It often takes a change-of-pace to help you remember blessings. And the revelation can come about in strange ways.
We’re currently having a woman stay with us who is interning at the local Wildlife in Need Center (WINC). She’s an avowed “forager.” I’d never really thought about that before.
She likes to go in the woods and check for wild things to eat. She knows what’s nutritious, what tastes good, what’s poisonous. All good things to have an understanding of.
I’m not much of a plant person. I see mushrooms in the forest and think, “There’s a mushroom. They sure pop up after a rain shower.”
I don’t think whether I will pick and eat them because I know I won’t do that. I don’t have that knowledge or inclination to find out.
What she has shown me in the brief time living with us though is that there is a wealth of consumables that keep the wildlife fed and healthy around our property. We have deer, turkeys, chipmunks, rabbits, fox, raccoons, possums, multiple birds and more. A bit of a mini ecosystem that stays healthy and finds what’s necessary to survive.
As part of her job, she brings foraged plants, nuts, berries, grasses and other consumables to the animals they are rehabilitating from injury. Through her expeditions into the woods and listening to her about what she’s found, I’ve developed a new awareness of how blessed we are on this spot of land.
We not only feed all these wild beasts on our property, but could probably survive ourselves, if necessary, by intelligently capturing some of those same nuts, berries and wild greens. Off the top of my head in my limited capacity to describe the abundance of wild consumables, we have acorns, walnuts, apples, pinecones, dandelion leaves and cattails.
During the afternoon, I walk our two dogs to the top of our driveway after using the magic word “newspaper” to agitate them and get them motivated to sprint out the front door, knowing a treat will result when we return. They meander west, and I now ponder the harvest dropped by the trees and lurking in the woods.
Currently we have blackberries, raspberries, and, recently mulberries, though their season now appear over. More interestingly, because I never thought of it until this summer, we have nuts cascading down on our driveway, cracked, half-eaten or still fully encased in their shells.
The past two weeks I’ve gathered walnuts every day, placing them on the counter for the journey to WINC. Green pinecones have been added to that pile when I found they were useful as food for the animals. Just this week, acorns started falling. And, we have two apple trees near the road which are dropping the occasional small apple to the turf.
Yes, we are blessed. The animals in our area are blessed. And, we are blessed to be able to give to WINC to help wildlife in need.
We can all too easily forget these things. Sometimes it takes an intern on a mission, someone focused on the entire local ecosystem to help teach you about it. That’s a blessing, too.
There’s more out there. I’m still learning.
We’re currently having a woman stay with us who is interning at the local Wildlife in Need Center (WINC). She’s an avowed “forager.” I’d never really thought about that before.
She likes to go in the woods and check for wild things to eat. She knows what’s nutritious, what tastes good, what’s poisonous. All good things to have an understanding of.
I’m not much of a plant person. I see mushrooms in the forest and think, “There’s a mushroom. They sure pop up after a rain shower.”
I don’t think whether I will pick and eat them because I know I won’t do that. I don’t have that knowledge or inclination to find out.
What she has shown me in the brief time living with us though is that there is a wealth of consumables that keep the wildlife fed and healthy around our property. We have deer, turkeys, chipmunks, rabbits, fox, raccoons, possums, multiple birds and more. A bit of a mini ecosystem that stays healthy and finds what’s necessary to survive.
As part of her job, she brings foraged plants, nuts, berries, grasses and other consumables to the animals they are rehabilitating from injury. Through her expeditions into the woods and listening to her about what she’s found, I’ve developed a new awareness of how blessed we are on this spot of land.
We not only feed all these wild beasts on our property, but could probably survive ourselves, if necessary, by intelligently capturing some of those same nuts, berries and wild greens. Off the top of my head in my limited capacity to describe the abundance of wild consumables, we have acorns, walnuts, apples, pinecones, dandelion leaves and cattails.
During the afternoon, I walk our two dogs to the top of our driveway after using the magic word “newspaper” to agitate them and get them motivated to sprint out the front door, knowing a treat will result when we return. They meander west, and I now ponder the harvest dropped by the trees and lurking in the woods.
Currently we have blackberries, raspberries, and, recently mulberries, though their season now appear over. More interestingly, because I never thought of it until this summer, we have nuts cascading down on our driveway, cracked, half-eaten or still fully encased in their shells.
The past two weeks I’ve gathered walnuts every day, placing them on the counter for the journey to WINC. Green pinecones have been added to that pile when I found they were useful as food for the animals. Just this week, acorns started falling. And, we have two apple trees near the road which are dropping the occasional small apple to the turf.
Yes, we are blessed. The animals in our area are blessed. And, we are blessed to be able to give to WINC to help wildlife in need.
We can all too easily forget these things. Sometimes it takes an intern on a mission, someone focused on the entire local ecosystem to help teach you about it. That’s a blessing, too.
There’s more out there. I’m still learning.