Gray Squirrels 2017-2018 : Week 22 - Pine Needle Oil
Today we learned an amazingly powerful and important skill: How to safely wildcraft plants and make herbal extracts from them. Actually, we started with one safe and easy to identify plant. Each plant is unique and so the only generalization to working with wild plants is that there are no generalizations. Working with plants can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It can also be potentially hazardous. Safety is our primary concern. We want children to enjoy working with edible and medicinal plants and we do so in a way that protects ourselves and honors the life of the plant.
We had a lot of fun today getting to know the Pine Tree in a deeper way and making Pine Needle-infused Olive Oil for use externally.
We also got to meet some new plants that have started blooming and had a good time practicing field identification (We didn't harvest any plants that we had just met, that's not very polite).
There are more animals that are waking up, too! We were serenaded by more birds than we have heard almost all winter and even had a snail come and hang out with us for part of the day. The spiders are making webs all over the woods and the busy little forest floor insects are very active!
We are also changing the way we publish our blogs. You won't see the blogs updated on a weekly basis, but you can see daily pictures on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, @natureconnectnc and #natureconnectnc.
