Gold Thread, for Helping with Demons

 

I have always believed that there are not many things on this planet that one can not indulge in from time to time without harming one's self.  If you are feeling blue, a day of eating ice cream and feeling sorry for yourself is perfectly fine.  If, however, you allow that to take over your life and begin to savor times when you can sit on your butt and moan and groan about how unfair the world is...well, then it's time to put the spoon away and go help out at a soup kitchen or at an animal shelter.  See others that have it worse than yourself.  I like to turn my face to the sun from time to time, indulge in the color it puts in my cheeks and the smile it puts on my face.  But lying for hours in the sun for a tan may not be the best thing in the world for me.  I need to step into the cool darkness of life to save my skin as well as my soul.  And a good beer or a shot or two of fine whiskey is a great way to unwind with friends.  But when whiskey replaces the friends and becomes the only thing in life that we crave...then it is time to step away from the bottle and get back to life.

I have a friend who earlier in life sank far too deep into that bottle.  It had started out as his path to a social life and ended up locking him away from the very people he enjoyed being with.  He was one who had a difficult time pulling himself out of the bottle without a bit of help.   Now some people can pull back from the drink and still have an occasional beer or glass of wine and not be bothered by it.  My friend was not one of those.  A sip of beer for him could send him spiralling back into a life he has fought to leave behind.  I was 17 and my aunt was still alive when his mother first came to the farm to ask my aunt to make something to help him fight his demons. 

 

I felt I was a bit too old to sit in with my aunt while she talked about something so personal, first with his mother and then with him.  But my aunt insisted that I did.  She told me that many people like to look away from the darkness, pretend it isn't there, but I should not turn away.  Working with people's pain would make me stronger, she told me.  After she had spoken with the young man long into the night she set out with me in tow down into the bogs to gather up some gold thread to mix with several other herbs to help curb his cravings to give him the strength to fight for the person he wanted to be.

Gold thread is a tiny little evergreen plant that likes a bit of acid to sink her feet into.  I often feel like this is her way of getting ready to take care of the acidy faults we humans seem to carry from time to time.  She is quite a common plant but is seldom seen because of her small size.  She lives down in the moss that lines many trails under the pines in the north east part of the U.S. and she usually likes it pretty shady, though I have seen her growing out into sunlit clearings.  Her leaves are shiny, like some little gnome spends the night waxing them, and they come in threes, like clover.  In fact some people mistake her for clover if they are not use to walking in the woods.  But those shiny leaves give her away.  No clover shines like gold thread.  She shines up from patches of clear ground in the snow this time of the year as one of the few green things growing.

Gold thread root

 

But as shiny as those leaves are, gold thread gets her name from what lies underground.  Her roots are threadlike, spreading from plant to plant.  Gold thread grows in clone colonies, where what looks like many different plants are all the same, just connected in the earth instead of above it.   Once the dirt and moss is brushed away from the roots they glow with the color of gold.  And it's not that hard to brush away the dirt.  Because she likes her soil acidy, it usually doesn't cling to those tiny fibers of roots.  Which is a good thing, because like the second part of her name suggests, her roots are the size of a thread, a thick thread, but still a thread.  Luckily gold thread is a pretty potent healers, so we don't need much to work with.

Gold thread root gets her golden color from the alkaloid called berberine, which is also the main healing component of oregon grape root, goldenseal, and barberry root.  Berberine is an amazing natural living antibiotic.  I'll try to explain the pros and cons of a living antibiotic to those who've never worked with one. 

The bad part of working with a living antibiotic is that, as all life does, it changes from year to year.  A year that is more dry and has a lot of sun may make it weaker, while a year that has more rain and less sun may make it stronger (or vice versa).  If a disease is introduced to the plant, it may make it's antibiotic properties very strong, or it may weaken it considerably.  Basically, no two plants with berberine in them can ever be the same and even the same plant harvested in different years or even in different times of the year will be different.  So every time you use a living antibiotic, you need to start over from scratch, starting at the smallest dose and slowly working your way up to a strong enough dose to cure the problem.  With so many people addicted to just grabbing something off the shelf and expecting it to work the same way each time, working with living antibiotics is a time consuming pain in the...well, you get my meaning.

The good part of working with a living antibiotic is that, as all life does, it changes from year to year.  Yes, the same thing that makes it hard to work with makes it work, period.  Bacteria are living beings, they too change when they need to.  So an antibiotic that is the same time after time after time, like modern pharmaceutical antibiotics are, will become less affective every time it is used until finally they will not stop the bacteria.  We are seeing this today as bacteria are developing "immunities" to our modern, lab created antibiotics.  We are developing "Super Bugs" that are becoming almost impossible to stop.  With a living antibiotic, it changes all the time, making it hard, if not impossible for bacteria to fight against.  Just as a bacteria finds a way to fight against it, the living antibiotic changes and the bacteria has to start all over again.  So what for many is a pain of trial and error to get the right dose, for others it is the salvation of not using an antibiotic that is helping to create these "super bugs" of bacteria.

Gold thread is one of these ever changing, ever healing friends of the forest.  What she is known for mostly is to help with any stomach problems.  If you are having problem with digestion over and over again, a tea with gold thread root may help your body heal up enough to start digesting the food properly.  I like to give it with slippery elm bark because the slippery elm mixed with the gold thread and coats the stomach and intestines, helping to keep the gold thread right where it is needed.  If you suffer from frequent heartburn, gold thread may be what you need to help heal the acid producing mechanism of your stomach.  Ulcers have been cured with strong teas of gold thread, again mixed with slippery elm.  Canker sores in the mouth can be help by gargling with a decoction of gold thread.  Bit your tongue?  A quick bit of gold thread tea swirled in your mouth can stop an ulcer from forming on the spot by killing off the bacteria that causes the ulcer.  Some people mix a bit of this into homemade tooth powder that is used in place of the controversial fluoride.  It helps to curb the bacteria that can cause gun diseases.

 

And back to the original use I am gathering it for.  My good friend finds spring to be the hardest time to fight his cravings for alcohol.  His mind has linked warmer days with getting out with a beer and sitting in the sun.  Our minds are often our worst enemy when fighting an addiction.  So every spring I mix up some cinquefoil, thistle leaf and root, slippery elm bark and gold thread, like my aunt did for the many years before she passed on.  This mixture helps with the cravings both physical and mental of alcohol as well as many other drugs.  As with many herbal medicinals, it is usually made for the person that is using it, such as some may need a bit of vervain added or others a bit of blue cohosh, but the basic recipe still remains.  I take a jar of it down to him before the first real warm days hit.  We sit and talk, which is healing in itself, about all the things we have done in our lives and all the things we will do in the future.  We forgive each other's mistakes and we encourage each other for what we have yet to do.  It is healing for both of us.  The jar is left discretely on the table as I go, and the spring's sun is a little easier for both of us to deal with.  Me, for my addiction of loving to turn my face to it, even though I know I need to deal with darkness too, and him for the demons that try their best to rear their ugly heads when the sun gets warm enough to call them out.  We heal each other, and gold thread helps with the reminder that we all share weaknesses that can be overcome.

Weekend Post--The Magic of Working with Horses

 I have been blessed to work with horses since I was very young.  My grandparents trained the big teams that are used so much on the farm.  I knew how to hitch a horse before I went to my first day of school.  While other girls were drooling after David and Shawn Cassidy (hey, it was the 70s) I was drooling over a tooled western saddle. One of my favorite ways to spend a day was to toss a few sandwiches into the saddlebag and head out with my horse, Jessi James and my mutt dog, Minx.  I didn't care about fashion, I felt I was cool when I could take my classmates on sleigh rides in the winter.  I have spent many a night taking cat naps in the hay when I sat, worried over a sick or injured horse friend.  I have taken many a cat nap in the hay as I sat waiting for a foal to be born (horse almost NEVER give birth in the day time). 

 

And lest you think that horses are hay burners who's time of usefulness has come and gone, there are some jobs that are just easier done with horses over tractors.  Pulling logs out of deep ravines is dangerous if not impossible with a tractor.  Many a person has been crushed to death when the tractor rolled over on top of them on the steep slopes.  In small spaces where power is needed, often a horse can maneuver easier than something with wheels that can only turn so far.  When a tornado hit one of the neighbors 3 years ago, it was my team that made the piece by piece clean up possible.  A tractor would have had to just pull the whole mess down at once, destroying many family possessions.  During the flood of '08, my uncle's horse helped set the pole for the wind sock for FEMA's helicopters to use for taking off and landing.  And I rode one of my big Belgium crosses, Storm, across the flood waters to take my cousin out of the valley because she was pregnant and we wanted her at a hospital .  Storm waded into that swirling water that kept rising and rising until she had to swim to get to the other side.  This is not something a horse likes to do.  Try asking a tractor to drive through water over its head and see what happens.

If logic holds, horses should not wade into water over their heads just because we ask them to. In fact, if logic holds, horses should not want to work with us at all.  They are a prey species, they dance on their toenails, their instincts are "run first, ask questions later", their eyes are on the side of their head, making their binocular vision non-existent, but allowing them to see danger coming up behind them.  They are built to be afraid and run away.  We humans are predators. We walked on the flats of our feet, we have individual digits at the end of our limbs for grabbing and holding, we have a facial disk with front facing, binocular vision eyes set prominently into it.  We are designed to push forward toward a goal, like a predator does.  The horse should take one look at us and run like hell.

But horses also evolved to live within a group.  They eat grass, and their long, powerful neck with muscles to give them even more speed, must reach down to get that grass.  When their head is down, they cannot see well.  By living within a group, some can eat with their head down, some can sleep, usually standing at the ready to run, and some can be on watch.  The horse knows she can not live without her herd.  And some humans have learned and worked with this.

See, we humans are a slow, clumsy species, but we have seen the animals run and we wondered what it would be like to run that fast.  We probably first tried jumping on the horses back like a predator does and found ourselves launched into the air by the bucking animal.  That didn't work.  Even professional bronc busters don't try to last more than 8 seconds.  They are big, powerful animals, we are small with a hide so thin, paper cuts it.  We aren't going to win too many arguments by brute strength alone. 

So somewhere along the line, one of us gave up our predatory nature enough to listen to the horse, find out what the horse needed to feel safe...and we gave it to them.  We stopped thinking like a person, seeing ourselves as the master of our domain, and realized we were simply one piece of it and if we wanted to work with other pieces of that domain, we need to do so by THEIR standards, not ours.

So when I walk into the training circle with a mustang horse that has never been ridden, I cannot be human predator, I need to be horse friend.  To do this I must first understand that I look like a predator.  My staring eyes are rude in the animal world.  To humans "look me in the eye" is a sign of strength and honesty, to ALL other animals it means you are trying to assert your dominance.  Staring at a horse means to the horse that you are sizing it up to find it's weaknesses.  That horse is either going to answer your challenge and grind you into dust, or try to run away from it.  You are not going to be making friends by doing the very human thing of staring.

So I let go of being human, I am not the strongest, most powerful, most important being in the universe.  I am a small, hairless animal that ungainly stands on her back feet so she can get her eyes up to a higher level.  I am slow, I am little, but I will do my best to keep you and the rest of my herd safe.  You can run with me, you can rest with me, you can eat with your head down with me, and you can let me see what it is to fly.  We can be herd, we two species that are so very different, and together we can do anything.  Once a horse understands this, that you are herd, that you are small but your heart is big enough to care for the herd, they will wade through flood waters for you.  They will pull you in a cart or drag heavy things for you.  They will let you sit on their back, a place where only predators have gone before, and they will let you taste the wind as they gallop across the land.

There is magic in letting go of that power that we humans have, of not trying to control it so tightly as to give us all our wishes or we will pout in the corner.  When we set it free, learn to live with all the other beings of the universe, we become so much more.  We transcend our humanness and become herd.  And once we learn to do that we can learn to be even more.  Working with horses sets that free in me.  I do not try to control the universe, demand it serves me.  I show my smallness, but promise to do my best with the power that I have.  And I am reward with flying hooves and flowing manes.

I received a new mustang today.  She has never been ridden. She has been taken from her home, her family, by people chasing her from helicopters and on horseback.  She has lost herd and has fears.  I do not like that this has happened, but I know she and many others would be shot if they were left on the range.  So I will do the best I can to give her herd.  I am on the computer in the barn, and I will sleep on a cot next to her tonight and for several night to come.  I will open my heart to her, let her know here she will be safe, and she and I will share our strengths and vulnerabilities and together we will be stronger.  It is the lesson horse has taught me, to be more, I must first let go and allow myself to be less. 

While I am called the trainer, it is horse that is the teacher here.  Every lesson I get from her lets me be more a part of the universe.  It lets me see what true magic and power is.  Not the power to control the world around me, to make it do my bidding...But the power to see the sacred in everything, even those things that might harm me...and work with that power to make everything better, not just the things I want. 

How sacred a lesson, how beautiful a teacher, how grateful the student.  I am blessed.

My new, yet unnamed mustang

Chaga the King

 

If you are a forager of either wild edibles or wild medicinals, winter months can be a hard time of the year for you.  Your imagination dances around the idea of the leaves of the first wild leeks poking their way out of the swamp, or the curled fiddleheads of ostrich fern sizzling in you pan.  Actually, as I write this I can almost taste that wonderful flavor.  When will the flowers bloom so I can make a new St. Johns Wort tincture or gather a few spring beauty bulbs?  Oh, for some bloodroot black salve on the shelves and wild ginger for candying with maple syrup.   I can almost feel leaves instead of snow crunching under my feet.

But sometimes we have to remember the moment.  Winter, when the leaves are off the trees, is a good time to go looking for certain wild medicinals.  When the trees are dark lines against the snow, standing as vertical testimonies to the energy of the sun.  They reach high, waiting for the lengthening of days so they can once again send out leaves to feed from Ol' Sol's light.   When black, gray and white (oh so much white) are the main colors, silhouettes stand out in vivid contrast to what is behind them.

The lovely white birch tree can look like a postcard image when standing out in a Wisconsin winter woodlot.  A male downy woodpecker shuffling up it's truck gives it the tiny shock of red that draws your eye like a beacon.  Part way up the downy moves to the side and sidles around a protrusion on the tree before he continues his climb looking for dormant bugs in the bark.  That protrusion, that is so visible with no leaves on the tree, is what we are here for.  It is Chaga.

Chaga is a fungus, a parasite of birch and other trees.  He often looks like a lump of coal jammed into the bark.  He grows all over the world...in fact the name Chaga is a Russian word.  I had to learn it once I started working with others because that is the name most people call him.  We use to just called him birch conk.  A lot of people call him tinder fungus because he takes a coal so well if you are trying to start a fire with flint and steal.  Now, if you're thinking soft little mushroom when you think of chaga, think again.  He has a hard head, almost as hard as the tree he grows on.  In fact, often when you are cutting him from the tree, it is the wood from the tree that gives first and you have to carve that unwanted fiber out of your prize. Chaga is harvested with an ax and some good muscles.

In Russia chaga is seen as a gift from heaven.  In Japan he was considered to be the jewel of the forest.  And the Chinese call chaga 'The King of the Mushrooms'.  With their long history of working with medicine this could be saying a great deal.  Because chaga lives in these cold climates, it adapts by making phytochemicals, including sterols, phenols, and enzymes.  These chaga uses to keep the tree it is feeding on alive in this cold, harsh climate.  We can use these chemicals the same way too.

Medical studies have shown it to be an affective treatment to many cancers including breast, liver, uterine and gastric cancers.  In fact new studies in China are showing it to be almost as affective as chemotherapy but without the side effects. 

Chaga tincture

 

What I use it for medicinally is for those who suffer from high blood pressure.  Working with chaga, diet, and a few life style changes, I have seen many people heal enough to get off of pharmaceuticals and deal with their blood pressure naturally.  I also have seen it used with other herbs and exercise to help with diabetes.  Medicinally, chaga is a wonderful companion.

Some of our extreme athletes are now taking chaga to help boost their strength and endurance.  This is because with the fall of the Soviet Union many of Russian athlete's secrets were revealed to the world.  Some of the Soviets top medal winners in the Olympics were reported to consume large amounts of chaga to build muscles and stay fit.

Not enough to call him king?  New studies are showing that chaga is one of the mushrooms that have amazing immune system boosting properties.  Chaga and shitake mushrooms are used by the poor in China when they are sick with colds or flu...much like our mothers use chicken soup.  Broth soups are made from them and this folklore food is now being looked into by the medical community and the results are looking good.  Chaga is the most potent plant adaptogen studied to date.  This means he helps the human body handle stress, including the stress of illness and of aging better than any other plant studied. 

Okay, so I listed so many different uses for chaga that it seems just a little too far fetched for you.  I'll give you that.  I tend to be a skeptic from time to time as well, especially when he seems almost too good to be true.  Only you can be the judge of the evidence that is out there.  So why then should we trudge through the deep snow for a medicinal you might not believe in?  How about...because it tastes good!  I love the flavor of chaga and would eat it even if I was told he was bad for me.  Okay, I might eat a little less of it, but I would still sneak a bit for my guilty pleasure.

Chaga tea is delicious.  I have a cup of it sitting by my left hand as I type this.  It is earthy, like mushrooms tend to be, but it also has this hint of vanilla to it, which happens to be one of my favorite flavors.  Yes, you can call me vanilla and I won't be insulted.  Mixed with chai spices and cream, chaga becomes an almost perfect winter brew.  Grind up roasted dandelion or chicory root and mix with chaga powder and you have a spicy, coffee like mug without the caffeine.  Speaking of coffee, adding him to coffee helps cut the bitterness, much like sugar and/or cream does.  I mix him into oatmeal or malt meal to give my breakfast even more body.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  To prepare chaga you should let him dry a bit.  The lighter color insides of the fungus is the part you want.  If you are going to store him I would dry him well and leave as whole as possible.  If you are going to use him then you need to get the grater out.  Despite his being so hard in the field, he actually grates up quite easily once dry.  Once he is a powder you can mix him into many things from soups and stews, to breakfast cereals, to many hot drinks, to sprinkling him over homemade yogurt, to baking in breads, to mixing into butter spreads. I even turn him into an ice "coffee" in the summertime after a long day in the hot sun. His uses are endless in the culinary world.  His simply chai tea would be enough for me though.

So winter may not be as bad as we humans like to think it is.  Yes, we have to wear a few extra pounds of clothing to stay warm.  And yes, that wonderful garden dirt is still not visible through the thick blanket of snow.  And yes, I love the color green just as much as the next hiker does.  But without those bitterly cold nights, and without that blanket of snow, and without all that blinding white, we would not have this amazing healer.  The boots seem a little less heavy as I go home with my treasure in tow and the little downy flittering from tree to tree behind me.

Bringing Elderberry Home--Cuttings

Elderberry next to the springhouse

I have meeting most of today but I needed to do at least one thing outside.  With spring fast approaching it could be anything from getting the lambing shed ready to setting up maple buckets for sugar season.  But last year some friends and I built a summer kitchen which has affectionately become known as The Stillroom.   The reason why is a summer kitchen is used in...well...the summer.  It is a well ventilated room, sometimes even a screened in porch, often not attached to the house, where cooking, canning, and drying can be done without heating up the whole house.  This would have been my second summer kitchen because my friends and students took over my first and I found myself not having space to do MY workings.  So instead of griping (I enjoy having my friends and students around) we just built another one that is my private outdoor kitchen.

The problem is that I haven't stopped using it since we built it.  Summer finished in a blaze of autumn glory and I was still using it.  Winter froze in around us and I was still using it.  Spring's promise is on the air and I am still using it.  The space is obviously NOT just a summer kitchen.  So it has become a stillroom.

A stillroom was originally an offshoot of the witch craze of the Dark Ages.  Originally there were women (and stillrooms were ALWAYS run by women) of the village that did the medicines, made many of the ferments, preserved food enough to sell at the markets in the winter, made candies, and distilled liquor.  But as the witch craze took over Europe, many of these women were killed for staring into the cauldron as they brewed up their fare.  As more of them died, people began to miss the treasured recipes that they shared.  Well to do people simply took in many of the remaining women and set them up in "stillrooms" or rooms off the main kitchen where much of these same actions could be done for the household the women now worked for.  These women were called stillroom maids and they were the mistresses of their domain.  Because they had knowledge that was quickly fading, the lord and lady of the manor considered themselves quite lucky if they had a talented stillroom maid.

Stillrooms took their name from the fact that there was usually a still set up in some corner of the room.  Wine would be made in a cool part of the room or even in the cellar below the room, and then brandy would be distilled in a warmer corner of the room.  Liquor was a major healing source, one many herbalists still use today in the form of tinctures.  Only most of today's herbalists buy their liquor while back then the maid made hers.

So enough of the history of a stillroom.  I have one that was built last summer.  I love it and plan on using it for a very long time.  One problem though is because it is freshly built, it has no shade bushes around it.  I decided last year that I wanted to plant a few elderberry bushes here so in a few years I would be able to step right out the door of the stillroom and gather up my elderflower and elderberries.  But that needed to wait until just before the next spring actually sprung.  And here we are.  So it's time to do a few elderberry cuttings to put around the stillroom.

A two year old cutting plant by the springhouse

 

First elderberry...once I harvest from her I'll talk in more detail about her...but she is a very powerful spirit.  There are different elderberry plants all around the world, but they all have one thing in common.  Every culture they have ever grown around consider them to be endowed by a powerful female spirit.  In Europe she was The Elder Mother.  If you were to cut her without her permission she would make sure your garden never grew.  She was the healer, the "witch wood" or her branches were used most often for "witching" or dowsing a well.  She was a protector of those she liked and the bane for those she didn't.  Here on the North American continent she was known as Sister Elder.  She was the bringer of music, because her branches were easily made into flutes.  She was known as a healer here as well, and she showed water, but where she grew, not by dowsing.  Her branches were hollowed out and cut in half and used as primitive spiles for maple tapping.  She helped bring the sweet water from the trees.

I also see her as a healer.  A few weeks ago I had a young man come to me with bronchitis.  I soaked his feet in a mustard bath, rubbed a garlic plaster over those feet and gave him elderflower and yarrow tea.  We cleaned those lungs right up.  Elderflower is one of the three big fever breakers of yarrow, peppermint, and elderflower.  They help break fever WITHOUT raising it first.  She is a good plant ally to have around. 

So I'm going get some going through cuttings.  It's pretty easy to do, but there is only a short window of time to do it in, and we're right about in that window now.  Elderberries are one of the first plants to break buds in the spring, meaning her buds open up into leaves.  She sometimes does this here in Wisconsin while there is still snow on the ground.  Once those buds are open, it is too late for that year to transplant her by cutting.  So what I do is a bit radical.  I dig the snow where I want her planted and then heat the soil up, usually with my "weed burner" (though I would never use it to burn weeds).  This makes the ground a bit easier to dig a small hole for the elderberry branch to go into.  Then I need to make a cutting.

But first we need to find an elderberry bush.  If I had been writing this blog in the summer I could have shown you what one looks like in the summer, when her leaves are on.  She is much easier to tell then.  But if you already know where one or two are or you know your elderberry in the winter, you shouldn't have a problem. 

Bark of an older elderberry branch

A brief description of elderberry in the winter is as follows:  Elderberry does not tolerate drought and usually she likes to dip her toes in the water.  So look for her near creeks, in semi-open marshy areas, near springs...anyplace where water is close to the surface.  Elderberries have buds this time of year and they come off of her opposite of each other.  They are spaced up her branches in sets of two (unless there has been an injury to a particular area of a branch--then look at another area of the branch).  On young branches her bark is smooth underneath little nobs.  On older branches there are crevices in the bark.  All but the youngest of her branches will be branching, meaning they will have branches coming off of branches, with more branches coming off of those.  This gives her a kind of wild, crazy look this time of year.  And if you cut a branch off, it should have a pithy center that can easily be dented with your thumbnail. 

Bud set on a young branch

So once you have you elderberry bush, check her over.  Somewhere on her she may have a branch that doesn't branch.  This means she is healthy enough to still be growing because these are the young branches.  And these branches are what you want to work with. 

Now, if you have any of the ancient beliefs you will know not to cut without asking permission of Elder.  Almost all cultures had a fear of doing this.  If you wish you can leave a gift for her when you do make your cutting.  It is up to you but her needs are simple.  She likes water so a bit a pure water poured onto her roots may be nice or if you really want to go all out, make a bit of compost tea a few days ahead and offer that up to her.  Again, totally up to you.  Make your cutting and walk away if that is what you wish.  Your garden is not mine. LOL

Three bud sets on this branch

So go to your branches that do not branch and look for one that has at least 3 bud sets.  Go below these three buds and cut with a sharp loppers.  Make sure your loppers are sharp so you cut more than crush her.  If you have more than 3 bud sets make sure those 3 are on top and try to cut right in the middle of the next bud sets.  This give both your cane and the branch you leave behind the best chance to heal.

Two bud sets of one branch

Gather up as many of these as you need and go to the area you are going to plant.  Plant each bush at least 4 feet from the next and they work best if 6 to 10 feet apart from each other.  Dig a hole deep enough for two of the leaf sets to go into the earth and the third be above ground.  Put a little compost tea into the hole to give her a new start, put the cane into the hole and firm the dirt in around her.  Water well.  In fact for the next year you will be watering this cane well.  She will need lots of water to get a healthy root system going.

This first year you won't see much action from your "stick in the dirt".  She is building the most important part of the plant, her roots.  After a good root system has been built though, she will take off like wild fire. You may even need to trim her back from time to time. 

Now I have read how elderberry like semi shade, and in an ideal world for her this maybe true.  But I have planted her in full sun, in semi-shade and on north sides of buildings in full shade.  She does well in all of those.  Though she does need more water if she is in full sun and she will not flower as much or give as many berries if she get no sun.  You be the judge at how much work you want to put into her and how much bounty you want from her. 

That's it, you've just brought elderberry to you.  She makes a nice addition to any healer's garden and it is nice to have her close instead of always have to hike into the marsh to work with her.  Also, sometimes she grows where human projects would destroy her so instead of just letting her die, you can bring part of her to a safe place to carry on.  This is what happened to me when she decided to grow right in front of the back lambing shed door.  I needed to use that door so instead of just getting rid of her completely, I moves her clones to the south side of my springhouse.  This way my springhouse had more shade to stay cooler, I had more elderberry to work with, and she was able to carry on.  We both found it to be the best solution to the situation.

Elderberry growing outside the back door of the lambing shed

 

So, unless you live in the far deep south, now might be the best time to look around your place and see where an elderberry bush or two might fit in.  Warm the ground just enough to dig and then go out and see if she wants to come home with you.  In a few years you will have a healing companion almost beyond compare. 

Along the Edge

I put the word 'border' into an online thesaurus today and I came up with 83 possible synonyms and I have a few more in my head that didn't appear in the list.  The English language has many words hold the same meaning.  Edge, hedge, boundary, brink, fringe, outskirts, verge, perimeter...all talk about a place that is neither here nor there.  It is the place in between things or the in between place.

The in between places of the world have always held a fascination and fear for us that we, in all our logic of the modern world still carry with us...at least on some level.  Midnight is still called 'The Witching Hour' because for a moment in time it is neither one day or another, it is in between.  The old tradition that is still talked about if not observed of the husband carrying his bride over the threshold is because the door frame is neither in no out, it is an in between place that we need to be protected from. 

There are reasons we humans on some level know about the power of the borders.  It is because most life happens there.  Most animals living today are what are called "edge habitat species" meaning they live where more than one habitat comes together.  The edges of fields and woods, the edges of forest and swamp, the edge of ocean and land.  There is a reason why this is.  Because they have more of a guarantee of life if they do.  Look at the animals that are not edge habitat species, the spotted owl, the passenger pigeon, the Siberian tiger...all either gone from this world or barely clinging to survival.  By linking life to one single habitat animals become doomed if that habitat is destroyed or threatened.  Homo sapien...humans....are the ultimate edge species.  Which is one of the reasons we populate a good portion of the planet.  We still hear the song of the hedge, even if we no longer share the words.

It is not too surprising to know that many plants have that same wisdom.  They straddle the edge, living on the borders between different world.  To one side is the sunny field, to the other a shady cliff or a dark swamp.  A forest of trees may have few plants growing underneath them, but at their border the tangles may be so thick as to be almost impassable.  Many of the plants that we humans have taken with us throughout the world lived this way, part of the hedgerow.

Here in Wisconsin, many of the old farmers call these hedges 'rabbit patches' because of how the rabbits gather there for food and safety.  One of my rabbit patches runs along a ridge line that separates farm fields from forest.  I have stumbled across fox dens and fawns here as I have harvested the bounty that this border hold.  The three main trees that grow here are wild plums, which I harvest from in the summer time, hazelnuts, which I gather from in the early fall, and highbush cranberry, which I wait until the cold of winter to harvest from.

So, when Ol' Sol broke free from the clouds this morning I reached for my basket with visions of scarlet fruits running through my mind.  The snow has been piled high on the north side of the hedge, but if one is clever they can use the hedge's natural wind break to find where the snow was swirled away making walking so much easier.  With her maple shaped leaves gone for the year, Highbush's berries are a shock of red in the otherwise gray world of winter.  I can see then before I even make it to the hedge.  Yes, the deer and birds have been there before me, but for me, sharing this bounty is part of living with the wild ones.  Highbush is an equal opportunity hostess.  She feeds us all.

I weave through the thorny plum trees to get to the berries that are further in.  These berries are still bright, still covered with snow and just ripe for the picking.  Highbush cranberry berries grow in hanging clusters, making them easy to harvest by the handful.  My basket fills quickly.  I pop one into my mouth and make a pucker face.  Actually the raw berries are not good to eat many of, which is fine because raw highbush cranberries don't taste super great...at least from my perspective.  The deer and the birds don't seem to mind. 

The bitter flavor of HBC is actually a good thing.  She is healer as well as hostess, and that bitter flavor of the raw berries is her medicine to the world.  Though we can taste it in her fruit, HBC's medicine is much stronger in her bark, which is why she carries the folk name, crampbark.  The inner bark of crampbark has be harvested in springtime, when the sap is rising for generation.  The original people of this continent taught this medicine to the healers who came here from Europe and it has been used by all ever since. 

I, myself, make a decotion of crampbark tea for everything from menstrual cramps, to night cramps, to overworked muscle cramps to stomach cramps.  I have even used it on a neighbor who had hiccups for over 6 hours and she could find nothing that worked to rid herself of them.  Mixed with valerian root, it makes for a good night's rest when we push our body to the limits of a new exercise routine or when we forget ourselves and work in the garden too long.  Add a shaving or two of willow bark to the decoction and headaches from squinting in the sun too long can be alleviated.  While it doesn't cure diarrhea, it does help settle the muscles that can ache after having a bought of it.  A twitch that doesn't hurt but won't go away can be soothed with crampbark tea as well.

So highbush cranberry is a healer, and she shares her fruits well...but she has her deva moments.  Don't we all (and if we don't, we should).   Those fruits that I am working with in the winter actually ripened while her leaves were still on her branches.  For a brief time last fall she was this glorious mass of all different color reds and yellows with the oranges mixed in.  The tops of the leaves were often scarlet red, while the undersides of them were bright yellow.  The almost glowing red fruit hung in clusters in that riot of color.  So why didn't we harvest them then when our fingers wouldn't have gone numb with cold while we were doing it?

That goes back to HBC's deva nature.  She will only work with you when SHE is ready.  Start cooking her berries before that time and she'll let you know you made a mistake.  If highbush's berries haven't frozen a couple time and you pop them into a pan, they will make your whole house smell like you are boiling a skunk...and not a happy skunk either.  It is a mistake you are most likely not going to repeat anytime soon.  No, you have to wait for winter to really and truly settle in.  Then and only then is it safe for your olfactory sense to start working with highbush cranberries.

From there though she makes some of the easiest and most delicious wines and a tart jelly that carries that same red glow that the berries hold.  Wine is easy to make with HBC.  In fact if you just left a bucket of berries sitting some place warm they would make themselves into wine, and not a half bad one either.  They come with their own yeast, sugar, acid, and tannins, in almost perfect balance.  I have drank highbush's bucket wine many a time and it can be as good as anything that comes out of California or France, but without the high price tag.  To be a little bit more consistent though an easy and yet marvelous wine to make means adding a few steps and ingredients to the process.

For every 2 quarts of berries, boil 1 gallon of water with 2 pounds of sugar mixed into it.  Pour the boiling water over the berries in a food grade, non-aluminum container.  Mash the berries a bit.  You don't have to go crazy here, just press down on the berries to release more of the juices.  Let this sit until cooled to blood warm (around 100 degrees).  Sprinkle some yeast over the must, cover with a cloth and leave along until the vigorous bubble slows.  This can be anywhere from two days to a week.  Then rack (or strain) it into a jug of some sort, put a balloon over the jug's opening, and let it sit for another month or two, or until the balloon no longer has any gasses in it.  Rack (or strain) it into bottles and let it age for at least 4 months.  Chill and serve an amazing wine.  Really, this is that easy.  That bitter taste that is in the raw berries, add just the perfect touch of bite to the wine.  HBC is a great beginner's choice for a first wine, because the berries have a nice blend of what a good wine needs without all the fuss and muss.

The other gift from the berries is jelly.  Now some people love this jelly.  Others like it as a glaze on meats but not for breads.  Still others take a long time to warm up to it at all.  I was raised on its tart goodness so I basically have to love it.  Its in my genes.  

So for each 2 cups of berries you will need 3 cups of water.  Put in a pan and bring to a boil, mashing lightly.  Simmer for about five minutes.  Strain through a jelly bag or cloth.  A little squeeze here is okay but not too much.  HBC berries have their own pectin so a little squeeze will put that into the juice.  Too much of a squeeze will make the jelly a bit cloudy but it will still taste okay.  Add 2/3 of a cup of sugar to every cup of the juice and heat slowly back to a bubble.  Pour into sterilized glass jars and seal.  You have made highbush cranberry jelly.

Gifts from the hedge, from the in between places that so much life calls home.  We are part of that life, straddling so many different habitats, times, and lifestyles that we have become the expert edge species.  We have the ability to walk in between so many different world we sometimes forget how special that makes us.  But the little glowing red fruits of the highbush cranberry bushes are there to remind us, lest we forget.

                                     

Under the Alders

I was seventeen and I was scared.  For the first time in my life I was leaving the comforts of my valley home for an extended period of time.  This valley, this land, the place on earth that sings in my blood, and I was leaving it.  Not for a few weeks like on our family trips, but for a few years.  I was going off to get an education, something that I had always wanted to do.  I had lived my life up to this moment to do this.  But now I was scared.  I was this little country girl that was going to the big University of Madison, WI.  I would be there with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, people who's lives were so different from mine.  How would I cope with all of them when my life had revolved around this one little valley near this one little town in a sparsely populated area of what is now referred to as a "Fly Over" state?

I changed my mind.  I didn't want to further my education.  I wanted to stay home with my horses and dogs and the forests and farms and the rivers and...  My father, ever the patient man, was at his wits end to why his middle child, his foolish and reckless offspring, was too scared to do what she had dreamed of for seventeen years.

"I've seen you walk into paddocks with wild mustangs, shoot rapids on The Wolf, and bivouac off the side of a cliff just to see the sunrise!  You've had more broken bones than your four brothers and sisters combined.  You aren't scared of anything!" He growled something to that affect.

But that was different.  Broken bones heal, The Wolf River and I are good friends, even if she tries to kill me from time to time, and horses...well, I've never met a horse I couldn't work with eventually.  This was different.  This was the unknown.  This I might fail at.

I remember saying something like how sophisticated these people were going to be.  I was going to meet people from cities all over the world.  They will have slept under skyscrapers and city lights.  They would have seen Broadway shows and gone to concerts.  They will have people skills from being around people so much.  I was nothing more than a redneck living in the backwoods and I had the people skills of a fencepost!  Then I said a phrase that I believe has come to define who I am.

"My babysitters were the hickory trees in the fields!"

When my parents would go to work in the fields they would put us kids in the shade of one of the two shagbark hickory trees the grew in the center of those field.  I didn't have daycare, I had hickory shade.  How backwoods could a person be?

My father was pretty much exasperated by this time and said the phrase that still makes me smile.

"I was raised under the alders!  If I could go to college and give you kids a better opportunity I would.  But I can't and I want you to have what I didn't!"

My father was the bravest and wisest man I have ever known and he never had a day of education.  No elementary school, no middle school, no high school.  He was a swamp rat and everything he learn, he learned in the bottom of a skiff, gliding under the alders in the backwaters of the Mississippi River and Her tributaries.

Well, needless to say, I went to college, which for me was the best move of my life.  But I often think of my father and his wildness.  Raised under the alders.  How much more wild could a person be?

Alders are hard to classify, which wild things should be.  Is she a tree?  Is she a bush?  Is she a shrub?  A small tree, and large shrub, a bush if she is cut back, she is all of those things.  She is also a healer of the land.  She form a symbiosis with a bacteria of the genus Frankia, which fixes atmospheric nitrogen.  Which is a fancy, scientific way of saying she take nitrogen out of the air and puts it into the soil.  And she does it better than almost any other plant out there.  In fact she does this healing best when she is broken herself.  Heavy snows, high water or even human cutting damaging her makes her give even more nitrogen to that soil.  She gives her all even when hurt.

Because of this extra nitrogen, alder has many of my wild medicinals growing at her feet.  Boneset, hops, angelica, skullcap, joe pye weed...to name a few.  Alder gives them what they need to thrive in the wet areas.  Without her tangled branches I would have less and less wild medicinals every year until finally they would fade from the area.  She gives me those gifts. 

But alder isn't one of those sweet friends that will do anything for you.  Nope, she is a wild one, living by her own rules.  Walking through alder swamps is the art in ducking, twisting, stepping over and sometimes leaving a few pieces of hair and clothing to her clinging mass.  She is thousands of stems weaving together to form an almost impenetrable fortress.  Add to this the northern water snake and the hundreds of different spiders that call her home and its no wonder that most people avoid going into her hidden depths.  This makes her a safe haven for mink and otter and many different birds, some of which even carry her name such as the alder flycatcher.  The bigger predators like wolves, bobcat, bear, coyote and humans very seldom enter into her core, making it safer for the little ones to live their lives undisturbed.

Alder has uses for humans who want to venture into her.  She is the perfect place to find oyster mushrooms.  Many of my casseroles I serve have dried mushrooms I found while weaving my way through the alders.  Her dead wood (and she breaks easily so she has a lot of it) makes really hot fires, often referred to as "biscuit fires" out here in the boonies because a quick hot fire is needed to make biscuits.  She can be tapped like a maple tree and about 60 gallons of her sap can make 1 gallon of syrup.  With our changing climate she may be the "last man standing" on the syrup front in generations to come.  Her wood has a "tone" to it and is used to make musical instruments that need a vibrations board like guitars and pianos.  And many woodworkers cut their teeth on her because her wood is pretty and easy to work with, though it doesn't last long.

Alder this time of year has catkins, or male flowers that will soon produce pollen. Until they do they make a nice addition to salads or breads or even just boiled and eaten with some crumbles of a tart cheese on it.  Think pine nuts and you can find uses for the catkins.  This is what I was doing down in the alder swamp today.  With the snakes and spiders gone for the year, she is just a touch different to climb though.  I am collecting a few bags of catkins to add flavor and texture to the 'end of winter' fare I still have down in the cellar.  My body is craving the wild flavors that spring will bring but...aren't...quite...here...yet...  Alder gives her flavor to foods my body is starting to tire from, stretching my larder for a little longer until I can stuff the first nettle leaf boiled in maple sap into my mouth.

Medicinally alder has much to offer as well.  First her inner bark is a bitter.  Bitters were used in the past to help aid in digestion.  The bitter flavor forces the body to make more bile and bile aids in digestion and cleaning of the system.  Chewing on the inner bark for a few seconds and swallowing the juices or making a strong decoction of it and take a few quick swallows with help your body calm your stomach down after a heavy meal. 

This same decoction can be used much the same way a witch hazel decoction is used, as a tightener and toner.  It is a good decotion to close off pore after the skin has been cleansed as a way to prevent acne and good to soothe hemorrhoid flare ups as well.   When we had chicken pox as children mamma would give us alder baths by putting the bark and wine vinegar into warm bath water and letting us soak the itches away.  When people come to me with the problem of smelly feet alder bark may be one of the medicines I reach for to bath their feet in.  This same tightening and toning is a good thing to do to your feet if you are planning on a long hike. Soak you feet in a foot bath made of alder and white oak bark and your feet will toughen up so's not to get blisters on the trail.

Modern medicine is looking into alder leaves as a healer for tumors, something that healers have known for a long time.  Way back in the 1600s, Parkinson wrote how the fresh leaves could be laid on open tumors to dissolve them.  In the 1970s, in the "Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences"  it was found that the leaves and inner bark or the red alder contained lupeol and betulin, two compounds that help heal tumor activity in the body.   Simple things like putting a piece of chewed bark on a cancer sore or cold sore can help heal them faster than they would on their own.

So leaving a few hairs behind in the alder swamp can be helpful in healing the body just as much as it is helpful in healing the soul.  Stepping into the alder swamps may be just as frightening to some people as stepping into college life in Madison, Wisconsin was to me all those years ago.  But both worlds have much to offer us.  College campuses are full of information, shared in hopes of making a better world.  Alder swamps are full of information too, just share in a different way, a more tangled and wild way.  

Under the alders is a wild place, filled with wild things...and every now and again, one of those wild things is me.  Not a bad way of spending a day.

Uses and Recipes for Wintergreen

Medicinal:

Liniments can be made with the simple ingredients of wintergreen leaves and berries covered with rubbing alcohol.  Let set for at least two weeks then strain out plant material.  This can be rubbed onto areas that are sore.  This is the best liniment for broken or irritated skin.

A second liniment can be made using wintergreen's heating partner, cayenne.  Simple put a handful of wintergreen into a jar, followed by a pepper, followed by another handful of wintergreen and so on.  After layering the plants pour rubbing alcohol over this and again let set for minimum of two weeks.  Strain and use on sore muscles and joints.

Oils and salves can be made using these two ingredients as well. Using the same technique above, fill a jar with layers of wintergreen and cayenne.  Leave an inch and a half head space at the top of the jar.  Cover all the plant material with oil.  Place a clean, heavy object in the jar to keep the plant material submerged beneath the oil.   Let set for 2 weeks to a month in a warm dark place.  Strain and use as oil or thicken with beeswax to make a salve.  This is again good for sore aching muscles and joints.

By itself wintergreen salve helps relieve the sting or itch of bug bites.

Wintergreen can be used as a tea by itself or mixed with black or green tea to use the caffeine as an extra "push" for its pain relieving properties.  This is one tea that doesn't need to be seeped for long periods of time.  Fifteen minutes should extract enough of the salicylic acid to reduce swelling and ease pain.

Culinary:

First the berries can be added to pies for a wonderful refreshing punch to many berry pies. 

Root Beer:

2 cups of molasses
1 gallon of water
1 oz wintergreen leaves
2 oz sassafras root bark
2 tablespoons powder yeast

Heat water and molasses to boiling.  Let cool to body temperature (around 100 degrees).  Add herbs and sprinkle yeast over the top of the must.  Let ferment from 12 to 24 hours at room temperature.  Strain, then bottle and refrigerate.

Wintergreen Berry Wine

4 pounds ripe tea berry
1 1/2 pound sugar
1/2 gallon water
juice of 2 lemons
1 Tablespoon yeast

Boil water and mix in sugar until dissolved.  Put berries into sugar water, mash lightly.  Cover with cloth until cools to blood temperature (around 100 degrees).  Stir in lemon juice and sprinkle yeast over must.  Cover again and let sit until fermentation dies down.  Rack out wine into secondary fermentation vessel and fit it with an airlock .  Let sit for about 2 months.  Rack into bottles and let age for 6 months.   Serve cold or use for cooking with deserts.  If you are licenced it makes a nice brandy for distilling.

Wintergreen Jelly

2 cups fresh wintergreen leaves
2 cups ripe wintergreen berries
4 cups water
1 cup sugar per cup of juice
3 ounces liquid pectin or 4 Tablespoons powdered pectin + 1/2 cup water

Wash leaves, and put into a large saucepan with 2 cups water.  Bring to boil and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.  In separate saucepan combine berries with remaining water, bring to boil and simmer until soft.  Mash berries well, then drain through a jelly bag into measuring cup.  Do NOT squeeze.  Strain leaves out of water and add to the berry water.  Measure how much juice you have.  Wipe out large saucepan and return juice to pan.  Add 1 cup sugar per each cup of juice.  Bring to a full rolling boil, add pectin, bring back to full rolling boil and hold boil for 1 minute.  Pour into sterile jars and seal.

Working With Wintergreen

 

One of the joys of living so close to nature is harvesting from her bounty.  I was raised a forager, though we did not use that term.  Long before Euell Gibbons and the many that would follow him started writing books, my family were getting a good amount of their food and medicine from the woods, rivers, fields, hillsides, and bogs.  It was more out of necessity than otherwise.  Our connection to the natural world came from our needing it to live the life we did.  Through that connection I have been blessed to learn the different plant personalities that live in the wilds around me.

Wintergreen is one of the little hidden ones that lie at the edges of the fens or bogs here. A small plant, it is often overlooked by humans who want the more flashy, bright flowers that grow in the light.  She doesn't mind her diminutive status though because, like many of the furtive souls of the world, she holds a great deal of secrets. 

Wintergreen seldom grows more than two inches above the moss strewn floor and often her leaves are longer than she is tall.  The oval leaves are usually a dark green with a shine on the top and lighter colored and dull underneath.  The grow in opposites but because the plant is so small they usually look like a whorl on the top of it's stiff stem.  Sometimes the new leaves will take on a reddish color, especially if they've had a good freeze before they toughen up.  Her flowers are bell shape and hide beneath her leaves.  They are white to light pink in color and bloom through spring to early summer.  Shortly later the crimson berries appear and these will stay on wintergreen until early the next spring. The leaves, like her name suggests, stay on the plant all winter and can be found either under the snow or, for easier collection, in areas where the wind has blown the ground clear.

On this February day I come to just such a place.  The north edge of the old fen butts up against the worn cliffs of the ancient Penokean Mountain Range.  The wind swirls here, making patterns over the snow, piling it high in some areas and baring the ground in others.  It has always been a good place to come to gather wintergreen during the dark time of the year and the walk through the forest is just as healing as what wintergreen has to offer.

Wintergreen's main medicinal properties is mythel salicylate, which is the basis of the pharmaceutical aspirin.  Like aspirin, wintergreen is a pain reliever, but she is more than that.  She helps reduce swelling and is mildly diuretic, making her a perfect helper for healing urinary tract irritations.  She can even help with heart problems, especially when blended with cayenne pepper.  We work with her both internally through teas and tinctures and externally with rubs, oils and liniments.

 

Today I am looking to make a liniment with wintergreen's healing power.  This year it has been one of my most requested wild preparation.  It seems that people are pushing themselves further than they ever have before, living life to its fullest.  So off I go over the maple ridge and down to the edge of the fen.  I have always been a fan of the boggy area near my home.  While they hold the danger of slipping beneath the mat, I find it worth the risk to see the different life that calls it home.  Here there are plants that eat meat and ground with no dirt.  Life that happens here often break all the rules of what we humans consider normal.  Wintergreen grows at the in between places between the bog mat and the iron highlands.  To my left are the cliffs, to my right is the ancient bog, at my feet is my treasure, wintergreen.

I pluck only one leaf from each plant.  Yes, it would be easier to gather tiny wintergreen by the handful, but she grows slowly here in the shade.  I certainly don't want her to leave this special place so I go slow, taking only what I feel the plant can give.  Also we humans aren't the only ones that use her for healing.  Deer and partridge have been seen munching a leaf here and there from her as well.

My knees sink into the thick snow spotted  moss and I can smell the frozen earth so close to my face.  She is waiting to come out of her winter's pause and begin again.  My fingers, bared to do the job, are cold so I blow on them between plucking leaves.  Gradually the scent of wintergreen take over the earthy smells and I pop a leaf into my mouth.  The flavor is a wonderful gift from a little friend.  I put the leaf against the back of my tongue and let the juices flow through my mouth.  I breath out the cooling air she and I create together.  Such a wonder, this sister of mine.  Deeper in the fen I hear the call of a barred owl, "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all."  They are mating this time of year and can call day and night if the mood suits them. 

My canvas bag is full and I take to the trail back home, stopping by the spring to collect some watercress for a touch of green in tonight's meal.  A mink has traveled this way, leaving her tracks along the banks of the river.

 

Back home I upend my bag, spilling the fragrant leaves across my dining room table. Ryan walks by and steals a few for a cup of tea while I put several handfuls into a jar.  Over them I pour the foreshot from the still, though rubbing alcohol would do fine as well.  This jar will be labeled and put into the herb room for a couple of weeks until it is a strong enough liniment to rub into tired aching muscles.  The remaining leaves are spread out to dry.  They will be used for teas for internal healing of those same pains.  Healing from within and without.  I may even make a salve out of it for bug bites, though it is hard to think of bugs when the snow still covers most of the earth.  Then there is jelly, jam, wine, root beer, potpourri and...so many uses for such a little unassuming plant that grows where the showy flowers shun.  She teaches me lessons as she heals.