Summer Peach Preserves

“Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall, if I can’t have the girl I love I won’t have none at all . . . ” Anyone else love Shadygrove? It’s certainly summer here in these shady groves of the Blue Ridges, and the scent of fresh, ripe peaches wafts through our kitchen, mingling with...

Cilantro: Coriander by Another Name

Cilantro is in full bloom, a dazzling sight artfully arranged by hundreds of miniscule flowers dancing together.   It’s creating fruits now, which are known as coriander seed and used in almost all the sub-continental  dishes I grew up eating:  daal, curries, biryani, fish, kababs, none of them are without either powdered coriander seeds, crushed coriander...

Hand Sanitizer

In March, I began making hand sanitizer for my husband to carry with him to work.  Initially I started out with rubbing alcohol, glycerin, witch hazel, and essential oils, but we found this combination very drying to the skin, so I made a few changes. The CDC recommends minimums of 60% ethanol or 70% isopropyl...

Bare Necessities: Tincturing

It's the heat of what's been a scorching day, the kind where one steps outside and within a few steps sweat begins to bead up around the hairline and next thing you know it's in your eyebrows, and you're glad to be wearing a skirt to wipe your face with. I'm headed to a slope...

Roots Reishi & Rose Syrup

Reishi has been dancing up and down the Eastern Hemlocks, adorning their bark, in these sylvan woods all spring right into summer. A dryad called me out one day, she knew they'd matured, and led me through the wilds. A triad of trees here with nymphs hiding in the trunk, a mossy bridge over bubbling...

Shrub

Peaches are coming in, juicy and scrumptious, so I make shrub with the skins and scraps and even some pieces plus herbs. What is a 'shrub' you ask?  A vinegar sipping beverage with fruits, sweetener, and herbs/spices dating back to the Babylonians, who mixed date vinegar with their water to make it safe to drink....

Say It

"Go and lay down on the dark Earth with your face to the ground and say it Over and over Black Lives Matter, until the Roots drink your voice and spread truth to the core then Get up and live your words in your Everyday life of freedom, maybe feel survival guilt, but Feel it...

Knotweed and Morsels

Warm rainy days, cool nights, lilac's blooming, spring green bright. This is the time, after forsythia has blazed golden, gone to green, and given her petals to the ground, that the first tips of nettles emerge. It is now that most of the burdock leaves have grown enormous; the smaller ones are what make for...

Kitchen Herbalism Ideas for COVID-19

Great post on practical herbalism for these times.

Old Ways Herbal: Juliette Abigail Carr

Here are some thoughts on useful kitchen herbalism in this unpredictable time.  Remember that you don’t need these exact herbs; in fact, it makes a lot more sense for you to find herbs that are local to you and address the needs of your body.  Plant medicine is not one-size-fits-all, and it tends to work better when we tweak the formulas based on what is happening with you specifically (more about that, and also here).

We really don’t know all the ways this infection manifests itself, and we do not have experience working with it since it is a new virus; we’re guessing which herbs might be helpful based on what we’ve heard about the symptoms and energetics involved, but take that with a huge grain of salt as there is so much we still don’t know.  It’s also really important to use herbs that are local…

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Blue Eagle

Blue Self-Existing Eagle 10.15.19 I do not know other than within me something stirs, A mixing of grandmothers and mothers Around me, a shield of women (and men as well) Holding spoons going round and round Chanting some young some ancient song, As old as mountains and dusty golden sand Glinting leaves where treefolk in...