Aaaand another foraging ride... aaand another sore back....;-)

 So, the season is quite great over here and I set out to get myself some herbs and fruit for winter. I stopped first in a public rock garden, where in a neglected and abandoned part there grows salvia, marjoram (Huhu! ... und danke nochmal, Drui...;-)), and St. John´s wort (hypericum, in German: Johanniskraut), Thyme and Lavender. Thyme, I did not find (what is it about thyme, it´s always running short... or was that time?;-)), but then I do not know it, not altogether;-). 

 St. John´s wort...It´s good against winter depression. You can also make a concoction for external use. Take a handful of blossoms, put it in good olive oil, add a shot of rosemary oil and a twig of lavender. Put it in aclear glass jar, and let it rest in the sun for three weeks. When the oil has turned red, strain through a sieve, fill in a brown bottle, and use for massage. Relaxing for knotted muscles! Also for external use, take a handful of St. John´s flower, put in pure (95%) alcohol. Add one fresh pine cone and two twigs of lavender. Leave to dissolve in the sun for three days, then in the dark for three weeks. You can leave the herbs in. Use for external implications;-) only...;-)

Lavender still in blossom...

 I then rode on up the hill, and there, above a delf, grows a dense underbrush of blackthorn (prunus spinoza, in German: Schwarzdorn, Schlehe). It´s easily becoming one of my favourite plants with its dark and beautiful twigs and stems, its violent thorns and its beautiful wood and flowers in spring. There were also sloe fruit to boot, and I had a lot to carry again. Passers-by again gave me some funny looks again, and one old guy even raised his stick at me and angrily demanded to know what mischief I was up to, and the whole business was forbidden. If you ever come to Germany, chance is, you can get by with just two words: "AAAACHTUNNNKKKK!!!!" (never forget the exclamation marks, they are crucial;-)) and "FFFFÄÄÄÄRRRRBOOOOTTTHÄÄNNNNN!!!!(verboten)". I am kidding, of course, and I pretty well know what my rights are, and this belongs to them-fortunately. When I told him I wanted them for making jam and sloe brandy, he was cooling down, though, and we even had a nice chat about how his grandfather used to make brandy from sloe and pears. And I even learned a bit from him. But it´s always the same. People see  a relatively young person. He has some funny clothes on and rides a mountainbike, and he has a knife lying about to dress the herbs he has just collected, and they whoop for the attack. Sometimes I just think they do not have the balls to attack the real mischief-makers, hooded sweatshirt-bad-tattoos-impossible manners-and the like and aim for those in-betweens as me. Riding my bike head down, grunting and sweating like a hog in the slaughterhouse, eyes fixed on my pulse-watch or my speedometer, would be perfectly okay. Walking around with a bad parody of outdoor gear that currently is fashionable, would be fine also. But being dressed in normal sportive clothes, having a helmet lying nearby, but collecting flowers and fruit seems to be deviant and thusly offensive behavior. I sincerely pray they do not establish "deviant behaviour" as fineable by the law, for then I´ll be a criminal for collecting herbs for healing and fruit for taste. It´s all in the fear. Fear drives our society, and our civilisation, if you can still call it that name still. We fear not to belong. Out of this fear, we buy, and throw away, and buy anew. Without this fear, this degree of commercialisation could not be possible. This fear is induced by simple methods. First they tell you you might be deviant. If you are deviant, as a kid, you need a therapy (even if you do no harm to anyone) to function properly. I have worked with enough socially, mentally or psychologically "impaired" children to state that. In many cases, the only thing impairing them was their need for love and the Ritalin they got as a surrogative. Angry words, for certain, and kind of abbreviated, but then we are all adults, are we? Then, out of fear, you throw your dreams aside and settle for other surrogatives. TV, video, Hi - Fi, bluetooooooooth, yap, and internet, too. Sex, deodorants, cars, and yes, mountainbikes and knives and gear and all that stuff. You behave like a grown-up, finally.
Which means, we fear the almighty God Mammon-Pluto even more. Without him, we fear, we cannot live. Far-fetched? We indicate a sacral connection at any archaelogical find that might as well has been a toy or an everyday-use article (not that an artefact of everyday coherence might not have had a sacral meaning, mind you!). What, do you guess, will a post-modern culture (provided it can still be born after the mess we made from this planet already) indicate at the find of a bank bulding, all glass and polished metals and marble? Certainly not a smithy or a factory. Certainly no house for living, and no shithouse, either. Just asking....
And then there are people making things themselves, loving nature, even smiling ( I rode the bike lane this Sunday and pleased myself by counting frowns and smiles of hundred people. I wore a smile in the process to provoque smiling;-), plus, the sun was out, I had leisure time, and was riding my bike. Out of hundred people three smiled. They had leisure time, they rode their bikes, the sun was out, there were swans on the lake, and the birds were twittering. ten asked me, what my problem was "there a problem, scum?", or if anything was funny "anything to laugh at, fucker?"), collecting herbs and fruit and mushrooms and wood and what they can legally find. Don´t get me wrong, there are many people actually respecting what I (and what we) do, elderly people as well as younger ones, even kids.

But for the most part, I find they feel I pose a threat.

Oh, and I know that this actually is realistic. I DO pose a threat. Without violence, and by simply loving the green. By loving, and healing, and smiling. I fear a lot of things. I am afraid, no, I am scared as shit about next months´fees and taxes and the bills upon my mat "they feed and grow, then eat the cat" (Martin Walkyier from Skyclad: I´m just what nobody wanted). But there´s a limit to what I will do. And this makes me deviant. I forage for living, sometimes. I know, the more I know, the less I will have to buy. The more I love nature, the less I will need the appreciation of the mainstream-which I never had nonetheless.
And for these simple facts, I maybe will not change the world, for all that may be worth. But myself.

Steady, Fimbulmyrk;-), whoa, Nellie;-). Look into the green to calm down a bit, it´s a great season. For sloe as well as many other things. I am grateful for that. I find I am ever so much more bound into the ebb and flow of the years, and I treasure this feeling quite a lot. Everything is growing, and I feel I change with the tides and times of year myself. This year this feeling is even stronger than before. I feel it hard to believe in a supernatural person anymore, for it is so much bigger. Bigger than words, in any case. It is a power flowing through time, through space, through the green and the woods. It is alien to any concepts of man. Poetry nourishes on the fact that it cannot be described for its vastness and ambiguity. The description of a rose never can reach its actuality. If I set a sign in uttering the word "tree", I have not created a tree by it, but a sign, a symbol. In symbols it is where we put together the evidence of the actual, of actual life, and they can be powerful and inspiring, and yet they remain symbols: Manmade essays to anear actual life. I have a suspicion that the ancient druids of the Celts, eloquent speakers of Latin and Greek, so eloquent in fact, that one Diviciacus actually negotiated with Julius Caesar himself in Latin, forsook written words in favour of teaching as a Zen tutor would do nowadays. because words may have  a meaning, but the symbol loses in the process of conservation in written words. How long has this post become already? All to express one moment of feeling. Of onenness, which cannot be expressed by words. Of defiance, too, but it, too can not be expressed, for it´s not mine. The Blackthorn´s, maybe, or the humble St. John´s wort´s, or that of the birch tree I passed, shining golden bright in the late summer sun...

Autumn will come, with another power to fill my heart, and winter, with its clear and frosty nights under the stars and its snow and even the cold drizzle, and the ice, and the freezing cold, and the loneliness and melancholy, and even the depression. But now I am alive, and there is still summer. Even the rain is a summer´s rain, is a message to my soul. As is lightning, as is a grey day. Hard to express those feelings. 

 Found some lemon balm (melissa officinalis, in German: Zitronenmelisse), too and took it home as spice and tea. It´s calming and soothing for stressed-out nerves, and no, I did not drink a cuppa before püosting this;-)...

Oh, and I´ve heard, it might be good against witches, too...;-)

 I simply like this photo, and so I posted it.... St. John´s wort again. I simply like the colours... it just makes me happy just looking at it, can´t explain it and mustn´t;-).

 This is a pale and hairy, ugly shin with a bug on it (cicada)...
Punctured my shin some time ago by means of my pedals...

 Birchbark, anyone? This is another unlikely Fimbulmyrk tale, for someone right disposed of it along with some other garden trash near the roadside.

 Rowan berries by the cartload, too...;-). I think I´ll have a go at jam from them, and even some schnapps again... For that, deep-freeze them first for three days. Then make a vinegar essence solution (three tablespoons vinegar concentrate on 1 litre water) and let it rest for another day. Have to work out a recipe for them, still... I will keep you informed;-):

 Oh, the loot, oh, the loot, how he trillups on his flute, oh the loot of Tinfang erm Fimbulandyouknowho;-)...

Rest and reward;-)... I was all finished again from ranting, looting .. and no pillaging whatsoever....;-)

Summertime looting and pillaging ride;-)... sore back!

 So, everything is growing like mad, and, being the poor ne´er do well-dewy eyed dreamer that I am (Might as well be called a bum;-)), I set out by bike to do some serious foraging. Apples, it was, near my home, plus some more wild plums, apples the cartload full... lucky me, I brought a BIG rucksack. Next year I´ll build a foraging bike from a frame I still got in my cellar...;-).

 More apples....

 Blueberries are getting ripe as well;-).

 Drui said this is not peppermint, but marjoram... my apologies... it was not toxic, though;-)... seems I am not perfect, after all;-). My thanks for informing me!

A more serious note: Please double check the info, and if you find something that won´t quite fit together, please note me, I am very grateful for it. I am a student of nature myself,  and still learning!

 Found this fleece blanket lying around in the woods...this actually was one;-).

 Salvia officinalis (salvia, in German: Salbei). I collect this for tea and as a spice. as a tea, it´s good against bronchitis (brew with thyme and honey!Or was that time is money?;-)). In summer, it has a cooling effect, and it tastes great! Add some lemon juice and honey to the tea in summer and drink it cool, it´s delicious and refreshing.

 ´Shrooms are ´shrooming. This is a red cap, and I took it home with me, for it was starting to rain, and I could not stand it getting wet;-).

 Wild apples, too. I dry them for tea. You can also take half a pound dark sugar on half a pound coarsely chopped wild apple plus half a handful of melissa, and fill up with one litre of brandy. let it rest for three days in the sun, and three weeks in the dark, pass through, and you have something to cheer on in winter...cheers!

 Boskop and wild apples, great for mousse and on bannock and other pancakes or for baking cake! It´s a firm cooking apple, but I also like it as it is. It also keeps fresh a long time.

 Something to just relish on and make dried apple rings. For that, remove the pips, and slice in thin rings. Either hang them on twine to dry, or use the oven at 50 degrees Celsius with an open door.

 Made myself some wild stew afterwards, with some of the mushrooms, and some dried nettle and salvia fresh from the woods. You need:
1 onion
1 handful of boletus, red or brown caps (or all of them) or whatever non-toxic;-) ´shrooms are to hand;-)
1 cup of pearl barley
1 piece of smoked bacon
potatoes to your liking
three handfuls of dried nettle
1 knifetip salt
2 carrots
pepper to your liking
1 knifetip nutmeg
1 shot of red wine
1small pine cone
five leaves of fresh salvia

2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon juniper berries

Chop onion, grind spices coarsely, slice bacon to little cubes.

Fry onion until glassy, bacon until dark. Add shot of red wine. Add 1 l of water. Add pearl barley, and cook until it opens. Add peeled and chopped potatoes. Add carrots. Cook until done, add water frequently. Turn down the heat, add dried nettles and spices. Chop mushrooms and add. Let them boil, then turn down the heat immediately and let rest for five minutes.

I added some champignons, too. Left the potatoes out, though;-) for I had none;-).

I was all finished, and had a hell of a sore back,  but it felt good to actually reap the rewards!

Loooooonnng foraging ride

It´s been a while ago now that I saddled my steed to get in some herbs for tea, as medicine and for soup, and I figured it wouldn´t hurt to get in some real mountainbike riding along the way;-). I started quite early and made for the hills with some eight mousseline bags I prefer to carry that foliage;-). Some hour of quality riding away from home I came across this light and cozy oak, beech and birch wood, carpeted with loads of sweet woodruff, some nettles and mustard garlic.  I collected a lot of herbs of great quality, and had a very peaceful time doing so.As usual, the birds were singing, and there was a gentle breeze rustling in the new and freshly green leaves. Silent it was, too, and that´s something in this mad world.

I find I relish in the silence of the woods ever more so the older I get. It is like lifeblood for me sometimes to get out and sit on a stump or do something simple, and just feel my breath go in and out. Everything is sprouting now like wildfire. But inside my heart I know, this will pass. It is nothing to be feared. This fact, plain and simple, is life. There is death, and there is life. There is winter, and there is spring. And spring bears the seed of winter, and winter the seed of spring, as long as there is something green to flourish. I love spring as much as I love the darkness and solitude and contemplation of winter. Without a winter, there would not be dreams, without spring, winter would convey not meaning, as would spring, as would life without death.

I find myself entangled in this net of life and death, and the more that is coming to be, the more I find I am lost for words, for he who talks, knows not, he who knows, talks not.;-) I believe that only poetry and mathematics are capable of  a description, but what for? There is the sun. There is the snow. And that over there is coltsfoot ;-) (Tussilago farfara), in German "Huflattich". It´s good against a cough, if taken as tea. Tastes spicy in a salad, too. 

 Strawberry (Fragaria vesca, in German: (Wald-  Erdbeere) in blossom. You can obviously eat the fruit, and from the leaves and flowers you can make a very sweet tea with a mildly calming effect. Good for brokers;-) may prevent them from nervously buying Yen like mad and thusly prevent them from being smashed in the face by a Fimbulmyrk fist, I am kidding!!!!!;-) I´d never hit a broker buying Yen like mad in the face. Because that wouldn´t change anything. Instead I´d counsil them to try some mildly calming tea.;-) Might render them less nervous, and thusly less greedy, rant over and out;-). 

 One of my favourites, sweet woodruff (galium odoratum, in German: Waldmeister). Collect them before blossom and dry or make syrup from them. Sweet woodruff can be used against cramps, against wound infections (inside and outside), as a wound desinfection, and has a vasodiletary effect. Sweet woodruff contains Cumarin, and you have to be a bit careful, because it is mildly toxic. When making spiced wine with sweet woodruff, you should not take more than 3 g per 1 litre white wine. If you take vasodiletary medications as Marcumar, ACC or else, you should consult your doctor beforehand or obstain from using it, for it can have a very serious effect up to a heart attack when used with those medications. Do not frequently use high doses of sweet woodruff, for it is supposed to be carcinogenic. Nevertheless, if you are careful, it makes for a very tasty and spicy drink. In ancient times it was either used by witches to fend off demons or to fend off witches with a mixture of woodruff,St.John´s wort, and mentha pulegium (pennyroyal, in German: Poleiminze). I will give you a recipe for "Maibowle" soon, just watch this space! 

 This is hederacea glechoma (in German: Gundermann, no clue what it´s called in English). While it is poisonous for many vertebrates, including horses, a toxic effect on man is not known, and it is used as a spice. Be a bit careful with the dose in the salad, it might get a bit bitter. It tastes a bit like mint, but with a sharper note. You can also use it as a tea against lung disease, headache and plain old cough. Cooked as a detergent it is antiseptic. In ancient times it was used in beer storage, to preserve milk and cheese, against Hepatitis, pain in the hip, as an aphrodisiacum, and as a protective charm against demons and witchcraft.

 Buds from the European spruce (picea abies, in German: Fichte). They are rich with Vitamin C and etherical oils. I use them as a syrup against the cold, as an antiseptic, and I make a liquor from it. Take one handful of buds, five teaspoons of wood honey, add the juice of one lemon, cover with sugar and let rest for three days. Fill up with some pint of gin, schnapps or other clear, hard booze (min 35% alcohol). Let it rest for at least three weeks. Strain through and fill with some quality fruit schnapps (Obstler) until the colour is a light red. In ancient times they were used against bronchitis, to clean the blood circuit, against articular gout, rheumatism, chronical fatigue and stomach cramps. Taste a bit bitter, but are healthy to boot. Take them also as tea. No witches here, though, for a change;-).

 Pine (pinus, in German: Kiefer) buds. You can treat them as fir buds, with similar results. Have to do some research on them, though, might do for the moment that they don´t do you any harm, are rich with Vitamin C, good against bronchitis, to clean the blood circuit, and that you can make an even better schnapps with them;-). Prosit! (Cheers!)

 I rode for hours on end through the hills, fireroads, singletrails, long, long, arduous climbs and quite some funny downhills, with beautiful scenery all the while, and I met two other persons, a girl and a hunter, with both of whom I had some quality time chatting. Seems people tend to appreciate and respect each other more when they are not as abundant;-).




Got some blueberry leaves (vaccinium myrtillus).
 Taste great as a tea and as spice in syrup and have sort of a blood-cleaning effect, too.

 

 Along a hillside roadside I had to cross I found some steel, too. Perfect!!!!

The sun was already sinking as I rode home. On the map it said I did a circuit of some 110 km, and boy sid I feel it! But it was a greatgreatgreatgreatgreat day out in the not-so-wild with quite a loot to carry home.