We’re nature walking tonight with the Mushroom Mogul Anthony Blowers of Facebook’s I Love Wild Mushrooms. I’m excited because Anthony is a very knowledgable, humble dude who I’m honored to have in the house, and has also indicated a desire to offer a more extensive foraging workshop this Fall, most likely Saturday, September 20th. We’ll have our full Fall schedule up the first week in August so look for other offerings as well. Speaking of looking, I’ve been pounding the property and found a nice caché of Indian Ghost Pipe. Anthony’s response: “Awesome! Ghost Pipe is a parasitic plant that feeds on the decaying remains of mushrooms such as Russula and Lactarius. Definitely worth talking about on my walk.” I love it.
I also came across little fields of the Queen Anne’s lace plant, also known as wild carrot, a wildflower herb naturalized in the States but native from Europe. Queen Anne’s lace is said to have been named after Queen Anne of England, who was an expert lace maker. Legend has it that when pricked with a needle, a single drop of blood fell from her finger onto the lace, leaving the dark purple floret found in the flower’s center. The name wild carrot derived from the plant’s past history of use as a substitute for carrots. The fruit of this plant is spiky and curls inward, reminiscent of a bird’s nest, which is another of its common names. It’s also a wonderful cure for Gout, as you can simply freeze bag it as I’ve done above, pour hot water over the a flattened cluster of tiny white flowers for instant Gout Away.
If you’re not joining us tonight, hopefully we’ll see you in September, and look for a post here on our findings. I also wanted to open tonight with a prayer as well as a poem, and thought the following by Scottish poet, environmentalist and farmer Wendell Berry was apropos. Hope to see you soon, and until then may you rest in the grace of this world.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am Free.