Jules and Kate offer a chance to forage through the forest floors, picking flowers, and rummaging for roots, showing us how to truly enjoy the medicinal value of the wild plants! I was accepted into their apprentice program in 2024. I had met Kate at the Chicos Farmers Market and couldn’t believe how set up her and Jules were! From their products and their knowledge to their welcoming presence and eagerness to share. It was sheer luck, and a little divine timing, when we spoke as it was the same week of the interviews for this program. I applied, interviewed and graciously got accepted to spend the seasons with 7 other women in the wilderness re-learning what we’d once forgotten.
The first Sunday and Monday of the month we spend together. The first day is spent long hours hiking, gathering, and garbling, for the day after is spent processing all the plants collected. Jules and Kate are two healthy, empowered women, with extensive knowledge of herbal remedies due to their own experience and expertise! They have helped open doors for my eyes to see the natural earth as it is, and how we can utilise it for the maintenance and restoration of our own health and wellness.
Jules found herself searching for the promised remedies of medicinal plants when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After her lumpectomy the doctors presented their plan for chemo and radiation plus check ups and such. It was at this point where she asked about her heart, and how they planned to protect it. Unfortunately they had no right answer for her, and she knocked on the doors of Darcy, a woman whose knowledge spanned the mountains of Idaho. She learnt all that she had to teach, and with a continued relationship she helps cultivate her business in Paradise California, attending farmers markets in Chico and aiding to the health of the greater area around her with her niece Kate.
Kate and her husband, John, found themselves searching for a life more wholesome, ruined by the rapid pace of a corporate race. As it runs in the family, Kate was introduced to some herbal remedies and natural cures for both her and John. Her love for wild crafted medicine soon ran rampant between hands-on learning in the forest to educational books of medicinal herbs to the valued properties in all sorts of mushrooms. To say the least, she is hooked!
Both Jules and Kate are passion unleashed sharing their knowledge with those around them who are curious, and desire more empowerment with their health and wellness. Fortunately for myself, and 6 other women, we get to take part in their apprenticeship program yet again. The first Sunday of every month we get together and find a nice place on a hillside to look for lichen, or for wild ginger under a foot of snow. It just depends on the month, as we live with the seasons we root into nature’s ground and find her rhythm.
This is all to say that Fionas Forest has been an incredible resource to me and others around me. I highly recommend them to the reader and hope that you may check out their website below; their products are made with the utmost care and intent; their conversation full of wisdom and presence; their doors open and hearts full.
They are located in Paradise, California and if you buy online they ship directly to you.
Find their website and contact information below:
www.fionasforest.com
530-876-1455
fionasforest@hotmail.com