Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

As per my new year's resolution, I have chosen to go foraging more often this year and I haven't let myself down yet. While I've stuck to fairly easy uses such as leafy greens like dandelion ( Taraxacum spp. ) and lamb's quarters ( Chenopodium album ), berries like black raspberry ( Rubus occidentalis ), and my failed attempts to go after roots from the likes of evening primrose ( Oenothera spp. ) and burdock ( Arctium spp. ). Well today I decided to make a drink that I'v read about in many foraging guides, but hadn't tried until now. Like many wild foods, it goes by several colloquialisms including sumac lemonade, sumac-ade, "Indian" lemonade,  and sumac berry tea. It is in fact an infusion of freshly picked staghorn sumac berries and cold water (made bold to emphasize importance) that is left to sit so that the berries can release their sweet and slightly sour taste. The comparison to lemonade is based largely on flavor, but the first time one gaz...

Over the holidays I received three books that will hopefully spark my confidence in becoming more outdoor oriented and in tune with nature as this new year dawns. While I have always had an interest in the natural world and knew about certain wild foods like "sour grass", cattail roots, and pine needle tea, I'd never made a concerted effort to try and make it part of my life. Looking around at the world, we humans are causing a lot of problems. Global climate change, overfishing, and habitat destruction are just some of those problems and as a result, I've been thinking a lot about my role in the world and what skills and abilities I have to make it a better one if at all possible. I know one thing I'm good at is writing and expressing my love of nature and my interactions with it through this blog. Another thing I'm good at is teaching others about the natural world. When I was a teacher naturalist intern with Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association, my...