Look, Don't Pick

Although it's probably impossible to see, there are

three turtles sunning on a stick that lies beyond

and between the two trees in the middle of this photo.

I recently learned of a national wildlife refuge near my home, and I've been excited to visit it because it includes wetlands, a habitat I haven't much explored for edible plants. Alas, my excitement burst when we pulled into the parking lot and saw that, although hunting and fishing were allowed, picking vegetation wasn't. It turned out that dogs also were not allowed, so we had to drive ours back home before starting on our hike (apparently this no-dogs rule did not apply to the two women who were just ending a walk with their dogs as we left the parking lot, but I digress.)

A better view of some different turtles.

After depositing our dog at home (and calming my middle son, who had become hysterically concerned that the police might arrest us for bringing our dog to the refuge, despite the fact that she had not left our vehicle and was certainly not disturbing any wildlife), we were on our way. I was sorely disappointed that I wouldn't be able to return to the refuge to collect anything I identified, but I reminded myself that just identifying plants is good practice. Plants in their natural habitat don't always look like the pictures in the guidebooks (although some do, especially when the guidebook is a good one); what's more, just as every person looks a little different from every other person, plants within the same species don't look exactly alike. It's also helpful to get a mental picture of the habitat in which a plant lives; if I could identify any plants in the wildlife refuge, it would help me to recognize those same plants in similar places where I might be allowed to forage.

Chickweed

Our trail started out hugging the side of a river, and all along the path I kept seeing patches of the same lush plant sprouting through the brown leaves. I thought I recognized it as chickweed, which supposedly is ubiquitous but which I had yet to find outside of my foraging books. I bent down and plucked a single leaflet (shh!). The two pairs of opposite leaves and the single line of hairs along the stem confirmed my suspicions. (I tried to keep the leaf for further confirmation against a picture in a guidebook at home, but it had wilted by the time I got there.) Given the restrictions on picking vegetation and my desire to compare my notes and the picture I took to the details in my books before consuming a new plant, I still haven't tasted chickweed, but it's supposed to be a mild-tasting and nutritious salad ingredient, so I hope to look for it in other wet places and find enough to make a good contribution to a meal. Last year the boys and I learned to identify sheep sorrel and wood sorrel, both of which grow all around our house and have a delectable lemony zing but are too strongly flavored to make a good salad all on their own. Until this weekend, I had only learned to identify one neutral green (wild spinach) to complement the sorrel, so this was an important and exciting step toward delicious all-wild salads.

This sign, reading "Shagbark Hickory," confirmed

my earlier identification of similar trees.

Although chickweed was the only new plant I found, I also came across a sign that positively confirmed my earlier identification of hickory trees (see photo). In addition, the boys (with help from their grandfather, who has been visiting us this week) got to touch a garter snake, catch a frog, and see a beaver lodge, several turtles, some ducks, and a large and gnarly wild apple tree. I also spotted some bushes with particularly red branches, which rang a bell and will require further investigation. We'll have to pay another visit to the refuge soon; as spring arrives in full force, we'll be sure to identify even more edible plants. And, if any happen to be considered invasive species, well, I just might see whether the ranger would bend the rules a little.

Catching frogs.

Sometimes It's Better Not to Know Where You're Going

The fire road we walked at the end of our

hike and last year’s dead Japanese knotweed

stalks on the left.

 It's not officially spring yet, but the weather this weekend made it feel like it was. On Saturday all five of us -- me, my husband, and our three boys – packed a picnic lunch to take on a loop trail we'd seen a few weeks ago. We had no idea how long the trail was, and we failed to consult a trail map; we had just noticed a trail sign saying "loop" and figured we'd see where the arrows led. From this information you might conclude that we have little hiking experience; if you happen to know that we in fact have extensive hiking experience, then you might conclude that we were feeling adventurous. As it turns out, it somehow just did not occur to us that a sign that said "loop" but gave no indication of the mileage of this loop could be anything more than a quick trip.

So off we went. The trail starts from an open field where the kids and I often picnic. We usually eat atop a giant rock that just begs little boys to climb on it, but today we continued past the rock to the far edge of the field, where the "loop" sign points into the woods. At first we picked our way across several trail-wide mud puddles and wondered whether we'd picked the wrong season for this trail, but fortunately it soon began to climb to drier ground. We encountered frequent helpful "loop" signs pointing the way. As the first real

A great climbing tree!

ascent began to taper off, we came to a magnificent climbing tree whose three large trunks made the perfect seat – our boys longed for such good tree-house material on our own property. After the boys all had a chance to sit in the tree, we moved on to the next trail junction and "loop" sign, which much to our surprise indicated that the loop went farther up the hill, away from our starting point. So, with a  lingering dash of skepticism, we kept climbing. Eventually we came to another trail junction – this one pointedly missing a "loop" sign or any arrows.

My husband, who has an infallible and impressive sense of direction, figured we should turn to the right. I wondered whether we were intended to keep to the main trail, only because we hadn't been told to do otherwise. Admittedly, though, the main trail was not going in the right direction, and we'd already been hiking for quite some time. We could see a nice picnic spot on a stone wall a little ways down the trail to the right, so we veered off and stopped to eat our lunch.

Hello, spring! Sprouting chives.

With full tummies, we then proceeded down the trail and came to a little cabin and an education center. There were some picnic tables out on the lawn, but no sign of a continuing trail. We thus backtracked to the main trail and continued to the next trail junction, where once again there was no "loop" sign to guide us. Fortunately, while my husband and I were debating the best course to take (and the kids were running wildly ahead on their own despite our instructions to the contrary), another couple and their dog came along. We mentioned that we were trying to hike the loop, and to our pleasure they seemed to know exactly which loop we meant.  They pointed us to the right and said we'd hit a fire road in a little bit. We'd then follow the fire road until it intersected another trail on our right, and that would lead us back to our starting point.

My 6-year-old looking through a dead

Japanese knotweed stalk. Japanese knotweed

is hollow, like bamboo. You can see the rest

of the clump behind him.

All of this turned out to be true, and although the loop took us beyond our 2-year-old's nap time (and although this meant I had to carry him for much of the way), I'm glad we didn't know the length of the loop at the start. We would definitely have deemed the trip too large an undertaking given our late-morning beginning, and we would have missed out on a pleasant walk, not to mention a great climbing tree and a nice picnic spot. What's more, I would have missed seeing the little tufts of chives sprouting at the base of our favorite picnic rock and hinting at spring. I would have missed the multitudes of nutshells scattered about beneath a tree at the picnic area near the education center (although the tree looked a little different from the shaggy-barked trees I discovered on our recent bike ride -- see my previous post – the nuts looked identical, so I'm guessing this was a variety of hickory). And I would have missed the stands of Japanese knotweed along the edges of the fire road. (Japanese-knotweed-strawberry pie is reportedly even tastier than strawberry-rhubarb pie, which is one of my favorites; incidentally, when I pointed out the dead stalks at the side of the fire road and excitedly made plans to come back to harvest the new stalks later this spring, my husband raised his eyebrows a little -- he remembered the weed growing at his childhood home but never knew the plant was edible. In fact, most people with Japanese knotweed on their property have no idea it's so tasty but would dearly love for people to pick it; it's considered an invasive weed that can strangle out other vegetation.)

I also would have missed noticing several trees with a peculiar habit of sending multiple branches sprouting from a single point along the trunk. I remember reading that a distinguishing feature of the hackberry tree is that it produces "witches' brooms" in which several branches sprout from one place like this. This multiple sprouting is caused by a fungus that commonly infects the tree. The bark of the hackberry tree is rough and ridged, which

At several places along its trunk, this tree is

sprouting multiple new branches. I’m wondering

whether it might be a hackberry tree, which 

produces edible red berries in the fall.

also fits the description of the trees I saw. Now at home, I have learned that the twigs are greenish or reddish brown, so I'll have to examine the twigs of this potential hackberry the next time we picnic in our field (the trees are alongside the path to the field from the parking area). Hackberry trees produce edible red berries in early September, and the berries apparently can remain on the tree throughout a good portion of the winter (I didn't see any berries on these trees, though).

Finding four edible or at least possibly edible plants when just about all the vegetation is still brown and dead isn't too shabby! Add in some exercise, a pleasant walk, and a great climbing tree, and I'd say getting a little lost isn't always so bad.

Shagbark Hickory?

A shaggy-barked tree along our bike route and my middle son showing the nuts we found on the ground nearby.

It's not often one can go cross-country skiing and bike riding in the same week on the same trail, but this week it was possible. We got out the cross-country skis for the first time this winter after our only real snowfall of the season hit us on Thursday last week. Today, the boys and I took advantage of the sunny, 64-degree weather and took out our bikes. Only a spot or two of snow was left in the path.

Because I had to make frequent stops to help my middle son get back on his bike – his steering isn't so good yet, and he kept braking to avoid hitting various obstacles or careening off the path – I noticed that a number of trees by the side of the trail had unusually shaggy bark. That bark seemed slightly familiar, like something I had read about in one of my plant books, so I took some pictures for future reference. Then I noticed some old, cracked nuts beneath one of the trees. And beneath another. The nuts looked just like some my eldest son had found on a recent walk in the woods near our local playground (he'd pocketed those nuts for future identification, but we hadn't identified them yet). Ah ha! A nut tree with shaggy bark: the shagbark hickory (or the shellbark hickory, perhaps).

Now, back at home, I've looked up the hickory tree in a couple of my books, and the details seem promising. The shape of the nut (oval) seems right, and the size of the tree and bark description (light to dark gray) seem right, too. We'll have to go back in the spring to see whether the leaves also fit the description; if my guess is right, we'll have to wait until the fall to collect the fallen nuts.

We won't mind taking this trail again to check up on our trees, though. We saw a couple of horses out for a walk (we crossed paths at a narrow bridge and dismounted our bikes so that the boys' unpredictable steering wouldn't spook the horses, which the riders greatly appreciated), sped through lots of mud puddles (and didn't fall into any of them!), and even found several plank or log bridges crossing the little stream at the side of the path. Any outing with that many bridges automatically counts as a success in this family – but the nut trees are a nice bonus!