Hi friends! Today we are releasing another episode of our new YouTube series Name That Herb! Here’s how it works: I’ll give you a series of clues about a specific medicinal plant, and your challenge is to guess which herb I’m describing. For this episode, I’ve chosen a medicinal powerhouse that doesn’t get enough credit […]
I love flowers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Flowers are glorious to behold. They smell good, and attract and feed a multitude of beautiful and beneficial animals. There’s just something renewing to the spirit to have a yard full of flowers with butterflies and bees and hummingbirds going about their business amongst […]
Hi friends! We have a surprise for you today. Many of you have been schooling with us or following our blog and YouTube channel for years, so chances are you’re a certified herb nerd (and that’s a good thing…in fact it’s a great thing!). We really love nerds. In light of that, we are giving […]
People often ask me if I could only have five or ten herbs, what would they be. And, while many of the spots on such a list might happily be filled with any number of herbs, one of the stalwart, must-have herbs would be yarrow, Achillea millefolium. So, let’s yack about yarrow a bit. It […]
Herbal medicine has been used throughout the ages. As long as people have been wandering around this planet, they have been poking herbs in their mouths and solving problems. The art of tincture-making can be traced to the early days of alcohol distillation. Numerous ancient civilizations, among them the Egyptians, recorded their practice of immersing […]
Many years ago, long before I was a serious herbalist, I was in the vitamin aisle at Wal-Mart standing in front of a display of Ginkgo biloba capsules. As I read the label on one of the bottles I was really fascinated. “Wow” I thought “It says here if I take these capsules my brain […]
Facebook thinks I’m fat. So does Instagram. I’m trying not to be oversensitive or paranoid, but it’s hard when every other advertisement features ultra-slim women demonstrating deep squats in super tight yoga pants or promoting the latest miracle supplement promising to MAGICALLY MELT BELLY FAT OVERNIGHT. There’s the elusive 5-minute daily meltdown exercise too–a top-secret […]
You are sitting in a beautiful auditorium surrounded by elegant folk dressed for a glorious show. Suddenly, the lights begin to dim and a hush of anticipation comes over the audience. Sweet music begins to flow from the orchestra pit. Then, from wings, a flock of beautiful ballerinas float onto the stage in pink tutus. […]
Dear Friends, The holidays are a wonderful season; a time of thanksgiving and gifts, a time of reflection and learning from the past, and a time of new beginnings. That’s what makes this season so beautiful! It is a time to take inventory of all the things that made the year special. As we go […]
As a boy I was always a nature lover. I spent my youth exploring creeks and woods and wild places in Iowa, Pennsylvania and South Jersey. I became very interested in edible plants, wild foraging and primitive skills. Euell Gibbons and Larry Dean Olsen were my heroes. After high school I went to Peru as […]