Edible Wild Plants

For the past few weeks I've been reading up on and studying the edible wild plants of North America, specifically the plants of Pennsylvania and it's surrounding areas.

After exhausting myself with a million websites, I decided I needed some tangible literature, so I went to the library last night and signed out 8 different books including Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript, Stalking The Healthful Herbs by Euell Gibbons and Basic Essentials of Edible Wild Plants & Useful Herbs by Jim Meuninck.

Anything having to do with edible wild plants, ethnobotany, shamanism or primitive living seems to peak my interest these days. First it was just a silly obsession with Terence McKenna and my fascination with the psychedelic aspect of human/plant relationships. Now, I feel it's become somewhat an obsession; I've even created myself a binder where I keep all of my notes, drawings, and research. It almost feels like I'm in school again, except this time I'm creating the syllabus and the topics are much more interesting!

If the weather is nice on Sunday, I plan on waking up early and hiking out to the old neighborhood (aka the woods) to look for edible plants, mushrooms, nuts and berries. Don't worry, I won't be ingesting anything unless I absolutely know for sure that it's not going to kill me or make be barf. It's more or less just a personal scavenger hunt that will help me get acquainted with more of nature's goodies.

What I'll be keeping an eye out for:

- elderberries
- cat tails
- hickory nuts
- acorns
- chestnuts
- meadow mushrooms



If anyone has any suggestions regarding northeastern fall foraging, I would love to hear your voice. This is all fairly new to me and I could use all the help I can get.

OH YEAH! Don't forget to watch the debate tonight!

Mon-duh!

I feel like my weekend was way too short and as a result I'm having a hard time transitioning into work mode.

Josh is back on the road again. I was lucky to have him home for a whole week before he had to leave again. Looks like he'll be in Detroit all week, and if I'm lucky he'll be home Friday night, just in time to see me before he flies out to Kuwait on Saturday! He's going to be in Kuwait City for a week helping the locals set up cameras for a freakin' camel race! How funny is that?



On my lunch break, I went into the Yarn Garden and signed up for an advanced beginners knitting class. I hate admitting it, but I can't seem to teach myself new techniques by looking at books and trying to decipher drawings. Plus, it's nice having a class to go to after work where I can meet interesting locals who enjoy and are learning the same things as me.

Oh yeah! My co-worker brought in tea berries today from his weekend up north. I had never seen or tasted an actual tea berry before so I was super excited to sample my first one. SO GOOD!

Cotton Comes To Carlisle

I've become obsessed with cotton lately!



A few weeks ago, some of the guys in my office had to go to North Carolina for an install. When they came back, they brought a dried cotton plant with them. My boss ended up giving me the plant and I've had it on my desk ever since.

Today I got bored and pulled a chunk of the cotton from the plant and proceeded to pull out all the seeds. I had no idea there were so many seeds in such a small piece of cotton! Geez.

Anyway, now I want to plant the seeds and see if I can harvest them. I doubt it will work, but it's worth a try. Anybody ever done this before?