Bacon Grows on Trees

      Bacon grows on trees. This is a fact I have newly come to accept as truth. Impossible you say? Well....

- Obtain properly identified, harvested, and cleaned oyster mushrooms. 

-Preheat oven to 350*F

-Rip the mushrooms into thin strips along the gills, compost the thicker base part or use it in a soup or something later. Put strips into medium/large bowl.

-Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper

-Drizzle mushroom strips generously with olive oil and salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese to taste. Really you could use all kinds of spices on them..go nuts! Toss to evenly coat all mushrooms. (It's ok if some break...bacon bits!)

- Arrange strips in single layer on baking sheet(s). Bake for about one hour...or until brown and crispy!

That's it! Yes...it's that easy! I'd tell you the shelf life and storage but none of ours have lasted more than two hours uneaten to test that. Enjoy!!

Pleurotus ostreatus

(Disclaimer: Please do not ever use a single blog post to identify your fungi finds. A well researched forager is a safe forager! There are potentially toxic look alikes of oyster mushrooms)

    Don't get me wrong, I do love morels...but there is something particularly satisfying about the first oyster mushroom find of the year. One good log can overflow your forage basket with delicious, meaty goodness, and once you find one flush it seems you just can't stop finding them in the early summer. Oysters are also really fun to grow (visit www.mushroommountain.com if you'd like more information on that!) and are incredibly versatile mycoremediators. 

   But this post is in celebration of the wild oyster mushroom: Pleurotus ostreatus 

Oyster mushrooms begin their fruiting stage as these adorable little buttons exploding out of dead wood. Look for these after the first good summer rains. 

Oysters are a go big or go home sort of mushroom and tend to fruit in gloriously thick meaty clusters. They have a pale flesh (not all white! All white and very very delicate may be the Angel Wing mushroom) that feels damp but firm to the touch. Really the closest texture I have ever felt to oysters is the belly of a dolphin but...that may or may not be helpful to you. My favorite feature is the sweet, spicy, earthy scent these treasures give off. Very much like licorice. If anyone were to capture that scent in a perfume they'd have a customer for life in me!  Once you smell it you will definitely remember it!

Here is what you want to see on the underside: pretty, thin, smooth, white gills that run the whole length of the mushroom. Oysters do not really have a stalk or a stem.

It is important to note that when it comes to fungi what you see on the outside is not the whole picture. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi. They exist solely to release the spores of the fungi, they do not assist in the intake of any sort of nutrition. Think of them like apples on an apple tree. Much like picking an apple doesn't hurt the tree, picking the mushroom doesn't hurt the organism doing the actual growing. However if you were to pick all the apples off of a tree and hoard away the seeds that might be a problem for the growth of future generations. With mushrooms we can avoid this problem by carrying them in open weave baskets or mesh bags. This will allow them to disperse their spores to an even wider area than usual as you wander their forest habitat. Baskets are preferable to bags because they will act as armor for your delicate harvest, but I keep a mesh bag in my forage bag for portability when I'm not sure I'll be harvesting mushrooms. 

When you get home IMMEDIATELY inspect for these little beetle guys, slugs, and other tiny creatures. Oysters are a source of abundance to many in the forest and their sweet smell attracts all sorts of visitors. You can rinse your oysters but be aware that they become water logged and crumbly very quickly. By water logged I mean you can literally wring them out. Soggy, crumbly mess! I just pick out the creepy crawlies with my fingers. Make sure to check between the gills as well. oysters can be kept for several days in the fridge in a paper bag. I haven't had any sort of luck preserving them so I enjoy them when they are available. 

 Oysters are an excellent addition to soups and sauces but they really shine in stir fries! They have a mild, sweet flavor but the firm, slightly slimy texture might be off putting to some. It is always very important to cook wild mushroom thoroughly and oysters are no exception to that rule. 

  There you have it! A crash course on one of the most abundant food sources in the Northwoods. We should be seeing large flushes of these guys throughout the summer but be sure to get there before the hungry bugs do! Or don't and use a nice oyster cluster for photography bait! The fox eats the bird who eats the spider who eats the bug that eats the oyster etc etc. Cue the Circle of Life music...

Capturing Gratitude

   It's a wonderfully wild and stormy moment right now on my homestead. I find forest rains to be the very best conduits for deep thoughts and musings, so that's what's happening here today.

  I really enjoy connecting with other earthy folks on social media. It's quite fun to see all the new lambs and chicks in spring, and the bountiful harvests in autumn. It makes finding answers and ideas so simple and so quick! It allows us easy access to support when things look rough. My very favorite part though is when someone plants a seed or finds a mushroom for the very first time. I feel genuine joy when someone is inspired to try by supportive individuals and communities that they may never have met otherwise. What a blessing of this time in history!

  I do occasionally find myself becoming jealous of my online friends though. Super lush gardens and weighty morel harvests flashing by your eyes as you scroll your social media feed on a good day is full of cheering others on and connecting through shared excitement. On a day where your onion patch is looking weird, your pheasant got his tail pulled out, and you can barely remember the taste of a wild oyster mushroom it's been so long those same images can suddenly become well...less than helpful.

     But bitterness is only attractive to me in medicinal mushrooms so I take a break from comparing myself to others and look around. Really look around. Not in a "let's add this and that and the other to the to do list" sort of way, but really taking the time to stop and take it all in. The whole picture: what was, what is, what could be. You see, no one's victory looks the same as anyone else's and the trickiest thing about your own triumphs can often be recognizing them.

   One of my favorite tools for getting past moments like these is photography. I love to capture images of the little beautiful things on my homestead: the way a dew drop sits on a flower petal, the cascades of flowers from my ever present foe (blackberries, I have blackberry issues), a brief moment between my mother pheasant and her chicks. By slowing down and taking notice of the beautiful and interesting details around me I always very quickly come to the conclusion that hey, I could be doing a heck of a lot worse!

   And here's another little secret I can let you in on: my garden is a complete and utter amateur hour mess but you'd never know it based on the pictures I take! For every succulent spinach photo there are tatsoi seedlings falling over limply just out of frame. Always remember: what you see in a beautiful photograph is only the briefest glimmering moment captured to move and inspire the viewer and it is never the whole picture. But it doesn't need to be because that one tiny glimpse added to another and another eventually makes for a pretty glorious bigger picture.

  So if you are feeling defeated today I invite you to start photographing your homestead. More than photographing though. Use the light and contrast and color to make each snapshot as brilliant and glamorous as you can. Use these details of success to build a bigger picture. A picture of beauty, awe, and gratitude.

(Seriously, I wasn't kidding about the pheasant tail! He's fine, it'll grow back)

An Ode to Sun Tea

   Of all of the foods and medicines that one can make my favorite of both is sun tea! Glorious, refreshing, ever changing, sun tea! And you can make as much or as little as you'd like thanks to the diversity of Mason jars on the planet. But you don't have to get fancy, that empty family sized pickle jar will work just fine! I like to think of this method as a beverage slow cooker.

So you have your clean GLASS jar with a lid. I like to use cheesecloth and the faux sinew I use for tie dying (new stuff...not...dyed stuff... you know what I mean) to make bundles of happiness to put in. Here are some of my favorite mixtures, but it should be noted I always throw a chunk of chaga in too:

Yaupon and mint
Apple, cinnamon stick, black tea
Green tea and pineapple weed
Raspberry, mint, yaupon
Sumac berry and lavender

I could go on, the possibilities are endless. All you need to do is take your tea base (tea bags, loose leaf tea, etc), add whatever fresh or dried herbs you'd like or maybe some fruit (make sure to drink anything you make with fresh fruit within a couple of days or it gets weird), some honey or flower syrup if you like things sweet (we usually skip this and add it to each individual drink if needed), and bundle that all in the cheesecloth. Fill up the jar with hot water. Then you set it in the sunniest spot you can find. Wait at least four hours but you can leave it longer if you'd like a stronger brew. Lift out your bundle and refrigerate your tea. Pour over ice or into glass bottles for travel convenience.

That's it!! Healthy, delicious sun tea for your summer needs!

Do you have a favorite sun tea recipe? Let us know in the comments :)

 Searching for tea ingredients

 Like this mint!

Ahhhhh! Refreshing! 

My Secret Recipe

  With summer humming along here in the Northland you will find my posts easing up in frequency a bit but don't fret! I'll do my very best to do at least a weekly one.

   I've realized recently that my life revolves around food: raising it, growing it, finding it, and cooking it! Often on social media I'm asked for recipes. I'm very sorry to disappoint but I can't really give you anything you can't find in the top five hits on a Google search. Mostly because I don't really do recipes. Or I halfway do them?

  Here's the secret to my toddler/child approved culinary success: science!! Once you understand the chemistry in your food you can fiddle with the details. For instance I have a go to super simple bread recipe yet I continue to wow people with my breads. The base recipe is a basic yeast, water, salt, oil, sweetener (sugar, juice in place of water, honey, etc etc) and flour situation. Once I have all that going on I can get creative with mix ins. Like chocolate chips and a few drops of vanilla, or craisins and sunflower seeds!

   Another favorite in this house is stuff stuffed inside pastry crust. With one simple dough recipe I can create pasties, bolis, small fruit pies, and even some sort of wierd samosa mutant thing I accidentally made once. Get comfy with a few basic ingredients and have fun with fillings.

   Stir fries and soups are also pretty high up on my list of favorite dishes. Why? Because we seem to be chronically broke at the moment and making those is an excellent way to use up those odds and ends hanging out in the fridge and pantry. Stir fries in particular are also fun to forage for since you are putting it over rice or couscous and therefor need less of any given ingredient than what you would use for a soup.

   Cooking has a few very basic principles that need to be recognized especially in regard to chemical reactions and flavor pairings. Once you have those down a whole wide world of fascinating tastes and smells opens up to you. So in the words of the immortal Ms. Frizzle, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!!"

 Birthday peach rhubarb pie for my husband's birthday because I had rhubarb and he likes peaches. Yep, my reasoning in cooking is always that simple. 

Foraged and farmer's marketed stir fry! Mmmmhmmmm healthy goodness!

Ornamental Pheasants 101

   Yay!!! Artemis the mama red golden pheasant successfully brooded and hatched her clutch and let me tell you, the cuteness level of this homestead just went up about a hundred points! All eight babies are doing just fine, already running around the pen after their mother. Artemis doesn't care for it but the chicks don't mind being held at all and will actually look you in the eyes with a beautifully innocent curiosity. I thought this might be a good time to share my knowledge on these beautiful birds.

   Golden pheasants hail from the mountains of central China. Red goldens are a color mutation of the golden pheasant that also comes in peach, cinnamon, splash, and Amherst varieties. All varieties can interbreed and will produce surprise colorations.

    They are extremely cold hardy and need nothing more than some straw and a windbreak during our harsh northern Wisconsin winters. They eat very little and prefer a high protein diet. Ours are on game bird feed but are excellent bug foragers. They have also developed a deep abiding love for watermelon. Their water needs are exceeded by just a dog dish of water that needs to be refilled more from evaporation than from them actually drinking.

   The females are a lovely leafy brown pattern very much like the local partridge while the males have earned the title of "tie dyed chickens" from my family. They require lots of shade in the summer as high heat is not their favorite and too much exposure to direct sunlight will dull the colors of the males. Runs must be covered! These are not free range birds, they have no problem taking off into the wild blue yonder.

    . They are wary birds and don't make friends with humans easily. The brightly colored males are HIGHLY territorial and will not tolerate multiple males. We tried. Didn't go well. We had three males. Now we have Apollo. Males will fight to the death or exile of their opponents. They seem to be able to cohabitate with other non-pheasant species. Ours have lived with turkeys and ducks and currently enjoy a peaceful cooperative existence with coturnix quail. However, we recently acquired some ring neck pheasant chicks and that seemed to ignite some kind of ancestral blood feud! Apollo immediately tried to ninja kick the baby ring necks to death so I isolated him and now the four feisty little chicks are constantly challenging him through the fence.

    As we are looking to get more involved with ring necks and melanistic ring necks, we will be saying farewell to our red golden pheasants but Apollo and Artemis are not going far so we will be able to get chicks again if we desire.

Cuteness beyond measure! 

We were told repeatedly that there was no way red goldens would hatch out and care for chicks. I have a peck mark on my hand that proves this mama is no ordinary pheasant mother! She is 100% ready to fight for her babies! 

 The incubation period for red golden pheasant eggs is 21 days. All except one of our eggs hatched. 

 A caution if you are buying in chicks: they easily fit through chicken wire and peep rather softly so are difficult to find if they get out. 

 This was not a good idea. They had a huge run and multiple females but it was fight night every night at dusk. BAD IDEA.

The quails and pheasants mostly ignore each other except this guy. This is Penguin, one of my quail roos. He torments Apollo and despite the size difference (about 1/6th the size of a pheasant) Apollo always backs down from this tiny tyrant. All fear the mighty Penguin!