Join Queerly ME & Baraban Farm to harvest and learn about plants with medicinal properties. Watch and participate in demonstrations on how to concoct tinctures and teas using foraged plants with a focus on Queer wellness and joy.
Each participant will be guided through identifying various medicinal plants, walk through the steps of creating tinctures, and will depart with a self-made blend of tea.
*Queerly ME is not certified to give medical advice or diagnosis, and can not guarantee that any of the plants, tinctures, or teas provided or described during this workshop will have any desirable or described effects on one's well-being or health.
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Rachel Criswell (She/Her) is a resident of Mount Vernon, where she raises her family, seven goats, a dog, three cats, and many chickens and turkeys on 45 acres of meadow and woodland on Wabanki land. A lifelong fan of nature, she began foraging in earnest five years ago after falling in love with mushrooms on a foraging walk with her medical residency. Since then, she has gotten to know Maine plants and mushrooms, with a focus on edible and medicinal varieties.
She works to incorporate herbal medicine into her family medicine practice, and she is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Fellowship in Integrative Medicine. She enjoys introducing others - especially kids! - to the plants around them and has led numerous local foraging walks. She works to cultivate medicinal herbs and mushrooms on her family's farm, Baraban Farms, and she has sold her teas, salves, and tinctures at local shops and farmer's markets. Her favorite mushroom is a black trumpet, although her "white whale" is a morel, which she has yet to find. She finds it hard to choose a favorite plant but she does like working with borage.
