The healthy forager

This morning I had a near-breakdown while out on my trike. The handlebars were coming loose and I didn’t have any tools with me, so after a phone consultation with the Chief Engineer at home, I decided to head back straight away.

And it so happened that my return journey perfectly coincided with a young blackbird’s first misfortunous attempt at flying. I found it on the fast South Deeside Road, in the path of oncoming traffic. It sat there with the dazed anticipation that chicks often have. I parked my trike in the verge and managed to catch the little thing. It fluttered (and pooped) and wasn’t obviously hurt, but it needed to be moved off the road. One more minute and it would have been toast. Once out of my hands away from the traffic, it fluttered to a safe space amongst beech leaves. I shan’t forget its little face!

Earlier in the week were some rescues of a different kind: tomato plants! Both Aldi and Co-op sell various fruit and veg plants, but they don’t look after them; the racks outside the store sport many dessicated-looking specimens. I cannot bear the waste of life. I always take them home. At Aldi it was a tomato plant with a near-broken stem (whom we called Shirley), and at Co-op it was a plant that barely resembled a living thing, now called Diamond. Both have now fully recovered from their ordeal and are thriving on the windowsill. This is what Diamond looked like when I got her:

But after a night in a bucket of water, she recovered:

I decided to email the respective supermarkets, hoping to persuade them to do something about this. I will keep you posted!

At that same Aldi site I struck gold from an unexpected corner: Black Morels were growing on the woodchips! I knew that this might be a likely habitat, but I never envisaged I would actually find them in the numbers that I did. They were everywhere! But very well camouflaged….

I’ve dried them on the stove and John is going to make a risotto with them once we have our kitchen fully up and running. I’m looking forward to trying them!

And finally, the mushrooms are also growing indoors: my parents sent me oyster spores and I’ve been saving up coffee grounds from John’s post-dinner concoction – apparently the oysters love feeding on it. Well, here’s the evidence, they’re going like the clappers:

We’re nearly into May now, which will mean lots of new leaves to forage, and hopefully the first St. George’s mushrooms. Every month brings its own delights in a wonderful array of produce and flavours!