The blessings of flowers cheers us immensely, but kerchoo! Their pollen has us sneezing our heads off! What can we do? Plenty, really. Nature provides antihistamines. Nettles can sting you, but also provide an antihistamine, so make nettle soup! Take a paper bag and scissors, find a roadside rife with nettles, or a patch of…

Marj remembers a Sitka spruce, on the ridge above the Siletz River in Oregon where she grew up, as sacred to the indigenous coastal people who lived in the Siletz Valley. Marj says, “When I was a girl, we had many Indian friends. I was told that sick Indians would climb up to the spruce…