Green is my antidote for the January blahs. I’ve remembered to take my Vitamin D, I go outside for a walk every time that the weather is even passingly nice, and, even so, I always end up feeling like half of a person by the time that January rolls around. I used to blame it on being an introvert and too many holiday obligations but I had no excuse this year. So we packed a backpack full of foraging supplies and headed over to a friend’s house which abuts a large forest.
I had such plans for our first trip – I’d been research evergreens and their uses both magically and medicinally. Everyone said that spruce was the tastiest of them – the tips, of course, but I could start sourcing our spruce now so that we could return to it in the spring. (Que every seasoned forager snickering at me from the corner of the room). I think that I just learned my first rule of foraging: learn to use what you can find rather than going looking for something that might not be there!
Meet my new tree friend, the Eastern Hemlock. She grows everywhere in the back forests behind my friend’s house. One of the traits of the hemlock tree is that she inhibits the growth of many other types of trees around her and indeed this forest appears to be mostly hemlock. Above you see her with one of her two tree companions found nearby – Oak and Birch.
Bemused by our discovery, we headed further inwards.
Soon, we encountered our second evergreen: Mountain Laurel! I’d never considered that Mountain Laurel might be an evergreen but I am happy to be reacquainted with her at an unexpected time.
Mather liked the Mountain Laurel, too! Or at least the other animal who had recently come to visit.
Even among the snow, I found many tiny spots of green. Mosses, lichen, and ferns in abundance.
It’s about then that I remembered why I needed this. Why this walk is so important. That if the smallest moss can make it through the winter, so can I. Still, we move, crunching through the snow, ever onwards.
At last, while enjoying a ice covered stream, we spot something. A smaller evergreen farther down the along the rocks. Could it be? It glows in the light differently…
There she is – one immature Red Spruce. Too young to think of harvesting, surely, but she had to have seeded from somewhere. We thank the forest for her secrets, vow to return to explore this area more, and head home. I return reinvigorated with the knowledge that life always finds a way and that maybe I will find what I am looking for if I just try hard enough.