nettle plants to the nettle …
Garbled
Amie and the comfrey Today Amie helped me harvest the comfrey and feverfew. She helped me string up those big, fat comfrey leaves. “It’s like stringing fish!” she said. I asked her where she got that idea? She couldn’t remember, but she was right. She loved the smell of the feverfew flowers – they look and …
Inventory of Herbs in the Garden
I made a page inventorizing the herbal medicines in my apothecary, and I thought I should  also have a page with all the herbs growing in the garden and being grown from seed. Ordered alphabetically according to their Latin name, annuals indicated: Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) (above) Chinese Aconite (Aconitum carmichaeli) SEEDLINGS Marsh Mallow (Althaea officinalis) SEEDLINGS Golden …
Exploring Pain: Amie’s Variation of the Wildcraft Board Game
Last week I splurged on Wildcraft, a cooperative board game for kids (and adults) developed by HerbMentor, one of my favorite places for herbal instruction. The idea of the game is to make it up the mountain to the huckleberry patch, gather huckleberries, and make it back down again to grandma’s house before nightfall. And not …
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Medicine Making in Transition
While participating in the Training for Transition I came to a profound realization. One of the most powerful exercises in Transition is the positive visioning. People sit in two circles, one inside the other, facing each other so everyone is paired up. The people on the outside are the elders of the future, who have …