Lush forest, chaga, edible & breast tree

[kgd]

I had to go on a business trip Thurs and Friday morning. On my way driving back I decided to explore a Provincial Park that I never visited before called Mona Cliffs. The intention was to put in a skills day and use this as one of my 5 outings for IA's on-line class, but the main features I kept returning to was wild edibles and chaga collection (I collected about 3 lbs wet chaga). So, I'll have to find another trip to do my forum school outing.

Anyhow, on this video I found an entire field of jewel weed, wild ginger and dug up some trout lily bulbs which were nice and tasty. The fog and wet made this forest lush and almost tropical looking.

For those of not interest in plants or my long winded video (like Tonym), you can at least check out the breast tree I found at time 0:52 min!

Hope you enjoy


[youtube]cFTEGmWWe_U[/youtube]

 

[omniviking]

Thanks for posting Ken, looks like a nice foggy day. And rather not have poison ivy.

Pat

 

[tknife]

I'm not ashamed to admit the breast tree part was my favorite Okay I guess the rest was pretty interesting too

 

[sicily02]

Ken, that looks like it would be a great place to hike in. To bad the fog was so thick.

Thanks for taking us along on your hike.

Bryan

 

[Diomedes Industries]

I wish they grew on trees - I would spend even MORE time in the forest.

TF

 

[fugawee]

Thanks for the video
very nice place
never saw chaga burning,
can you stick it on a stick
and use it like a torch,or does it burn out too quickly?
(maybe its so scarce that that would be foolish)

 

[kgd]

Thanks for the video
very nice place
never saw chaga burning,
can you stick it on a stick
and use it like a torch,or does it burn out too quickly?
(maybe its so scarce that that would be foolish)

It doesn't burn, it catches a spark and forms a long burning ember. After drying it, you can use it as is with flint and steel to catch a spark in place of charcloth. Some people also use it as a coal extender. For example, after you get a coal with bowdrill or handdrill, you break a piece of the chaga and place it onto the coal which causes the chaga to form an ember. The chaga ember will last much longer and is much more robust than the fragile bowdrill ember is (which is made up of dust particles). Chaga can also be used to transport fire via the ember. A big piece will burn for hours. I've also seen people make a chaga stove. They just get a big piece going to ember and place a pot on top of it.

Finally, you can drink it as a tea. It is supposed to have anti-cancer properties and has been used in Russia to treat cancer for quite a while. The tea has a rich colour and reminds me of orange peko.

 

[fugawee]

Thanks for that info kgd :thumbup:
gonna look for it this summer and if I get lucky,
will try some tea.
I likes me some tea

 

[Rick Marchand]

Excellent video Ken. The cure and the disease usually go hand in hand. I'm sure there was either poison ivy, oak, sumac or thistle in the area. The jewelweed in Wheatley comes up just before the poison ivy show's its leaves. We have huge patches like that right now. When the other plants start coming in the Jewelweed gets choked out. The kids and I picked some yesterday to stock up for summer. I steep 40+ plants like you pulled for 20mins and pour the tea into icecube trays. When the kids get into the PI, we treat it right away by rubbing the area with the icecube. I also freeze the chopped up plant mush from the tea making process for use in a bath. Great for mosquito bites, too. Wonderful plant.

Rick

 

[kgd]

Excellent advice Rick. I'll definitely try the ice cube technique this year! I gotta a patch of the stuff not to far from me. Didn't know it work on mosquito bites also. I almost wonder if it would be worthwhile to combine with plantain (I know you do not like plantain) but it works for me.

 

[Rick Marchand]

I like plantain, Ken... not sure who spread that vicious rumor.

This is something else interesting about jewelweed...

Last year, my wife and I went for a hike and got into a patch of poison ivy. I knew where jewelweed was, so we grabbed some and rubbed it on ourselves. Then, we hit an area with heavy mosquitos and got eaten alive... or so we thought. My neck, back, head and shoulders had multiple bites, as did my wife's. The odd thing was that we had no bites where we had rubbed the jewelweed. I tried it again a few weeks later on only one of my legs and guess what... no bites. Does jewelweed repel mosquitos? The only problem is that I was pretty sure I was still getting bitten by them. So, were they actually not biting me or did the jewelweed simply prevent the reaction from taking place? I hope to find that out this year.

Rick