Medicinal Plants 10-9-16

Silver Salmon met on the east side of the 100 acre wood for a day of exploring medicinal plants. The energy was high; lots of excited sharing and connecting.  Lauren introduced our day of medicinal plants by inviting some of the girls to look around for any plants they knew had medicinal properties.

A handful of plants sat in the middle of the circle; sword fern, bracken fern, a cottonwood leaf, a ball of lichen, and cedar leaves.

We discussed the many uses of plants and how our lives depend on them!

Don't worry- this charcoal tattoo was consensual!

With this knowledge in mind, we headed into the forest in search of a home base.  Collectively we decided on a spot that afforded good game playing, had nice places for peaceful place, and had a flat area to spread out our tarp.

We would eventually need the large area for a group project, but first! lunch and games.

After a few rounds of Medicinal Plant tag (ask your daughter how this version differs from Decomposition tag!), we settled into our project for the day:  making salve.   We got out all our supplies: stove, wax, pot and spoon, cottonwood buds soaked in oil, and containers for the salve.

Then we went to work making salve and putting it into the containers.

All the fascinating things were present:  fire, how to share jobs, fine hand work, carefully moving around the tarp so as not to spill all the liquid salve, and questions about how exactly cottonwood buds became that jar of liquid.

After making a few dozen little containers of salve, we needed to move once again.

Spider's web was the chosen game and we had a few exciting rounds!  Ah, games are such an interesting way to get to know people.

As the afternoon passed it was getting close to ending and time for our peaceful place.   Our invitation was to really concentrate on one sense and observe all possible with that sense.  The girls each came back with tales of hearing wind and friends, smelling cottonwood, and seeing birds flit through the trees.

Overall, it was a great day of learning, playing, creating, and exploring!