Naomi (her link is to the left--if you're not reading her blog every day, you should be) adds to rule #4 that ticks can also be killed purely for sport and not eaten. I am not particularly wigged out by ticks, but she is, so I'll allow the addition....she's taught me a lot (like that morsel about mosquitoes) and deserves to have a little input. (My mom would also agree with her...she asked me the other day if there was a product in existence which would kill every tick in her yard.)
Also, anyone wanting to comment may again do so--due to the ridiculous number of spam comments I was getting every day, I upped my security settings awhile back. Now I don't get any spam but no-one comments either. Thus, I lowered my security settings and readers will no longer be required to register to comment.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Highest and Best Use
or, What did you do on your public lands today?
I imagine we all have different definitions of public land--how it should or should not be used, and what the rules ought to be when using it. I have been going over my own personal definition and rule list all day. If you have caveats I would be interested in knowing how they vary or diverge completely from my own. You can leave your comments/lists at the end of this post--maybe it will turn out that our definitions are more similar than I think. In the meantime here are my rules, in no particular order:
1. No yelling/screaming/shouting.
2. No cell phones. No explanation needed.
3. If you are a child, or just a really angry adult, no shaking of, hitting, or breaking saplings or trees.
4. Don't kill anything you don't plan to eat. This rule does not apply to mosquitoes, but only because I would be incapable of following it if it did. We need mosquitoes--the males, anyway. They are pollinators and don't bite. So try to only swat the ladies.
5. Mind your gait; if you are a non-path follower, try not to step on the native plants--they have a hard enough time getting a foothold without being walked on.
6. No iPods. Again, no explanation necessary.
So that's it. Not unreasonable, I think. I believe the real rule makers (the suit and uniform wearers) have lists longer and more stringent than mine; for one, they don't want you taking anything out--not dead herons, not good rocks, and certainly not mushrooms. They probably don't mind if you yell in the woods though. All things considered I feel that my rules are more reasonable.
However, after an experience I had Monday afternoon along my favorite stretch of river, I find it necessary to add another rule.
7. No sex. Especially not the varieties which are illegal in some states.
Needless to say, my walk was ruined and my best beaver watching spot has been desecrated. Enough said.
I imagine we all have different definitions of public land--how it should or should not be used, and what the rules ought to be when using it. I have been going over my own personal definition and rule list all day. If you have caveats I would be interested in knowing how they vary or diverge completely from my own. You can leave your comments/lists at the end of this post--maybe it will turn out that our definitions are more similar than I think. In the meantime here are my rules, in no particular order:
1. No yelling/screaming/shouting.
2. No cell phones. No explanation needed.
3. If you are a child, or just a really angry adult, no shaking of, hitting, or breaking saplings or trees.
4. Don't kill anything you don't plan to eat. This rule does not apply to mosquitoes, but only because I would be incapable of following it if it did. We need mosquitoes--the males, anyway. They are pollinators and don't bite. So try to only swat the ladies.
5. Mind your gait; if you are a non-path follower, try not to step on the native plants--they have a hard enough time getting a foothold without being walked on.
6. No iPods. Again, no explanation necessary.
So that's it. Not unreasonable, I think. I believe the real rule makers (the suit and uniform wearers) have lists longer and more stringent than mine; for one, they don't want you taking anything out--not dead herons, not good rocks, and certainly not mushrooms. They probably don't mind if you yell in the woods though. All things considered I feel that my rules are more reasonable.
However, after an experience I had Monday afternoon along my favorite stretch of river, I find it necessary to add another rule.
7. No sex. Especially not the varieties which are illegal in some states.
Needless to say, my walk was ruined and my best beaver watching spot has been desecrated. Enough said.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Going native
I realized the other day, as I was catching up on the blogs of two close friends, that their daily offerings are informational, concise, compelling, and very useful. In contrast, I believe I may be subconsciously (until my epiphany earlier in the week, anyway) using this blog as my own personal lectern. Though I have daily fantasies to the contrary, I am confident that I will never have a book published (possibly because I have not written one, but more likely because no manuscript editor would read more than a page or two) so I may be using this as a means to no end other than the forcing of my thoughts upon whoever is willing to read them. This being said, I now will empty the contents of my head, which have actually been keeping me up at night. I'll call this a therapeutic endeavor and not an act of shameless vanity. Also, it should be noted that today is my birthday so I can talk about whatever I want, no matter how crazy it sounds.
Here we go...
The root of all the world's problems are one of the following and sometimes both:
A) One parent (assuming there are two) needs to stay home with children. Being with your children is good for them, good for you, and makes for whole people somewhere down the road in adulthood. This presupposes that home is safe and nurturing, obviously. I know that this will piss someone off. Maybe lots of people. I am committed to it, but not discussing it further. Can of worms, slippery slope, rock that needs no turning, etc.
B) Disconnection from the land. This is the big one, and it' is likely that #1 would not be an issue of we paid more attention to this.
These two theories are literally my answers to everything, and though I am sure they are going to be ideas unpopular with a huge segment of the world, I am sticking to them. Any problem, be it of a personal, economic, political, social, or spiritual nature can be remedied (or is caused by) either A or B. I quietly (in my head) test them, offer them as solutions, try them out for their ability to hold water, and generally put them through my mental ringer every day. As mentioned, problem/solution A will not be discussed, but here is my explanation for B.....
I will begin with mushrooms, which use a good deal of my mental energy at this time of year. I'm still thinking about morels, but recently have added honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and coral mushrooms to my mental soup. Mike and I spent a lot of time, as I mentioned in an earlier post, reading the mushrooms boards prior to going out on our own hunt. We noticed that for the most part (I'm going to estimate this at about 95% of what we read) the people posting, sharing information, discussing a find, etc., were from more rural areas--that is to say they most often resided downstate and never in the counties bordering Chicago. The language they used in discussing their mushrooms was colloquial--there were dog peckers, tulips, and pheasant backs, to name a few. No latin names. No descriptions using botany or scientific language. I love this. I love that I don't know what a dog pecker is, but people (or at least some of them) in Putnam County do.
The people doing the morel hunting and then leaving these online fungal messages for the rest of us got up early,took time off work, braved the ticks and raspberries, the rain and wind, took their children, followed old people, took new charges with them, and yet, had a ball in the woods. They appeared to look forward to the morel season each year and it seemed, based on what I read, that mushroom hunting is not the only outdoor ritual in which they participate. They are gardeners, hunters, fishermen, campers, hikers, plantsmen, and generally speaking, wanderers. They have not lost their connection to the woods but have done everything they can to hold onto it, and I would bet a great deal of what they know came from their own people before them, who never thought about their land connection--primarily because it was such a part of them they didn't even know it was there. But why bother with all of this when morels can be gotten from a grocery store?
Eating locally is very big right now, at least among the people I know. And whether or not the locavores want to admit it, their endeavor is a completely primeval one. This is one of the reasons I love it. One of my favorite moments in life is the one where I can see the thread between two worlds....the modern behavior which can only be rooted in genetic memory. Such as when Mike comes home from a week of hunting virtually oozing testosterone, possessing a strut and confidence that I find unnerving. Or when the 3rd and 4th grade girls in my class spend their entire recess gathering up seed pods and fallen berries, or when the boys make mock war with each other, wielding any stick they can find. Or the propensity of any child to find the best hiding spot outdoors--the one he can see out of but no one can see into. Or the pure joy children find in eating out of a garden, off of a shrub or tree, or bettter yet, in the asking to eat something found outside that does not resemble any food they are familiar with. I don't believe these are just games children like to play because they are fun, nor do I believe Mike is simply looking for attention from me after a week of being away. In the case of children, I think (and hope) that these behaviors are the remnants of days when our play eventually became our work. And as far as Mike returning home as the sanguine, swaggering hunter..... this is no more than a man proud to provide food for his family and one full of the rush and energy of the hunt. No matter that he is presenting me with harmless pheasant and quail and not a saber-toothed cat.
I could be wrong about all of this but I hope not. This desire to eat locally is lodged in our DNA, I think, and I hope it is more than a fad. If not a hard-wired part of us, then why else would there be so many people growing vegetables and fruit in home gardens, cultivating herbs in the winter, and leaving their dandelions in the lawn to toss into a salad? Sure, gardening is enjoyable, but it's also hard work. There are a lot of people doing their damndest to keep some of their food intake local in this way--I just wish it would move to the next level; getting out into the woods and fields to find the less obvious edibles. But before that happens, before the world leaves its quarter-acre of homegrown tomatoes and cukes to find wild garlic and Sumac for lemonade, the land connection issue is going to have to be addressed. We can't find it if we don't know where it grows, and we cannot ever know where it grows by simply reading about it. What we need are more wanderers, more explorers, more aimless surveyors of the woods. And maybe that day is coming, although probably not in my lifetime. And if it were to happen, there would be a whole new set of problems....public land availability and having the power to forage on it being the first one which comes to mind. But it's a thought to play with and hope for.
In the meantime, while we wait for our tribal tendencies to fully reassert themselves and the tribes to embrace them, here's to dog peckers.
Here we go...
The root of all the world's problems are one of the following and sometimes both:
A) One parent (assuming there are two) needs to stay home with children. Being with your children is good for them, good for you, and makes for whole people somewhere down the road in adulthood. This presupposes that home is safe and nurturing, obviously. I know that this will piss someone off. Maybe lots of people. I am committed to it, but not discussing it further. Can of worms, slippery slope, rock that needs no turning, etc.
B) Disconnection from the land. This is the big one, and it' is likely that #1 would not be an issue of we paid more attention to this.
These two theories are literally my answers to everything, and though I am sure they are going to be ideas unpopular with a huge segment of the world, I am sticking to them. Any problem, be it of a personal, economic, political, social, or spiritual nature can be remedied (or is caused by) either A or B. I quietly (in my head) test them, offer them as solutions, try them out for their ability to hold water, and generally put them through my mental ringer every day. As mentioned, problem/solution A will not be discussed, but here is my explanation for B.....
I will begin with mushrooms, which use a good deal of my mental energy at this time of year. I'm still thinking about morels, but recently have added honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and coral mushrooms to my mental soup. Mike and I spent a lot of time, as I mentioned in an earlier post, reading the mushrooms boards prior to going out on our own hunt. We noticed that for the most part (I'm going to estimate this at about 95% of what we read) the people posting, sharing information, discussing a find, etc., were from more rural areas--that is to say they most often resided downstate and never in the counties bordering Chicago. The language they used in discussing their mushrooms was colloquial--there were dog peckers, tulips, and pheasant backs, to name a few. No latin names. No descriptions using botany or scientific language. I love this. I love that I don't know what a dog pecker is, but people (or at least some of them) in Putnam County do.
The people doing the morel hunting and then leaving these online fungal messages for the rest of us got up early,took time off work, braved the ticks and raspberries, the rain and wind, took their children, followed old people, took new charges with them, and yet, had a ball in the woods. They appeared to look forward to the morel season each year and it seemed, based on what I read, that mushroom hunting is not the only outdoor ritual in which they participate. They are gardeners, hunters, fishermen, campers, hikers, plantsmen, and generally speaking, wanderers. They have not lost their connection to the woods but have done everything they can to hold onto it, and I would bet a great deal of what they know came from their own people before them, who never thought about their land connection--primarily because it was such a part of them they didn't even know it was there. But why bother with all of this when morels can be gotten from a grocery store?
Eating locally is very big right now, at least among the people I know. And whether or not the locavores want to admit it, their endeavor is a completely primeval one. This is one of the reasons I love it. One of my favorite moments in life is the one where I can see the thread between two worlds....the modern behavior which can only be rooted in genetic memory. Such as when Mike comes home from a week of hunting virtually oozing testosterone, possessing a strut and confidence that I find unnerving. Or when the 3rd and 4th grade girls in my class spend their entire recess gathering up seed pods and fallen berries, or when the boys make mock war with each other, wielding any stick they can find. Or the propensity of any child to find the best hiding spot outdoors--the one he can see out of but no one can see into. Or the pure joy children find in eating out of a garden, off of a shrub or tree, or bettter yet, in the asking to eat something found outside that does not resemble any food they are familiar with. I don't believe these are just games children like to play because they are fun, nor do I believe Mike is simply looking for attention from me after a week of being away. In the case of children, I think (and hope) that these behaviors are the remnants of days when our play eventually became our work. And as far as Mike returning home as the sanguine, swaggering hunter..... this is no more than a man proud to provide food for his family and one full of the rush and energy of the hunt. No matter that he is presenting me with harmless pheasant and quail and not a saber-toothed cat.
I could be wrong about all of this but I hope not. This desire to eat locally is lodged in our DNA, I think, and I hope it is more than a fad. If not a hard-wired part of us, then why else would there be so many people growing vegetables and fruit in home gardens, cultivating herbs in the winter, and leaving their dandelions in the lawn to toss into a salad? Sure, gardening is enjoyable, but it's also hard work. There are a lot of people doing their damndest to keep some of their food intake local in this way--I just wish it would move to the next level; getting out into the woods and fields to find the less obvious edibles. But before that happens, before the world leaves its quarter-acre of homegrown tomatoes and cukes to find wild garlic and Sumac for lemonade, the land connection issue is going to have to be addressed. We can't find it if we don't know where it grows, and we cannot ever know where it grows by simply reading about it. What we need are more wanderers, more explorers, more aimless surveyors of the woods. And maybe that day is coming, although probably not in my lifetime. And if it were to happen, there would be a whole new set of problems....public land availability and having the power to forage on it being the first one which comes to mind. But it's a thought to play with and hope for.
In the meantime, while we wait for our tribal tendencies to fully reassert themselves and the tribes to embrace them, here's to dog peckers.
In wilderness is the preservation of the world. --HD Thoreau
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Fungus love
Clockwise from top, Morchella esculenta, Wild Ginger in bloom, Morchella ??...(ID help welcomed) I've got no idea where to start. It's been so long since I have had a minute to spare that all the thoughts and ideas of the last few weeks have puddled in my brain and are now sort of lost there. A few things do come to mind; I've quit worrying that Spring will turn around and leave--she seems to be here and does not plan any tricks like frost or freak snow. I am also enjoying the fact that the point has been reached, phenologically speaking, when the leaves of our trees now almost completely obscure our neighbors. We like our neighbors, but are constantly attempting to pretend that we are the only ones here. Mike's strategic tree planting, which made no sense to me fifteen years ago, now proves itself to be the work of a man who truly understands optimism and long term thinking.
Last weekend was spent running around in the woods for two days. I had huge plans and knew that 48 hours probably wouldn't cover everything I wanted to get done and I was right. I went equipped with bags to house the plants I was planning to dig for myself and friends, the camera pack stuffed, and a vague plan to get it all done somehow. In the end, the only thing I truly devoted any time to was underfoot, hiding, and delicious. It is Morel season in Illinois.
We started reading the mushroom boards online a few days before we left. We scoured the posts for reports from the county where our land is located and found a few-- hopes were high that our chosen weekend would be fruitful. We would have gone whether or not the mushrooms were waiting for us asthe first weekend in May has proven in years past to be a busy one for morels as well as Barred Owls, so we go no matter what. It is also one of the last times in the season when we can navigate the woods without a machete. While the land is relatively pristine (very little garlic mustard, no buckthorn, no burdock) the roses and raspberries make the deer paths impassable for anyone but the deer after mid-May. We do have other favorite times during the year to be there, but our May trip is the seminal event of the year. The convergence of these two events, new Barred Owl families out and about together and morels popping up, is magical. Morels and owls are both frustrating creatures, nonetheless. They are elusive masters of camouflage; there one second and gone the next. While the owls can be found at most times of year with a little luck and a knowledge of their haunts, Morels are less cooperative. Their season is short and their numbers are determined by the usual factors--rain, soil temperature, and light conditions.
Morchella crassipes and Morchella esculenta, our two most commonly found species here, tend to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Theories abound as to the best places to find them, with the most common being under dead elm and apple trees. Recently burned areas are also a frequently cited indicator. In our woods there are no apple trees or fires so the only thing we have to go on are the elms. While a decaying elm does not always mean morels, the mushrooms we do find are almost always near them. The frustrating part is that finding one mushroom is meaningless. Before beginning morel hunting myself I always assumed that if I were lucky enough to find one it would invariably lead to a field of them....not so in Morel world. One mushroom does not necessarily mean more mushrooms. We very often come upon a 30 foot radius of elm bark littering the ground and fine one mushroom, sometimes two. If conditions are right for two, then why aren't there a hundred of them? No idea. We cut the two we find and move on to the next spot. I do wonder if for every one we find there is at least another which we missed--they don't pop up through the leaf litter all the time--sometimes they emerge rather horizontally and are completely obscured. And very often they blend so seamlessly into the leaves of the last few years that they are simply not there. I have to constantly remind my brain of what I am looking for and put a picture of it into my head--otherwise I don't see anything but leaves and sticks. Part of my problem also arises from the fact that the woods is the most ADD inducing place in the world for me--especially after a long winter. My mantra is "mushroom", but my brain is seeing everything else and yelling it all into my ear....Jack in the Pulpit! Spring Beauty! Toad! Unknown flower! Big spider! Snake! Owl pellet! Wild Ginger! This may be nature's way of making sure that I don't get even a quarter of the morels out there. Nature's got nothing on Mike though...he is single minded, focused, and undistractible, a master of doing what he is supposed to be doing and nothing of what he's not. This annoys me.
The results of the two days of wandering were satisfactory if not astounding. We ended up with a couple pounds of at least two species, some the size of soda cans, some more along the lines of quarters. They were cut ( an indian friend has reminded me never to pull any plant or mushroom--this would be yanking out the hair of Mother Earth) and deposited into mesh bags, which hopefully allows the scattering of spores as we continue our woodswalk. Once home Mike split and dried them for use throughout the year. Our haul of this or any season will never keep us in Morels for a whole year--we share them with a close friend or two no matter how few we bring home and always use them sparingly all year, but we still run out by fall. I sauteed some earlier this week with butter, an obscene amount of garlic, white wine, and cream and put the whole mess over whole-wheat pasta. It was delicious though I felt it needed more mushrooms. The things we wait a year for must be rationed and protected and never eaten mindlessly. This leads me to the rant I have been mulling for a few weeks about local foods and the importance of foraging as a life-skill, but I am not foolish enough to assume anyone has time or desire to read another ten paragraphs. I'll save that diatribe for another morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)