My Top Ten Foraging Posts

So I'm launching my foraging business!

I EAT WEEDS

I will be available for speaking engagements and tours.

You can either reserve a place in one of my home tours,

or I can come to your property 

and we'll take a look at what you have in your own backyard!
Learn about herbal first aid...
Tea making...
The list is really endless...

In honour of my new endeavour...I present to you my Top 10 posts on foraging!

10. Finding wild horseradish and how to pickle it!

9. Discovering wood sorrel and black haw...and how to make black haw squares!

8. Picking and storing wild leeks (aka ramps)!

7.  Fiddlehead soup

6.  Turn an invasive "weed" into Garlic Mustard Pesto

5.  Milkweed blossom capers

4.  Purslane in a stir fry

3.  Dandelion coffee inspired by Susanna Moodie

(an 1830's Ontario settler)

2.  Wild black raspberries

1.  My all-time, most read foraging post EVER:

Orange foxtail grass seed muffins!

SPOILER ALERT:  These seeds taste like poppy seeds!

Come join me on my other blog I EAT WEEDS for more forage-y goodness.

(don't worry...I'll still be posting here too....)

Ode to Eggs...

So we are decided.

We're going to be chicken farmers.

It was something that my husband and I have talked about for some time.

Now we are in a property that would allow us to actually have poultry

and not disturb our neighbours or break any by-laws.

The property we bought in May has a fenced in area.

Some of you may remember it from my post breaking the news about the new place.

Its been a few months and we really neglected this particular corner.

We had other things going on.

I finally took a crack at it with the lawnmower.

That is saying a lot when you consider wild black raspberry canes and goldenrod had taken over the entire place, standing about waist high!

The entirely fenced space is just perfect now!

I even found an old sink (that matches our clawfoot tub used for gardening) buried!

One of the previous owners apparently had rabbits.

The old structures are still present.

Old and dilapitated.

Rotting and foul.

The fencing needs some attention.

In some areas, the nearby trees have grown right around the fence!

Our plan is to research all winter about what kinds of chickens, what housing is needed, how to design it and built it.  We will be saving all winter to be able to feed these animals and what will be required for care.

There is a nice introductory chapter in The Backyard Homestead about chickens along with a simple design for a coop.  Fingers crossed and come next year we'll finally be protein producers!

So this recipe post is in honour of people who raise their own chickens!!!

Here's to years of omlettes and quiches!

Here's to roasten chickens all winter long!

After all that mowing, I was tired, sweaty and hungry.

I made a quick salad and ate it on the back porch, observing all that I had done.

Feeling quite proud of the progress I had made.

Next step will be to have the husband clear out the dead trees and chop them up for winter wood burning in our fireplace.

For the salad, I mixed up some baby spinach, boston lettuce (that a friend gave us), baby pear tomatoes (from nana), some white onion and cucumbers.  I hard boiled an egg and sliced it up fine.  I also made a quick mustard vinegrette.

Dijon Mustard Vinegrette:

glob of oil

splat of white vinegar

a few drops of lemon juice

squirt of grainy dijon mustard

1 small pressed clove of garlic

fresh ground salt & black pepper

Substitutions:

- If you use dandelion greens or garlic mustard greens, omit the black pepper and lessen the dijon mustard

-If you use purslane, add more lemon juice

-you can also add chopped up bacon or ham

And don't forget to check out my all my recipes on facebook...I've been posting them there all summer long...

My facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Small-Purse-Big-Garden/248329288518059

My facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/161202447273633/

Get Lost...

Ok, so this post is actually about NOT getting lost.

Mainly all this warm spring weather has inspired me to do a post about getting out into nature.  Go for a hike alone or with friends.  Experience nature in a first person sense.  Not just through posters, photographs, artwork or watching the Discovery channel.

It's about the sights and smells of the woods. 

About following a trail...just to see what's around the next bend.

It's the feel of the wind through a field.

It's about the thrill of finding a big patch of something edible! 

A raspberry bramble.  A bright green bush of garlic mustard or lamb's quarter.  A crab apple tree.

Is that mutant glasswort?!?

It's about seeing nature as art.  Structural.  A tall rock formation.

It's about stopping to smell the fragrant mosses.

It's about sneaking up on something!

Like finding the evidence of animals in action...

It's about things that make you do a double take!

Or just plain creeps you out...

I recently picked up the 2012 edition of the Frontenac Provincial Park info guide.

Inside it mentioned what you should take in your backpack when you go on a hike, which I thought was particularily useful!  I'll mention the details below:

-Map

-Compass (even if you're carrying a GPS)

-water

-extra food & high energy snacks

-extra clothes

-first aid kit

-pocket knife

-headlamp or flashlight

-whistle (3 blasts is a standard distress call)

-cord

-large orange plastic bag (good visable colour for attracting attention and can keep items warm and dry)

-waterproof matches or a lighter

-fire starter (aka small sticks, bark, pine cones, newspaper)

-emergency blanket

-insect repellant

-sunscreen

-rain gear

Although this may seem like an excessive list for an afternoon's hike or walk, these items may just come in handy in the event of an unplanned detour or delay.

I remember years ago, we were invited to hike in to someone's campsite in Frontenac Park.  My wee son Owen not quite 2 yrs old at the time and I had no idea if he could sustain the energy for a hike of more than 1 hr.  As a family we had gone on many walks since Owen was born, but he was usually in a stroller for most of it.  I knew Owen had lots of energy...so I was willing to give it a shot.

I decided to test out if we could do it on a prior weekend.  Noah came along too.  He was probably only 8 yrs old at the time and had been playfully dragged along on many a hike through the Park.  When Noah was younger we started off with the shortest trail first and then worked our way up to the 2 hrs trails.

I figured since this was Owen's first hike through the park, we'd better take the short one.  Seeing as how Noah had already done the short trail a couple of times, we'd make it interesting...by doing the trail in reverse!  I brought my trusty backpack, which held all sorts of important things, like water bottles and snacks, along with a toilet paper roll, plastic bags, park map and insect spray.  We all had sturdy boots and hats on.

We first started strolling out on our trek, heading towards the "end" of the trail.

I quickly remembered why hikes were frustrating with children of a certain age...

My pockets were all full of every rock and pinecone Owen could reach.  Noah had to be perpetually reminded that it would be in his best interest to stay on the trail.

We didn't make it very far and all three of us were ready for a snack break.  That's when I knew this trip was doomed.  I had grabbed the backpack without checking it.  It had been seriously depleted from taking it along on the last fishing trip.  Normally I was a lot better at checking on these things, but it was a momentary lapse.  To make matters worse, it became apparent we had taken the wrong trail completely and I didn't know where we were.  We ended up at a parking lot I'd never seen in the park.  Sigh...I decided that the smartest thing to do was to follow the tar & gravel road that led away from the parking lot and hope that a vehicle of some description passed us by and took pity on us.  What finally worked on Owen was to get him to chase his big brother Noah ahead on the road.  It wasn't long before that plan backfired and Owen was too tired to walk anymore at all.  I had to carry Owen for the last hour and a half.  

After 3 hours, we were tired and exhausted but at least we had made it back to the main parking lot.  It was a bad experience, but I was completely to blame.  You have to pick your battles.  Frontenac Park is so wonderful for hiking, but even on the shortest trail you can't manage a stroller.  If you can't wear your child, then wait until they can manage rocky terrain on their own.  Many trails in Frontenac Park look like the trail below...

And ALWAYS make sure you have enough snacks and water in case of an emergency.  I trusted that I had been to the Park enough times to know where I was going and clearly shouldn't have been in charge of the map.

All of that being said, hiking and walking in the woods is one of my most favorite activities.  It's just so important to be prepared for the unexpected.  (And if you hike with children, make sure you bring another adult with you to share in the carrying.)

I try to get a hike in whenever the weather and time permits.

P.S.  Owen (now almost 5 yrs old) loves hikes, as long as he has a hiking stick with him.

And Noah learned to stay on the trail, after finding out what the rash caused by Poison Ivy looks like. 

Wild Black Raspberries....rubus occidentalis

A few of the places we've lived have been in rural locations.  Sometimes we've been luck enough to spy the telltale red spikey canes of raspberries!  We cultivate these canes and low and behold, they take over.  We allow these tangles to grow and flourish because we know how awesome the black raspberry is.  It may look like we're the sort of neighbours who let our property go wild.  That just may be the case!  What may look like an unruly yard to some, our boys look at it like its a veritable grocery store.  Case in point, the picture below!



Looks wild...but its really yummy.

 Turns out these yummy wild treats are actually called wild black raspberries or rubus occidentalis by their proper name.  I've included some info that I borrowed from Wikipedia:

Rubus occidentalis is a species of Rubus native to eastern North America. Its common name black raspberry is shared with the closely related western American species Rubus leucodermis. Other names occasionally used include wild black raspberry, black caps, black cap raspberry, thimbleberry,^[1][2] and scotch cap.^[3]
Rubus occidentalis is a deciduous shrub growing to 2–3 m tall, with prickly shoots. The leaves are pinnate, with five leaflets on leaves strong-growing stems in their first year, and three leaflets on leaves on flowering branchlets. The flowers are distinct in having long, slender sepals 6–8 mm long, more than twice as long as the petals. The round-shaped fruit is a 12–15 mm diameter aggregation of drupelets; it is edible, and has a high content of anthocyanins and ellagic acid.^[4][5]
Black raspberries are high in anthocyanins. This has led to their being very useful as natural dyes and, since anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants, to a great deal of interest in them for their potential nutraceutical value. Extensive work has been ongoing at Ohio State University to evaluate their benefit for cancer treatment in mammalian test systems,^[6] and the first clinical trials on patients with esophageal cancer.^{[7]
(source:  Wikipedia, Rubus Occidentalis)}

A closer view of the wild black raspberry...the trick is to wait until they turn black, as their name suggests.  The red one are too tough and they don't "fall" off the cane very easily.  You know you have a ripe berry when you touch it and it basically falls into your palm.  Our neighbourly birds do love them too, but thankfully the canes are thorny, so the birds don't get out of control like they do with our poor strawberries.  They neighbourhood animals appreciate our wild yards...even if our neighbours don't.  Tee hee!



I send the boys out with baskets in the mornings and they pick (and eat) until they are full...then we throw them into pancakes or muffins.  They keep their shape better than commercial raspberries or traditional raspberries.  They are smaller, tougher and sweeter, I find.

If you let enough of the canes take hold, you'll have plenty of berries for freezing, eating and cooking with.  I had some this morning with yoghurt, flax seeds, raw almonds and honey.  YUM!  Since we've identified these wild berries, I can't help but see these canes everywhere!  I spotted some in the back of the parking lot in an industrial area of Kingston, I've seen them all over. 

Look for red canes with small thorns.  They almost look like dogwood, but dogwood has a slightly different colour of red and no spikes.