Elderberry time! How I dried, froze, and made medicine from elderberries!

Hey!! It's elderberry time!!

I totally went on an elderberry harvest with my magical class full of beautiful people today.

First we sat with a tincture of the flower, then of the flowers and berries. The difference was pretty apparent to me. Meditating with the flower tincture felt like gentle push into a connection with spirit. It was bright lights and images of death. With the berries, it felt like a stronger connection to earth, spirit, and the cycle of the year. I saw spring air give way to a spark, that lit the burning fires of summer. I saw the waters of fall wash away the fire, and that give way to the dead, cold silence of winter. It was pretty epic.

Apparently, a precursor to harvesting elder's medicine is to make a pact that when you die, you will lay your body at her feet to nourish her, as her body nourishes us. So I made a pact today that I hope, with dear elder's help, I won't have to fulfill for many, many, many, many years. But the sentiment is there and it's sweet and it means a lot to me. I've always imagined myself buried under a tree when I die I just never knew what kind, and now it's settled. Elder is what I wish to be buried under. Not scattered in ashes... buried...

Then she asked for my very special moon necklace that I have had for a long time. It's been a symbol of my witch-hood, ever since reading the Wise Child series. I'm getting a new one with an amazon gift card I had (yeah, no, it wasn't forged in pewter by an elf queen in a far off land, but like, you know, poverty? maybe someday). I feel a little lost without a crescent moon necklace but since elder is so associated with the fairy realm, it seemed like a really valid request. And then I harvested so MUCH... I swear the abundance has to do with my offering.

This 5-gallon bucket was about 3/4 full by the time I was done

After the harvest we ate lunch, talk about the medicine of the plant, and had story time. Our teacher has this velvety-smooth voice and basically put us all to sleep. But it was a great story so I couldn't really sleep. It was a story about a story that an old man tells to a little boy and its kind of trippy and surreal (appropriate for a story about an elder tree). You can find the story here.

Eating leftover eggplant casserole for lunch. See my battlescars? I was so into harvesting that I barely paid attention to the scratchy things scraping up my legs. Yes I dropped an onion on myself.

When I got home, I had to make dinner (I made a curry with a bunch of bell peppers, broccoli, and onions from our CSA, plus some potatoes and chicken) and at the same time process a shit ton of those berries. And I was already pretty exhausted having gotten up at 6:30 am (I went to bed after midnight, yikes!) and harvesting in the sun and stuff. I don't do well on little sleep and the sun makes me sleepy.

Here's what I did with my berries:

• bundled some to dry
• picked some to make a honey syrup with thuja leaves
• started a fresh tincture
• picked some to freeze to make an elderberry soda
• left some out to start a fermenting bug

Drying the Berries

First I made nice little bundles out of the stems and tied rubber bands around them. It's a good idea to use rubber bands because they're stretchy. As the plant matter dries, it shrinks because water is evaporating out of it. Sometimes if you use twine, the plants can fall out and that's kind of a bummer. So I used rubber bands.

Then I ran some twine through the bundled stems UNDER where the rubber bands are. That way you can hold many bundles together to save space. I fit about 3-4 bundles per paper bag. I currently have three paper bags hanging from my ceiling. It works just fine in my room because the weather is warm and I constantly have my fan on. What's most important is air flow, not heat so much. So since I have my fan (actually, I use two fans to direct air around) on just about 24/7, things dry pretty quickly. I'll check on them in three days and see how they're doing. I've never dried berries before so I'm excited to see how quickly they dry.

This is what they look like hanging. Not so pretty but w/e.

Elderberry Honey//Precursor to Elderberry Elixer

Okay so this is going to end up in my very first elixer. I'm a pretty laid back, folk-method kind of gal so there's not a whole lot of measurements involved here. I dumped half a quart of honey into my crock pock, threw in a few thuja leaves, and filled the rest of the space with elderberries. All of the plant matter has been washed, of course.

So pretty!

I let it sit there on the low setting for maybe 3-4 hours. You can probably do it longer but the berries were looking a little squished and dried up and the thuja leaves lost a lot of their color by the end, so I strained it.

Glowing like a radiant jar of sweetness

I am keeping it in the fridge because the water content is probs high enough now that bacteria will start to like it. Normally honey is totally inhospitable to bacteria and little buggy things but if there's too much water in it, it just becomes a sweet, moist, sugar fest which is totally a fun time for buggy things. So this will have to go into the fridge until I can complete part number two.

As soon as I acquire some brandy, I am going to tincture some cinnamon, fresh ginger, and I'm thinking about throwing thyme in there as well. I might even put more in, I won't know til I do it. I'll let those infuse for a couple weeks in the brandy (about a half quart... where I'm going here?), strain that, and mix it with the honey. That should make the infused honey shelf stable again and I won't have to keep it refrigerated. I dunno why I just prefer not keeping my medicine in the fridge if I can help it. And I love the way "elixer" sounds. Its so magical sounding. 

This is going to be my homemade cough and cold remedy for the season (and hopefully for seasons to come- if it stays good and I or my partner don't end up needing it all this winter).

I'm planning on using some dried elderberries to make an elderberry honey (since they will be dried, it won't up the water content of the honey so it will be shelf stable) for tea and yummies, and an elderberry syrup for pancakes and things like that. The last time I worked with elderberries, I made a syrup and that was my medicine. This time around, I'll have the elixer so I can get creative with the abundance I harvested today.

Fresh Tincture

Sorry for the awful photo quality. :[

I did this folk method as well... mostly because Michael Moore's Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West only talks about making medicine from the flowers and leaves. Like, what? Ridiculous. So I just filled a jar with berries and covered it with 90% cane alcohol. Donezo. Shake it once a day for a few weeks, strain, voila! Elderberry tincture. Again, since I will have that elixer, I imagine I'll be using this for psycho-spiritual uses mostly.

Elderberry Bug//Elderberry Soda

Obviously, I have a few plans with things that I haven't started yet, so I'll write posts in more detail about those projects later. I want to briefly explain my plan though, to get it out there. So you may or may not have noticed a white-ish bloom on the berries. Well today I learned that those are natural yeasts!! Which is awesome because that means I can try and make a fermented elderberry soda!! I am literally just in the process of making my first ever ginger bug in an attempt to make fermented ginger ale. I imagine the process is very similar, if not the same. I can't find anything on the internet about it so I guess I'll find out. 

In case you're unaware, the basic idea is that you combine something that harbors a natural yeast (ginger for instance), with water and sugar. The yeasts eat up the sugar and the byproduct is like, alcohol I think. There are people who can speak to this way way better than I can. Long story short, it's so awesome and full of good bacteria, and great for preserving foods. Better yet, when you add the "bug" to something like, say, elderberry juice sweetened with honey, and allow it to ferment in a bottle that can't breathe, the yeasties make gaseous bubbles that would have otherwise evaporated into the air. Since they are trapped inside, it carbonates the beverage, making a naturally fizzy soda!! Again, if you want specifics, go somewhere else. I don't totally understand it yet. But damned if I won't try!

I'll have to hit up my dear co-berry, Jen... She is so smart at fermenting!!!