Join us for a wild medicinal herb workshop, find all-natural herbal products and learn about life in America’s Great Boreal Forest

Welcome to 2013!

The year turns again toward the light, thought it isn't
very noticeable yet, only eight days from Solstice.
We are in the same snow drought this year as last;
it is uncanny and unsettling to see how closely this
autumn and winter resemble last autumn and winter:
lack of rain in the fall, lack of good snow cover now.

Some sweet news is that there are two new apprentices
studying with me at Giving Ground; we took time off for
the winter holidays and will resume the course in the
early part of this new year. It is lovely to notice those, as
the saying goes, "Aha!" moments when new knowledge
gels with old and things become apparent, logical,
reasonable, or just plain magickal.

My daughter Alex treated me to a
week in Scotland in September.
We spent part of the week in
Edinburgh for the City Mouse (Alex)
and part of the week in the country-
side in Aberfeldy, in the southern
Highlands for me, the Country
Mouse. If you go to Aberfeldy, 6 The
Beeches is a wonderful B&B.
Friendly and helpful, Margaret and
Jim Adams own and run it, and they
are like their home and the region,
definitely 5 Star. We visited (and
had scones fresh out of the oven!) an herb and roses garden where pear trees, espaliered against the old high stone wall, were dripping rosy ripe pears, and where, at the bottom of the far garden by the fish pond, there was a piece of old Roman road over the stream, or 'burn.' Alex and I spent a charmed week in Scotland, and when I'm finished some portion of my chores here and just want to have a quiet moment, I'll sit and leaf through the pictures she took. Click here to see more pictures from our trip.

Back at Giving Ground, we spent one noisy but necessary day in late autumn with the tree surgeons, who have been here before and have done excellent work (Amberjack Tree Service, for anyone reading this in Duluth and environs). They are professional, bonded, insured, tidy, honest, generous, gracious, and of course don't blink at heights, all harnessed up and chain saws howling. They took down the several trees we had marked, among them the lovely old white spruce which has always been part of the north shelterbelt behind the house. It had been dying for years, and was, this past year and more, totally dry and dead, and if it had fallen on the house roof, it would have punctured it in 10 places, and surely broken the "ridgepole" too.

All the other wood the workers cut up into 16 inch lengths at our request, and we called around to friends to ask who might want to come over for a pick-up load to start Autumn 2013's wood pile. I rolled the enormous cylinders of white spruce trunk into place around the stump itself, great circumferences of tree trunk placed as if in council seating formation with the stump as the "table", and I will leave those great pieces in that formation for some time, as "A Council of Trees." From the driveway that place in the air, to the north of the house roof, looks stark and "gap-tooth", but the tree had to be cut down, and maybe will like being, in a new incarnation, the "Council of Trees." The deer and rabbits and other small toothy animals are gnawing the twiggy bark off the downed tops of the other trees, nutritious winter nibbles as most of those trees had been live but gnarled, wind-damaged, too close to buildings...

Come visit us! Gleaning herbs in the winter is a very exotic pursuit; we do not jack-hammer through frozen ground to find frozen herbaceous roots. We have much to choose from in the "winter garden" of the woods and thickets, just waiting to be walked up to, or snowshoed up to, and harvested.

See my 2013 Schedule

READ SOME NEW ESSAYS

The last of the oatmeal jam bars aren't even being snitched.
It may be because we all have winter colds and can't breathe
through our noses and eating crumbly bars with our mouths
open is so graceless. But the kitchen of an old farmhouse
notices … Read "An Old Farmhouse After Christmas"

Potatoes have saved lives. Many seafarers would have died
of scurvy but for the discovery that potatoes, cooked in their
jackets, contained enough vitamin C to prevent that plague
of the voyagers ….
Read "Consider Potatoes: Especially Mashed"

Seeds refuse to go unnoticed. All this week they have
silently been begging me for print. There is tremendous
silent energy packed into a seed.
Read Seeds Refuse To Go Unnoticed.

PIXS: See pictures of Giving Ground during our seasons.

FUN RECIPES

Nettle Lentil Lasagna Corn/Potato Curry Soup

APPRENTICESHIPS

Giving Ground continues to accept applications for Herbal Apprentices: Giving Ground still has openings for apprentices, (see below) and several people have expressed interest in beginning in the spring and going through the program into the autumn, finishing up at the first snow. I have several apprentices who, for various family reasons, have had to make a slower journey toward their herbal certification, not meeting here every month. That is an acceptable arrangement as well.

CHECK OUR 2013 WORKSHOP & RETREAT SCHEDULE

Giving Ground is open year round: Come join us for a day or an overnight or for a weekend retreat/workshop. If you are part of a garden club or herb society or study group, I offer single-day workshops with an herb walk and an herb luncheon. We do medicinal projects together that you take home with you whether you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced student. These are offered mainly in the spring, summer and autumn and the dates and topic focus are negotiable. Just telephone me to work out details at 1-218-848-2302.

The 2013 schedule of weekend and week-day programs or workshops/retreats is up now. Feel free to phone me if there is a date or particular topic focus that you don't see there. Often I can accommodate different days/different topic focus in between the scheduled programs.

Gift certificates are always available. Half-day at $50, full day at $85, weekend or equivalent time at $329. They make wonderful gifts. I still have open dates so tell your friend or family member that we can discuss the season, dates, and topic focus that will work best.

Herbal consultations: Guests often ask me what I would suggest for this or that health challenge. I try to do my best in recommending herbal alternatives to common pharmaceutical applications with the caveat that everyone should speak first with his or her primary care physician. I also continue to present Continuing Education credit-hour classes at the University of Minnesota at Duluth Student Health Center for the doctors, nurses, and counseling staff there.

I hope you'll email me (info@givingground.com) with questions and your thoughts about the importance of herbal medicine in our lives.

HERBAL APPRENTICESHIPS CONTINUE AT GIVING GROUND: After a very successful year during which Giving Ground hosted several wonderful apprentices, I am extending an invitation to you to consider applying for a herbal apprenticeship in 2013. Read more ...

I continue to receive emails regarding medicinal herbs and the flu: I'd suggest boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) - this isn't the similar-sounding comfrey or "knit-bone." Boneset is a close relative of Joe Pyeweed or "Gravel Root"- both are eupatorium - NOTE: this is used only for healing a viral infection - not as a preventative - Boneset is hugely anti-viral and anti-bacterial and will also bring down a fever and check a cough, which (cough) seems to be a symptom on the news of H1N1. Read more ...

READ ABOUT GIVING GROUND'S VERY FAMOUS BOREAL FOREST TRIPLE ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT: Giving Ground's wild-herb Boreal Forest Triple Antibiotic Ointment (see my herbal store, this website), continues its journey to Africa and Central America. The University of Minnesota's Duluth health clinic has had …. Read more

VISIT OUR NEW HERBAL REMEDIES STORE: Giving Ground's Herbal Remedies

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE OUR OCCASIONAL NEWSLETTER?

Send an email to info@givingground.com and we'll put you on our list. We'll be happy to send it to you as an email or by "snail" mail. Let us know how you want to receive it.

Have a Giving Ground Wild-Herb Adventure and learn to think
like an herbalist!

Giving Ground is an 80-acre forested herbal retreat in the Superior National Forest, 60 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota. At Giving Ground you'll learn to identify, choose and prepare medicinal plants for yourself, your family and friends.

You'll feel, taste and learn about the therapeutic properties of herbs that not only grow in America's great boreal forest but often in your own backyard.

For thousands of years, people the world over have used wild herbs as food, medicine and cosmetics. The native peoples of the boreal forest, and the immigrant homesteaders after them, had to learn what the stony, stubborn lands provided for food and medicine.

Our forests offer us a wealth of hardy plants and trees. Compounds from their roots, leaves, flowers and berries have been used for centuries to nourish, support, comfort and heal.

Today, knowing about wild herbs and how they can help us is especially important; we are all concerned about the safety of the drugs we take, the food we eat and the cosmetics we use. Every day at Giving Ground we field questions about which herbs can help promote healing, maintain wellness, improve the food we eat and enhance our skin as we mature.

Our website offers information about Giving Ground's year-round workshops, our all-natural herbal remedies and what we've been thinking lately about herbs and life. We hope you'll stop by often: