Happy Spring 2011!

We are so happy spring is here. It seemed like such a long, hard winter with all the snow. Over the cold months we have been using us lots of our dried, frozen, and pickled edibles. Our supply of linden flowers is very low, we have a couple months before they bloom again. We had frozen, chiffonade ramps greens, but only have one container left. They should be up next month. I have been cooking soups, gravies, pot pies, and stir fries with the frozen chunks of chicken mushrooms. We still have lots of jellies and jams left, probably about 150 jars of assorted flavors. We hope to make more, and try some new flavor combinations this year. I think we have a few quart sized bags left of wineberries and autumn olives left.

Even though the season is just starting, we are already outside looking around. Robert was tapping some maple trees in the area for sap. He collected enough to boil down to a pint of syrup. Spring onions are up in the lawns. We snip off the tops and chop them into salads and soup, and the cloves in the bulbs are small but tasty.

Robert noticed some brave dandelions in the Yantic River Park meadow, and dug the roots and collected the greens. He steeped the fresh greens and drank the water as a spring tonic, ate the wilted greens, and roasted the roots to attempt to make dandelion coffee substitute. After the roots are roasted in the oven, they are ground in a spice grinder until powdered. The smell was nice, but I thought the "coffee" was bitter and tasted burnt. Robert thought it was OK.



Wintergreen leaves and berry



Today, the first day of spring, we went out hiking in the Salmon River State Forest. We picked a bunch of wintergreen leaves (Gaultheria procumbens) and their red berries to make tea with. Gillian found some red partridge berries (Mitchella repens) to add to her oatmeal tomorrow morning, too. We also picked a bagful of garlic mustard greens (Alliaria petiola). These are the second year growth, peeking up from the leaf litter with their head start on all the other plants. This super-early growth is the reason they are invasive, and so successful. The seeds that fell to the ground last year put up some leaves, then go dormant over the winter. As soon as the ground thaws, those young roots send up leaves. We chopped the tender, young leaves into a tatziki to go with some felafels for dinner. It is also nice to end such a great day with a glass of beach plum and black cherry wine made last autumn. We are looking forward to the season!



Garlic mustard greens



Sumac Video

Happy New Year To Everyone.

Garlic Mustard Video

Here Russ Cohen will talk about Garlic Mustard

Japanese Knotweed Video

We had a nice late fall walk with Russ Cohen in Massachusetts

Here is a small educational video about Japanese knotweed with Russ Cohen.

Mushrooms!

We have started our education on mushrooms. It is difficult to find someone to teach us, so we sign up for all foraging tours with our local educators, Wildman Steve Brill and Russ Cohen. We have purchased several books on mushrooms. We hike the woods and find mushrooms, bring them home, and use some techniques we have learned to try to identify them. Robert takes many photos of the tops, bottoms, stalks, and bases, cuts them open to test for bruising and color changes, and spore prints them. We then get help from David Fischer's website to verify the mushrooms. Rarely, we eat them.

A good mushroom we are comfortable with is the sulfur shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus), or chicken mushroom. We were very fortunate to find a very young specimen in September that yielded about 40 pounds of usable mushroom. The flesh has a very firm texture like chicken. We ate it fresh in many dishes, dehydrated some, and froze some more to use later.

 

We have also come across many honey mushrooms (Armillaria mellea), including a colony in our own back yard. These are good in soups, as they get a bit slimy when sautéed.

Pear shaped puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme) are also another good one for us to search for. They can be very small, but are usually found in great quantities on a dead log. They cook up nicely, holding their shape and texture. We have also come across some giant puffballs (Langermannia gigantea) that fry up like a filet.

Foraging Walks

Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to take walks with 2 foraging experts. First was with Wildman Steve Brill in Redding, CT on a parcel of private land. The habitat included some open, disturbed areas and some mixed forest. In the open area, we spotted some bay laurel, fox grass, wood sorrell, black birch, and garlic mustard. Steve Brill discussed acorns, including differences between white and red oaks, and how to process the nuts into something edible. There were also some hickory trees, but no nuts this year. We headed into the woods to seek out some mushrooms, but the dry weather was working against us. We came across a few parasol and honey mushrooms, along with a log-full of pear-shaped puffballs. At a second location, we dug some ramp bulbs. Robert, Gillian and I stopped at one more location on our own to gather some winecaps, bear's head tooth, pear-shaped puffballs, and sulfur shelf mushrooms.

 

For a Last Green Valley Walktober event, we met Russ Cohen in Southbridge, MA for another walk. It took place at Westville Lake Recreation area, and covered a lot of habitats, including riverside, wood's edge, forest, and open grassy areas. Russ Cohen covered autumn olives, grapes, mulberries, hen of the woods mushroom, sumac, pokeweed, day lily, burdock, garlic mustard, and many others. We ended up bartering some jellies for a wonderful hen of the woods mushroom.

Letterboxing Events

We have been very happy to attend some letterboxing events this autumn. It is always so nice to see old friends, new faces, and the fantastic weather makes it even more fun.

We attended A Mystical event in Mystic, CT in mid-September hosted by Maire's Facets. It was an event intended to introduce some elderly residents and their families to letterboxing. The event was held at Academy Point, a former school overlooking the Mystic River. The food was catered and yummy. The carves were fantastic! Afterwards, a group of us including MMACJ, Rocklun, and Misplaced Manatee headed to the nearby Peace Sanctuary for some hiking. Then we drove over to B F Clyde's Cider Mill for cider, and finally off to Ender's Island for another box. Great day, 22 finds.

In October, we headed to Hopkinton, MA for T2's Boxing Birthday Blitz hosted by Travelers 4 and Choi. My broken toe is still bothering me, so I stayed behind to socialize with Gillian while Robert hiked the boxes with Automan01440. There were so many fantastic series planted here, including some using Dartmoor style triangulation. The day netted some new faces for me, and 60 finds. We brought some fox grass seed polenta topped with ramps cream cheese spread and purslane for the potluck.

Next: OMG Halloween in Portsmouth, NH. The hotel room is booked, we are ready!