And maybe it’s also all about learning to appreciate the things that aren’t morels – aren’t the most glamorous, desirable, well-publicized organisms out there, the stuff that’s often walked right past, crushed into the ground below our heels as we keep up a good pace to the morel patch, checking again today for first signs of disturbance in the thin leaf litter.
Read more "Before the Morels"During the months of coronavirus lockdown, I’ve been eating more from the wild. I haven’t been working as much, there have been shortages of things I want to eat and I simply won’t wear the mandatory mask to the grocery store. Things haven’t been dire though and I certainly haven’t gone hungry. I just did […]
Read more "Wealth is Good for Us and Our Environment"Brook trout water remains a simple pleasure, as do the trout themselves. I could walk the mountain runs of the Alleghenies for days on end with no rod and remain content. Looking and knowing that the magical little fish are there is enough. I’ve been away too long. Too much pavement, too much […]
Read more "Simple Pleasures"Alexander seemed shocked to see me when I bumbled into his camp, high in the western Allegheny ridges. And he should have been shocked – I was the first human he’d seen since December. I slowly raised my hand in a universally understood greeting salute and Alexander tentatively returned the gesture, still unsure whether to […]
Read more "Reishi and the Noble Savage"It was good to be out today but I felt I was wasting my time. Alright, this wasn’t really true – I was exploring a new place and getting fresh air and exercise which is never really a waste of time. But I was in search of a special mushroom and it now seemed I’d […]
Read more "The Element of Surprise"At the store there’s no 2% milk or the hotdog bun section is bare or our favorite breakfast cereal has all been consumed by the locust swarm – the shoppers who got here a little earlier than we did. Immediately, the mind turns toward survival snaring, the digging of choice tubers or the use of […]
Read more "No Need to Starve"Winter is certainly here now in western Pennsylvania, though the season took a long time making up its mind this year. We ice fishermen are still waiting (most of us, at least). The woods has taken on the stillness and quiet that accompanies shorter days and long and frigid nights. The forest takes […]
Read more "Signs of Life"I spent much of 2019 at my workplace in the middle of Pittsburgh and in driving back and forth from across the county line. I spent a lot more time getting my new business, WikiparX.com off the ground. I’m sure I had more wasted time than I’d like to admit, I did quite a bit […]
Read more "2019 – A Year of Exploration, Adventure and Learning"From April through October, mushrooms brightened my 2019. Within a few weeks of stowing the ice-fishing gear, I was cutting pheasant backs and hoping for morels. In retrospect, it’s striking that I’ve wandered around the woods of eastern North America for 35 years or so, hardly taking notice of the bracket fungi, cap-and-stems and puffballs […]
Read more "A Fertile Fungal Forest"I’m not a climatologist but I do think about the climate. Climate is a regulator of the biome and all the fungi, plants and animals in the woods that surrounds me. And, really, I can hardly help but think about climate. It has been forced on me by an American media who would have me […]
Read more "Climate of Fear (Part 2)"
the dying fish 