About halfway in to my walk on the trail, I veered off under some pine trees to see if any pied de mouton, some of my favorite mushrooms that were a prize to find in France and prolific in coastal Alaska. My super knowledgeable forager friend said he had seen them, so it has been hard to walk in a straight line these days. I deviate whenever a see a good plot of land.
Foraging is a good practice for me as sometimes, I am not so good at it as my restless energy wants to move fast and exercise and to find a mushroom, one must have patience and stillness.
I have always struggled with this as this is how I broke my foot in walking across Spain. I was loving the speed, the rush, the endorphins that I failed to notice how hard my foot was hitting the ground as I descended down the mountain and in turn, I broke my foot. I have always been a better runner or cyclist than yogi. I am working on this and foraging helps.
I didn't come away empty handed from under the pine, though. I found the tiniest little skull. It's beautiful and demands a macro lens. The forest life is having the macro lens go from being 5th on the list of wanted lenses to number one.
I never wanted to have a house filled with forest findings that look like a hippie, earth loving dwelling but I do like a nice placement of a few pieces such as antlers on a table of a nice skull on the book shelf. The only problem is, my home is teeny and can quickly get overloaded with feathers and antlers and the like. So, I look to gift my findings.
Oh and did I tell you? I found the most glorious fallow deer antler the other day? It is actually an non native deer to the area. In the 40s some rancher brought them over from India and they got out of control. The park, in recent years, got rid of them, so it was a real treat to find a shed antler from this species. Their antlers are palmate, which had me think it was an elk from elk I have seen up North but when H saw them, she assured me it was fallow deer.
And today, the forage continues as it is the first negative low tide in day light that we have had in some months. It's been quite some time since I have had seaweed and I am missing it immensely.
xx