seaweed...

Last week i had the opportunity to go to a talk with 'the seaweed lady', Diane Bernard. Diane runs a company called SeaFlora, where she hand harvests seaweed along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, and uses it to make high end organic skincare products that are used in spas around the world. Normally she does talks at the beach, right in the thick of it, but low tide was at 6am and we had a bit shorter time for it too. I was disappointed, but oh well - learning about these plants was fascinating nonetheless. She brought a big pile of seaweeds that she had harvested earlier that morning and passed them out so we could touch and play. There is such variety along this coast, from the massive bull kelp, the fastest growing organism in the world, to thin clumps of sea lettuce. You can click on the images for a bit more info, although I can't remember the names of all of them. I need to get a good reference book. Most of them are edible, and they are full of minerals that can improve your health whether you eat them or put them directly on your skin.

I was inspired to try and add more seaweeds to my diet, and started this evening when I picked some sea lettuce on my walk. I added it to leftover spot prawns (thanks Mom!) tossed with some mushrooms and pasta. Yum.

We're in our new house, but there's lots of work to do yet. AK has gone out for his last guiding trip of the year (lucky him - back to where the humpbacks are still hanging out) so I'm tackling the boxes by myself so far. This house definitely has different dimensions from the old one, and furniture arrangement is going to take some creativity. But we'll make it work. Now if I could just find my stitching...

free food...

happy solstice - i can't believe we are there already. thanks for all the great comments on the owls - it was a very special evening. i went back tonight and though i spotted both adults they seemed quite agitated, one hoo-hooing at me when i stood looking up from the creek's gravel bar and the other hissing and bobbing at me despite being at least 100m away and high in a tree; actually i probably wouldn't even have seen it if it hadn't raised all the fuss. i left them alone (alone is a relative term though - the robins were in full assault mode). instead i admired all the snails plying the trails, and a pair of pileated woodpeckers keeping close company with a pair of red-headed sapsuckers. there are lots of rotting trees in that wood - a woodpecker's haven.

but amongst all the wildlife, there is also a lot of other 'life' to be found these days, if one has their eyes open. thanks to langdon cook i was inspired to gather some vanilla leaf to dry for tea. my sweet little nephews gifted me with a tub full of gorgeous salmonberries. and a trip to the beach had me gathering some sea asparagus to saute up for later.

are you doing any foraging these days?

dandelion bread

oh, the lawn these days. i've only mown it once yet, but now that the days are warming up considerably it's full steam ahead. i was evaluating it yesterday, knowing i'd have to haul out that abominable mower shortly. but there was something i wanted to do before all those pretty yellow blooms got chopped up with the grass. yes, i'm talking about those fluffy yellow 'weeds', that so many folks spend hours eradicating from their perfectly manicured lawns (neighbours, i'm looking at you). at our house we are a much more relaxed bunch, and the dandelions flourish mostly freely between mowings. but really i should get to the point of this post - did you know dandelions can do more than wave their sunny faces at you?

you can eat their young, tender greens in salad. you can make wine, cordial and other convections with their flowers. but did you also know you can make dandelion bread? i have been following this recipe from fat of the land for several years, trying to make the bread at least once each spring. the result is a wonderfully sweet (but not overly so) quick bread that i have a hard time not gobbling down in one sitting, slathered in butter.

i mixed up the recipe a bit this go around - using half whole wheat flour, plus some generous sprinkles of both hemp seeds and a ground flax/chia mix i throw in everything around here. i also used coconut oil instead of canola, and unsweetened almond milk as that is what i had on hand. it seemed to work out well, although did not rise as much as the original. taste was definitely not compromised though!

so if you've got some fluffy, sunny 'lions brightening up your space, i encourage you to pick some of the petals before breaking out the weed whacker. a bread full of sunshine is just the thing to enjoy on these longer spring evenings.

collecting...

the recent gift of a black-tailed deer skull from my brother-in-law got me thinking about the various nature ephemera i've accumulated over the years. i suppose my home is turning into a natural history museum of sorts, a mixture of items i've found over many years, pieces that have been gifted to me, and items that aren't actual nature remnants but just look like they are (such as a couple pieces by artist william van orden), or are part of the coastal landscape just the same (wooden and glass fishing floats). while i love to wander in search of treasures on the seashore or in the woods, i try to be very selective about the few i bring home, and leave most things be. these pieces give me a feeling of connection to the natural world at home, something to break up all the technology that surrounds us these days, the need for 'new' and 'shiny' that gets pushed at us all the time. and to be honest, i just like them. do you have any collections of your own?

(you can click on any photo to go through to flickr and see a bit more info about each.)

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i am headed out this afternoon to a rally regarding the proposed northern gateway pipeline and oil tankers on the bc coast. here's hoping the heavy clouds looming above are kind to us. hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

random on saturday...

>>> right now my knuckles burn dully, a niggling irritation as i go about my day. the photo at top shows why. i went out foraging for nettles in a drizzle late this morning, finding enough tender purple-green buds for a meal tonight. i will pair them with local pork sausage and fresh-made pasta picked up at the farmers market. but my choice of a glove saved from dyeing my hair (washed well!) was a bad choice, and i got a bit stung through the thin plastic. oops.

>>> after picking a small bag of nettles, i wandered down onto the beach where i spotted a poor dead mallard on the rocks. sad thing, and yet i was mystified by the way the rainwater beaded on its belly feathers. a beautiful creature, even in death. the beach grasses too held the gently falling rain, like jewels strung across the shore.

>>> on the way back from foraging, i also spent some time on a small beach in the quickening rain, shooting the crowds of eagles that are filling the trees these days. i'll share some photos tomorrow.

>>> a little peak at the skirt i'm working on, mentioned yesterday. i would love to hand sew the whole thing, but for ease of time and my awkward wrist, i machine sewed the skirt pieces together. now though, i'm adding decorative stitching along the seams, a fagoting stitch to work with the stretch of the fabric. then i will begin reverse appliquéing a design on the skirt to reveal the lighter purple underlayer. this shot also shows what happens when you start making a skirt late at night in a dimly lit room - the body of the skirt is "wrong" side out, showing the purl rather than knit side of the fabric. i think i've decided i'm okay with that. i think. at least it is both the front and back, not just one or the other. the knit in the left of the photo is the fold over waistband.

>>> a recent drawing in progress, a surfer girl and her seal companion duck diving under the swell. i want to add more above the water, but i haven't decided what yet.

>>> now to do a bit of stitching, working on a new beast of a whale. i hope your saturday is going well.

just a word on foraging...

a comment from erica reminded me that i have been rambling on about foraging for mushrooms and other edibles, but not giving very helpful details about it. first off, i want to be clear that i don't harvest or eat any wild plants unless i can positively identify them. wild mushrooms especially are ones you don't want to putting in your mouth unless you are 100% sure what they are. while there are some wild edibles i have learned as i grew up from my naturalist mother (see salmonberries, huckleberries, blackberries, etc), there are others i am just beginning to learn, such as stinging nettle. with mushrooms, i have found it easier to become familiar with only a couple species at a time rather than learning them all at once. make sure you know a species backwards and forwards, especially if there are look-a-likes, and then even after you are sure and take it home, check again in a reference book or online. one of my favourite expressions is "there are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters. but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters."

a few books i use:
• Wild Harvest, by Terry Domico.
• Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora.
• Common Mushrooms of the Northwest by J. Duane Sept

there are lots of other good reference books out there, and obviously mine are a bit northwest-focused. Mushrooms Demystified is kind of the "bible" for 'shroom hunters, although it can be a bit overwhelming in its scope for a beginner. Lone Pine makes several guides for different areas of North America - i like these ones because they have illustrations instead of photos, which for me sometimes makes identification easier - something about matching a drawing rather than getting too stuck on your fungi looking exactly like one photo (i do the same with birds and other wildlife).

i hope that helps some of you that are looking to get into foraging. if you have any specific questions or something i wasn't clear on, please feel free to ask.

more time amongst the trees...

don't let these photos, with sun dappled light through the trees, fool you: we had a very wet weekend. the wind howled long and hard for the first time this season, blowing down trees and leaving more than a few of us in the dark for at least a few hours yesterday (some for much longer). and the rain was occasionally epic, pouring down in monsoon sheets for long periods at a time. but in between, here and there, a bit of blue sky would appear, and a few shining sunny moments with it. like any good islander, we took advantage of these little windows as best we could.

mainly, we were hunting for chanterelles again. that would be the main premise by which i can get A to come out for a walk with me, anyway. but we all know i love to tramp through the bush with my camera handy, seeing what i can see. there were tiny mushrooms aplenty, and there are sometimes other curiosities. above are fragments of a deer skull, part of the jaw and top of the head (i believe that one pointed area at the top of the skull is where the antler attaches). they were in odd broken pieces, with no other signs of the animal left. allows time for wondering what carried them there, away from the other bones. treasures of the forest.

and you might think, with A "focused on the task" - as he put it - while i am flitting about with camera, getting distracted by light and plants and whatnot, that he would bring home a lot more mushrooms than i. we each had our own bag this time, since we tend to wander in separate directions, always within earshot but not always sight. and when done he knotted up his bag quite separate from mine, wanting to head home and weigh them to see who had been working harder. i will somewhat smugly report that i had the heavier bag, by just a hair.



but the man had other things to make him happy this weekend, just in to head out into some of that wet and wind yesterday afternoon. a new toque to keep off the chill, in cosy soft merino. colourwork is not always my favourite, and i will be the one to notice where it puckers despite a good blocking, but still i'd count it as a success.

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i'm not sure if it is the change in weather, or just overwork, but my hands and joints are aching a lot lately from stitching and knitting. so i'm feeling a bit slowed in my work, even as i try to fill up the shop as (hopefully) folks begin to have holiday shopping on the mind. please let me know at fogandswell[at]gmail[dot]com if there is something you are hoping to see soon, but otherwise i hope you'll forgive me while i wait for the ibuprofen to kick in! :)

forest magic...

the woods were very dark on friday evening, the sound of rain dripping through the trees our only company as the two of ambled along. at first i was a bit surprised how FEW mushrooms i saw popping up through the moss, but then i spotted a bit of forest magic. the above pinecones are a little ode to margie, and the magical mushroom-covered pinecones she posted last week. i was lucky enough to spot my own little fircone caps, just popping out of the douglas fir cones nestled on the forest floor. once i saw one, they were suddenly everywhere, little treasures to distract me from more serious mushroom hunting. luckily, A is used my easy distraction, and continued to wander ahead in search of what he came for.





the polypores, robust almost year round, seemed refreshed by the rain, increasing their numbers on trees and old logs. i think if we go out today, i will try to gather a few and see if i can get any dye out of them. i am watching especially for the dye polypore, phaeolus schweinitzii, but we get a lot of red-belted polypores around here that might be worth experimenting with. and there were a few little brown mushrooms (the ubiquitous LBM) sprouting up here and there. even at 5000 or 6400 ISO, much much higher than i would prefer to go, i was faced with glacier-slow shutter speeds in the gloomy forest, so many of my pics came out blurry.



but what was the real prize of the night? just when we thought we might have come too early, or too late as we spotted a few patches already picked, we found some golden chanterelles beginning to poke through the moss. firm buttons, and some bigger ones unfurling, made for a good gathering and we returned home with nearly 2lbs of cantharellus formosus. oh yum. last night some was enjoyed with fresh local pasta, sauteed up with butter, cream, garlic and a few herbs, and okay, a little splash of rum. a few more i sliced up for the dehydrator, to save for later. we are hoping to head out again this afternoon and see what has emerged after the deluge of last night and this morning. something approaching sunshine seems to be peering through the clouds, but more rain is due tonight, which just means the fungi will keep coming!



how is your weekend going?

popping up...

only a couple days of rain so far, not enough to thoroughly soak the forest floor. but still, things are beginning to appear. i went for forest walks twice this week, assessing the lay of the land and eagerly keeping eyes peeled for treats and treasures of the fungi persuasion. nothing to eat yet, except that big cauliflower mushroom above; unfortunately, many creepy-crawlies had beaten me to it. ugh. but that's okay, they will all come in time, and i am enjoying watching the woods gain back their lush, over-saturated appearance, knowing there will be something new to see each time i venture into them. if you know the names of any of these, please chime in - i only know that the second from the top is a red-belted polypore fomitopsis pinicola, and the bottom is a cauliflower sparassis crispa.



autumnal tones are everywhere now. above is a recently finished custom sea urchin in rusty/creamy tones. last night i finished my handknit cardigan in its dreamy golden colour - it's blocking now but i will share soon! and the maple trees have starting changing colour with a vengeance.

what are you up to this weekend? A started work earlier than usual today, which meant i got up a nice early hour and am well into my day. i'm just waiting for some oat soda bread to come out of the oven and am trying to organize all the other things i want to get done today. post office, recycling, blackberry picking, and hopefully a good bit of stitching in too. and while i am enjoying the new rain this week, it's nice to look out and see a large swathe of blue this morning. saturday is off to a good start!

i am a bit back-logged on photos i would like to share with you, but tomorrow we are headed up island a little bit to meet my sister and kids for a walk we try to do each year, along a river where the salmon come up in large numbers to a local hatchery. it is always a pretty walk in the woods, and a joy for all of us young and old(er) to watch the thousands of fish moving upstream. so those will probably be first to come, but who knows?! fall is my favourite, and i'm sure my camera will stay busy!

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also:
• Lisa has been playing with acorns, both cooking and dyeing with, so i may need to go find some more to try this as well!
• Margie is having an awesome giveaway that you should go enter.
• and since autumn is a knitter's favourite season, i really like Jenna's knitter lore.

just like that

it's fall. yesterday was hot and sunny; today, well it's not. today it is 10 degrees cooler, overcast. a bit of heavy mist/drizzle fell this morning. the first two weeks of september have been probably the best weather we have had all summer, but it was bound to make a shift at some point.

and apparently i don't need much encouragement to slip into that autumn state of mind. i wore a scarf today (albeit with a tank top) - one of my cool season staples. i'm roasting up some farmers market acorn squash and corn and peppers, to put into some sort of comforting coconut curry that i haven't worked out all the details for yet. i've turned on some nina and friends while i prep the food. and i'm contemplating cracking open that bottle of red that's been sitting most of the summer (i just can't do red wine in the hot months). lastly, how could i not check out buffy in her new tv show tonight? yes, i enjoy my tv, and the fall season is here.

what about you? are you ready for fall? what is your favourite part of it? (and don't think i'm not also scrutinizing the precipitation forecast and trying to determine the best day to head into the woods in search of the first mushrooms.)

full moon rising...

a few shots from a glorious evening paddle the other night, a beautiful night with two friends exploring the estuary at high tide (and then paddling against the current of the outgoing tide to head back up the river to our start point). the moon was beautiful rising up as the sun set. it's full tonight, i think - might have to make a point to go look at it again.

other things on a monday morning:
• i've already been to the beach, where i snapped some shots of my Plush You pieces. yay, i'm done! now i just need to write up descriptions to email to Schmancy, and package them up to send to Seattle this week.
• the beach was beautiful, although the sun was already high in the sky at 9:30, and the heat building fast, so i didn't snap too many more photos before leaving.
• but i did stop again just a short way up the road to pick another bucket of blackberries - i think i'm closing in on 10lbs so far.
• further along, since i was already way out that way, there was another short detour to pick up acorns where they had gathered below the massive garry oak trees in a local park.
• i also made another stop and finally bought a small chest freezer at a really good price, so i have lots more room for berries and other things, to store up during this harvest season to carry us through the winter with goodness.
• i'm really eager to start using the freezer, but think i have to wait for A to get home from work later, to help me carry it from the truck to the house. it was hard enough to get in the truck by myself.
• until then, if you should need me, i'll be hiding in the house or in a shady spot outside. our heat wave is slowly easing back into more seasonally appropriate temps, but it still looks like a pretty hot, sunny day out there. so for now, i will make a lunch smoothie, with a few of those blackberries i just picked!

hope your week is starting well!

dyeing and foraging...

happy weekend all! we are settling in for another scorcher day, so i am hiding out in our basement suite which stays nice and cool for the most part. i may try and find myself a shady patch outside to sit and stitch in a moment, but first i wanted to share some recent natural dye results with you. my mom had given me a beautiful bouquet of red dahlias from her garden a while back, but after they were enjoyed and the flowers shrivelled up, i saved the heads. after soaking for a few days in water, i had a murky brown liquid to work with - that is what you see on the left with some fabrics dyeing away. i also mentioned a couple weeks ago that i had gathered a bunch of oregon grape berries on a forest walk. after simmering in a pot for a hour or so, i strained the liquid and used that for my second dye batch (on the right).



i think i ended up with some lovely autumnal colours, an almost dusty rose from the berries and a nice golden tone from the dahlias. with the berries i dyed silk, wool and washing linen, and the dahlias just the wool and linen. i need to mordant some more fabrics soon so i can try dyeing with mushrooms (if it ever rains again so we can get some 'shrooms). you may have seen in my friday flickr faves some gorgeous fungi dyeing from Lisa that i am in awe of.



and to some other berries that i definitely am not dyeing with - blackberries! this heat is making the berries quite happy and they are ripening all over the place. i hope to get out and pick some more this afternoon. i am filling up the freezer (okay, and also filling up my belly) for winter baking and smoothies, but a couple friends and i have also hatched a plan to take a large crop over to the local u-brew place and make some blackberry wine. yum.

okay, best get back to my stitching - this piece is taking too much time and i am feeling the deadline crunch! must finish this weekend so i can send my pieces of to Schmancy for Plush You!

rainforest fungi...

ah, sunny days in early august. the weather is looking beautiful for at least the next few days. a morning trip to the farmers market yielded a basket full of deliciousness, and the freezer is bulging with berries to last us well into the cold months. the full bounty of the season is upon us, and if i had more room for a big freezer or stacks of canning jars, i'd be putting by a lot more.



but one bounty that this season isn't typically known for is mushrooms. in these dry summer months the fungi stay safely underground, waiting for the wetness of fall to burst forth. i've seen a few 'shrooms here and there, mostly the hardier polypores that cling to old trees year round, but mainly i'm waiting for autumn. however, our hike up into the temperate rainforest of the elk river valley found many more fungi, a treat for the eyes.







the last time i hiked this trail was in october, and even though that was quite a few years ago, and i wasn't even that interested in mushrooms at the time, i remember noting the wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours, much more than we saw this time. makes me want to venture back there later this fall, or at least in the area. we didn't see any edibles this time (i think), but that doesn't mean they won't appear with a few fall rains. i hope to step up my foraging considerably this year from last, hopefully gathering more mushrooms than just for a couple nights of meals at a time, able to dehydrate some for later. but mushroom hunting is never a guarantee, so i'll be hopeful but see what presents itself. and i've already been spending some time with the 'shroom bible.





weekend plans? i feel like i keep talking about stitching; i promise soon there will be actually something to show for it (i hope!). maybe a bit of knitting on my cardigan, which is actually growing nicely, albeit in fits and spurts. and i MUST get at least one dye jar going today - where has the week gone? i hope yours has gone nicely, and you are enjoying the fruits of the season too. what are you up to today?