A lot going on in this particular newsletter-style blog post. From workshops and trail tours to foraging runs and upcoming fairs we'll be at, there's lots to catch up on here, as well as photos of various wild herbs in the area. Join the adventure by clicking here for the full report: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/04/20/more-foraging-escapades-two-workshop-trail-tours-upcoming-events-this-spring/

So April 6th was our first spring foraging run. We came back with a bit of yarrow, but not without gathering a full cloth grocery bag of fallen, still-green, fir sprigs! Then we spotted a Ponderosa pine with very loose bark layers. These layers are what I've been experimenting with as a cinnamon-like spice. Looking around at the base of a few pine trees reveals that the trees shed this layer regardless. We can either let it go to waste and become forest fire fuel, or we can do our part in reducing fuel for forest fires while also reducing our need to buy imported goods from overseas. Discovering that Lamb's Quarters are a spinach substitute whether raw or cooked, is another ingredient that doesn't need to be trucked the last mile if it is found growing nearby, or only the price of the gas spent to go get it, which for us, is equal to the cost of gas running to the store. Of course, the fewer runs to the store, the less gas spent. Money saved all around. Maybe this week I'll get around to trying out powdered pine bark in place of cinnamon in a cinnamon roll recipe. If it works, I'll share the recipe and call them pine rolls instead. We will be at the Vernon Wellness Fair April 11th and 12th, with a sniff sample available of Wild Apple Spice. If you live in the Okanagan, hope to see you at the fair, and we look forward to more foraging runs, workshops, etc, as the year progresses. Don't forget that we are available for various bookings this year. See the booking card below: For the full foraging report with photos, click here: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/04/06/first-spring-foraging-run/

Our booth made it into this year's photo for the Vernon Wellness Fair happening April 11th and 12th! If you look at the right-hand side of the photo in this press release, you'll see our pop-up apothecary booth, and beside it to the left, you'll see Ashley and I as we chat with someone. https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/606646/Vernon-Wellness-Fair-brings-more-than-70-health-and-holistic-vendors-to-recreation-centre New this year at our booth, stop by for a free health assessment making use of your sense of smell to inform the process. The Natural Health Fun Zone has been changed up. Two changes will be present around the teas. One, no jellies or syrups will be present. The second change at our booth is a brand new tea, and our first fully-powdered tea: Wild Apple Spice. This tea introduces new packaging that we will be phasing in across all our blends as 2026 progresses. Wild Apple Spice features entirely Central Okanagan-grown fruit and herbs, and one may surprise you due to how similar it tastes to cinnamon. April 11th and 12th ONLY, you will find a promotion at our booth for my coaching services. $10 off your first 5 sessions, with the first session free, for a grand total of 6 sessions. The catch??? You must fill out and return your client intake form AT the wellness fair! If you hand in your signed form before the end of the day on the 12th, you will be saving $50 across your first 5 paid sessions. Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday, the most important day of the entire year! Without Jesus rising from the dead on the third day, we would not have the promise of eternal life. So I end with this evangelical/charismatic call and answer: HE IS RISEN!!! HE IS RISEN INDEED!! https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/04/04/vernon-wellness-fair-news-for-bnhc-and-ashtree-wildcrafting/

Coming up for air as I continue efforts on my textbook before the foraging season kicks into high gear! I realized I haven't posted any new blog articles for literally an entire month! Oops??? This coming weekend, we are at Vernon Shoparama at the Vernon Rec Centre. We will be in the rec centre's gym. In April, we will be back at the rec centre for the Vernon Wellness Fair, and then at Maplefest downtown Kelowna the last saturday of the month. May's craft fair schedule has run off the rails, BUT. . . we end the month at our very first ever Ren Fair!!! As I type, Ashley is working on a leather corsette belt for me! Comparing apothecary outfits to 1850's bar tenders with the age if piracy, and in all three image searches, it was apparent that as an English rider, Ashley's outfit was prebuilt just riding her horse! She had made herself a waspy corsette a few years ago, and that completes her look. The Penticton Ren Fair is happening May 30th! Do keep tabs on our 2026 Where We'll Be card, and/or to the website calendar, clickable from the main menu bar across the top of my website. We've also discovered the wonders of turning pine bark into a spice similar to cinnamon, with a flavour profile similar to cinnamon as well. It lends the same flavour style to things like apple fritters, apple crumble, pumpkin spice blend, etc. We are changing up the tea packaging by the way! This is more cost effective for us, takes the same length of time to put together as the current packaging, but takes up less space, and is easier to use. Just keep the string for your own storage as you will need it to close the package. Wild Apple Spice is the first tea to use this packaging. With plants coming to life around the valley, now is the time to be planning for foraging workshops. It's going to be a knock-em-out year this year (on many levels)! Here's hoping if you live in the Okanagan, to see you around at various fairs we'll be at! https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/03/24/coming-up-for-air-update-on-book-efforts-spring-outlook-news/

So I got blocked by someone over at Truth Social who was pushing Amazon products in health groups. First, why anyone still supports a company that refuses to crack down on both plagiarism and digital art theft, amazes me. As an author with friends in the artistic space affected by this behaviour, I left and took my books elsewhere. Second, encouraging people to buy what they can often get for free in their backyard or in wild spaces, also doesn't make sense, because free sources make health and wellness more affordable. It's called foraging. A recent push for a herbal supplement was for spurilina. The big claim to fame here is the chlorophyll. Dr Mercola, in a 2017 article shared a substitute that only requires gloves and maybe snips to get - stinging nettle: "Nettles Compared to 'Superfood' Spirulina Although spirulina technically does grow in 'the States,' it's only one — Hawaii, as well as other exotic areas of the world, so it's understandable that many think of it as not exactly around the corner. But first of all, what is it? If you've heard of blue-green algae, you're halfway there. Spirulina's deep blue-green color reveals its active ingredient — chlorophyll — clearly. Health . com explains it as one of the oldest life forms on Earth and possibly consumed in Aztec and African diets centuries ago. Today it's touted for its ability to strengthen the immune system, reduce fatigue and combat allergies. Nettles are another plant with chlorophyll that even rivals the amount found in spirulina, but they're often found in ditch banks, forests and riverbanks. "Taken over time, nettle will strengthen your circulatory, immune, and endocrine systems to promote peak function. The stronger these systems, the better position our bodies are in to deal with whatever might come our way." Cooked or dried, though, this pesky stinging problem goes away completely; good thing, too, because this free foraging food is highly nutritious, containing fiber, lecithin, chlorophyll, sodium, iron, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium and vitamins A and C, according to Mother Earth News. It's been used in birth rooms and battlefields to stop bleeding, both internally and externally, and is considered to purify blood, as well. As a tea: "It has been found to help cure mucus congestion, skin irritations, water retention and diarrhea … stimulate the digestive glands of the stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas and gall bladder. Applied externally, nettle tea … relieves rheumatism in both people and animals, makes a first-class gargle for mouth and throat infections, helps to clear up acne and eczema and promotes the healing of burns." My daughter and I began foraging over 10yrs ago, and we will either take the top 8 inches or so, or if the plant insists, the whole thing. We learned how to use gloved/sleeved hands to snap off what we want. The seeds are useful in cooking and tea as a fennel replacement. So we dry both mature and young leaves at all stages of growth.

We were recently approached at the Rutland Flea Market, with whether or not we had any teas that would be recommended for someone suffering COPD. The day was slow, so Ashley began looking up a few studies online, sent me a couple links, and when we got home, I began my own research. Various compounds found in food, herbs and spices have been observed for their ability to address some aspect of COPD. A few of the herbs are in one or more of the teas we sell on Ashley's Ashtree Wildcrafting table, and we have zeroed in on the specific tea to offer the inquirer when we see them again. COPD is a multi-faceted condition that can begin a number of ways, including smoking or being around smokers, poor long-term dietary choices, age, and bacterial lung infections. The COPD sufferer needs to assess their lifestyle, their environment, and their daily food habits if they want to begin the road to healing. If you are suffering asthma, COPD, emphysema, or similar ailments and you got to the end of this article wondering how you'd make use of this information for yourself, feel free to reach out to me using this form, and let's chat. Click for the full article including the list of foods: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/01/21/researchers-looking-into-herbal-answers-for-copd/

It's time for the Top 25 for 2025! This is the moment when we look at what the most popular articles were from last year, and get a glimpse into who is viewing them. Apparently bread-making was at the very top of the list! People wanting to learn about my services got a good number of hits as well, which I find very encouraging. Both my cookie articles made it into the top 25! Who says going wild means giving up fun things like sweets? (we won't mention the brain needs sugar, just not at junkfood levels). I was happy to see how many devotional commentaries made it into the top 25 articles. As your Biblical Natural Health Coach, my premise does come solidly from Scripture as the final authority on what I share and do. I stopped keeping up with the latest in SEO rules and regulations, and even without those efforts anymore, the following list of referrers showed up for 2025: As problematic as gab has been over this past year for me as a user, it has sent a fair number of visitors to my content. Both Librti and USA.life, two other alternative platforms that I am on, have sent traffic as well. Lists like this show that no matter where you live, shifting to a more natural way of handling your health using food as medicine is a common train of thought these days. The baffling thing for me, is seeing decidedly muslim nations in the list. Places such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Indonesia. it is my prayer that the true seekers among them will find Christ as their Lord and Saviour. If you've never made this decision and want to learn more, reach out to me and let's chat. This concludes our look back over 2025 and what it meant for content people are viewing on Naturalhealthgodsway.ca. Here's looking out across 2026, and asking God to go with us into a year that promises to be adventurous in more ways than one. For the full article and to see the lists, click here: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/01/09/the-top-25-articles-of-2025-and-other-interesting-tidbits/

Many reach their older years and begin slowing down, often by choice because, that's what you do when you get older, right??? Not if farmers I know, horse owners I know, and others who remain very active into their older years have anything to say on the matter. The notion that after a certain milestone, it's time to slow down, is a bunch of crock that is damaging and shortening many lives. My focus is wholefood as medicine that might grow outside your front door, but guess what? Going out to get that wild-grown food takes time, effort, and action to do. But again, you're getting fresher air than staying indoors, getting exercise, benefiting from getting your hands dirty (literally, just ask any dedicated gardener about their overall health) and you're getting free food and medicine that lowers your older years' expenses that mainstream medicine might try to thrust on you! Maybe you're a brown thumb like me and can't garden because you kill everything. But you can harvest what God grows out there and eat better than visiting the produce section at the store AND stay out of the pharmacy at the same time. Your physical and financial health both benefit here. To read the full article, click here: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/01/06/ageing-gracefully-naturally/

Special Piece Today -- on the Web only (You can subscribe free of charge here: https://johnhrusky.substack.com ) Property Taxes: Socialist Theft in Disguise The Inherent Unfairness and Socialist Underpinnings of Property Taxes: A Deep Dive into Coercive Wealth Redistribution Property taxes stand as one of the most insidious forms of government overreach, embodying the socialist ethos that private ownership is merely a temporary illusion until the state decides otherwise. At their core, these taxes treat your home, land, or business not as your rightful property but as a communal asset ripe for plundering based on arbitrary assessments of its “value.” Unlike voluntary market transactions where prices reflect supply, demand, and mutual agreement, property taxes escalate simply because some bureaucrat deems your asset worth more — often due to factors beyond your control, like neighborhood improvements funded by others or inflation-driven appraisals. Imagine buying a modest house for $200,000, only to see your tax bill double a decade later because gentrification or zoning changes inflated its assessed value to $400,000, even though your income hasn’t budged. This isn’t fairness; it’s a punitive system that punishes success and stability. Food prices don’t skyrocket because your home appreciated; neither does gasoline or a haircut. Yet the state, in its infinite wisdom, demands more for the “privilege” of owning what you’ve already paid for, all while providing the same mediocre services — roads that crumble, schools that under-perform, and police response times that lag regardless of your tax bracket. This Marxist-inspired mechanism collapses the moment we refuse to view private property as public domain, subject to endless reclamation by the collective. Delving deeper, the percentage-based structure of property taxes is nothing more than a sleight-of-hand designed to mask raw dollar extraction. Governments don’t budget in percentages; they spend in cold, hard cash for fixed costs like infrastructure, public safety, and bloated administrative empires. A wealthy homeowner with a multimillion-dollar estate already shoulders a wildly disproportionate share of these expenses through higher assessments, yet they consume far less per capita than lower-value property owners. They don’t send fleets of kids to public schools (opting for private education instead), they rarely burden public hospitals with frequent visits (thanks to premium healthcare), and they certainly don’t rely on welfare programs funded by these very taxes. Why, then, should their tax liability balloon simply because their property’s paper value rose? This isn’t about equitable contribution; it’s envy-fueled socialism, where the state plays Robin Hood with your assets, redistributing wealth from producers to parasites under the guise of “community benefit.” Consider the elderly widow on a fixed income whose family home, bought decades ago, now faces skyrocketing taxes due to market surges — she’s forced to sell her lifelong sanctuary to satisfy the taxman’s greed. Billionaires like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos pay millions in property taxes on their holdings, funding services they barely touch, while subsidized housing residents pay pennies or nothing. This imbalance exposes the hypocrisy: property taxes aren’t about paying for what you use; they’re about leveling the playing field by dragging down those who’ve built or inherited value, echoing Karl Marx’s call to abolish private property in favor of collective control. Exposing the Fallacies: From Unrealized Gains to Envy Masquerading as Justice <Continued on the Web>

We all have a sense of smell. Every food has a scent created by a terpene, alcohol, ester or a phenol. When it comes to wholefood as medicine, one's ability to smell the food aids the mouth in generating intricacies of the salivary amilase. Your saliva is the first step of digestion, telling the stomach what enzymes to call for to digest what is coming down the pipe (literally). I've created a tool to help identify where your body needs help and why. Not all cravings are due to allergies, bad habits, or marketing influences. When the brain cries out for a given food or drink, stop and assess. What's in that food/drink that the brain is calling for? When we identify that, then ingest a healthier option containing that compound, the brain is often happier and the body responds favourably. The tool I've created contains 24 tiny herb vials, each containing a wild herb from the Central Okanagan, chosen for it's affinity for a body system or commonly-seen condition. When you tell me what your knee-jerk reaction is to a scent, I'll note it so we can examine what it might mean for your health picture. There are reasons foods smell, good, bad, nice, awesome, revolting, meh, etc. There are reasons your brain will lung at some scents and recoil at others. While much gentler in scent than EO's, use of the whole plant allows us to get a much more comprehensive smell from which to gather information about what your body needs. If you'd like to book your Scented Plant-based Health Assessment, be sure to fill out my client intake form either in pdf or digitally signed and once I have that in hand and we've had our first session together (first session is always free), we will book your Scented Plant-based Health Assessment. For the full write-up, and to see photos, click here: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/12/28/introducing-a-new-non-invasive-health-assessment-tool/