Pink Coyote

Wild Food: Adventures in Foraging and Cooking with Earth Skills

Sourcing and eating wild food really opens your eyes, your mind and heart, in fact, your whole being, to a deep appreciation of and connection to the natural world around you! 

--Fergus the Forager

Wild Nettle Pie

I'm nuts about foraging. Our property is covered in nettles, mallow, dandelion, black sage, lavender, and clover, as well as seasonal flowers and fruit trees. I've enjoyed plucking and munching straight from the Earth- making teas, smoothies, and paving the way for more complicated dishes from this ungovernable lot of what are typically viewed as weeds.

I was gifted Guide to Wild Foods in 2003, when I had the opportunity to work for a CA native seed company, and I've clutched it ever since. It is a beautiful basic companion with good drawings and easy language for beginners. And doesn't Wild Table look tempting? It is becoming more simple to add fresh food to our diets as we learn how to identify, harvest and prepare what is sprouting up all around us: plant medicine cleverly disguised as visual flora.

Earth Skills, in my backyard at the foot of the Los Padres Nat'l Forest, gives my family a thrilling chance to learn more about how we can nibble off of the land. Located in our old neck of the woods, Frazier Park, CA, Jim Lowery and his charming wife, Mary, lead Visionquests and survival weekends in the spirit of Tom Brown, Jr. and Wilderness Awareness. I sprang at the chance to prepare local wild foods with them over the weekend.

Wild Rice with Mountaintop Currants

Lemon Pine Nut Muffins

My favorite part of our day together was grinding acorns into flour. I've always wanted to know how to address the issue of tannins, as some books make it sound like a complex process. It was as easy as cracking open the acorns on the grinding stone, tossing the funky ones aside and food processing them into a fine flour. We started with dried Valley Oak acorns, that the team had harvested locally last Fall.

My team ground up our acorns and then poured about a gallon of cold water over them to leach out the tannins, and then spread the wet meal out on a cookie sheet to dry in the sun.

Acorns can be purchased, but there are so many varieties, that most of us have one kind or another growing at the edges of town. The best time to harvest is usually in September. Our recipe for Orange Acorn Bread called for a blend of wheat flour and acorn flour, but when I make it next, I'm going to sub oat flour for wheat. I like it's earthy, gritty quality.

Cooking in a hall with a dozen people coordinating a dozen different dishes had a soup-kitchen vibe, and a Thanksgiving spirit. I was paired with two guys-a park ranger/naturalist from Ventura County and a fellow from San Jose who teaches urban youth how to interact with the wild. I learned so much just from our chats while we were up to our elbows in acorn mush. It was awesome.

In addition to the Wild Nettle Pie, another team made Nettle Soup. It was really easy to make and everyone loved it. Nettles are rich in vitamin C and Iron, and can be used wherever you would use spinich or dense greens.

Cream of Nettle Soup with Potatoes

(as shared by Jim and Mary Lowry of Earth Skills, with slight modifications)

1 lb. fresh nettles

1/2 lb potatoes

1 leek, white part only

3 1/4 tsp butter

1 3/4 c. water

1/3 c. cream

Melt butter over medium heat and sautee leeks until soft. Add potato and water and cook until tender. Blanche raw nettles until tender and stir into soup. Puree in blender, returning the mixture to pan. Add cream, season with salt and pepper.

I'm going to experiment with this recipe until it reaches nirvana. It's very close to it- however, I think it might be yearning for some crumbled turkey bacon...

Big Mama Gaia offers her bounty to us each season. Receiving from her inspires me to think about all of the ways I want to thank Her.

Alignment

Yesterday I did some journalling to clear my head about some things-about where I want to go, about SouLodge, about all of the work that I seem to be immersed in...always. I love to work, and sometimes it's an obsession that becomes an obstacle to the higher purpose of my short life. As soon as I became clear about what it is I really want to do, you know, with my life (!) two plants, a stone and an animal came to me. I wrote them in block letters on my journal page and my mission became even more clear.

I always find it rather humorous to discover this need to realign myself. It's kind of like cleaning the dryer lint out of the tray: things/thoughts/ideas just get all clouded together and I find myself walking in circles, but not circulating meaningfully.

I bound the medicine of what it is I'm living up to in a bundle pouch, making something just for me-which is something I haven't done in years. All of this bundling for others, and none had really encompassed all that I wanted to affirm. I think this is why I'm enjoying teaching medicine-making in the Lodge so much. Only *we know* what we need the most, how to bring it all together, not leaving out important parts, when it comes to the overall vision. It's felt so right to teach women how to do this for themselves. Just a few tools and a bit of inspiration, and women are lighting up and recognizing exactly what they need! Community is so beautiful this way. Making the way back to our roots seems so easy when we realize that we're not alone...

For my personal medicine, I chose Yarrow because Matthew Wood called it "natures band-aid" and it's stuck with me ever since. I've experienced this sister as one who is like a balm on fears and ouchies and because reverence for the Earth is high on my list, I felt she needed to be in there. I'm feeling once again, overwhelmed by the amount of waste that goes out of just my home and so I'm renewing my commitment to reduce that dramatically. I've been buying used as much as possible for a long time and it's food packaging that really bums me out. So, YARROW. To keep me conscious about this beautiful place that nourishes us from birth and takes us back at the end of our lives so graciously.

I chose Coyote, which is no major surprise, but when I took inventory of my values, I saw how important this tricky one is. Bringing so much laughter and humor to my life lessons, I've become utterly dependent on the ultimate survivalist who travels fearlessly everywhere, adapting like no other. Coyote connects us all with her warm magic, her foibles, her humility. She parades her right to life in and around the hills, on the shores, and right on the city streets. I truly don't know where I'd be without this companion by my side.

Rose quartz is in there, because the deeper I get into the bones of myself I realize that love is the only thing that matters, and noticing every day that we are more ONE than we are not, this was an easy choice. Healing the world, one heart at a time.

Tobacco is there for gratitude and an offering to Spirit for making this life possible and awakened.

And Butterfly Bush literally called me from across the yard for Beauty and the sweet aroma of existence. Abundantly, she grows and feeds butterflies, skippers, bees, and hummingbirds, expanding her reaches over my neighbors fence and beautifying even his junk pile. She attracts the best- her beautiful equals in the quest for nectar- and I know my life has this blessing on it, too.

I added a couple of other things which I'm keeping secret because superstitious rumor has it that one is not supposed to reveal everything in one's magic satchel. It seems in keeping with the feminine to carry a bit of mystery with us at all times.

The beautiful bundle pouch was made by my sacred sister, Lauren, who creates medicine bags and all kinds of delicious goodies, while nursing her month old baby boy and unschooling her bright light of a daughter. Her store is a bit less abundant than usual, because I am taking many of her medicine items to Squam with me in two weeks to share them on vendor night. I had to have first pick and chose the above pictured pouch to put all of my items into. She inspires me to walk with more reverence, always.

Blessings to you as you find your way, dear sisters.

Stretching Out: Summer Sun

Every day here is like being on vacation. Wake up. Go back to sleep. Wake up again. Have leisurely breakfast...two or three times. Look around for bird feathers outside the casita. Laugh at frisky squirrels jumping from tree to tree. Pack lunch. Go to violin lesson where teacher adores him and allows Ivy and I play on her kids' swingset. Make tracks to the beach or other soothing body of water (of which there are many). Pick sand out of crevasses. Eat a sandy sandwich. Notice that everyone in the water is wearing a wetsuit but us. Drive home, hose off, and lounge around some more.

Midweek has become my weekend since Operation Ojai has been in effect. It feels indulgent to be at the beach on a Thursday, which I thought was Wednesday for most of the day. These slow days have become epic for my children and I, as we near the first homeschool meet up and also look for homes in the area that we can grow into, and strong in.

My baby in a ponytail makes her seem like so much more a girl. It won't be long before she'll be taking music lessons, surfing the waves, and much more interested in shopping for Fall clothes than her brother. This is a blessed life. One in which we can play hard in the saltwater, eat healthy food, laugh, and enjoy life.Together.

I've been gathering plants to make medicine with in this gorgeous climate, which has, you know, all the really awesome plants. White sage, growing right on the path to the swimming hole, wild fennel, yarrow, sweet peas, toyon, manzanita. Just to savor the essence of summer a little longer. Hawk, Rabbit, Coyote, Bat, Possum, Blue Jay, and the subtle sense of that solar queen, Mountain Lion, are all around. So much symbolism to carry around in my knapsack.

Wishing you a blissful dog-days weekend, Full Mama Moon, and all the ponytails and laughter your heart can bear.

Gifts From the Mountain

A weekend spent camping with my family and good friends was exactly what the Inner Taskmistress did not order. Which is why I leapt at the chance to defy her, in a season so busy with doing. Nature recharges me fully, and these particular woods and trees have been a favorite gathering spot for years. Seeing my babies play and thrive away from media-hula hooping, stargazing, eating camp bacon with dirty fingers, and drumming the sun down did my heartspace a lot of good.

Breakfast made on a wood fire just tastes better.

Camp coffee, mmmm.

Waking up to the tall, green, Standing People.

Sleepy little camper.

The trees sang with the rainfall and laughed at the sky-cracking thunder.

Yarrow, mamaHealer, was growing all over the place.

A purple sunset.

 

The Perfect Creative Model

 

Desert Bird of Paradise.

Something about native plants reminds me of the innate power of nature to inspire the creative process. Traveling each week to Ojai and seeing the difference in flora from here in the Central Valley wakes up my senses, which have become a bit numbed by ornamental garlic and parking lot maples. The sycamores even look different there, hearty and creekside, growing at sharp angles and adapting to the course of the wind. Years ago, I had the opportunity to work for, and study under, a California native plant expert, and it transformed my relationship to plants, medicinal and otherwise. I came to know them by their botanical names and still enjoy speaking them as if it's a language only some can understand. Though it sounds all scientific-hoity toity and probably annoys the heck out of anyone on a hike with me.

I fell in love with Indian Paintbrush, Mountain Mahogany, Queen Anne's Lace, Owl's Clover, Sticky Monkey Flower, Coyote Bush, Yerba Santa, yucca, manzanita, buckwheat, yarrow, rabbit brush, mountain sage, juniper, poppies, lupine and penstemon that I could call out to on my drive to and from my sacred home in the national forest. I would listen for the ones that were launching their seeds out onto the wind, the legumes pop!ping and seeming so active in their creative process.

Why does being out in nature connect us to our own creative process? Why was Henry Thoreau at his peak of sacred writing when he "went into the woods to be alone"? And Anne Morrow Lindbergh by the Sea? Nature + solitude seems to bring out the best in us when it comes to distilling our gifts down, allowing us to return proud of our efforts.

For me, sitting in the wind, seeing the magical diversity of every plant, (even the closely related ones), claiming their color and their scent, watching them propagate at their own feet, experiencing the abundance and tenacity of plants and trees to come back year after year through merciless rains, droughts, prunings, and even the dormant years when the conditions simply aren't right for them to appear...it all leaves me feeling as if my own creative offerings are as useful, as unique, and as prolific.

When you go out into the wild, what transpires? How do you experience the plants and trees, the stones and sky in a way that exalts your relationship to your medium? How do you approach the work after an inspiring day in your natural environment?