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Wildcraft! is great family fun.

Grandma needs huckleberries to bake a pie. You and your cousins embark on an adventure up the mountain to collect berries as well as herbs she uses.

Will you all harvest the right plants to help with the trouble you run into along the way?

Will you make it back before nightfall?

The only way to win is by helping each other out.

Wildcraft! teaches you 25 important edible and medicinal plants and their uses in mostly first aid situations. (Wildcrafting is the harvesting of wild plants)

It also teaches team work, for you will rely on each other’s knowledge of plants and good fortune to make it to the Huckleberry Patch and safely back to Grandma’s.

Wildcraft! is a great introduction to the world of edible and medicinal herbs for children of ALL ages.

It’s a beautifully illustrated, nature based, cooperative game created in the tradition of the classic board games.

Naturalist and artist Beatriz Mendoza uses vibrant watercolors to create a colorful and playful world for Wildcraft! The plant cards show the level of detail needed for identification in the field.

Plants include Nettle, Yellow dock, wild mustard, huckberry, dandelion, comfrey, cottonwood, caledula, echinacea, chamomile, field mint, wild rose, St. Johnswort, horsetail, yarrow, herb robert, elder, burdock, cattail, coltsfoot, valerian, plantain, white willow, chickweed, jewelweed and catnip.

Every once and a while something grabs my attention and makes me say, Wow! That happened recently as I was unpacking some boxes. I just love it when I get a box of goodies and I have no Idea what’s inside, it’s like Christmas, or my birthday present. There were lots of goodies in this particular box but what caught my eye was a small 6 ounce juice glass. Inside the glass was a beautiful sparkling white candle, but on the outside of the glass was one of the finest pieces of art I have ever seen.

Hand painted around the glass is a panoramic view of the Moses Cone Flat Top Manner on the Blue Ridge Parkway at mile post 294.1. Moses H. Cone, a prosperous textile entrepreneur, conservationist, and philanthropist of the Gilded Age built the flat top manor, a gleaming white 23-room, 13,000 square foot mansion, in 1901. While this is a beautiful home this is not what this post is about. This post is about art, and candles. (Click here To learn more about, Moses H. Cone Flat Top Manor and The Blue Ridge Parkway)

There are other painted glasses too, most have candles, a few don’t. They all share at least two things in common, 1) the artist, Kristin Foley 2) they all dipict scenes along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

There’s Mabry Mill, an old water wheel powered gristmill built in ther early 1900’s. A view of the southeastern slopes of Grandfather Mountain. One of my favorites is a view of the viaduct on Grandfather Mountain in beautiful fall colors. A beautiful Red Barn, typical of the Blue Ridge Mountains, covered in a wintery blanket of snow. Another is a view of the Black Mountains which lie between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smokey Mountains.

You can see these fine works of art in the store. In future posts I will go more into detail about each individual candle. There are other candles available in the store too, all hand crafted in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Browse around and if you have any questions please ask.

Click an image below to learn more about that candle.

When we started bringing home our latest acquisitions for the store, three boxes held a particular interest for me. Those boxes were packed with every Herb you could want to stock your kitchen and medicine cabinet. Unpacking them and taking inventory, it was like Christmas or winning the lottery to me. It was as good as the first tomato of the summer. If you know, me and how much I love my herb teas you would understand my excitement.

My enthusiasm slowly subsided when I realized the herbs were not mine for the keeping (sigh). I am still having fun though, taking photos, writing descriptions and learning/re-learning about the wonderful properties of these gifts of nature. Of course, I must also perform quality control by sampling them! (-;

We have many pounds of herbs packed in one-ounce plastic zip-lock baggies. Below is a list of currently listed herbs in the Recycle.It.Store. Keep checking back as we have many more to list.

Select a herb below to learn more

Comfrey Leaf
Feverfew Flowering Tops
Dalmatian Sage Leaf
Calendula Flower Petals
Dandelion Leaf
Gotu Kola Asiatic Pennywort
Elder Flowers Whole
Kelp Granulated
Hibiscus Flowers
Linden Flowers

As I continue my education about these Herbs, I will share what I learn including the resources from where I gained knowledge. Stay tuned for further updates. As for me I’m off to sample…er I mean catalog more herbs.

What’s that whistling noise?

Susan

PS Don’t forget to check out our eBay Auctions