A few days ago I wrote about my intention to go “snow shovel foraging.” Since then, umpteen feet of snow have intervened and my plans for digging for wintergreen and ground ivy are on hold.
I still intend to do my winter foraging, but it seems like a good idea to wait until the snowpack shrinks just a mite. Call me timid…but wallowing around in waist-deep snow doesn’t thrill me. Were it absolutely necessary, sure, but as long as I don’t absolutely have to, “I ain’t a-gonna,” as my grandpa Tom White used to say.
Anyway, this winter weighs heavily upon my sun-starved soul. Dark days follow each other in painfully slow succession. And when it isn’t dark and cloudy, it is way colder than we might hope.
I find myself asking, wondering if spring will ever arrive. And just when it seems as if the answer is “no,” someone will call me on the phone, wanting to set up a foraging trip for next spring or summer.
So every once in awhile, I’ll take a stroll, so to speak, through my calendar. Doing that cheers me greatly.
Also, working on new writing projects (in addition to my regular columns and magazine assignments) helps me keep my chin up. The latest item on in the works, a forager’s notebook, will feature a monthly write-up of a featured wild plant, weekly household tips and line drawings, by me, of the various plants.
The notebook will come into being through the kind auspices of Nancy Randolph, publisher of Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine. Just Write did my Wild Plants of Maine, A Useful Guide and also, Hidden World Revealed, Musings of a Maine Naturalist.
The notebook, meant for people to write in and keep notes, comes as a companion to Wild Plants of Maine.
Finally, be cheered knowing that we have only 40 days to wait until spring. We Mainer’s can surely handle that.
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