Forage Fri- uh, Sunday?

This past Sunday 7/15 I went to a foraging class hosted by The Larder in Ohio City.  We went to a park in Portage County for a 2-hour walk around.  I declared my hopes beforehand to my wife, to learn 3 new plants while I was there.  I was worried on the ride in that I would be overwhelmed with new information.

As the class started we went to the edge of the parking lot where a staghorn sumac tree was.  Having already recognized it as we were walking over I started to look at the skirt of the lot and see what else was growing there.  I spotted 7 wild edibles, our guide Jeremy talked about 5 of them (the out-of season cattails and rose hips not coming into the discussion.)  I was glad when we got into the woods across the street to explore new worlds.  To seek out new life, and you get the point.

Did I learn 3 new plants? Yes and no.  My friend Sarah had asked if I'd ever seen an American Spicebush. I had not, though I asked Jeremy if he could keep an eye out for one.  He did eventually spot one and I was able to crush a leaf to get the scent in my brain.  I learned characteristics of a few mushrooms, and a few new uses for items I have already been collecting.

I did see a few new mushrooms but though edible I don't know that they would be a food of sufficient quantity to be worth foraging.  There were some small puffballs that I became acquainted with and learned a bit more about the family, but they were so small as to barely create a garnish.  We saw some boletes and learned about the ones that probably wouldn't cause you too many GI issues but specific species and personal chemistry may make them less than desirable.

Jeremy did spot a tree from the top of the cliffs with white stuff at the bottom he was guessing were oyster mushrooms, which were in significant enough quantity to be worth collecting.  This was a great scout on his part. A lot of times when foraging you just look for what is very near to you and don't look up to spot the bigger finds.

I and another forager on the tour collected our share from the tree, avoiding the yellow slime.  Our small parlay revealed that he was originally from NJ and that his mother, who had gone missing a bit earler, had gone to the car.

As a note you should avoid any such mushrooms growing on a dead conifer, these are likely angel wings and have been linked to several deaths in Japan (suspected to be related to radiation, so the legend goes.)  We had a good conversation about look-alikes so I feel this is a solid addition to my repoire, and he was good enough to give his phone number out so the attendants can text pictures for verification.

We also saw a mushroom whose layman's name is 'milky cap', whose coloring on the top reminded me of a peach and whose underside bled latex when cut;

These were large-ish and I imagine if you found a locale dominated by them they would be worth collecting.  The lucky spotter of these got 3 good-sized mushrooms.

Jeremy was an excellent guide.  He is certified in mushrooming (I don't know the technical term, but he's certified) and knows way a lot about wild plants.  He knew the scientific name (at least to the family) of just about any scrap of mushroom anyone held up in front of him.  I think the locale could have been better, something not dominated by giant rocks. I understand it was probably a good chantrelle location but the lack of rain   I think some flat terriain with an assortment of biomes might have helped.  The class was a little mushroom-dominant based on the area we were in, which was an older forest with little undergrowth aside from a decadent amount of poison ivy and dominated by rock walls.  Had it been rainy this week I'm sure I would have been showing off a sack of chantrelles like I did from my forage last week.

At any rate, I didn't get home until late on Sunday and after several chores finally had the opportunity to address the sack of oyster mushrooms I brought home.

You can see the miniscule puffballs in the lower right and a pot in my sink in the upper left.  I decided to blanch them to kill all the...everything crawling around inside and keep them from further deteriorating.  Today (Monday) I fried a few in the skillet along with red peeper, garlic, onions, and mugwort.

My phone has recently suffered irreperable damage so the right side of my picture is black.  Also, my framing is terrible.  I should use a real camera, but too bad.  

I feel like the gilled sections of this mushroom could soak up a lot of flavor from some sauce, and the stems should probably be cur off and chopped and used elsewhere. 

In summary, this was a great novice class.  Though I gleaned limited knowledge from it I did learn some new food sources.  I would encourage any wallflowers who are in the Cleveland area and interested in foraging to sign up for one of their classes. I could see that there were a few fellow attendees who, for lack of a better analogy, weren't at their first rodeo.  I'd be interested to see if they would offer an advanced level class.

Forage Friday IV (which actually took place on a Friday, but still took me 4 days to write about)

Here is the catnip I promised to photograph.  It has flowered as you can see.  For identification the stalks are square and it smells of mint, but when you taste it its not really great mint.  Still, its edible.

I found a small number of ripe blackberries out in an open field, but on a periphery I found these still young ones in quantity.  I expect to find some mature fruits this Friday.

The chantrelles were in abundance a week ago, but these poor little dried specimens were all I discovered this week.  Rain has been absent for probably 8-9 days.  It did rain a bit today (the following Monday) so I am interested to see if more have come up.

Some local mayapples have some large green fruits (which are at this stage poisonous.)  I will keep an eye on them and see when they turn yellow if they are worth bothering with.

Wild Carrot, alias Queen Anne's Lace, are starting to flower.  This is a biannual plant so when you see the flowers the root underneath is a stick.  If you can find smaller greens nearby at ground level those are first year plants and the root isn't hardened.  The greens look like the tops of carrots you'd get in the store.  Always smell them, your nose knows.

Here is what I brought home to cook, a small haul in comparison to what I usually drag out of the woods but I was trying not to make a giant mess this week so I kept it polite.

Left to right, catnip, a carrot root, staghorn sumac, garlic bulbs, another carrot root, garlic bulblets, burdock root. 

The mulberry tree had a few pink berries but only like 3 ripe berries.  I didn't feel like walking all the way to the previously mentioned apple tree (which is about a mile away) so my meal was light on a fruit/desert dish this week.

I found a hot pepper I had dried a few years ago and along with some garlic, black walnuts, and chantrelles made a sauce for half a rabbit I pulled from the freezer.  The walnuts/garlic/pepper were AWESOME when I tasted them, the chantrelles didn't really compliment the taste very well but that's what I added so that's what I ate/  At the bottom of the picture are the burdock roots I collected, boiled to hell for about 40 minutes. At the top (like 1:00) there are the bulblets from the garlic plants, boiled along with the burdock roots. At the right was an attempt to rehash a previous idea - after forage friday II I took the leftover roast garlic/basswood nuts and mixed it together and made a few patties that didn't hold together well, pictured below, but were nonetheless good.  I attempted to retry this but without the basswood nuts, what I had crumbled to bits (BUT WAS DELICIOUS.)  In the background is tea I made with the sumac cones I had picked.

Those are the previously mentioned patties, they were crumbly but good enough to flip and get on a bun. 

As for this week's ratings, I'd give the rabbit with walnuts, mushrooms, and pepper a 6.5/10.  I'd lose the chantrelles and probably hammer out the rest of the rabbit, the filets from the back were the only really great meat part.  The garlic bulblets 6/10, its a nice vegetable once it spends half an hour boiling away.  Burdock I'd give 5/10, its a little plain jane but its nice to have a starchy vegetable even if it is a lot of work.  The failed rabbit/garlic patties get an 8.5/10, it was delicious if not what I envisioned it should be.  Sumac tea 6/10, good but the cones aren't quite ready. In a couple weeks this tea will be exquisite.

Friday Forage III (which happened on a Thursday, and I didn't bother to write about for 11 days)

Chantrelles.  In great quantity.

My friend Matt and I went out to our 'spot' for Chantrelles on Thursday, July 5th.  There were rains the few days before, and the forest floor was virtually blanketed in orange.  In the lower right are a few black trumpets and a couple old men we spotted, but the big haul were the chantrelles.  My bag (the white one in the foreground) weighed in a 4-1/2lbs at the end of the day. 

I did not make my typical 'only from the woods' meal this week, instead I made linguini with chantrelles in white sauce.  2 weeks ago I could have told you the ingredients but by now I have forgotten.  There was definitely cheese.  It was very good, a 9/10 on the foraging scale and at least a 6/10 on the fine dining scale.

Chantrelles are a ground mushroom and thus are always a little gritty, the only real detractor from the experience.  I think if you just focused on the 'caps' you'd probably be pretty grit free. 

There was, of course, some loss when I cleaned them and weeded out all the questionable and really filthy ones. I think I ate a pound.  The rest were divided into different preservation methods - 2/3lbs dried, 1/2lb sauteed and then frozen, 1/2lb blanched for 2 mins and frozen, 1lb left in a crock pot over night then frozen.  I have yet to revive these stores but will report which method was the best when I do.

Forage Friday Part II

I went out again this morning before it got too hot.  I saw pretty much the same as last week, I won't reshoot everything I already did, with a few additions.  The mulberry tree still has pink fruits on it so I should be able to collect again next week.  Garlic is ever-present.  The wild onions are nearing the end, there were a lot of dried stalks with aerial bulblets on them and only a few green stemmed ones left.  Here's what I found new (or just happened to notice this week)

Wood Sorrel - it looks a bit like a clover, it has a distinctive lemon taste.  Don't make this a primary food source as it contains oxalic acid, which is bad for you in large quantities.

Chicory - if you've ever played Skyrim, you know this as blue mountain flower.  Its roots are used to make a coffee substitute.  I collected a bit but it needs to dry.

Chantrelles - I found my first one of the year!  These small orange/yellow mushrooms can be found on the forest floor.  As always with mushrooms, if you're not sure throw it out!  I'm sure on this one though, and I've found a spot near me where they are growing (so I don't have to drive 40 minutes to my other spot.)

Basswood nuts - I just missed the window on what I think is a new and good source of wild food.  I had previously found these nuts to be edible when they drop on the ground though they are tiny and have 2 shells.  The first can be peeled and the second one you can crack by heating them in a pan, they reminded me of popcorn kernels I recall.  I was by our old house on Sunday and for no good reason picked one of the unripe flour/seeds.  It was nutty and a little sweet.  Today the flowers are falling off and the nuts are much greener.  I still picked a small container of them, even though I think they are past their prime.  I will have to try to get them a little earlier next year.

Sir Not Appearing in this film - there is an apple tree between our old house and current residence that always drops fruit on the sidewalk, and always seems to be fruiting too early.  I stopped there on the way and sure enough, I collected a pocket full of small under-ripe apples!

Here were my collections for the day, clockwise starting at noon - mugwort, garlic, burdock root, mulberries, wild onion bulblets, basswood nuts, wood sorrel, apples.  Off to the right is a sumac cone soaking in water.  

So here is what I managed to craft.

Back row, soup made from the mushroom broth mentioned in my last post, this was a little too strong and a bit bitter.  I added water later but haven't revisited it since I was full.  Sumac tea, the cone was still a little weak, it should have a good strong vitamin C flavor.  It really reminds me of Dairymen's tea when its good.  This was passable.  Basswood tea, this was a byproduct of boiling the hell out of the nuts, it had a fairly good flavor.  I dropped a bit of catnip in there, which is a mint relative that grows around here.  I guess I'll photograph that next week.  Anyways that and a bunch of sugar and I had a fine beverage.

Plate, clockwise from noon; apples and mulberries, uh, compote? I don't really know what a compote is but I guess that's what I'll call this.  I feel like this took a lot of sugar to sweeten up since the apples were so dry and tart, but the final outcome tasted good.  Rabbit, uh, pate?  I was trying for a pate but there isn't enough fat so its really just shredded meat.  It tastes good, its made of meat after all.  Apple and Maple glazed rabbit, this was the best of the plate.  I took the other (front) half of the rabbit I started on last week, and cut 2 good strips of meat off the back.  I am saving the legs for a bbq tonight.  The rest I threw in a pot with the burdock root and boiled into the previously mentioned 'pate'.  Back to the fillets, I put the apples in enough water to cover them and cooked them down until they were soft, I added the fruit into the mulberries that were already cooking and saved the liquid.  To this liquid I added some sugar and let it reduce down a bit.  I pounded the 2 fillets thin with a kitchen hammer, then dipped them in the maple apple glaze and then cooked them in a cast iron skillet.  These were completely devoured.  Burdock root, after last weeks experience I figured out how to deal with these roots.  If you have ever peeled the center out of a carrot, that is pretty much what you have to do to these roots and then boil them for an hour.  They were acceptable, a bit like a starchy asparagus.  Roasted garlic, I just put some of the bigger cloves in the cast iron pan and put it on a very low heat and kept rotating them until they were soft.  I have had better in restaurants but I haven't had much success prior to this on my own, so I call it a win!  Finally, mashed garlic and basswood nuts.  I boiled the hell out of both of these.  There wasn't that much mashed garlic so I added into the basically flavorless basswood nuts, resulting in something that feels very filling but a bit of a chore to eat.

Everything was at least edible.  Here's my ratings;  soup 3/10, weak sumac tea 5/10, basswood tea 6/10, compote 7/10, pate 7/10, glazed rabbit 9/10, burdock 5/10, roast garlic 6/10, mashed gruel 4/10.

Forage Fridays!

So I think everyone who opted in to this new challenge have either forgotten or are willfully ignoring its existence.  I have some stores of food I have collected and want to use them up, so I came up with the idea of Forage Fridays!  I thought it would be an interesting endeavor to see what is available in the wild each week and then try to make a meal from it.  I will for the most part use only what I have foraged, with the exception of salt (I do not feel like driving 9 hours to get to the ocean, I am sure one of our upcoming trips will get me much closer and I'll harvest some then.)

You should, of course, consult with a professional if you are looking to forage in your own area and not take any of my accounts or descriptions as canon.

What I found;

1) Mulberries.  A friend mentioned these were fruiting a few days ago, and it was my first stop on my tour of the woods.

2) Clover Flours.  In all varieties these edible flowers taste like green beans.  Go ahead try one, you'll be surprised!

3) Wild Garlic & Onions.  Your nose knows when you've got the right plant or a look-alike.  Always smell them as sometimes poisonous doppelgangers will grow nearby!  Garlic grows all around our place, I spotted some wild onion while walking in the woods.

4) Common Burdock.  We used to call these 'elephant ears' when we were kids.  I was pretty sure they were also known as 'Stadul weed' because I had only ever seen them in our yard while we were growing up. 

5) Wild Strawberries.  I had wandered through the woods nearby in hopes of finding some chantrelle mushrooms (which I hope grow in the woods near me.)  I found none, but did spot a few patches of wild strawberries.  They were scattered and I only got a handful but if necessity dictated I am sure I could gather more.

What's coming soon: I saw a few wild grape vines with green fruit on them, hopefully it will ripen in the next week or two.

 The sumac horns aren't quite red enough to harvest for drinks yet, hopefully next week they will.  I also spotted a blackberry bush, it looked a few weeks away from being ready.

The Meal:

For the past few memorial day parties I have been making a Slovak dish called 'Rabbit with Mushrooms.'  I thought I would try to recreate it with whatever I found.  The biggest problem being I don't have any good stores of fat.  Small game animals tend to be lean.  

To sum up, I took the back half of a rabbit (I don't want to use a whole rabbit on one meal, especially since I'm eating it alone.  Hopefully I'll have friends along with me in the future.)  and some blanched and frozen dryad's saddle mushrooms from the freezer and added them to my day's forage.

The process ended up being a bit convoluted, I would have done it differently in hindsight (and may very well do that next time.)  The broth ended up being very good, though I hadn't added any salt to it which it needs.  Everything in the rabbit dish tasted ok, but there is a lot of chewing and eating it became a bit arduous.  I was worried that the garlic would be overpowering but it was pretty good, especially since there wasn't any salt in it.  I ate about a third of this plate, the rest I will probably dissect and turn into a soup.

The berries (both strawberries and mulberries) were added to some maple sugar, a dash of cattail flour, and some black walnuts.  Though not as photogenic these were awesome.  I literally licked the bowl clean.

As for the Dryad's saddle, which is now out of season, Here is a photo and my notes from foraging a month or so ago;

Not really knowing what I was doing at the start, I carried 29lbs of mushrooms home.  Many of these weren't suitable for eating, which I found out later (but did not waste.)  

They are distinctive as they look like the feathers of a pheasant, and the big ones grow to look like bicycle seats.  They grow on dead wood in spring (the same time as morels, a mushroom I have never actually seen.)  They smell like watermelon rind.  It is distinctive.

So what to look for?  I found pretty much everything larger than 6" diameter weren't any good, when they get older they get really tough.  If you like chewing on tires you can ignore this part and just take them all.  Some of the smaller ones are tough as well, so don't just think the 'baby' ones are the onese to take.  The easiest way to tell if you have a good one or not is to scrape the pores off the bottom.  If they come off easily you'll probably have a good mushroom.  If they don't you can leave it behind.  The flesh should also cut easily, think about the difficulty of chopping up a mushroom you buy from the store (maybe a little more, but if you have to saw through it you've definitely got one that is too tough.)  You want to scrape the pores off before eating.  

Out of my 29lbs i had about 4.5lbs that were still tender enough.  I cut them into slices and blanched them for 2 minutes, then froze them.  I have since unthawed about half and used them, they are just fine.

The big ones that were too tough got cut into chunks and left in the crock pot overnight (over a series of several nights, there was a lot.)  No water was added.  The mushrooms can then be wrung out and the remaining broth has a very good flavor.

Fall Forage I Was Too Lazy To Post - Cattail Flour

Last fall while wandering the woods behind our building I found a path that went right down to the river's edge next to a stand of cattails. 

 I had always read that cattail roots were a great source of flour so I decided to root around in the muck. I took a garden weasel, a bucket, and some hand shears to see what I could find.  After a short learning curve I was able to pick out a few choice roots.

Covered in muck I dragged them back to the picnic table and gave them a quick scrub.

The hard part was keeping the muck out of the broken ends and the smashed sections.  I washed them better in the sink and then peeled the outer layer off of them, discarding the bits that had gotten muddy.

I found at this point the easiest way to separate the starch from the pulp was to immerse them in water and then just work all the fiber until the starch falls out, then decant and dry.  I also tried drying the roots then mashing the flour off it, this was much more labor intensive though there was a color difference in the flour.

You can see the dried then separated on the left.

I had also tried boiling sections of the root, this didn't do anything to help the starch fall off but it did cook it into something resembling a potato with fibers in it.  If I were lost in the woods this would probably be the best way to turn those cattail roots into something palatable.  I might also try in the future to make chicha using this method, it will probably be way easier than chewing on all that dried cornmeal.

I'm not the only crazy in this town looking in the woods for food

Probably about a week ago I was coming back to the shop from the hardware store. I spotted 2 ladies at the edge of the woods, plastic bags in hand.  I knew they were on the hunt for something good.  They looked a little frightened as I approached.  I think they thought they were in trouble or something.  I just asked what they found good in the woods.  They appeared to be Mediterranean - Lebanese at a guess. They were picking grape leaves!  I had seen vines growing around in the back woods and never thought that they might be wild grapes.  I will watch to see if they bear any fruit as the summer goes on.

Garden Finds

Last weekend, prior to our big snowstorm, I walked up to the community garden to see if there was anything left. I got a nice bunch of thyme, carrots (which I used in soup), lettuce, radishes, chives and most importantly my team mascot, a wild carrot.

The Awesome Project I Destroyed After Just One Use

I took the opportunity yesterday to head out to the local public hunting grounds. While I was there I saw 2 frogs, a fat mole, and a house cat. I spent some time foraging around. I found a black walnut tree (though I didn't collect any this time) a handful of soybeans scattered across a harvested field, and lots and lots of rose hips.

I had been meaning to build a press to extract oil from foods for some time. Yesterday I finally made that dream into a reality, and then after one use I broke it.

I wanted to make something simple and use my h-frame press to apply the force. I poked around for the biggest drill bit I could find, and I found one that was 1-3/4". I poked around in my metal stock and found a short bit of copper rod that, at one end, was the same diameter.

I make aluminum castings a lot, so I started with a bit of aluminum round stock I had recently cast. I use various steel molds, this particular casting is poured into a short length of steel stock and then pounded out when cooled.

Next I put the stock in my lathe (which required a bit of reassembly before use.) I bored out a 1/2" hole to the depth I wanted, then moved right on to the big 1-3/4" bit. The fit with the copper rod was quite good.

Next I drilled a hole into the side of it to allow the fluid to escape. I marked the depth on the rod with a sharpie marker and then gave both parts a wash.

I found a metal baking pan to work in so that the extracted goodness didn't just drip on the floor. I put it all together in the press, applied some pressure and, MAGIC! The resulting juice tastes just like fruit roll-ups.

And then a bit more pressure after that and everything - seeds, stems, pulp - started coming out the same hole as the juice. I needed a screen of some sort, and found one to salvage out of a water tap in my scrap pile.

I put the screen in the bottom and filled the cylinder with rose hips again. I pushed those contents down with the copper ram by hand and thought, 'hey, if I push it down like that I can fit way more in here.' This proved to be a fatal flaw to my plan. The copper rod subsequently wasn't sitting deep enough in the cylinder, and when I applied hydraulic force it bit into the wall of the aluminum cylinder and broke it. Boo.

The whole project, which included a bit of scrounging and machine re-assembly took about 3 hours. I do plan to make a second one and re-use the copper ram.

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Never Leave the Forest Empty-Handed

On my last expedition to Spencer Lake the place was over-run with hunters. I decided to go to another favorite hunting location. No animals were to be found. There were other treasures to be collected though! I now have of meal corn, leftovers not picked up by the cultivator on the public land. I've already taken them off the kernels, 12lbs. Plus 2 more lbs that were dirty, I am going to keep as my planting seed for next year.

I also collected rose hips, 2 sandwich bags stuffed full. I'm trying to sort out what to do with them exactly, hopefully I can get them cooked down into something (a jelly, syrup, something.) They definitely have more flavor than those early ones I picked, I can see why they are typically used for tea. More to come on that subject in the next few days.

Sunday Forage

I went out with a friend (Dan) bow hunting this weekend, hoping to catch a deer off-guard. We had no success catching any venison, but I used the opportunity to gather some wild edibles.

As I was waiting for Dan to show up at the range I spotted a large section of the ground covered in black walnuts. I quickly filled 3 grocery store bags with walnuts. I hulled about half of them this morning so my hands are pretty well stained.

Having enough walnuts I ventured forth into the surrounding woods. Sarah Lohman had pointed out what rose hips looked like earlier in the year - I found some and collected them. The smallish berries have a fibrous center filled with seeds. Both the taste and texture were a bit surprising to me. They have the texture of a bell pepper (we ll a really tiny piece of a bell pepper) and the taste was very slightly sweet. For some reason I was expecting them to be more like elderberries. It will take a lot of prep time to separate the seeds from them all, even with such a small amount collected. No wonder they are traditionally used to make tea! They are a good source of vitamin C, so be gone ya scurvy!

We marched over to where the ederberry bushes are - I was hoping to gather what I had missed the last time. No luck, the birds have picked the rest of the bushes clean. I did head over to the area where the hickory trees are. I collected a small bag of hickory nuts; most of them were bad, about half of them with white grubs in them. If you are fishing at Spencer Lake and run out of bait, you can probably find some good grubs in the hickory nuts! Put a hammer in your tackle box!

The ground cherries out there are still not ripe.

General Update

A miscellany of things to post, nothing so important as to warrant its own post.

The garden in Akron is fading. I still have corn growing, carrots, one big arugula plant, and one summer squash that fell from someone's pocket. There is also a watermelon the size of a water baloon, I don't have much hope that it will make it to an edible size. Something is happening to my tomato plants there. There are no ripe tomatoes, there are no rotten tomatoes on the ground. Parts of it look either broken off or eaten off. At any rate it is producing 0 tomatoes. I picked a few corns today.

I have tomatoes a plenty growing at Therese's house (thanks, Mom, for the great birthday present!) And a handful of bean plants growing in my own yard (along with radishes that will probably light my mouth on fire.)

Speaking of tomatoes, I canned a bunch last week (plain.) Now I am cooking the under-ripe ones (which have in the meantime ripened) into tomato sauce. Tomatoes, garlic, basil, salt. I plan to freeze some of the sweet corn i picked today as well.

This past weekend I met a darling couple, Pete and Joann Hopkins. They are the parents of my friend Erin. They have a few nice acres with a pond and some woods. We hiked around their property. Erin found some wild onions down by the creek. I found some field mint growing near the pond and a black walnut tree. They have a chestnut tree as well. There is supposedly a cherry tree somewhere around too but we couldn't get to it because of a deadfall in our way (not that there would be any cherries now.) I sat around and fished for a good long while, catching nothing but some rays.

I hope to get enough work done tomorrow that I can head out for a forage this Friday. Anyone who wants to play hookey, meet me at spencer lake!

Fishing & Forage

The Turtle and I made our way to Spencer Lake for a morning of fishing this past week. We didn't catch any fish. After 3 hours of sitting around with virtually no interest from the fish we set out into the field for a bit of foraging.

Please, if you are going to forage for wild food, do your own research. Don't take my word here as bible on what is safe for you or your family to eat.

To the left are some of the interesting things we found out there - most but not all of them edible. Starting in the upper left we found some hickory nuts. I has spotted these on a recent hunting excursion and took a few home to identify. There are 5 varieties of hickories in Ohio, 4 of which are edible. The non-edible one distinguishes itself with 4 bony spines along the nut shell. They have a green husk that rots to black, and the husk segments into 4 sections as it dries. Although the ground was littered with old nuts, most appeared to have been from the previous year and wouldn't yield anything edible. We did score a couple dozen newly fallen nuts. I discovered that you can smack them on top with a kitchen mallet and the husk will split off of the shell readily.

Just west of the hickory nuts are an old favorite - black walnuts. We had a monolithic walnut tree growing next to our house growing up which would dump its bounty onto the roof every fall. The sight and scent of these is unmistakable - round green husks with a pungent almost pine-like smell.

Down from there is a little plant we discovered near the shores of the river. It had thorns and small yellow fruits, a few which were ripe. I broke a fruit open and it had the scent reminiscent of a green pepper or tomatillo. I took this sample back with me for identification. Thanks to the OSU Weed Guide I identified the plant to be horse nettle. It is a relative plant to the tomato, tomatillo, ground cherries, etc. but it is not edible! Lucky thing my mom was there with me to constantly tell me, 'don't put that in your mouth.' I imagine I must have been a handful growing up!

Left of that we have another plant we had not previously discovered in our foraging. Mom asked me about cattails which we saw. I reached over to pull a dead one up to show her the part of the root where the starch is stored. When I stepped near the bank I evoked an herbaceous scent. We poked around until we found the source - field mint! I had never tasted this variety of mint before. It is pretty readily identifiable by the ring of light purple flowers which ring the stem, and the unmistakable scent of mint when the leaves are broken off.

Finally pictures is a cluster of elderberries. There are several elderberry trees at the north end of the lake I spotted while out hunting. We picked about 2lbs of them in pretty short order. Before cooking these have a potent dry flavor and a texture like raw cranberries (or, for those of you who have never bitten a raw cranberry, the texture of balsa wood.) Cooked without sugar these yielded an almost coffee-like flavor.

We also saw several ground cherry plants, many growing right along side the road. If you have ever seen a Chinese Lantern plant, ground cherries look a lot like them (big surprise, they are relatives.)

We also saw a lot of jewel weed, which means there is a lot of poison ivy. I myself don't have a reaction to it, my mother does though. Looking at the OSU site I saw that poison ivy yields clusters of white berries. Be careful when foraging out there, and don't put that in your mouth!

Amber Piles of Grain

The three bags in the upper right of the picture are filled with the wheat I've separated so far. It is easy but very time consuming to separate the wheat by hand. I winnowed what I had this morning as it is cool and breezy outside. My current stores are 12lbs of grain, with an estimated 19lbs yet to process. There are a couple pounds of oats that need processed too.

Also pictured (top right, going counterclockwise,) 4 jars of apples in light syrup, 4 jars of dill pickles, 3 jars bread & butter pickles, some salted fish, 4 jars of blackberry jam, and 1 jar of whole peeled tomatoes.

In regards to foraging - I went out hunting at Spencer Lake, my favorite local hunting and fishing spot. There was a ranger there who was scolding a couple of hunters, I don't know what for. When he was done I told him about us getting kicked out of the metroparks for picking blackberries and asked if it was permitted there. He told me that picking berries, nuts, and mushrooms were permitted in the Spencer Lake wildlife area. It is good to know for sure that we have an area legal for foraging!