Ramps, Garlic-mustard, Fiddleheads and MORE!!! It's THAT time of the Year

Ooh yeah, it's that time of the year in the north east United States!!!

I happened to be near my ramps spot wehen running errand so, I decided to check if our wild leaks had started to come up. And to my surprise they had!!!

The place I go to for ramps is behind a business. I had asked permission to use their parking lot and go through the ground to get to the creek where I forage. You'd be surprised how much people are willing to let you walk their property to forage weird wild foods. And really you should ask permission to be there if it's not yours or a buplic space, it's only right.

The funny thing in this instance, was that between last year and this year, the business had been sold. So, when I pulled up with my old, loud rust bucket of a F250, heads turned, and they were people I didn't know. These new owners, were welcoming and after a little explanation of what I was there to do, they happily let me go but my business. I gave the woman of the new family that bought the business a large handful of ramps as a token of my appreciation. She smiled and said they would try them that evening. I'm excited to hear back from them because they had never heard of wild leaks!

I'll find out this weekend when I go for more.

With a little leftover turkey, mayonnaise, and toast, we made ourselves nice sandwiches and topped it with beautiful ramps, sautéed in duck fat!!! Aaah so delicious!

The next day, on the way to pick up my little human from his crazy unschooling school, I stopped by my fiddlehead spot to check where they were in their growth cycle... I was almost too late!!!

There were a few clusters to pick from, I was happy to get a couple good handfuls, a few bunches of garlic-mustard greens, and a about a dozen Japanese knotweed shoots.

I also stopped by our little eco-village to be, to check if the oyster mushrooms were starting to pop up... There was nothing, not yet. I think it's still too cold!

But I did find a few things along my way and cleaned up our camp sites, because the people are starting to camp and that's a nice side income!!!

I'm not sure what kind of bone this is, but there it was, the remains of another creature's feast!

And then there was his nest that must have fallen out of the trees during one of this passed winter storms.

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Well, with the spring well on its way now, campers starting to venture out into the forests to get away from the cities, and wild food making more of an appearance lately, it looks like we are going to have an end to a gruesome winter after all. I cannot wait to keep on moving forward this year with our many projects!!!!

Let me know what you think of foraging, if you go out there, or if you'd like to learn your local wild foods, I'd live to hear your thoughts.