Rediscovering homeland

Coming from the southwest, I am always suprised all over again by the lushness of western New York. The day after we arrived we went on a walk to forage for rasberries. My brother has been finding them for weeks in fields near our childhood house. However, the season was over, we found only a handful. We foraged apples instead and lots of material to build a fairy village at Gramma's. Still, great finds. Though, I was so hoping for a rasberry pie!

One of my favorite flowers growing up, Queen Anne's Lace. My mom used to tell me the story of Queen Anne sewing and pricking her finger, spilling one drop of blood on her lace. This is how the tiny bit of red is explained, in the very center of the flower. The tiny red flower in the center is there to attract insects, I've since learned. This beautiful flower is considered a noxious weed in pastures.

Gramma and Michael

Mom was pointing out all the weeds or (herbs) that she knew. Herbs that I use all the time in my tinctures and decoctions but never knew how to find them in the wild. It's so funny that they'd been around me my whole childhood where I never noticed them, at least as herbs. It took moving to the southwest to learn about them. I'm determined to find a field guide and learn how to identify them before I come back.

Gramma thought it was complete nuttiness to treck through fields and high grass to look for rasberries. She said, "this is not how it's done". You go to a U Pick farm or buy them at a stand. Oh, the vegetable stands in NY! They are everywhere, selling fresh, local fruits and veggies. I always took them for granted. We've had fresh corn every night we've been here. Yum!

I took tons of pictures of mushrooms. They were everywhere in the small patch of woods that we walked in. We went to see the old sugar shack (maple syrup), that used to be my Great Uncles. We found it flatened where just a few years ago it stood. I remember as a child imagining that forest witches lived in there. A camp fire story the girl scouts put in my head. I think I was always afraid of the woods because of those stories. It's so fun to come back and rediscover it all.

Michael and I in the woods on our foraging expedition