The healthy forager

The photo above epitomises the weekend – I was in full outdoor mode and nothing made me happier than scrambling through a boggy woodland with John (very much off-the-beaten-track), fording burns and clambering over logs, in search of chaga. All the while carrying a tenon saw!

In this kind of habitat I feel so fully at home that I lose the sense of where my body ends and the forest begins. When I grab hold of a moss-covered tree to help me get across the burn, my hand becomes the tree. In the forest there is no gender, I can be just a human. Or not even that, just a mammal in search of food.

When we struck gold, John was so kind as to assist the vertically challenged 😆.

Back home I chopped it into pieces and it’s now drying by the stove for about a week. Then I will grind it to a powder in the food processor, ready to be shipped to my Dad.

Yesterday was a different type of ‘nature immersion’, when I was Knockburn’s sole swimmer. Perfect blue skies, perfect inviting water, and soft Spring air. I managed 6 minutes, which is 5 minutes longer than what I did in February.

Afterwards I headed up onto the slopes around the loch to pick some gorse flowers. Now, this makes it sound like the proverbial walk in the park, but in reality it was screaming agony! Trying to feel my way around a gorse branch with numb hands (from swimming), while trying to avoid getting pricked was a non-starter. After a while I got better at it, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m typing this blog tonight with fingers that each have at least 4 splinters (and I can’t get them out).

It was wonderful being up there in the warm sun though, in total peace and all alone. Then to my delight, I found Horsetail in a boggy field:

These little asparagus-like shoots are the fertile parts of the plant. They are nice when fried for a few minutes and gobbled up straight from the pan. The vegetative part that follows on from these fertile shoots can be dried and used as tea (hurrah!).

Talking of tea, how is this for forager’s shelves:

Our new kitchen is not finished yet, but these shelves are up and I’ve been looking at them more than is good for me. In the summer all these jars will be full to the brim!

If you haven’t yet gotten into foraging, April is a good time to start as things start emerging. It’s easier to ID plants now as there aren’t quite as many around. I’m happy to help, just give me a shout!