Wild Plants and Wooly Bears: Trout, Dandelions and Groundnuts

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Trout, Dandelions and Groundnuts

Two nights ago I decided to dig a few of the young dandelions that I had eyed for so long. They were small, tender and sweet and other than nibbling on some raw orpine, were the first wild vegetables of the season to grace my table.

My friend Ken Allen shared a thought with me regarding the slow onset of spring. Ken, a year my senior, does not remember an April this cold…ever. Neither do I. We had some real cold Aprils back in the 1970s, but not this cold. Today is April 23 and National Weather Service predicts scattered snow showers this morning.

But those little dandelions served to give me a taste of things to come. Better yet, I went trout fishing yesterday and in addition to catching three brook trout and one brown trout, was able to half-fill my basket-style creel with groundnuts.

So while most people have baked ham for Easter dinner, I look forward to trout, dandelions and groundnuts.

2 comments:

laurie@royalrivergraphics.comApril 24, 2011 at 6:57 PM
I've begun rereading your book on Maine's edible wild plants, and have just caught up on your blog. I love that book (AND your blog) but first read it last fall and have had to wait all this time to have it in hand at the right time for foraging.

Thank you so much for sharing! Tomorrow I hope for some cattail shoots and Evening Primrose.

Laurie
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Abilene SandblastingOctober 31, 2022 at 8:18 AM
Appreciate you blogging thiss
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About Tom Seymour

Besides writing freelance pieces for a number of magazines, I am also a regular columnist and feature writer for The Maine Sportsman Magazine, New England’s largest circulation outdoor magazine. Additionally, I am a regular contributor to Fisherman’s Voice Magazine, specializing in maritime history and human-interest stories. Finally, I write several columns for Courier Publication newspapers, including a home-and-garden column called From The Ground Up.

My book credits include Wild Plants of Maine, A Useful Guide, Hidden World Revealed, Musings of A Maine Naturalist and Tom Seymour's Forager's Notebook, all by Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine. I also wrote Foraging New England, Fishing Maine, Hiking Maine, Off The Beaten Path, Maine, Birding Maine and Nuts & Berries of New England, all for Globe Pequot Press. The Maine Sportsman has published a collection of my wildlife columns in book form as an inducement to subscribers. Finally, Tom Seymour's Maine, A Maine Anthology, iUniverse Press, is a collection of Maine history and folklore.

Foraging for wild plants is my great passion and these figure largely in my diet. I live in a small cottage that sits well off the road on 10 acres of land in Waldo, Maine.