Apply Ally

Along my journey..........

 I've started more cider......

 I've humbled myself with a child-like journal cover......

 I spent afternoons reading and researching ......

 I began some of the preparations.......

 Tinctures, oils.....

 of leaf and twig........

 And learned a lot so far.....

about my apple ally. 

Her fruit most markedly as food, her bark and leaf as medicine, and seeds as fertility charm and potential tree. I've baked her up for dessert and smothered her recklessly in local whip cream. I sliced her up and braised her with chard for dinner, and stewed her with pears for a compote. I've started a mother vinegar and have yet to discover it's success. What I'm loving about my ally choice, is how intimately it is involved with my other current obsession: fermentation. For thousands of years people have been fermenting apples; apple peels, apple juice, apple sauce, and adding apples to other fermentations to ensure it's yeast activity. 

And in love? Apple is always in love. Oh the love! I can hardly begin to recite the history of affairs the apple has had. From ancient Celtic fertility rites, to Eve, the Apple is the quintessential love fruit. And being the easiest, most accessible libation for old farmers to make and keep on hand, the credit for amorous behavior is no surprise. 

For many, the apple in raw form causes terrible stomach discomfort. True for me. But the moment it's processed into sauce, sparkling cider, butter, or cooked, the problems dissolve. I've yet to come across concrete explanation for this, but I can make educated guesses. 

In tea-medicine, the twig infusion was the most palatable. It quickly reminded me of the delicious appley-sweet leather kind of flavor I find in good-quality bacon. Without the bacon flavor. I'm a fan of both. 

And interestingly, the twig infusion is incredibly soothing to the gut. 

On my dresser I have six seeds from an apple I ate. They are drying, and I will attempt the impossible challenge of trying to sprout them. Perhaps. I wonder. Really, I'm charmed in my curiosity. 

The Apple of my Ally

A ferocious slurry of winter has thrown itself at us. We've been snowed at, iced on, shoveled half to death, and collapsed upon. A few of us have snow-shoed and snowmobiled our way to some joy, and some of us have sworn off stepping outside until it's gone. Whichever side of the fence you're on, there's no denying this winter's intensity.

I've been on the inside of the fence, well, doors, of this winter. While I'd prefer to practice my newly acquired ability to nature walk despite freezing temperatures, I was not prepared for teasing zero on most of the days, with a few feet of icy snow to boot. So inside I've been, concentrating on hearth and home.

Like a tiny volcano, the mist of apples swirls up from the opening in the green glass bottle.

The lady at the market was selling these fine treats along with savvy-sales reasons why I should buy them. When I told her with delight that I was on my way home with a carriage of apple cider as a novice cider-maker, she perked her eyebrow and tested me on my "right apples".

Indeed her fancy cider tasted similar to a fine white wine with a little sparkle to it, I won't deny. But for my first round of apple cider, mine was arguably better. It was sweet, oh so appley, sparkled like an opera gown, and made for an exceptional birthday toast for a dear friend. And, it cost me under $4 for a gallon.

I bought a bottle of the fancy cider from the apple cheeked lady, if not to appease her woo to bring my carboy to be filled at the farm, or to prove that I was willing to compare. (Or - just because I really wanted some cider with my venison for dinner). But I did not put my 3 gallons of sweet apple cider back. I brought it home and filled my little glass jugs, and set them up with a kiss to ferment.

The fizz and bubble snake down from the lip of the green glass bottle to the lip of my wide mouth crystal wine goblet passed down to me from my Grandfather, a fine wine-maker himself. I sip, slowly, intentionally, inviting in the lineage of libation.

Magic is undeniable in the fermentation process. If there's such thing as a yeast fairy, I believe in it. The transformation from one sweet farm thing to a sour sassy healthy one is like a good date that turns into soul mate material. Keeps you wanting more.

My first round of cider kept the neighborly company of a lacto-fermented herbal infusion-soda and a mead. The latter two went bad. The mead, because I used tap water which had just enough chlorine in it to inhibit proper fermentation, and the lacto-soda because I failed to strain the whey well enough. Bummer.

But the cider - oh my. Oh my. After just a few days the magic starts; the bubbles begin, and the fragrance is like pie. Then on goes the airlock and then begins the battle of waiting.

After a week, the whole family enjoyed the sparkling, pro-biotic beverage with dinner. After 10 ish days, the alcohol began and it was just for mum n dad, and privy guests. By two weeks, there was a mere two glasses left, and the hardness began to set in, like the taste of sparkling white wine, and it was truly exquisite.

Someday I might have the "right" apples, but for now I am very happy with my wrong ones. Whatever this orchard is giving to the local market is blossoming beautifully in my home and I have no complaints (other than I need some more carboys).

Fermented foods and beverages are a new part of my herbal journey that I'm delighted to be on. Not only is it a nourishing commitment to our health, it's a new way of knowing plants, and a dimension nearly lost to our western culture. It is also a fight for the health of our water.

I'm spoiled by amazingly good well water. Here at my new abode, the water has chlorine. Not very much at all, perhaps even undetectable to someone not paying attention, but I smell it and feel it acutely. My hair is drying out, my skin nearly cracking, and I gag if I drink the water from the tap. Water is essential in all the ways I can think of - it's the root of all life - and being a life form and a river lover and plant lover and mama, water is indefatigably important to me.

My fermentations agree - hence the rotting of my mead. I'll soon be taking a trip to the town hall, for more information on our water source. Being in a small farming town, I really wonder what is shed into the sources, the land, our faucets.

I give my belly a rub of love as dinner makes it's way into my body, back into life.

And in everything there is a spiral. Everything is connected. That spiral of mist from the cider tops, to the birds going crazy outside my window the past several mornings. They come in noisy flocks to forage from the white ground. They squawk and chirp and flap. They devour! For all over the ground lay bite sized crab apples.

They relish them; a delicacy in the scarce month of February, the meat of the apple is deep sustenance, and reason to celebrate.


Soon it will be mating season for the little winged ones. What better to prime their fertility than wild little apples? Can you blame them? Apples have been a symbol of fertility and love for centuries.

As I watched these little creatures dine, I thought about this. About apples. The apples in stories, in myth, in medicine, and in my glass. I thought about the apple tree that was the seat of so many of my childhood fairy tale moments; perched on her branches eating cinnamon powder from a toothpick; dreaming of what my life would be when I grew up. I loved the act of climbing the apple tree. How nimble and strong my little body felt! How clever I was to perch and teeter just so on her branches. How sweet the oval leaves of spring were on my fingertips, the delicate blossoms in my nose, and the bitter, astringent meal on my tongue as the fruits appeared. I always tasted them as if one year they would arrive with sweetness, and they never did.

The land at Great Hollow is an old apple orchard. The trees still give apples, and the flowering is intoxicating. If I knew better how to prune them, I would have. I always adored their gnarled beauty and admire their accessible nature. When last spring's storms knocked down a large couple of branches, I pruned them to take home.

For this year's plant ally, I'm choosing the apple tree. It's a daunting plant to pick, really, for it has a history larger and deeper than I can ever know, and a breadth of enormity. But if I've got all year, I can learn at least a little, and maybe not run out of curious notions. I'll be starting my journal soon, and feverishly catching up on my tasks. I love that apple provides such a variety of preparations beyond just your basic ones. I love that it's a food and a medicine, a love potion and a dessert, a sour fermented vinegar which can even hold other herbs, and a sweet, sparkling hard cider.

I'm anticipating a grand seduction, and perhaps a grand surrender.

Here's to you, great granny apple. Cheers

I take the last sip slowly. The sparkle has settled and the sweetness has opened up like warmed honey. I am contented, warm, and lovingly sleepy.

Giveaway Monday – Cottonwood Pendant by Mulberry Mudd

Giveaway Monday – Cottonwood Pendant by Mulberry Mudd



Oh my oh my.... so beautiful. What a lovely tribute to a very special tree..

Nourished Kitchen ~ Nourished You ~ Radical Food Meal Planning (and a wee rant)

(note: Sorry about the banner size! I can't change it so just go with it :)....)

I knew one day there would be a way. I've struggled with figuring out how to consistently feed my family real food for so long - I've done everything in my power - but with so little we are given these days it's an uphill battle.

1) We are not given the wisdom. We are far away from our lineage, our extended family, and most of us have lost our culinary heritage altogether. We've lost our personalized strains of cultures passed down through generations and cherished for centuries. We've lost the familial connection we need in order to learn how to prepare food.

2) We've lost the skills. Even from non-familial sources, modern life for the most part deprives us from learning skills that originate from the food itself - the seasonal timing of food to table, of egg to breakfast, of meat to freezer, of kvass to glass. These skills are all but extinct. What used to be every families right, is now an expensive novelty food from the specialty grocer. If we do come across authentic diy ingredients, we rarely know what to do with them.

3) We've lost the time. We are so overwhelmed with trying to pay bills, keep on top of our jobs, getting caught up in projects, caring for children or parents, or being distracted. We scarcely make the time to figure out how to prepare food, how to build a good grocery list, shop intentionally, and then ... prepare it all! It's a big job - that's why women spent so much time in the kitchen.

4) We've lost our food. Literally. We've lost thousands of varieties of produce. We've lost our dietary diversity. Humans are designed to eat an incredible array of roots, animals (and animal parts besides boobs and butts, hellooo), flowers, leaves, spices, fruits, legumes, and on and on. We're designed to follow the seasons and be connected enough to the land to detect and honor our food source. The average diet today is devoid of a GIANT helping of flavor, nutrition, and sensory satisfaction.  We don't own our food, we don't grow our food, and all too often food is not even cared about.

5) We don't like it in the kitchen anymore. It sucks. We as women want to do other, more rewarding things in the world, and be PAID for our worth. Being at home, cooking and cleaning up, has become a dirty, unrewarding job. At least it did for me. Feeding my family was exhausting, feeding myself was an afterthought. I did my best since I knew about healthy foods, but I didn't enjoy it.

Yet there's a moving wave of new, extreme importance. With the onslaught of GMO foods, child obesity, food fat misunderstanding, animal cruelty on careless farms, and foods shipped from other countries which we can grow ourselves, there's a whole handbag full of reasons to be a badass food mama.

I've changed my mind over the last few years. Watching my children grow strong and healthy with good food, lots of time out of doors, and the freedom to learn their own hunger instincts, has been encouraging. Watching them gain a passion for cooking and good food has been inspiring. And the thought of being a radical food renegade who eats wild, foraged, local, loved, REAL food, just plain turns me on.

I adore the diversity that arrives at a farm market. I adore the vibrant, self perpetuating bubbly vats on my counter. I adore the myriad crops the local farmers still save seeds for that Monsanto hasn't touched with their greasy, evil, nasty, sicko suicide genes.

I like my food edible, thanks.

OK so why the rant? Obviously you noticed the banner at the top, right? Yup - this, for me, is the golden key that I needed. I need a teacher-organizer-shopper all in one, and I need it on a tight budget to boot. Oh - and this time, I'm going to have fun. I am totally excited to start this journey with my family, and grateful for the guidance.

I hope you'll hop on the badass food mama (or anybody) renegade eco-bandwagon too and purchase one or more of Jenny's super-awesome offerings at Nourished Kitchen by clicking on the banner- I think you'll love it, and you'll support me too (I get a little coin from the affiliate program!).

Food activism, just as much as grassroots herbalism, is a radical, political, life-saving act.

(Now if I could just get myself to like gardening.....)

Oh - P.S - need some anger to motivate you? Vandana Shiva's videos are enlightening!




Eat well, eat slow, eat together, dear readers.

Evil Snow Charm

Clearly I'm having commitment issues with the colors of my blog design. What can I do? All I see out my window is white. I've never seen this much snow in New England since moving here almost 20 years ago. However it feels more like a real winter, as the winters I grew up with in Iowa were laden with accumulated snow tunnels along the roadsides and driveways, prohibiting all safe driving standards and visibility before turning. I remember clearly the wicked gnawing wind at my cheeks as I walked, in part, backwards to school.

The filthy plowed snowbanks towered beyond my head, only white again upon a fresh layer from the snow Gods. They performed exceedingly well as igloos and forts, snow people and temporary storage for party beverages. My mom would fill plastic popsicle-makers with orange juice, place them in the blanket of snow on the back porch, and within a few hours they were frozen enough to eat.

Moon boots were where it was at. Along with a full length hooded down coat and a ski mask, you could produce enough close-loop sweat and snot and hat hair to effectively humiliate yourself at the school lockers while rushing from Inuit garb to uniform code with barely enough time to thaw before asked to hold your pencil. My hair was long and always froze into icicles. I remember the prickle of goosebumps irritated by navy-blue cable tights and my surly disposition to the inability to wear pants and sweatshirts in protection against the drafty blows of the old brick school building. The windows were large and the fields of snow carried on for acres upon acres, decorated only by the sparse prints of a few desperate animals and the curvy wake lines of the wind waves.

I knew the white stuff was slowly watering the daffodil hill, sure to be blooming soon enough. I knew the winds blew around the seeds from the few trees we had. I knew, every year, that winter only lasted one season, but somehow I never managed a level above loathing for the evil Iowa winter.

Today I have more of an adapted ability to tolerate (even sometimes appreciate) the winter season, and a few more coping mechanisms. One of them, obviously, is taking out my restlessness on my blog. Being snowed in for a month now, with more snow every week or more, I've been forced to examine my daily habits, and begin stirring up my deeper visions of my days here on this Earth. The obstacles have been many; job struggles, our dear friend in the ICU, and the challenges and surprises of raising a teen and a tween, spoon out hearty helpings of swearing, intense gratitude, reflection, tears, and fear. And with each inner and outer blizzard I sit with the feelings and inquire.

Inside my icy chrysalis, I dream up ways to prioritize and practice what's important to me, and intentions I have for my Journey with the Plants. Winter is, after all, the dream time. it's the sleep of the year, the nighttime of the soil. In the womb of nature, we must root for the sweet starchy sustenance of our own spirit.

I dress up for no reason other than to add interest to an otherwise timeless day. I put on a little black honey lip gloss and show up for my journal pages. I've got some good ideas, sketched out in my favorite colors, and intimately connected to the goals I already have in motion. I'm imagining another branch, just a snowdrink at a time. With a little research and some continued time, I just might accomplish it, we shall see. I've certainly had enough scarification stratification. I figure whats a little more time waiting in the dirt?

As an aside, since I seem to muse more than make here at Plant Journeys, I'll throw in a little naughty herby-ness for you.

Snow Cream

1 big bowl of fresh, clean snow
1 Tbsp chocolate syrup
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tsp vanilla extract
Drizzles of herbal elixir of choice: I like black birch or white fir.
If you don't have an elixir handy, you can harvest some tree twigs and make a strong infusion. Just cool before using.

Stir it all up and enjoy.

P.S. Don't eat yellow snow.

Images of a Snowy Winter

Shifting Moon, Love Moon

"Moon in my hand", photo: Sage Wilson age 11

My dear friend, Ji-Ling, reminds me of the sacred practice of naming our Moons each time she becomes full again. In fact, as I begin this post, a beautiful (I'm sure of it) email awaits my eyes, certainly about this moon and her poetic and personal interpretations of it. I anticipate the read and the closeness I feel when I read other's lunar whims.

This Moon for me is the love moon.

I'm re-learning to love from a deeper place - I'm re-learning what it means to be a friend, a support, an open ear, and a member of a family. I'm learning bit by bit how to help my children learn, too. These are vulnerable and tender lessons but so very worthy. I trust that, like the grinch, my heart pangs are merely from growing, and sure enough - soon enough - the love will be even more than I imagined.

In my waiting, I ponder and dream. I am temporarily homebound without a car and simultaneously iced and snowed in, awaiting the completion of more arduous tasks which await my attendance. In the meantime, I deepen my quietness, make dense teas, and ask questions. How can I be a better friend? How can I speak my truth and leave judgement behind? How can I reach out and tell my distant family members that I care, despite never being able to travel to see them. I long to make heart connections with the people who mean so much to me, in an overly-busy and stoic world.

In my waiting and shifting I play with my blog colors, like a painter might paint the background of a new picture, or a dancer might change costumes for a new piece. I try little things to encourage my creativity.

I long to heal the suffering body and spirit of my dear family friend. I long to sooth the fear and longing of his wife. I nourish myself so I may nourish others.

My practice for this moon is to activate love.

What is your Full Moon moon this month, dear readers?