Lessons from Wild Harvesting

Like most every delightful gift of the earth, harvesting wild mushrooms is something that really can't be rushed. Here is an example of lessons learned mushrooming:

I am walking, walking...... off to find some mushrooms. I can do it!.....walking walking, looking, looking looking...walking, walking faster......getting impatient. "Where are they? Are any mushrooms even around here?"  Then, I  put pressure on myself, thinking, "Just look harder. Try harder at it." And I feel all freaking constrained and uptight.  This sort of nonsense could be carried on for a while. Then, finally, the culmination of my 21st century  pace:  "Screw this. I am a terrible mushroomer!"   I stop  looking, and divert my attentions elsewhere.
The sounds of fall, the movement of the leaves in this forest, the new cool feeling of the wind as New England leans into winter, there is a very large bird that flew up from the underbrush,  my boots are sinking in this mud, a stream that I might jump over, or maybe I'll walk on the log to get over it, walk, walk, walk, jump off...and MUSHROOMS! They just popped right out at me as soon as I got over myself.

Harvesting Root Vegetables

Root vegetables can stay in the ground for a while after its gotten too cold for other plants. But we harvested today and ended up with

• 2 bushels of carrots
• 1/2  bushel of beets
•  1 1/2 bushels of rutabagas and yellow turnip

 We snapped the tops off all the roots and gave the tops to the chickens to eat. Some of the smaller carrots where fed to the horses Molly, Gus, and Marcus.Overall, Marcus tried to hog them all, but thankfully Molly doesn't put up with that kind of crap.