No, not a foraging ride at all.... NOT AT ALL, I SAID!!!!:-)

 On Tuesday I was not going out foraging at all. I needed a break from all those ´shrooms and herbs and fruit and especially those mad apples, so I just rode a swimming pool till my arms fell off and then rode some more. Now street and stunt riding certainly is good fun, but I need some scenery or else I go mad like a hamster in a tripwheel, so I simply thought, hey, it´s the Felsengarten, and there´s salvia, so, come on, take some salvia with you, where´s the harm. Then I made for the hills, and loved it. This is a spoil of Annwfn*g, a fly agaric. No, I DID NOT eat it*ggg*, I just loved the colour.

 Fireroad to the hilltops, arduous climbing, but it simply felt good to get good and a sweaty mess with hurting legs and all... did I say hurting legs? Maybe not so ideal*ggg* or great.*ggg* or not? Depends on who you ask, if you ask me*g. Note the artful use of virtual emotional icons, I have finally mastered*ggg*.
Where was I? Oh, there, on that fireroad, and maybe I am still, moving and cranking up that steep slope with the birds singing all along and getting in a state of mind I can rant on intelligently for ages, but you would not be able to feel it any. I was just being. It simply feels great, it is just a feeling of onenness, even transcendence. One reason for me riding since 26 years.

 Then everything went awry, for I met this little fellow and had to take him home...

 I cut him with this knife, which is my EDC kopis. Liekki, this is the world, the world, this is Liekki*ggg*. Zwissler "monster" damascus, leather handle, 95 mm of trustworthy steel. I simply love it. I use it hard for three years now, and have never sharpened it aside from redoing the bevel once, but that was to achieve another geometry, not out of pure necessity. I whittled and carved with it, batoned it through hard knotted wood, peeled apples (there they are again AGAIN!!!!!), even pryed and digged out roots with it, and it always comes back begging for more. It drives away my malevolent spirits and soothed my sleep. Thank you, thing.*ggg*.

 Detail on the pattern.

 Then it was this one.

 And I wasn´t going to forage today. No, really, I wasn´t.

 Passed by the lake...

Yew berries. I love the fact that they taste sweet, but if you make but one mistake you are nicked big style: They are TOXIC, so do not eat them. In ancient times, the yew was a symbol of sorcery, of magic, and of the otherworld. Of winter, of endurance, and of death, and of life. There are theories as to why many European divinational systems (runes) were carved on Yew. I am fascinated by the tree, and by the wood. It has always been a metaphor for poetry for me, too, and a guardian spirit. Near the house in which I grew up there grew a yew, and it did do (okay, I could not resist the rhyme, myne is the pity*ggg)*) a lot for the atmosphere of my old home. Of protection, endurance, and coziness.

But my life was long done with protection or coziness. I came home pensive, but deeply contented. It simply was a good day, and I can enjoy this life ever so much more again. Life is good.