Rain and rose hips

Today, collected wild rose hips (from single, pink flowers)and ground cherries.

We finally got some rain, so everything is now grey and wet. Other hickory nuts are falling, I need to see if any of them are sweet, and collect them if they are.

I had put a few acorns, from last week's walk with the kids, into a plastic bag, and today one has sent out a radicle! Need to get a few planted. Also need to check for the giant acorns under some large oaks that grow beside the road not far from here. I am always afraid someone will decide to widen our road or cut them down for some other reason.

Camp-out Collections

This weekend, camped out at a friend's, and after staying up all night giggling like teenagers, we enjoyed the day outside. I took a morning walk with my friend's daughter, picking up hickory nuts, acorns (their woods are full of white oaks), and a few hedgeapples.

Gathered seeds from a beautiful maple by their pond, the leaves were simpler, and turning red. Will have to look it up.

I've gone nuts!

Finally, the nuts are falling. I went into the woods today with the kids, and we gathered hickory nuts and acorns from some white oaks. Also seedpods from Eastern redbud and honey locust ("A curvy Ipod!" said the 5yo, when she found one.).

A few of the persimmons are on the ground, but they won't really be ready until late fall.

The first hickory nuts we found were still closed in their hulls, we had to open them. Later, we found the nuts from trees closer to the edge of the woods, higher up a slope, and they were fully opened, the white kernel poking out, or sometimes free on the ground; I wonder if the amount of sunlight they receive affects this. Anyway, we wasted some time opening hulls (I won't use those nuts for seed trades), but they will still taste great, and we had fun gathering and sorting, finding leaves and bugs, mushrooms, a turkey feather, and a fairy house at the base of one of the oak trees.

Hopefully, we'll get more chances to gather, maybe even tomorrow. There are huge amounts of nuts everywhere.

The acorns were mostly wormy or rotted, once we cracked them open. A few good ones, and I even tasted a couple, to see how bitter they were. Some of the nutmeats weren't too bad, and the texture reminded me of a cross between other nuts I've had, and a raw potato. If we find enough good ones, we'll leach out the tannin, and try to make acorn flour.

Noticed today that the rose hips in the yard are turning, gathered a ripe one at the baseball park yesterday, looked like a Knockout type rose? Will have to check. The plants were loaded with hips.

Berries

Today, berries from flowering dogwood in town, also have yew berries. Need to research both.

A Good Seed Day

Have been having that strong gathering feeling that comes with fall, and got to "feed the need" a bit today, while we were out and about. It's not quite time to start collecting nuts, but it will be soon.

Today, collected:

Lilac, from house in town

From Mom's:

Amaranthus, Intense Purple
Various Lilies/Iris
Buckeyes
Peonies (white, from divisions from our house)
Hibiscus, white
Hedgeapple
Ash(?)

Cone from a beautiful spruce in town with draping branches

From herb bed:

Motherwort? (need to check identity)
Oregano
Hyssop
Yarrow
Lemon balm
St. John's wort (check identity)

Also from home:

Chicory
Red clover (check to identify; may be a runner?)

Also bought a table (at the house with the beautiful spruces) with lovely trays designed to hold typeset. I'm thinking they could be used somehow in my seed sorting/drying. If not, there are a million other uses for them, I'm sure.

All in all, a nice day...but I still have my mental sights on that mossycup oak by the bridge outside of town...

Gathering

I love to gather seeds. Everything about the process makes me happy, from browsing a vine for ripe seedpods, to rolling and tapping those pods, or the stem of a dried flower head, between my fingers, watching dark seeds pour out onto a white dish, then sifting those seeds with my hands, letting the chaff be picked up and carried away by a breeze. I go into my head, and am perfectly content. Sensory bliss.

Have you ever reached down into a bag of wheat? Thousands of cool, smooth grains pressing, surrounding your hand; you lift your hand, and they pour out of your palm, dry, but moving like water.

So I'm nuts. But I like seeds (and nuts count, too)!