My dear daughter-in-law, Jenny, and I made some new friends today.  We joined Karen Sherwood of Earthwalk Northwest for one of a series of day classes in which we learn how to identify wild plants and their many virtues:  food, medicine, tools. In the classroom, Karen explained the ethical principles and wild food foraging guidelines. She encouraged us to bring wild plants into our lives – make new friends by learning about one plant every week and incorporating wild food on to our plates as often as possible. Continue reading →

May Day! This Wednesday, we dedicated our thirteenth Ethnobotany Apprenticeship class to the camas lily and its roots.  Imagine the importance of this vital source of carbohydrates to native people living here for thousands of years:  Years before we could buy the carbo-centric cornucopia of foods in supermarkets and fast food chains.  We traveled to the Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve where Blue Camas or Camassia quamash decorates the grasslands.   The Mima Mounds are a curious landscape of low, domelike, natural mounds that seem to be erupting from the earth.  Studies theorize that they were formed as the result of glacial movement.

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