Field Notes from Jess ~ Rewilding in 2021 | Week 33/52 | Summer
Aug 08, 2021
Field notes from Jess ~ Rewilding in 2021 | Week 33 of 52 | Summer Foraging Date 
We could have hiked in, but it was so fun to jump on the 4-wheeler with GF @missyabruce for a few laughs and the wind in our hair as we high-tailed it across the cow fields. We parked our ride at the edge of the hay field and did some exploring and foraging by foot. I was scouting for skunk cabbage!
I had made this beautiful Foragers basket last weekend and learned that I could line the basket with these big full green leaves before picking blackberries. You can then fill the basket to your hearts desire and not stain it or have the blackberry juice run through. Brilliant!
Skunk cabbage has a smell that is really unpleasant, but the beneficial pollinators love it! It’s like perfume for bees and butterflies. I had heard that is is actually the sci-fi looking flowers that cause this plant to have an odor, but given that we are in August, the flowers are long gone and I did not notice a smell. (Oh hey skunk cabbage leaves are toxic to ingest so they are definitely not a plant to harvest as a food source).
The blackberries are full-on right now. This is a Pacific Northwest classic top 10 in terms of great date ideas. So grab a friend or a lover and spend an afternoon meandering through a field or along the edge of the woods. The sweetest conversations happen while picking and tasting berries.
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