Seattle Tours

Went to the Lander Street Home Depot to buy some rope. Found lots of day laborers hanging out, waiting for the Mister to come along in the pick up truck and give them work. I had never noticed men waiting at Home Depot before, but it’s a sensible place…more so than under the viaduct in Belltown, since Casa Latina moved. You can see them next to the Home Depot sign.
















Then I got on a bus and went to Fall City and North Bend, where I collected Cottonwood tree medicine (Populus trichocarpa). From the leaf buds I made a salve for burns (the buds contain salicylates and bisabolol) and from the bark I made a tincture for coughs and sore throats. The salve can also work for congestion due to the aromatic balsamic resins in the buds. The various species of cottonwoods were used in similar ways throughout the American west, long before the arrival of whites – antibacterial, analgesic, astringent etc. Below you see a stand of cottonwoods along the south fork of the Snoqualmie River.




















I think I might have harvested the buds about ten days too late. I think the buds were bad, but I made the salve anyway for the practice. Here are some of the buds I collected...the old trestle of the Milwaukee Road is in the background.