Herbs, Edibles & Medicinals
May 14/15/16, 2004

We began our wild plants hike late on Friday evening. We discussed just a few plants on our way because we were enjoying each other and nature. Besides it was getting dark and there was no point in getting far into the plants' world.

On Saturday we went for a very long hike. After the first hour we weren't even 10 meters away from the house! This helped me to realize how big this world of our little brothers really is. With many field guides in hand we analyzed the properties of each plant we encountered. It is really amazing how many uses one plant can have. Along our way, we tried to memorize the locations of the plants so that we could come back later to collect them for our dinner salad.

Kim and Kathy impressed me with their knowledge and their child like attitude when it came to identifying the plant. They were really consumed by the plants. They touched it, smelled it and wanted to know every bit of information that our field guides offered. They also told us about their own experiences with plants, which I found really interesting.

Unfortunately we couldn't help David with repairing the Sweat Lodge because there was too much water around it. So we concentrated more on our plants. Finally it came time to gather our plants for our dinner salad. Plantain, Dandelion, Wintercress, Peppermint and Bladder Campion where some of the many plants that we collected and added to our lettuce salad.

Also for our supper we had homemade Wild Leek and Potato soup which was very tasty. While consuming our salad, we realized we had used the wrong part of one of the plants. It was Solomon's Seal. We used the leaves instead of the young shoots. Fortunately, we realized our mistake and nothing bad happened. This was a great lesson for the future. Plants are as useful as they can be harmful if you don't know how to identify, harvest and handle them.

We also collected some wild ginger and Kim prepared syrup which turned out to be delicious!

It happened that it was my 21st birthday and everyone sang happy birthday to me and we celebrated with a delicious Wild Ginger Cake that was made by Autumn Willow. On Saturday night we surrounded ourselves with love and laughter and really enjoyed our time.

Sunday was a real day of spring. The sun was shining and everything around was full of life. We had breakfast with wild grape jelly that was prepared by Kim that morning, mmmm....sweet. David and Alis were working on their pipes and the rest of us went to pick plants for the pipe mixture.

We took a beautiful trail. It is really hard to put in words the rebirth of nature after the winter. There was this sense of Mother Nature's love for us. We encountered some rare plants on our way as well.

Spoiled by the beautiful spring weather, we had lunch outside and were attacked by neighbours with water guns. David immediately organized a counter attack and supplied us (Felicia, Sequoia, Autumn Willow, Kali and myself) with water guns. It turned out that they were too scared to face our wrath and we decided to have a water fight amongst each other, IT WAS REALLY FUN!

After that it was time to pack. We managed to identify 58 edible and/or medicinal wild plants! I learned a lot about plants and how to use some of them this weekend.

Still soaked in water and a little sad that it was time to say good-bye, I exchanged hugs, grabbed my loot (ginger syrup, wild grape jelly and walnuts for dying my pipe), jumped on my bike and rode home. Yes there is no better place than home...except the Browne's.

I want to thank David, Kathy, Kim, Alis, Felicia, Sequoia, Autumn Willow and Kali for a marvellous weekend!!!

Report written by Daniel Szymczak. Photos by David Browne.