If you’re itching to get out and pick some wild berries this year, I have good news for you: the strawberries are in. They won’t be for long and they won’t offer the volume of picking as later berries, but they’re still worth pursuing.
It’s my opinion that wild strawberries are a good way to get kids interested in foraging, or at least engage them in conversation about where food comes from. For one thing, wild strawberries are very tasty; they’re typical of wild berries in that they’re smaller but have much more flavor than their cultivated counterparts. Another reason is that most any kid should recognize a wild strawberry as something they already know as food, and putting that berry in their mouth directly from the plant is a special way to connect with the natural world.
That’s an awful bigoted slogan in my book. While one should pay attention to anything that follows the rule of three – be it the fire gong in an office building or three leaved plants, not all three leaved plants are harmful. Box alder and virignia creeper is common along river banks and partial sun exposure ecosystems in Upstate NY but it is harmless – it’s not Urishol bearing poison ivy.
I am terribly allergic to Urishol. This sap gives me blisters that can easily explode on my skin, pop and be an itchy, goo filled mess. One my face I’ve had my eyes swell shut and it’s hard to breathe. Often poison ivy hangs out close to immature box alder and Virginia Creeper as they like similar ecosystems and in some forms can look alike. But I don’t fear or stay away from Virginia Creeper and all three leaved plants, I just look carefully to ensure no poison ivy and be on my way.
Been reading about voles online after reading about it in a book I’ve been reading. I was curious about them, mainly because I wanted to know if the ones I find at camp were field mice versus moles. I better brace myself for a shit ton of social media advertising going forward by exterminators.
Mutinus elegans, commonly known as the elegant stinkhorn, the dog stinkhorn, the headless stinkhorn, or the devil's dipstick, is a species of fungus in the family Phallaceae. A saprobic species, it is typically found growing on the ground singly or in small groups on woody debris or leaf litter, during summer and autumn in Japan, Europe, and eastern North America. The fruit body begins its development in an "egg" form, resembling somewhat a puffball partially submerged in the ground. As the fungus matures, a slender orange to pink colored stalk emerges that tapers evenly to a pointed tip. The stalk is covered with a foul-smelling slimy green spore mass on the upper third of its length. Flies and other insects feed upon the slime which contains the spores, assisting in their dispersal. Due to their repellent odor, mature specimens are not generally considered edible, although there are reports of the immature "eggs" being consumed. In the laboratory, Mutinus elegans has been shown to inhibit the growth of several microorganisms that can be pathogenic to humans.
Usually getting a sporting license in New York is much more of a pain then it really should be.
Stores never have the paper, or a clerk, and DECALS always crashes. Hell, even when I go the NYS DEC World Headquarters vending window at 625 Broadway Albany, New Yak 12233, staffed by central staff in the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife they are struggling to make DECALS website or their printer work. You’d think at the DEC World Headquarters, they’d know what they are doing.
I went to Tanner’s Outdoors Sport in Spectulator today on my lunch break, and I was in and out in less then 2 minutes. I barely had time to count the $25 out before they handed me my new fishing license. I think that’s the first time that’s happened in my life.
bLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH you should get your lifetime sporting license. And I probably should but that seems like such a damn commitment to the future.
