Participants in the 2023 Plant and Place Connection Series bundling goldenrod. I am beyond excited announce the launch of the School of Plant and Place Immersion program! This comprehensive program has been a long time in the making. Ever since I attended herbal medicine school back in 2010, I have dreamed of offering a similar program. However, it took many years of further study, hands-on experience wildcrafting, innumerable hours teaching others through walks, workshops, and seminars, and most importantly, slow time with the plants themselves before I felt ready to create a ..read more

Amos considering a rocky route The Tuscarora Trail, which travels 250 miles from Hogback Overlook in Shenandoah National Park to Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania near Carlisle, is not a trail for the faint of heart. Honestly, I underestimated this trail's ruggedness. We didn't merely follow blazes and gaze idly at treetops over long trailside lunches. Heh, I would have been fine with that. But rough terrain compounded with weather-related challenges made for a physically and mentally demanding journey. Those of you may remember from my first post about the Tuscarora Trail, I stated that I ..read more

Pennsylvania state line! It feels mighty fine to have crossed the Pennsylvania state line. The marker may have been humble, but soon as we did, both Amos and I got some more pep in our step. Just like that, Amos got his trail legs! I swear it’s as if he knows he’s on home turf and at this point, if he just keeps walkin’ he’s bound to reach home. Amos walkin' the C&O  But first, we had the pleasure of walking down the C&O canal path. This was a hiker’s dream, especially when loaded to the seams with food for the upcoming week, and water. Yeah, I know there’s wate ..read more

Just a girl and her dog on the Tuscarora Trail It's been eleven days on since my father delivered Amos and I to the southern terminus of the 250- mile Tuscarora Trail. Since then, I've been stung by yellow jackets a dozen times, scraped off hundreds of ticks, traversed more dry creek beds than I care to count, hauled 14 pounds of water daily, met one local deputy, showered twice, and counted my many blessings. This trail has been no walk in the park, not that I expected it be. No trail worth its merit ever is. But I do, after hiking thousands of miles, begin a new hike with a certai ..read more

  With Amos at the southern terminus of the Tuscarora Trail *This post was written on August 26th and posted on September 5th. We are now eleven days into our hike. It was time to take a walk, a long walk. I’ve been working more than ever, although I don’t really consider my work with plants and people work in the typical sense. It is a joy. I can’t imagine my life without it. It’s a part of who I am. But it does require a lot of “brain” time – a lot of researching, organizing, and scheduling. Sometimes, even I, who spends most of my workdays outside, needs to just go be in the w ..read more

  Participants in the Plant and Place Connection Series: Siri, Christy, Felice, Christina, and Dixie What a plant-filled season! So much that I've had little time to document here at the blog. I've been too busy being in it. I hope you have been too. Here in Northeast Pennsylvania, spring swept in hot and dry. I feared our garden might never grow, the soil dusty and sprouts tiny. With summer came the smoke and humidity and almost daily drenching storms. Well nourished, despite the smoke, the plants took off. Our garden is now a bounty with a flush of the tallest bee balm I'v ..read more

  Steeping in beauty by the Sopchoppy River An immersion into beauty, steps into the unknown, a sweet reprieve from our everyday thoughts. Our journey southward was a wondrous escape - some may say - but I would call it rather a journey back to the real. Not to say that our everyday lives are not part of the real, filled with very real joy and hardships, but they are also filled with so many concerns about those things that maybe don't hold as much weight as we ascribe to them. When we awoke to the morning sun pouring through our trailer windows, we arose easily and made coffee ..read more

  Spending time with sassafras (Sassafras albidum) I hope this post finds my readers, fellow hikers, and nature lovers enjoying our winter days. It's been a mild season thus far - which I must admit has not saddened me - with little snow but plenty of cold, crisp breezes, damp spits of rain and slush, and fair shows of sun too. I've been getting outside with trail runs and afternoon hikes as much as possible and settling into spending some time quietly in a circle of trees on the property. I have also been putting a whole lot of time into crafting a program that I've long dreame ..read more

Me and my traveling companion, Amos - our finish photo - roughly 80 miles we hiked on the Susquehannock Trail System (including the miles we did twice!) The autumn equinox - that precious time when we practice letting go, shedding the old so that we grow anew. It is a bittersweet time, saying goodbye to summer and hello to cooler days. The very breeze itself, cool and brisk, seems poignant. But at least Mother Nature gives us a final hurrah, a great party of color, before dipping into slumber. What better way to recognize this time than with a good long walk in one of the most beaut ..read more

  And just like that, it's August. I have spent the last so many months IN IT. And how blessed it has been. My blogging has, however, taken a backseat, but I think sometimes we've got to let go of one thing so that we may embrace another. Where to begin? Our meadow in full bloom You may recall my mentioning crafting a homestead. And that we have, although it's very much still a work in progress. We have been working for the last few years to restore overgrown fields, once thick with autumn olive, barberry, honeysuckle and tied up in a bow of bittersweet, to their native, healthy ..read more