Rooted Connections

Looking for weekends of foraging & skill learning fun? There are some awesome foraging and skill share festivals with tickets still available! Anyone going to any of these mentioned, or maybe others? 🌿🍄

-Great Lakes Foragers Gathering: June 18-21
Brooklyn, Michigan

https://www.willforageforfood.com/gathering

-Earthcraft: Ancestral Skillshare (Some foraging & herbalism taught here but also MANY other cool skills & wellness classes)
July 9-13
Scotts, Michigan

https://www.earthcraftskillshare.com/offerings

-Midwest Wild Harvest Festival: September 11-13
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

http://www.wildharvestfestival.org/?fbclid=IwRlRTSAST8nNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeEP7ECNgVSq1lSqRWC1i04RNB9D5u0-c-Pa39ztaFhkg8bas8ofFuqV6S5jQ_aem_ttFzJnu2lOP92ZIAecu4lg

Midwest Wild Harvest Festival The Midwest Wild Harvest Festival invites people of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels. Held at the beginning of the fall harvest season, the festival is a celebration of the Midwest's...

Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ+ followers! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Here at Rooted Connections, Pride is celebrated everyday, as I am a proud member of the LGBTQ community. It is so important to me to create a safe space for everyone who attends my classes, including those also a part of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities.

Additionally, my wife and I just got married two weeks ago! So there’s a lot to celebrate this Pride month! 🏳️‍🌈💜💕

The next class event will be posted soon (we’ve been very busy between our wedding, mini-moon and gardening season!). Looking forward to connecting with y’all at a class soon!

❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷🤍🩶🖤

Happy Morel Season! For those in West Michigan interested in a culinary morel experience, I highly recommend checking out Blue Water! They currently have a morel asparagus bruschetta and a morel risotto on their seasonal featured menu. We tried the morel bruschetta and it was better than we even expected!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came out for today’s first foraging class of 2026! We talked about mullein, dame’s rocket, violet, cleavers, motherwort, burdock, wild onion, dandelion and amber jelly roll fungus.

We had samplings of roasted dandelion root coffee and dandelion leaf hummus (A big shout out and recipe credit to my first foraging teacher Katie Jo of Woven Apothecary for sharing her delicious dandelion hummus recipe that inspired today’s class snack!)

Mark your calendars for our next class that is scheduled for Sunday, May 3rd at Huff Park in Grand Rapids. Tickets are available online.

Good morning ☀️ The sun is shining, what a beautiful day ahead of us! I’m so excited to teach our first class of 2026. There are many early spring plants we’ll be discussing today at Lamoreaux Trail, along with one edible fungi found along the trail last night! There are tickets still remaining, so we’d love to have you join us. See you soon!

🌱 CLASS TOMORROW 🌱

Hi folks! Just a friendly reminder of our April Spring Foraging class being held tomorrow at Lamoreaux Trail in Grand Rapids! The forecast is looking sunny and beautiful, so hope to see you there!☀️ Tickets are still on sale, so purchase your now through the link in our event: https://www.facebook.com/share/14WeGytmNbu/?mibextid=

🌱 CLASS TOMORROW 🌱

Hi folks! Just a friendly reminder of our April Spring Foraging class being held tomorrow at Lamoreaux Trail in Grand Rapids! The forecast is looking sunny and beautiful, so hope to see you there!☀️ Tickets are still on sale, so purchase your now through the link in our event: https://www.facebook.com/share/14WeGytmNbu/?mibextid=

Some very cool information!

Rooted Connections will always acknowledge the original peoples of our lands here in West Michigan, the Anishinaabe, the Council of the Three Fires: the Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe. A huge amount of the knowledge we know about foraging food and medicine was passed down to our ancestors by the indigenous people of the land across this continent. Without that knowledge of foraging, some of our non-native ancestors, mine included, who settled here may not have survived.

This is a very rare prairie that conservationists are trying to save. The link to their donation site is in the article.

Fact: did you know that over 99% of Michigan’s original prairie lands have been eliminated since colonization? That has left both us and ecosystems to operate with less than 1% of our original prairie lands. I learned this in the Michigan State Conservation Stewardship program this past fall and it floored me. Michigan wasn’t just a forested water-land pre-settlement, we also had many prairie lands as well. It’s vital more than ever that we protect what’s left.

A rare tract of land and one of the last original pieces of Michigan prairie that formed after the glaciers receded is under threat for development. But a conservancy has a chance to purchase the land to protect it.

Hi Y’all 👋🏼 Heather here from Rooted Connections. I’ve been quietly MIA from teaching classes this Fall, part of which has been because I’ve been busy learning!

I had the opportunity to join Michigan State University Extension as a student this Fall in their Conservation Stewards program with the Newaygo County Cohort. This opportunity allowed me to join other folks from the region in learning about Michigan’s ecosystems, as well as stewarding and protecting them. Every class we met around different ecological sites around Newaygo County to get hands on in a variety of natural environments including peat bogs, manoomin (wild rice) stands, prairies, swamps, wetlands, lakes, creeks and more. We also were privileged to be able to have experts in conservation as guest speakers every week including some folks from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, West Michigan Land Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, the Michigan State DNR and more.

A part of the heart behind Rooted Connections is not just teaching about foraging and herbalism, but also to offer folks ways of learning about & connecting to and stewarding the lands around them. I’m excited to be able to incorporate all that I’ve learned into this business and to bring the information and excitement of conservation into my future classes, as well as new services I’ll also be offering. I’ll be taking a little break over the winter to rest and reflect on all I’ve learned, and look forward to being back to teaching again at the end of winter. Rest well this winter friends! See you in the Spring!

Join us tomorrow for a Foraging Class at Lamoreaux Park Trail starting at 10:30am. Tickets are still available and can be found via the link in the event! 🌿