Forest Grove Blog

Life has been so busy I’ve been behind catching up with all my herbalism and making goodies to restock the shop. I made divine spray smudges of local Western Red Cedar using fresh wild harvested tips as well as its rich earthy essential oil and another of fragrant White Sage leaves wildcrafted in Ca

We’ve had some gorgeous sun lately and the warm weather made the earth’s greenmantle suddenly burst to life full of colour from leaves and flowers. It is very welcome beauty after the grey and rainy winter. I decided to head outside for a walk through the neighbourhood and to take advantage of the s

My friends and I all jumped in the car and headed to Huntress and Thicket‘s homestead in the mountains for a good ole fashioned mead party. There had been quite the blizzard the night before, but the roads had cleared by the afternoon and the drive was full of sweeping vistas of gorgeous mountains c

Off to the mountain I went on a cold frosty morning to accomplish some wild harvesting before the rains returned. I met a beautiful ring of Douglas Fir trees with new green tips which I harvested for teas and a cooking herb. They were all oozing with resin as the temperature was perfect for it. [...

I managed to avoid all the plagues of my friends all winter so far, but I am apparently not so immune to the plagues of small children and finally succumbed to a cold. There’s nothing I hate more than a runny nose and a sore throat and I wasn’t about to put up with it [...]

After my wild harvesting adventure on the mountain I brought all my evergreens home, chased away all the jumping spiders, and then crafted small smudge wands out of the western redcedar, western hemlock, and rocky mountain juniper bound with red cotton. I made three larger smudge wands with all thre

To me, nothing is more festive for the winter holidays than mulled anything; mulled cider, mulled wine, and, since I am a mead-maker, I had to make mulled mead. I used a bottle of my sugar pumpkin spice mead that has been aging for three years, delicious honey from Honey Grove Farm, citrus, spices,

It was a gorgeous sunny day for the eve of the Winter Solstice – the shortest day and the longest night of the year. What else is a herbwife to do when presented with such a day but go wildcrafting on the mountain? I am out of so many things for the shop and evergreens [...]

I’ve been busy crafting, painting, sketching, packaging, labelling, and shipping. I’m running out of a lot of herbs and resins, so I hope to completely restock the botanica with goodies and new products in January after the craziness of the December holidays. It’s about time to get some tinctures br

My good friend Nikiah wrote a much-needed book on women’s menstrual wisdom with her good friend Nao and they found the lovely Eyan Myers to create gorgeous watercolours for the cover and the interior. Moon Mysteries:Reclaiming Women’s Menstrual Wisdom is a gorgeous book – beautiful artwork and photo