Bears, 'Coons, Break Hibernation Early

Here’s some news that I think will interest all readers, no matter where they may live. This past week (January 8-13), reports have come in of encounters with raccoons and black bears. Both these species are hibernators and early January is far too early for either to break their winter slumber.

Of course the lack of snow cover and unusually warm weather has to of caused this unseasonable awakening. Of the two, the raccoons pose little problem, except for homeowners who fail to secure their trash barrels properly. But the bears, well, that’s a different story.

In early spring, when black bears typically stir from their long hibernation, they go out in the world hungry as, well…hungry as bears. Also, these hungry bruins typically have a chip on their shoulders, as anyone would who had not eaten for 5 or 6 months. This gnawing hunger makes them mean and ugly and an ugly bear is a dangerous bear.

So if you encounter a bear, do not venture near it. Bear attacks are rare indeed, but if ever the time were right for a bear to become aggressive toward a human, it would be now.

The weather prognosticator tells us that come this weekend, typically-cold winter conditions will return. If that happens, the ‘coons and bears will no doubt return to wherever it was that they chose to hole up for the winter. And of that, we can be glad.

Benefits of an Open Winter

What a winter we have had thus far, with moderate and often above-normal temperatures and no lasting snow cover. And while this lack of typical winter conditions may seem an ominous portent of climate change and dire consequences thereof, let me offer an alternate thought.

I suggest that “open winters,” those times when lack of snow cover allows frost to extend deep down in the ground, have a definite purpose. Certain plants, animals and insects get something like a free ride when winter snows arrive in November and remain essentially intact until sometime in March or April. Then, the insulating value of the snow cover allows for the less-hardy among various species to proliferate. This can result in too many of both beneficial and harmful organisms. In essence, a good, snowy winter skews the balance.

I submit that prolonged deep-down freezing resulting from lack of snow cover and also, desiccation, or what we may term, “freeze drying” of plants, insect eggs and insect larvae, is valuable and beneficial. I believe this process is necessary for the balance of nature. Otherwise, we may be beset with overly-aggressive invasives of all types and also, loss of valuable plant and animal species.

As heat tempers steel, prolonged, snow-free winters temper living things. While it is difficult to prove a negative, I nonetheless believe that the list of possible calamities that could occur were it not for the occasional open winter is long and probably very scary. Consider the toxic plants and venomous insects that winters such as this hold in check. It frightens me to contemplate it.

Nature abhors a vacuum, true enough, and nature has its own way of dealing with abundance and dearth. Were it not so, the world would be overrun with all manner of unpleasantness.

As I see it, this winter (I remember similar winters of long ago, so this is not unique) is the leavening agent that puts every hibernating, latent and or dormant species on a level playing field, and that’s a good thing.

MERRYSPRING Presentation

I mentioned in earlier blogs that I had an upcoming presentation at MERRYSPRING Nature Center, 30 Conway Road, Camden, Maine, scheduled for February 14. The center had not contacted me regarding specifics and today I learned why. The person who contracted with me has left and her replacement has only just settled in to office. I did, however, verify that my presentation will be part of their Tuesday Talks at Noon and is indeed scheduled for February 14 at 12:00 p.m.

I’ll show and narrate a DVD dealing with wild plants of Maine and their various uses. Also, I’ll field questions from participants.

The MERRYSPRING people have indicated that they might like to have me come later in the warm season and put on a field trip. It’s a wonderful place, with woods, fields, wet areas and paths through all. And, of course, it abounds with interesting, wild plants.

For more information, contact MERRYSPRING at (207) 236-2239 or visit their website at www.merryspring.org.

Freezer Foraging Time

Freezer foraging time has arrived. Cold, snow and generally harsh winter conditions have put an end to foraging. The season, though, was extraordinarily long this year, with such goodies as dandelions and dame’s rocket remaining available until well into December.

But now is time to break out those frozen, canned and dried wild foods and enjoy. My freezer brims with frozen goosetongue, lamb’s quarters, fiddleheads, dandelions and even a container of black trumpet mushrooms. And the bottom section of one of my bookshelf houses lots of home-canned goodies. In short, I could, if need be, eat well for several months without visiting a grocery store.

Some may call such as this hoarding. I don’t. Put simply, stores do not offer the same stuff that I pick in the wild or grow myself. Even in the case of domestic vegetables, I find that homegrown and preserved food beats all.

For instance, I recently broke open a jar of full-length, peeled carrots that I canned this fall. Even though coming from a Mason jar, these were far superior in flavor to the insipid, anemic offerings found fresh on greengrocer’s shelves.

So kick back, whip up a meal of those wild goodies you so diligently saved and enjoy. It’s time to reap the benefits of our labors.

By the way, my seminar which was scheduled for 4 p.m. on Feb. 4 at the Country Store in Bowdoinham is cancelled. However, my class at Merryspring on Feb. 14 is still on.

Tom Tries New Plants

What a fall season we have had. Foragers, gardeners and fishermen were able to get out and glean from nature at a time when, in years past, extreme cold and snow would have surely ended our outdoor pursuits.

As for me, some late-season Swiss chard, kale and even dandelions, have kept me in fresh, green vegetables. And the two early-season snowstorms melted quickly, leaving plants and even lawns, looking green and lush. And it doesn’t look as though any major change is due any time soon.

While thinking on plants and such, I wish to mention that my publisher from Just Write Books, Nancy Randolph, has asked me to revise my book, Wild Plants of Maine, A Useful Guide. This should, hopefully, be accomplished in time for a spring, 2012, release.

An upcoming meeting between we two will determine just which new chapters we will feature in the revision. I expect to offer at least a few common plants that should elicit comments such as, “I can’t believe it,” or perhaps, “Those are edible?”

My summer, at least part of it, was spent sampling new plants and trying new or different ideas. Some of it was rewarding, but two were big letdowns. Specifically, I had long read that northern white cedar, Thuja occidentalis, makes a vitamin-filled tea, a tea that tastes like “evergreen.” The leaves of this common tree are said to be edible as well.

And so on supposed good authority, I brewed up a big pot of cedar tea. The resulting aroma had a pronounced pungency, something that got me wondering if the stuff was going to taste the same as it smelled. Much to my dismay, it tasted far worse than it smelled, and it didn’t smell very good. My overall feeling regarding white cedar tea is that it tastes something like a mixture of turpentine and skunk essence. After that initial sip, I simply could not choke any more down.

While I’m sure that white cedar contains all kinds of wonderful vitamins, I can’t think of any palatable way to ingest them. The aftertaste of the infusion, or tea, lasted for a very, very long time. Most unpleasant, as my English friend Malcolm would say. Other plants, though, excelled and those will appear in my book revision.

The other failed experiment, at least to my mind, involved the winged fruits of red maple, Acer rubrum, also called “Keys,” or “gyros.” Various authorities list these as edible out-of-hand, as “trail nibbles.” So back in early summer, when trees hung heavy with these fruit/seeds, I had at them.

The words, “pucker,” and “astringent” come immediately to mind. And as with northern white cedar tea, the taste of maple gyros lingered far longer than I would have wished. I understand that boiling in several waters can reduce the astringency. After contemplating this, it seemed to me that such trouble was simply not worth the while. In a case of starvation and extreme need, boiled maple keys would probably make a nourishing food. But the end verdict, at least as far as my experience goes, is “Yeccc!” Don’t bother. It’s not worth it.

None of these failed tries will appear in my book revision, space being limited and it being reserved for useful, not offensive, plants. But I mention them here for the benefit of anyone reading this blog who had ever wished to try the plants mentioned here. Hopefully, I have saved someone out there from an unpleasant experience.

At the least, you can be assured that everything listed in my book is something that I personally value and most certainly, eat or have eaten, myself. And I think that is vitally important for any book on edible plants.

Meanwhile, if I don’t get another post out before than, let me wish all my readers a merry and blessed Christmas and a happy, healthy and productive new year.

Tom

Lingering Leaves, Late-Season Trout

Deciduous trees shed their leaves in fall. Well, that’s sort of true but not quite. Some trees, beech for instance, hold their leaves until spring. Others, such as some oaks and to my surprise, certain apples, hang on to their leaves a lot longer than seems natural.

The reason for this, I’m told, is that trees that hold their leaves until spring have a need for spring mulch and if the leaves all fell in fall, as in October, they would suffer for it. This sounds to me like a reasonable explanation, especially since I cannot think of a better one.

Another thing that had not come to my attention until this past Wednesday is this. Some trees shed their leaves all at once rather than piecemeal.

An apple tree in front of my house held its leaves until Tuesday night. This, in fact, made it difficult for me to get a good view of the sky and caused me to walk just a bit further when setting up my telescope at night.

Anyway, I went to bed Tuesday and the leaves were all there. Wednesday morning they were gone. And yes, it was windy. But that wasn’t the cause, since instead of being scattered about, all the leaves were, and remain, directly beneath tree. It was as if someone had pulled a lever and “presto,” the leaves all dropped off en masse.

In other news, I took advantage of the lingering warm weather and went trout fishing Friday afternoon. Sure, my fingers got a little chilly, but the trout bit well, making any minor discomfort more than worth the effort.

This is the absolute latest that I have ever taken trout in open water. All of this thanks to new and more liberal regulations on open-water fishing, thanks to the Maine Department Of Inland Fisheries And Wildlife.

And if push came to shove, I could probably have gathered a mess of some kind of wild greens. This warmer winter weather may have serious consequences but for right now, it saves on wood and allows outdoor folks to get out and enjoy themselves even into the last month of the year. For me, that’s a good thing.

Urban Hedgerows

Hedgerows are overgrown strips of land separating two fields or other open areas. Hedgerows typically serve as home to a wide variety of plants, birds, animals and insects. With rampant development eating up farmland at an alarming rate, hedgerows become fewer in number with each passing year.

But another kind of “hedgerow” is popping up, and these, too, serve as sanctuaries for a variety of plants and other critters. I refer to the ditches, vacant strips and similar undeveloped slivers of suburban real estate found between stores and businesses. Every town and city has them, too, and they are visible reminders of what once grew and flourished in a once rural but now urban landscape.

This morning, while waiting for the auto dealer to put a set of snow treads on my Ford Focus, I took a stroll along the retail strip located between Route 1 and downtown Belfast, Maine. Here, parking lots and chain drugstores have replaced woods and fields. I can remember one place, now paved over and home to Duncan Donuts, Sears, Subway and several other chain stores, was once a family farm. I remember the school bus stopping there to let a boy (whose name I forget) off each day. Who ever thought that such a dramatic change would ever take place?

Anyway, these chain stores and other retail businesses, while close together, often have 10-foot-wide patches of unpaved real estate between them.

Many, if not all of these “suburban hedgerows” hold a wide variety of useful wild plants. In fact, urban foragers need not make the trek out to rural locations in order to find useful plants. All they need do is check out the in-town hedgerows.

Today, November 28 was unusually warm. Most of the snow from the pre-Thanksgiving snowstorm had melted, revealing green grass as well as a variety of edible plants. For instance, I saw common sorrel, curled dock, dandelions and common plantain. Most of these plants were in good enough shape to be used for food.

I wondered, though, what would happen if I decided to do some foraging here and someone confronted me. What would I tell them? I came up with several nifty answers, including, “Oh, I’m the Taraxacum (dandelion) inspector,” “Be careful there…this stuff is Glechoma hederacea (ground ivy),” and “It’s okay…I’m going to certify that your Thypha latifolia (cattails) is healthy.”

Upon discovering these urban oases I now realize that no matter how much we dig, cut, build and pave, we cannot stop nature. The plants will go on, no matter what. And that knowledge pleases me no end.

Stink Bugs Overwinter In Maine Garden Debris

I recently got a message on my answering machine asking whether or not I thought that stink bugs could become a perennial problem here in Maine.

My answer, sadly, is “yes.” These insects spread north from Mexico many decades ago and have reached most if not all of the various states.

In the south, these bugs breed year-round. But in the north, as in Maine, they overwinter in leaf litter and other vegetation.

Two types of bugs come to mind. One, the Harlequin Bug, a large, slow-moving orange-and-black bug, is said to be in Maine. I can’t recall seeing one of these, however. But, Tarnished Plant Bugs, brown, drab-looking bugs, are common here.

These bugs, in their nymphal form, damage crops by injecting a certain toxin into the plant at the same time they suck out its sap. This causes deformed leaves, stems and of course, produce.

To keep these garden pests at bay, make sure to remove all dead vegetation from your garden. Also, frequently check under boards and similar items, since this is where adult bugs hide.

Sadly, I had not yet removed all the debris from my garden before the big snow fell. And yes, I had a few stink bugs around last year. These will now have some safe places to hide. My only recourse is to get at the garden as soon as snow melts in spring.

The only good thing I can say about stink bugs and their ilk is that they will probably never become as numerous as Japanese beetles, another non-native, insect pest.