10

 Mountain Views NewsSaturday, August 3, 2024


BONDED TABBY 
BROTHERS

AGE TWO MONTHS

Meet the sweetest tabbies, 
TOMMY & TIMMY. Just 
look at those sweet faces! 

Timmy is confident, friendly, 
and is a cuddlebug while 
purring nonstop. 

Tommy is a little more laid back, but loves treats and 
enjoys being picked up while purring softly. How to tell 
them apart? Timmy has a brown nose and Tommy has a 
pink and brown one. 

Also, Timmy is a dark gray tabby and Tommy is a brown 
tabby. But their noses are the easiest way to tell. Now taking applications for September 
delivery. 

Submit application for a chance to meet them in purr-son! Adopt together. If you’re 
looking for a pair of sweet, loving kittens to bring endless joy to your home, Timmy and 
Tommy are the perfect match! They will be ready for adoption by September, after their 
vaccinations and neuters are completed, but we are taking applications now.

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges 

[Nyerges is the author of several books including “Self-Sufficient Home” and 
“How to Survive Anywhere.” He also leads wilderness classes every weekend. 
He can be reached at School of Self-Reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 
90041, or www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com]


CONFESSIONS OF A WILD CRAFTER

WHY I NOW ALWAYS COLLECT MY OWN HERBS

 

First, what’s a wild crafter? A wild crafter referred to a wholesale herb collector, 
someone who collects medicinal herbs from forests and woods and sells them 
to the middle-men in the herb business. These middlemen would then process 
these herbs and ultimately sell them to the health food stores, to be sold retail to people like you 
and I.

Then one day I happened to read an article in an outdoor magazine about a man who collected 
wild herbs and sold them to various middlemen, who then packaged the herbs and sold them to the 
neighborhood health food store. 

The author of the magazine article provided the names and contact information for six or seven 
such middlemen who buy wild herbs. All I had to do if I wanted to be a wild crafter for money was 
to send them a list of the herbs that I could obtain in bulk. I sent a letter to every one of the buyers, 
list-ing the dozen or so herbs that I felt I could collect in suffi-cient volume to make it worth my 
while. I got two responses, and each told me how much they would pay me per pound of the dried 
herbs. 

As an aside, the retailer – the owner of the brick and mortar store – expects to get their products 
for about 40 to 50% be-low the retail price. That percentage is how they pay their bills and stay 
alive. So in order for the middleman to make anything for their role, they have to pay the source 
of the product – in this case, me – even less. Just do the math, and you’ll see that if a box of some 
herb retails for $10, the store might pay $5, and the middleman has to make a per-centage, and the 
collector –me – will make even less. Despite all this, I told myself that I would still try wild craft-
ing, hoping to make my money by volume.

I collected the herbs that the middleman needed, and dried them in my paents’ attic. I collected 
passionflower leaf and vine, yerba santa, black sage, bay leaves, epazote, curly dock, nettle, and a 
few others that were seasonally abundant. 

I always meticulously collected herbs, and always picked over the drying herbs to remove any 
foreign leaves or twigs. Because of my meticulousness, the herbs that I sent were always as close to 
100% pure as possible. 

After a few weeks or so of drying, I was always amazed to see how small of a box all those dried 
herbs fit into. It often seemed like a lot of work for so very little. Of course, I real-ized early that in 
the long chain of events, I was the one earn-ing the least, and eventually, I quit collecting wholesale.

Then some months later, the middleman calls me again, asking if I could supply him with ginkgo 
biloba leaves. I told him that they grow all over town where I live, but that it would take me too long 
to get even a pound, let alone clean it.

“Look,” he explained, “just rake it up and put it all into a box and send it to me.”

“What?” I responded with surprise. “What about all the dirt and twigs and dog poop? It would 
take me too long to clean it.”

“Oh, just rake it up and put it into a box,” he responded. “As you know, we’ve always allowed up to 
15% adulterant.”

I didn’t know that and I was shocked. I did not want to be a part of the chain supplying an impure 
product with up to 15% adulterant. I said no.

I was never able to get that “15% adulterant” out of my mind. Everything I ever sent to him had 
always been 100% pure – certainly, at least 99.999% pure. The idea that anyone would accept 15% 
adulterant in the herbs that people would be using for tea and medicine was very troubling to me, 
and I nev-er did that sort of wholesale wild crafting again.

I almost completely stopped buying herbs at the store be-cause I realized that just about every herb 
I ever purchased was one which I knew where to collect in the wild. Plus, I also began to grow those 
herbs that didn’t grow wild around me. 

In the years that followed, I would occasionally read about someone who purchased some herb tea 
from a health food store, packed by a “respectable company,” who experienced sickness, near-death, 
and at least one death that I learned about. When the tea in question was analyzed by authorities 
they discovered that the tea contained some other plant that shouldn’t have been there. You know 
– an “adulter-ant.” Sometimes the adulterant gets identified, sometimes not. And every time I read 
about such an incident, I think back to the middleman, telling me that 15% adulterant is OK.

When you buy packaged herbs from the store, your safety depends on the personal ethics of the 
wildcrafter collecting the herbs that you will be consuming. And that’s the key – personal ethics 
when no one is watching and when it is su-per easy to “get away with” a compromised product. 
And when your time is money, and when more weight (even 
if it’s an adulterant) means more money, it is all too easy to 
compromise.

I’ve been a practicing herbalist for a very long time and en-
courage others to find natural ways to stay healthy, and get 
healthy. Learning how to grow the herbs you use, and how to 
identify wild herbs, is a great step towards getting outdoors 
more often, and towards your own safety.

Pet of the Week


Paprika is a sweet, people-loving dog who thrives on 
cuddles. 

This two-year-old shepherd mix happily greets every 
person she meets with a wagging tail and near-perfect 
manners. She’s an active girl who enjoys walks and is 
learning to take time to smell the roses. She especially 
loves taking a break to roll in soft grass.

 Paprika is also a ton of fun and very intelligent, too! 
She loves chewing on toys and playing fetch with them. 
She enjoys treats and takes them ever so gently from 
your hand, she wants to please her people so much!

Paprika is also an exceptionally quiet dog. She looks 
out the window with interest at dogs and people 
passing by, but she doesn’t bark. 

However, a home where she’s the only dog might be best. 

Paprika is a perfect choice for someone who wants a young, active dog who also loves to 
snuggle.

The adoption fee for dogs is $150. 

All dog adoptions include spay or neuter, microchip, and age-appropriate vaccines.


HOT TEMPERATURES CAN MAKE CONCRETE AND ASPHALT 
TOO HOT FOR YOUR DOG’S PAWS. 

Asphalt and concrete temperatures can usually be 20-40 degrees hotter 
than the ambient temperature. If the back of your hand can’t stand the 
heat on the concrete or asphalt for 7 seconds, it’s too hot for a walk.

When it's above 90 degrees outside, bring dogs and cats indoors.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com