Please join me and special guest Professor James Adams of USC School of Pharmacy on Saturday, June 17, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m for a one-day Summer Medicinal Plant Workshop on how to treat summer colds, adjust to the changing season, treat pain and anxiety, and stay healthy all summer.

The morning plant identification session will take place on the pathways at the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy's Cluff Vista Park, a native plant garden in downtown Ojai, where Dr. Adams and I will identify and discuss the medicinal uses of a wide variety of native plants.

The afternoon hands-on preparation session will be held at a community kitchen in Ojai. After the workshop, participants will receive a complete list of all plants that are identified and/or utilized with recipes and other info.

The morning outing from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. will be a slow-paced stroll around the park. It is wheelchair-accessible. It will involve stopping for discussion for periods of time. A few benches are scattered about. A lightweight campstool could be useful as well.

After a one-hour lunch break, the afternoon kitchen session from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. will focus on preparing seasonal plants for edible and medicinal uses. Some of the plants to be used are Green Everlasting, Elderberry, Datura, Prickly Pear, Cleveland Sage and acorns.

You can sign up now at this link.

A thunderstorm with potential for lightning postponed this hike from its original May date. On Saturday, July 2, weather permitting, we'll head into the Sespe Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest on Potrero John Creek, 20 miles north of Ojai. We'll cover 1.7 miles each way on a mostly level trail with some elevation gain through chaparral and riparian settings, beginning at 3700 feet.

This hike is presented under a Special Use Permit from the Ojai Ranger District Office of the U.S. Forest Service designed for guides who provide recreational and interpretive services to the public.

To learn more and sign up, click here.

Thank you, Josh Friedberg and Michael Taylor, for sharing photos of this hike. As promised, I identified the plant photos and posted your albums on my website page called "Links to Participants' Photos." Enjoy and learn, everybody!

The Santa Monica Mountains are a great wildflower garden for Southern California. In fact, almost every plant along our coast and in our hills and inland valleys can be found in Milt McAuley’s epic Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains.



This month I'm offering a hefty 20% discount on this 575-page book exclusively to readers of this newsletter. You won't find it for less anywhere else. Just follow this link to the discount code and enter it at checkout.

Pascal Baudar, author and renowned professional forager for L.A.’s top chefs, will join me for an Herb Walk on Wheeler Gorge Nature Trail and then lead a field workshop on making wild gourmet and medicinal beers and other creations from his best-selling 2016 book, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine: Exploring the Exotic Gastronomy of Local Terroir. Pascal will have copies of his book on hand for sale and signing.

Read more and register here. A word to the wise: This event sold out quickly last year.

This is so cool! A 24-hour webcam set up at a California Condor nesting site at Devil's Gate in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary. The chick is visible in the cave entrance in the screenshot above. Or click on it to go straight to the webcam. You can thank the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for this. They are my go-to site for bird info, songs and photos.

Photo: Ned Harris