2025 Calendar of Discovery and Empowerment
There are dozens of helpful plants growing in your own backyard, along the driveway, and just outside your front door. Do you know what they are? How and when to harvest them? If they’re the right plant for your needs? Good questions! Fortunately, you can enjoy learning about helpful plants at any level. Start from where you are!
An Herbal Safari is a discovery walk. You’ll meet helpful herbs, shrubs and trees in the field so that you can recognize these helpful plants when you get back home.
Herb books and videos are good resources. However, nothing beats getting up close and personal with the plants themselves. You’ll see their actual colors and growing conditions, how they feel and smell. Over the centuries, cultures all over the world have used helpful herbs, weeds, shrubs and trees for food, tonics and remedies. Every Herbal Safari provides hands-on learning, written guides, a fresh herbal beverage, and hand-crafted delectable.
Remedy-Making classes introduce ways to use helpful herbs in the kitchen and as medicine. You will be provided with organic, natural and wild-crafted ingredients, as well as glass bottles/jars and labels. Take-aways include your DIY projects, written guides, and a just-steeped herbal beverage and treat.
Download this free eBook for more details.
April 19: Barking Up the Right Tree
Generations of people the world over have used barks for teas, food, tinctures and more. Think cinnamon, and quinine! We’ll gather from wild apple, alder, prickly ash and oak, and do so without harming the tree. We‘re also likely to encounter the first herbs/weeds of spring, like dandelion and plantain. Believe it or not, these are very helpful and multi-use plants. We’ll start a remedy together, and finish the afternoon with tea, formula-making demo, and conversation. 1:00-4:00PM.
July 12: Apple River Farm Tour FREE safari
Herbal Safari is on the map for the upcoming Apple River Farm Tour! Take a self-guided tour of up to 14 farms in Amery, WI and nearby River Falls. Maps, brochure and detailed farm info on the event website.
We’re eager to welcome you for great local food, fun, tours and trails, crafts, and lots more. I’ll offer short herb walks at 10AM, Noon, 2pm and 4pm. No reservations needed.
The farms vary in size and type, but we have several things in common: using practices that protect and restore soil health and water quality, love of our area, and commitment to our community. We hope to see. you July 12, and hope that this is the first of many visits.
August 23: Leaves, Berries and Flowers
Don’t kill it! This weed – plantain – can help take the itch, swelling and pain out of insect bites.
August brings a wealth of leaves, flowers and berries offering helpful properties. Plantain, sorrel, lamb’s quarters, creeping charlie and self-heal are just a few of them. But are all plants and berries safe? During this Herbal Safari we’ll consider how to identify plants for safety and efficacy. Our featured fruit is the Hawthorn berry, or more accurately, “haw.” It looks like a small cherry, but it’s really more like a tiny apple. There’s got lots of scientific research on how it supports heart and circulatory health. We’ll also search out dark red prickly ash berries, as well as goldenrod flowers. Safari: 1:00-4:00PM Reservation required.
September 27: Remedy-Making Class
Learn to make tinctures, and healthful infused oils you’ll be able to use in healing salves. Learn how to store herbs and remedies for best shelf life. We’ll discuss how to match herbs to your individual needs and goals, not just herbs to symptoms. It’ll be tasty and fun! As Hippocrates is credited saying, “Make food your medicine and medicine your food!” 1:00-5:00PM Space is limited.
Additional events may be added. Call for private sessions, 651-238-8525.