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when the food we eat has a story behind it ~ it is deeply nourishing. when legends + lore surround our food we have more threads to weave into our own stories, more ways to reweave ourselves in wholeness ~ susun weed ~ abundantly well stinging nettles are a traditional food containing protein, chlorophyll, vitamins a, b complex, c, + d, minerals ~ iron, magnesium, manganase, potassium, zinc, copper, phosphorus, chromium, and calcium. plus amino acids and carotenes. physical description ~ nettle can grow up to 7 ft tall at maturity but usually aren't quite that tall. they are best for consumption under 1 ft. in fact a lot of books say never to eat them after the go to seed. you wouldn't want to anyway they would be way to stringy and stalky. leaves are heart shaped to narrower lance shaped. stems and leaf undersides are covered in stinging hairs that omit formic acid. they have opposing leaves. nettles are a blood building alterative and one of the highest sources of digestible plant iron. nettle leaf builds energy and restores the adrenals by way of mineralization. when you are fully mineralized you feel very good and energy improves. nettle is one of my closest and oldest plant friends. i can’t imagine life without her. i love to consume her in a variety of ways. i don’t take the tincture personally because i prefer other methods of consumption however, i will cover how to make a tincture in this post. lots of folks find the tincture useful. i really enjoy nettle vinegar and use it daily when i have it on hand. my preferred method is a nourishing herbal infusion or simply incorporating the fresh spring greens in food. i started drinking nourishing herbal infusions around seven years ago and they have remained a constant in my life ever since. i like to dry as much as possible since herbal infusions use a lot of plant material. i still end up purchasing around 3 pounds a year. so let’s dry some nettle and discuss how i make nettle infusions. the alter ~ dead things, meaningful things, and dried nettles. as you can see i simply just string them up. i start with three or four stalks, cut a strip of string, tie them together, tie another loop at the top, and there you have it. i hang by hooks and nails on the wall or ceiling. dry time will depend on your location and the humidity in the air. dry time at my home in montana is a lot shorter then dry time at the cabin in alaska. so just check as they dry and when the stalks “snap” they are dry usually one to two weeks or so. i cut the stalks as i jar them up. to create a smaller plant material for infusing. i have also used a food processor before to break the plant material up. i often will bust that thing out if i am processing a lot of dried nettles. my mum ties a string from wall to wall like a clothes line and spaces the nettles out one by one on the string by their leaves. this is a good method in a humid climate. nettle infusions are a good way to stay mineralized throughout the year. there is a lot of info on nourishing herbal infusions out there on the interwebs. susun weed has a youtube channel that goes into great detail on them. i highly recommended if this sounds like something you would like to incorporate in your life. but the basic gist is 1 oz of dried plant material in a 1 quart mason jar. pour boiling water over and cap for 4 hrs or overnight. strain and refrigerate. drink 1 quart a day and rotate through non aromatic nourishing herbs. some examples include: nettle, linden (1/2 oz for this one, and it can be rebrewed), oatstraw, red clover, hibiscus (1/2 oz for this one too) , burdock, and violet leaf. i personally make a half gallon every two days and drink the same infusion two days in a row. this works for me. i also have been making these so long i don’t weight them out either. but it’s good to weigh at first so you can get an idea of how much plant material to use. now let’s move onto infused vinegar……yum i start by chopping the nettles, you can of course where gloves if you like. i am a weirdo and like the sting 😂 so i don’t plus you can kinda wrap the leaves around the stalk as you chop and that cuts down on the sting. i fill a jar 3/4th full of chopped plant material, and top with apple cider vinegar. you can use any vinegar of choice. be sure and use a plastic lid or use some sorta wax paper in between the remedy and lid otherwise the acid in the vinegar will eat the lid and make a nasty mess. you can let this infuse for whatever amount of time works for you. i made this vinegar in april and i will strain and consume upon my return to the cabin in august. i would say a minimum of 2-3 weeks and a maximum of 1 year as far as vinegar infusion time goes. after the desired infusion time simply strain and bottle, you can store in the fridge or not. i consume a little vinegar everyday so i don’t refrigerate but you should do what you feel inclined to do. i strain through a metal strainer and sometimes i use a cheesecloth too. my favorite ways to consume vinegar are drinking it and topping a salad. my drink of choice starts with 2 tablespoons of infused vinegar, 1/4 cup tea or infusion, sparkling water, and a lemon or lime slice. i drink at least one of these most days ~ either while cooking dinner or having happy hour. i am not a boozer anymore but i absolutely love happy hour. it’s a great way to stop and connect with the ones you love. now let’s discuss tincture making. a tincture is an alcohol extraction think about vanilla extract that is basically a tincture. alcohol extracts plant compounds that water does not. i am not going to go into great detail about extraction because there is a lot of info already out there. at the end of this post i will link article and book references. some reasons to take nettle tincture would be if you are super busy and don’t want to invest in the herbal infusions. again infusions are the way to go but i’m not here to tell you what to do. my partner does not drink infusions and he benefits greatly from nettle tincture and he consumes it regularly. alternating between nettle and devil’s club mainly for energy and the overal adaptagenic qualities. there are several ways to make a tincture. if i am making tinctures to sell i will use the ratio method mainly for the sake of consistency 😂 or the illusion of it anyway. plants are like people they are all different even if they are the same species. mostly i make tinctures for myself, friends, or family and in that case i find the folk method quite adequate. folk method is basically 3/4th full chopped fresh plant material in a jar, cover with alcohol, press down plant material with a chop stick or something similar, cap, label, and store out of direct sunlight. infusion time is kinda like the vinegar. make it work for you with at least six weeks infusion if you can do that. again i have had some tinctures sit on the shelf a year or more. that is totally fine because alcohol is a great preservative, right? even after it is strained and bottled tinctures will last several years. i also enjoy the simpler things too just plain ol blanched nettles with butter, salt, and pepper, in order to get the “sting” out i like to blanch the nettles for around a minute then cool with cold water in a colander. once the pot boils place the nettles in and submerge, wait a minute, then rinse in cold water. to prepare these ~ if the stalks are small i chop them up if they are larger sometimes i will pull the leaves off and compost the fatter stalks. i put chopped nettles in a pan with butter and sauté briefly. if you have a lemon you can put fresh squeezed lemon on there along with salt and pepper…..yum. i have also used these sautéed nettles as a burger topping too. works better than lettuce. this makes a great side dish. you can also add to smoothies or hummus. i have several nettle recipes in the blog section. i also like to save the nettle cooking water from the blanching. it’s like a nettle broth sorta and it can be either used in cooking or just drink it. i usually just drink it. i use this blanch method to process a large amount of nettles then i store in the fridge for future use. if you have a smaller amount you can cook as usual ~ sauté for example. nettles offer so much they have inhanced my life in many ways. they once spoke to me and told me where they were. it wasn’t words exactly it was more of a strong feeling that was loud and clear. the message ~ stop stop stop the nettles are here. as i drove down an old dirt road. i didn’t listen at first i thought what is up with these crazy weird strong thoughts i told myself no no the nettles are up the road a little farther. when i arrived at my usual nettle harvest spot someone was living there, a trailer had set up shop. so i was like yeah that’s what that message was about. so down the road i went back to the spot of the strong message and hiked down a little bit and they were there dancing in the breeze and laughing at me. i harvested these nettles on ancestral homeland it was extremely connective. connective in the way berry picking with family members is. returning to the same places to wildcraft builds a relationship. then the story can begin ~ your story with nettle. resources discovering wild plants by janice schofield energetic herbalism by kat maier https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9253158/

2023 summer trip was wonderful of course. this place continues to blow me away every time i am there and i would imagine it will just continue to do so. it was mostly a solo trip for me although my family initially came out with me and stayed a few days. then my daughter came out with the neighbor for few days another time. i accomplished my goals and then some. the previous owner gayle also came out and we had so much fun and great conversations. wrangell being a small town i new who gayle was but i didn't really know her personally until now. i was so glad she made it out for a visit. i was there for the month of june and flew back to montana on the 4th of july. first project up on the list as painting the outhouse. here is a before shot. that's my mom helping me prep the outhouse ~ isn't she cute? we have done many paint jobs over the years and she always out preps me. this project was no exception. i worked on prepping the outside. we listened to some robin rose bennet podcasts while working on this. ta ~ da the outhouse is done. next up was painting the outside of the cabin. the cabin is small so i figured i could tackle this project in a few days and june's weather near wrangell usually has some nice weather breaks. late june was right on track we had four really nice days in a row and it happened. here is the cabin right before i dove into painting. the prep wasn't too bad. i borrowed some scrapers from my parents, they were really nice ones. heavy duty scrapers. i also brushed the cabin really well with like a commercial fishing deck brush. and there she is..... at first i wasn't sure if i liked the color but i think that was because painting it was so much work. the thought of redoing it was making my head spin and it totally grew on me after only one day. i love the color ~ it matches the sky and the ocean it's what i was going for. it is nice also that the roof is brown, a lot of colors go well with a brown roof. i want to paint my house in montana as well but it has a red roof so the color options just aren't there. i painted most of this by myself however one of the days my daughter was out we painted together and it was really nice. we listened to several morbid podcast episodes and talked a lot about wrangell. i did some harvesting as far as my business is concerned. one thing i like to make while in alaska is a plantain infused avocado oil. the wild violet + alaska plantain whipped tallow body butter is such a nice offering. gentle and nourishing to the skin and an excellent choice for folks with sensitivities. so meet alaska plantain ~ plantago macrocarpa. i have several devil's club offerings in the shop ~ a salve, body oil, and tincture. i also decided to harvest some extra to sell just as dried herb. this went well and i sold out quickly. i am hoping to write up a blog post all about devil's club in the future. so for now i will just say this plant is amazing and very protective of itself. if there is a plant that can teach us about boundaries ~ this is it. devil's club botanical name is oplopanax horridus. the previous owners had left a chainsaw milled spruce slab and i decided to make an island for the kitchen out of it. this only came together with the help from my neighbor frank, he helped me design it, plus i used his tools. this is right before i started sanding the top. gayle's visit at the end of my stay was really the cherry on top. we had so much fun and incredible conversations. i learned a ton about how things happened at the cabin, why things are a certain way, and different things that changed over the years. they bought the property in 83' so this really took a lifetime to create. i am humbled and honored to be the next to enjoy this place. i still don't think i can fully fathom the level of energy that harvey and gayle put into this place. we had fabulous meals on the porch, and zipped around in her skiff. she showed me several places nearby that are fabulous for exploring. we stopped off on islands of cedar groves, trout fished, and visited "old town" old town is the site of the native village referred to as "kaats'litaan" which roughly translates to willow town. i can see it across the strait from my cabin. not much remains today just barely a totem pole is left. it is only still there because a tree grew up in between it splitting the totem is half and keeping it upright. the natives left old town sometime in the 1800s it was probably a slow progression. the last baby born in old town was in 1800. the rainforest of southeast alaska reclaims in a hurry. so like i said not much of the village still remains but the land remembers and just being present on the land there was very special to me. there are rock piles where they rested their canoes still left and an insane nettle patch. many natives were forcibly removed from their land and to literally be across the strait from my ancestral lands is something i can't really explain. it is a rare thing and i feel privileged to be able to be experience it. the view from old town. you can see some of the rock piles for resting the canoes against. these mountains are on etolin island and they are called the three sisters. the tree keeping the last totem upright. i didn't know this totem was there gayle pointed it out to me. my mom had told me when she first went to old town in 76' she could barely make out a totem pole and thanks to that tree it's still there. another canoe rock pile. this is looking south towards "thoms place" some folks say old town was a perfect location for a village because you could really see if someone was coming up or down the strait. it is also on the sunny side of the island. the gardens at old town were amazing and they would trade all the way down the california coast. the "tlingit potato" has a fascinating origin story these potatoes have been genetically tested and they are not related to european cultivars. tlingit oral histories indicate that the potatoes predate colonists. i worked on seine boats in high school so seeing them always makes me smile. this was taken while exploring a "village island" with gayle and her dog "hyder" i especially love the old wooden seiners. gayle also shared her beach asparagus spot with me. we steamed it for about 10 minutes and covered it in butter and pepper. beach asparagus does not need salt. and this happened too ~ trout fishing. salt water trout fishing. after gayle left i had a few days to contemplate my time here, focus on my goals for more time spent at the cabin. and finally closing the place up and preparing to return to montana. this is my skiff and it's how i get back and forth from the cabin to my parents house. my parents house is 10 miles away on a different island and a world away really. behind me is etolin island and this body of water i am in is called zimovia strait. so i was back in wrangell and so were several of my cousins what a trip.....i enjoyed every moment even the challenging parts. i am looking forward to more time there. happy summering to you all resources tlingit potatoes https://hakaimagazine.com/article-short/time-for-the-tlingit-potato/#:~:text=The%20Tlingits%20have%20slender%2C%20knobby,the%20potato%20often%20runs%20smaller.

ponderosa pine also known as yellow pine is local to the bioregion where i live so i decide to try a dye bath experiment with them. this post is about dyeing fabrics, not yarn although animal fibers do tend to pick up the dye better. animal fibers usually end up darker than cellulose fibers. top left is linen fabric just dyed not pre-treated. top right is a linen fabric also that was treated in a soy milk binding. bottom left is a spandex/cotton mix that was treated in the soy milk binding agent. the middle bottom is silk not treated just dyed. as you can see the animal fibers do really pick up the dye. the bottom left is a cotton/spandex blend that wasn't treated or mordanted in anything. just dyed. sometimes i use alum mordant and sometimes i use soymilk as a binding agent. the nice thing about using soy is it's non-toxic. alum acetate for cellulose fiber does work really good though. the book the modern natural dyer by kristine vejar goes over mordants for cellulose in depth. if botanical dyeing interests you i highly recommend this book. so first things fist let's collect some pine cones..... ponderosa pine trees are so pretty but boy watch for ticks if you are doing this project in the spring. botanical dyeing is a really slow process this whole experiment took about a week. but with that said botanical dyeing is something that is really easy to weave into your life. i filled my dye pots as full as i could i also have an aluminum pot and i like to use that too it often provides different shades. as many cones as i could fill in the pots with water is what i used. then i placed them on the wood stove which isn't going constantly this time of year. i build a fire at night and let it go out during the day. but when the fire was ripping these pots were simmering a little. as they cooked down i added more cones to the pots. i left them on the stove doing this simmer, cool completely, simmer cool completely thing for four days. then i strain the cones out and added the liquid back to the dye pot. with the fabrics and placed back on the wood stove. i continued on with the simmer, cool completely, simmer, cool completely. only because that is what i was doing with the wood stove. it required nothing of me. i might have done something different if i was relying on my cook stove alone. but this way the dye pots could just be. i repeated this for a few more days. i like to pull the fabrics from the dye pots and immediately hang them on the line to dry before washing. i do this because i feel like it helps to "set" the dye. after they dried i washed them twice and line dried as well because i don't have a dryer. i am happy with the outcome of this pine come dye. pine cones are everywhere so it was a nice experiment and i do plan on more pine cone dyeing in the future. anyway thanks for stopping by. if you are interested in subscribing to my emails or shopping my offerings you can find all of that over at https://www.simplyjosephine.com/