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As we celebrate the mothers in our lives this weekend, let’s not forget to honor Mother Earth too.

If you’re planning an outing, or to get the human mother in your life a gift, there are many ways to incorporate honoring Mother Earth too. This includes shopping locally for the plethora of amazing local, organic, hand-crafted foods, flowers and plants, crafts, medicinals, and more that have been produced with care with Mother Earth in mind.

Sue, a newly minted Grandmother, is showcasing von Trapp tulips and Fayston Forager tinctures.

For a gift of wellness, Fayston Forager products are available locally at vonTrapp Farmstead, East Warren Community Market, The Roots Farm Market, 5th Quarter Butcher + Provisions or online.

You can also read about Another Mother to Honor (hint: Japanese Knotweed!).

Be well dear people and planet!

Here’s my dear friend Jen by the Covered Bridge in Waitsfield, feeling the good vibes from Fayston Forager tinctures.

Wild-harvested, hand- processed plant material, organic cane alcohol and pure Vermont spring water are the materials that go into Fayston Forager’s Japanese Knotweed, Chaga and Hawthorn tinctures.  

Why does this matter? 

• Only vibrant healthy plant matter, harvested ethically and sustainably when the plant is at its peak time for maximum medicinal value is collected. 

• Plants grown in their natural environment are likely to be more nutrient-dense and pure than their cultivated counterparts. 

• Harvesting, processing, tincturing, bottling, and all aspects of producing Fayston Forager tinctures are performed with intention, gratitude and love. 

From my perspective, these things matter.  A lot. 

You can find these products here or in the Mad River Valley at The Roots Farm Market, von Trapp Farmstead, East Warren Community Market and 5th Quarter Butcher + Provisions. 

Be well dear people. 

Be well dear planet. 

What’s the buzz about Chaga?

Chaga, the “King of Mushrooms”, offers many benefits:

• Provides immune support
• As an adaptogen, it helps your body manage stress
• Helps suppress tumors
• It has anti-microbial properties 
• It has anti-inflammatory properties 
• Helps lower cholesterol
• Helps lower blood sugar
• and more…

Per this study, “owing to various chemical components including polysaccharides, triterpenoids, polyphenols, and melanin, it has been proven to possess anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hypolipidemic activity without obvious side-effects by long-term clinical and animal experiments.”

Fayston Forager produces a sustainably and ethically Vermont wild-harvested triple-extraction Chaga tincture which maximizes the capture of the healing potential of the Chaga.

The same care goes into the making of Fayston Forager’s Japanese Knotweed and Hawthorn tinctures.  These tinctures can be purchased online, or found locally at von Trapp Farmstead, East Warren Community Market, The Roots Farm Market, and 5th Quarter Butcher + Provisions.

Thank you for your support and be well!!

It’s one of those late winter mornings here in Vermont, where the promise of spring can be felt, despite the deep and beautiful snow. 

When harvesting plants for medicinal purposes, each season offers an optimal time for specific plants for capturing maximum healing benefits. 

Chaga is harvested during the coldest part of winter, carefully taking only a portion from a living tree. 

Japanese Knotweed rhizomes are harvested in early spring. (My thoughts are beginning to lean towards this upcoming harvest in a month or two.)

Hawthorn leaf and flowers are harvested in later spring, while the berries are harvested in the fall. 

This past fall, the Hawthorn berries I typically harvest were covered with small black spots and I did not harvest them. Thus, this season I’m only offering a leaf and flower tincture which will soon be bottled. 

The cardio-protective benefits of Hawthorn are abundantly present in the leaf and flower, as well
as the berries.  Per this research, (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7047282/), “With expanding global interest, modern research validated the presence of multiple biological and pharmacological activities in the extracts of hawthorn fruits, leaves, and flowers, including cardiovascular protective ability, hypolipidemic activity, and anti-oxidative capacity (Pittler et al., 2003; Wang H. et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2014). WS^® 1442 is the most studied compound consisting of 20% oligomeric procyanidins extracted from the leaves and flowers (45% ethanol extract) of C. monogyna and Crataegus laevigata (Holubarsch et al., 2008). In the United States and European countries, WS^® 1442 has been recommended for treating congestive heart failure stages I–III based on the classification of the New York Heart Association (NYHA) (Tauchert, 2002; Pittler et al., 2003).”

On another note, after I switched to using the more costly organic cane alcohol, I did not raise prices.  The downside of being a small producer, is the overall much higher cost of materials.

The benefit is knowing that the healthy, healing plant matter is sustainably and ethically hand-selected and wild- harvested from pristine locations.  A smaller dosage of Fayston Forager tinctures is often sufficient as a result of the mindful and meticulous harvest and tincturing processes, adding value to the bottles.  Pure, healing goodness.

With that said, please reach out directly via email as I’m happy to offer a sliding scale for those in need.  As always, I also greatly appreciate when you all help spread the word about Fayston Forager products.  Thank you!

Enjoy these bright, lengthening, late winter days. 

Whether it’s a smile, a gesture, expressed in your work or your care for others, kindness matters. When actions come from a place of love, the ripple effects can be tremendously powerful.  

The fine folks at von Trapp Farmstead, East Warren Community Market, The Roots Farm Market and 5th Quarter Butcher + Provisions: spreading the love!

On this day when we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., here is a reminder that even the small acts of love and kindness matter.

  Be well, be the light.

Best kept secret? The Health Defense 2-Pack is a great way to save year-round! Treat yourself and/or friends and family to the health benefits of Fayston Forager tinctures this season.

Sisu is a Finnish word variously translated as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, resilience, hardiness and more that is used to describe Finnish national character. It occurs to me that the healing plants I’ve been drawn to work with exhibit many of these same characteristics.

Japanese Knotweed is a tenacious, pervasive plant that is packed with Resveratrol.  The “Sisu” qualities of this plant are precisely what makes this plant such a powerful medicinal known especially for its anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Chaga, the King of Mushrooms, is a very slow-growing mushroom found deep in higher elevations in northern forests. The lifespan of this mushroom can span many decades. Talk about hardy and perseverance: Sisu. (This winter I will be able to circle back to one of the first trees I harvested from more than a decade ago!)  Chaga is an adaptogen, a tumor-suppressant, and so much more.

Hawthorn: prickly, prolific, hardy Hawthorn.  The leaves, flowers and berries are a rich source of antioxidants and support cardiovascular health.  While this tincture isn’t included in the 2-pack, that is not meant as a slight to this beautiful heart support.

Our bodies can heal (Sisu!) and Fayston Forager’s sustainably, wild-harvested tinctures are here to help.

Here’s to a healthy, happy, heart-filling winter season.

Be well, 

Marge

Fayston Forager

If you’ve been managing tick-related symptoms for a long while, you likely have come up with a list of strategies you employ before heading outside.  Finding the balance between proactively preventing tick bites and enjoying the great outdoors is a personal journey. Here’s my semi-random, somewhat casual approach:

1. Keep immune systems healthy and strong by eating/exercising/resting well, taking vitamins and Fayston Forager tinctures.
2. Before heading outside, spray body and clothes with herbal tick repellent and re-apply often. My recipe contains equal parts water and vinegar with essential oils of Rose Geranium, Sweetgrass, Cedarwood, Lemongrass, and a touch of glycerin. It smells great and helps keep the ticks at bay.
3. I LOVE being outside and head outdoors with gratitude and an attitude of embracing the beauty of my surroundings.  If I forget to re-apply tick repellent or find myself in tick infested areas, no need to panic.
4. At the end of the day, check for ticks and take a shower.
5. If there is an imbedded tick, remove it and wash the area well and check for any signs of redness or swelling.  I take extra Japanese Knotweed tincture as the antimicrobial properties can be very helpful.
6. If there is redness, swelling, or any Lyme-related symptoms, I contact a Lyme savvy health practitioner ASAP and also schedule a Biomagnetic session with a local practitioner.  Help is available.
7. I continue to take extra doses of Japanese Knotweed tincture.
8. I also refer to Buhner Lyme Protocol and  ILADS.org for more information.

Each of us is unique and responds differently to various insect bites and treatments.  Find the resources and protocols that work best for your body and trust that your body has the ability to heal.

Be Safe ~Be Smart ~Be Proactive ~ Enjoy!

As many of us gear up to celebrate Independence Day, it occurs to me that celebrating interdependence is also a worthy consideration.

Recognizing interdependence – from the cellular and molecular realm, to our forests and communities, to the national, global and even universal realms – leads to the natural next step of understanding the need to take care of things on every level.  

We are all interconnected and interdependent. And the synergies are incredibly miraculous: downright mind-blowing when you take a deeper look. 

Fayston Forager’s Japanese Knotweed, Chaga and Hawthorn tinctures offer a tiny – yet potent – acknowledgement of how interdependence can promote healing.  

Fayston Forager’s tinctures are now made with organic cane alcohol and can be found online and in the Mad River Valley at East Warren Community Market, von Trapp Farmstead, 5th Quarter Butcher and Provisions and The Roots Farm Market. 

Interdependence: we are all in this together. 

There is something so grounding and connecting about having your hands in the dirt and lifting a healing rhizome out of the ground. 

Or skiing into the deep forest to the tree with chaga that you selected years before and carefully and gratefully knocking off a chunk, without harming the healthy host tree and leaving some of the chaga to grow for another harvest in ten or so years. 

Or heading into a sunny grassy pasture with leather gloves on to slide between the prickers to collect the Hawthorn flowers and leaves in spring, and the berries in the fall.  

The plants are here to help us in so very many ways. 

Simply taking the time to get outside to connect to this incredibly amazing world we live in is healing in its own right.  

When your body needs a boost, Fayston Forager Japanese Knotweed, Chaga and Hawthorn tinctures are here to help.  

Made with love and deep gratitude. 

Be well,
Marge
Fayston Forager