Local Wild Edible Plants & Backcountry Herbal Medicine

No college or other affiliation needed. Artwork by Joanna Colbert and used with permission. Cost is $15 general, $10 for students/low income, and $10 per additional friend/family member. Here's the itinerary for today from our website which you can also view at www.wolfcollege.com:

Parts of class will be spent outdoors, so please dress for the weather as we practice a series of hands-on skills. Instructors Kim & Chris Chisholm have a great class planned for you, including:

15 Minutes: Making Herbal Remdies - We will spend the first several minutes of class preparing an herbal salve. While the herbs are infusing in heated organic olive oil, you'll learn about the healing power of the plants werre using and how to harvest them locally.

15 Minutes: Tenets of Herbal Medicine - We will continue with a lecture on our Tenets of Herbal Medicine which you can read about in advance and where you will also find a list of 30 herbs from my herbal apothecary and how we use them for Backcountry First Aid. If you are an herbal novice, the first part of the article is important to read, whereas the list of herbs and their uses may be better to read after class. We won't be handing out printed copies today in order to keep (environmental and financial) costs low, so be sure to check my suggestions online and feel free to print them out yourself if you like.

30 Minutes: Wintertime Wild Medicinal Plants of the Backcountry -We'll talk about important medicinal plants that should be harvested during the winter months. Then we'll do some hands-on work with Devil's Club, Oregon Grape, Willow and more. Depending on class location, we may spend some of this time outdoors, so please dress for the weather.

30 Minutes: Top 10 Wild Edible Food Plants - It can be challenging to find wild edibles that are available during the winter, or anytime in the backcountry, but spring is at hand, so depending on class location, we hope to find some of these plants near-by. Again, depending on class location, group age, number of questions during lecture time, etc. we may spend some of this time outdoors, so dress for the weather.

15 Minutes: Enjoying A Wild Edible Food - We will take one of the wild edible food plants that we harvested outside (or brought along, depending on location) and prepare it to eat over our camp stove.

15 Minutes: Finishing Our Herbal Remedy - We'll put the finishing touches on our salve by straining it and melting bee's wax into the infused oil. We'll finish with a quick note about allergies and how to use and store your salve.

PS: You can take home a salve for an additional $1 donation, and we will also have recommended field guides and other items available for sale.

After Class - Feedback & Planning: Please join Chris & Kim after class to review experiences, browse resources, discuss feedback, and brainstorm ideas for the future. Email or Call us at any time with any questions and requests.