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Interesting ramblings at herb gathering

I am perched on a tree stump in the morning sun.The stump sits next to a beaver pond. Water rushing through the beaver dam sounds like a thousand hands drumming.

I am perched on a tree stump in the morning sun.

The stump sits next to a beaver pond. Water rushing through the beaver dam sounds like a thousand hands drumming.

The beaver dam is in a Girl Guide camp just outside Billings, Montana. I am at 14th annual Montana Herb Gathering.

This morning breakfast was an omelette made with farm fresh eggs and morel mushrooms. The mushrooms were gathered by a local mushroom hunter with a shaggy beard.

My travelling companion tells us about mushroom picker who 600 pounds of morels from a burn last week.

He sold them for ten dollars a pound to a high end restaurant in Calgary. Do the math. Not bad for a weekend’s work. The gathering is about 150 people. The youngest is three months old. The most senior plant enthusiast is possibly in his late 70s. I just learned he is mid way through his 80s. He is spry and flirts with the young women. He attributes his vigour to seaweed. I have purchased a pound of Nero Kelp from him to munch on. He says it is his highest quality seaweed with 50 per cent minerals. It’s salty and crunchy, kind of like potato chips without the grease.

I also bought a hand felted hat which is a blend of Navajo churro wool and wild buffalo hair gathered in Yellowstone National Park. It kept me dry last night around the camp fire while it rained.

So what does one do at herb camp beside indulge in tasty, hard to find mushrooms, shop for unusual hats and hang around campfires sampling different seaweeds. One talks about herbs.

Yesterday I went on a herb walk which was devoted to plants that were smoked by the First Nations. I learned that in their pipes, they never smoked tobacco alone. It was always a blend of herbs. Often mullein (Verbascum thapus) and pussy toes (Antonnaria spp.) were in a smoking mixture. These two plants are high in nitrates. Nitrates burn well, helping to keep the pipe lit.

I also sat in on a lecture by a herbalist from Portland, Ore. He learned his herbal medicine in California. He shared a salve recipe with me that includes balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera) bud infused oil combined with an oil make with turmeric (Curcuma longa). Because we have a long, hard winter in Alberta, our poplars make stronger medicine than the ones in Oregon. The salve, by the way, reduces pain associated with joint inflammation.

Today, who knows what adventures lay ahead? I am attending a seminar this morning on epigenomics. The seminar outlines describes the workshop as “epigenetic herbal healing might stop transmission of specific inherited disease susceptibilities.” I image the herbalist, who was at one time a professor at Cambridge University, will speak about eating lots of brightly coloured fruit and vegetables, going for a walk each day and enjoying life as the best medicine for prevention. But perhaps he will say something new. Later: he did not speak of brightly coloured fruit, but grass. It’s a very long story.

Then I will take in a workshop exploring biomimicry. This is really exciting stuff. It is the study of the patterns in nature in order to create an economical and efficient new way of doing something. For example the new design of the new Mars Ranger mimics tumble weed.

The previous design, an upright square shaped robot on wheels got jammed up on a rock. The tumbleweed version, just rolls right over rocks, boulders and craters. This afternoon, I am going to learn to make mead and dandelion beer. Mead is a fermented honey wine flavoured with herbs.

If all goes according to plan, I hope to make a raspberry mead with berries from my raspberry canes this summer. Dandelion beer is be yet another great use for the this generous plant.

This evening there is a botanical ball with a live band and another camp fire.

At the ball, many of us will dress up as our favourite herb. I was feeling too lazy to make a costume before heading to herb camp, so my costume is very simple.

It consists of a tube of red lipstick. Guess what I plant I will be. Here’s a hint, I am a very beautiful plant, with no medicine properties and am high maintenance. I am a lipstick plant (Aeschynanthus lobbianus).

The horn is about to blow, announcing the first workshop, got to go.

Herbs for Life is written by Abrah Arneson, a local clinical herbalist. It is intended for information purposes only. Readers with a specific medical problem should consult a doctor. For more information, visit www.abraherbalist.ca. Arneson can be reached at abrah@shaw.ca