instinct drove me into the woods with a basket even though reason attempted the 'surely there are no false morels out there yet?' but there they were, seven lucky finds. my feet also walked me to a new chaga birch even though i already wanted to turn back. i have no explanation for it. maybe i can smell the mushrooms, perhaps they call me in other ways... who knows. i'm just glad the foraging season has started up again.
i couldn't kick the chaga conk off the tree but had my knife so i just whittled it away into a paper bag. it finally rained for the past couple of days so the fungus was moist and soft(ish). it's like a truffle underneath that hard charcoal shell. while i was collecting it, cranes called in the distance and somewhere closer by a raven was making strange sounds. quite the moment.
the oddest find, however, was this completely perfect, white, fresh egg that was on the ground in a dense fir thicket. no nest, nothing there, just an egg glowing in the shade like some strange mushroom, which i assumed it to be at first, of course. it was heavy, but cold, and it took a lot of pondering to decide what to do. could there be a mother bird nearby? should i take it and try to incubate it, and what then? will it just end up being eaten by a fox if i leave it? in the end i placed the egg in a little nook under a root of a tree, just so it wouldn't be trampled at least and in such plain sight.
in the garden, things are greening up, slowly but surely. baby oregano leaves are emerging to accompany the nettle and clover and whatnot now. it's strange to be thinking about winter at such a time as this, but now is the short time window for gathering as much as possible for green powder to last through the winter.
