Yearly Archives: 2010

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Indian Plum

Plant Identification Quiz #5

This spring has been exceptionally wonderful here in the Pacific Northwest.  The air has been refreshed periodically by the spring rains and gentle breezes.  The sun has shone how its light and warmth can bring forth beautiful bounty.  The plants are coming on strong with much in flower at this time.  And almost all of [...]

Following Fears & Gaining Awareness

Following Fears & Gaining Awareness

When Wilderness Awareness School folks gather, we often pause to thank all the things around us. For me, this has become a powerful reminder of how all life is connected. The plants keep me alive, the sun keeps the plants alive — surely there is nothing that is separate from this whole of Creation. We [...]

Dandelion Tea Recipe

Dandelion Tea Recipe

It’s that time of year again: The time when I dream of eating a hearty bowl of venison-chanterelle stew. And while we’re at it, let’s add some homemade bread and a mug of dandelion tea. Now, this isn’t a stew that came from a can or one of those soymilk-looking containers. This is a stew [...]

Bird Migration

Bird Migration

A Redstart gleams glossy black and is gone.  Kinglets trickle past me, their high calls scattering south.  The birds may be finding their way by seeing the magnetic fields of the earth by virtue of magnetite crystals in their brains, internal compasses that let them perceive magnetism as we would a color.  Birds can also [...]

Wild Blackberries

Wild Blackberries

Today is a wonderfully wet, moist, Northwest Washington kind of day.  The kind of day when you feel the calling to be outside with your hands in the earth.  The gardening season is getting started in some areas of the country, readying the beds, trimming the trees, and planning what your yard and gardens will [...]

Identifying Wild Mushrooms

Identifying Wild Mushrooms – Part 2

Find a Mushroom Mentor… Many years ago, when I was farming in Washington State’s Upper Skagit Valley, I had the pleasure of hanging out with some pretty hardcore mushroom folk. None of these fellas had degrees in mycology or even went to college, but, boy, did they know their mushrooms! How did I know to [...]

Insect Bites Treatment

Insect Bites Treatment

Summertime means insect bites and stings. Ouch! Take a leaf from Susun S. Weed’s storehouse of natural remedies: Soothe, heal, and prevent bites with safe herbal remedies that grow right where you live, north or south, east or west, city or country. The best natural treatments for insect bites are right underfoot. Plantain, also called [...]

Identifying Animal Tracks: The Tracking Funnel

Identifying Animal Tracks: The Tracking Funnel

When asked why I wrote Pacific Northwest Wildlife: A Guide to Identifying and Tracking Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Invertebrates, my basic answer is that there was no comprehensive field guide to wildlife and their tracks and signs for our amazing corner of the world. Pacific Northwest Wildlife is specifically tailored to help naturalists here [...]

Plant Identification

Plant Identification: A Holistic Path

You are out in the forest and looking at the glorious plant life surrounding you. Whether you are a beginner and have never identified one plant, or a Botany professor at a university, you might appreciate this refreshingly simple approach to plant identification. I remember lovingly (and sometimes screamingly) that my college classes in Systematic [...]

Indian Plum

Plant Identification Quiz #4

The rains are drizzling; the sun is a shiny spot in the gray sky. The air smells fresh and clean again. In the depth of a cold winter, the air here does not have much smell to it, but soon as the buds start to appear on the trees and shrubs and bulbs are poking [...]

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