Free Range

“It’s a bird that is otherwise pretty hard to find, but if you walk the bike path… you’re almost guaranteed to see some in the late spring and summer,” Brehm says.

Being outside has educational and mental health benefits, Brehm says, especially when doing an activity such as birding that doesn’t require much besides patience and concentration.

Rural Action is making it a priority to get people outside and learn again after the ongoing pandemic. A festival called Birds in the Hills, which takes place in Hocking County, is a family-friendly weekend learning about the birds in Southeast Ohio.

“A deep knowledge about birds can and should lead to questions about other species that the birds rely on,” Brehm says.

Birding teaches people about how all of the elements in an ecosystem depend on one another. A person can learn a lot just by stepping outside. One thing is for certain: Birds will make their presence known. Often, the human ear will catch the bird’s song before the eye sees the one behind it.

ABOVE | Two Robins cross territory in-flight

Foraging ‘the fat of the land’

Story by HALLE DRAY | Photos by CARRIE LEGG

& PROVIDED

Folk artist and business owner Talcon Quinn is about as resourceful as resourceful gets.

As an eighth-generation Athenian, foraging and wildcrafting using traditional techniques, objects and living beings from her environment has been a lifelong sacred practice.

Whether it’s selecting weeds and roots for wellness tinctures or utilizing junk wire and deer bones for jewelry, Quinn is creative with how she celebrates the land.

“The fact that I’m Appalachian is a huge piece to my business. I really like expressing my roots in my heritage through my work. And as well as that, my larger spiritual belief, which is that we are interconnected with the world, and our community is not just humans and what humans make but also the plants, the rocks, the animals, everything that is on this planet,” Quinn says.

Within the Appalachian wilderness lives a lush and unique cornucopia of edible plants and fungi, which people have reaped the benefits of for generations. Foraging has stood the test of time and remains a highly cherished way of sourcing food in Southeast Ohio.

Quinn grew up knowing her Appalachian grandmother and great grandmother, who both passed down the tradition of using local plants and fungi as food and medicine.

Quinn’s expertise also comes from her studies at Columbines School of Botanical Studies and Hocking College, among other local classes she’s taken. She now pays it ward by teaching her own wildcrafting classes and mentoring people who want to live off the land.

Quinn believes foraging is an act of stewardship and that in order to celebrate nature, we must respect it.

“I think it is a good trend. There’s things to be aware of. Harvesting is a huge issue … Most people didn’t grow up knowing their great grandmother, didn’t have an elder who was like, ‘Go out and pick this for me,’” Quinn says.

Ramps, or scallion-like plants, are particularly sensitive to reaping. Quinn says a good rule of thumb is

ABOVE | Morel mushrooms found foraging.

ABOVE | A backpacker on the lookout for edible plants and fungi.

“My larger spiritual belief... is that we are interconnected with the world... our community is not just humans and what humans make but also the plants, the rocks, the animals, everything that is on this planet.”

- Talcon Quinn, folk artist and business owner

to refrain from digging the bulbs if people have not been mentored on how to do so, as “harvesting the root can be damaging to the stand.”

Quinn also says the commonly known “one-in-10 rule” is not always accurate, especially in cases in which the item being picked is extremely popular, such as Appalachian spring morel mushrooms.

Homer Elliott is a Hocking College Natural Resources faculty member and teacher of wild and edible plants, dendrology, field biology and mycology.

Elliott says overharvesting is likely an issue in the area with spring morels.

“There’s so many people looking for them and not really caring. It just makes it more of a challenge for everybody. It’s all about numbers,” he says.

Pat Quackenbush, parks and museum education program manager at Hocking College and Elliott’s friend and colleague, compares the popularity of hunting morels in Appalachia to the popularity of hunting deer.

“I always say there are two big hunting seasons over here,” Quackenbush says. “Some people who do this regularly, you have to physically torture them for a long time to figure out where their patch is.”

All things considered, both Elliott and Quackenbush are extremely passionate about the benefits of mushrooms. Elliott says mushrooms, such as spring morels, chanterelles and chicken of the woods are especially tasty to cook with and are easy enough — with some patience — to find in the area.

But Elliott says oyster mushrooms, which can be found from late fall through the winter, are particularly special because they are good for lowering cholesterol.

Elliott says aside from being great for health, mushrooms are essential to the environment. “We wouldn’t have the soils that we have or the ecosystems that we have in the first place from the very beginning, when plants colonized land and made terrestrial habitats happen,” Elliott says. “Pretty much all your woody species out there have a relationship with mushrooms, and they linked each other.”

Weeds can be more useful than their reputation leads people to believe. Starting in the green of one’s own backyard can be a great place for beginner foragers, Quinn says. Beginners avoid the risk of

improper harvest and learn to distinguish different basic greens.

Quinn says one can commonly find yarrow and clover in a yard, which is two-thirds of her wellness “trinity.” The third are nettles.

Nettles and clover are two vitamin- and nutrient-rich herbs that Quinn recommends for starters. Nettles’ leaves contain every vitamin and mineral humans need aside from B-12 and can be used for toning the liver and uterus. Clover is high in protein and also heals the liver.

“My grandmother used to have me pick red clover. She used to say it was to help move her blood,” Quinn says. “It’s an old Appalachian term for how our systems get stagnant. It [clover] gets us moving in a more productive way.”

Quackenbush even describes enjoying cattails. “I think it tastes like super sweet celery. [It’s also really good] with peanut butter,” Quackenbush says.

Aside from harvesting, two other vital aspects of foraging that beginners need to be mindful of are legality and poisonous lookalikes.

For the most part, foraging is completely legal and even encouraged by professionals like Quackenbush, especially if the species is invasive. However, a Wayne National Forest representative says at the park, there are certain areas, such as research or special interest areas, that are off limits.

It is also crucial to be mindful of poisonous plants when foraging. There are many toxic look-alikes, so Elliott, Quackenbush and Quinn all recommend bringing a guide out into the woods for first-time foragers.

Besides the obvious — such as poison hemlock, the infamous flower that killed Socrates — there are many more unknown villains. Elliott mentions “false morels,” jack-o-lantern mushrooms, death angel mushrooms and gallerias.

“They’re pretty common around here. They wouldn’t even taste bad if you were to cook them up. They would taste good. But then you start developing flu-like symptoms, and then after several days, it feels like you’re getting better, but then your liver fails,” Elliott says.

Despite the risks, these modern huntergatherers still take to the woods in all seasons to scout the fat of the land. Whether it’s spring morels or pawpaws — or simply wild dandelions — Southeast Ohio foragers diligently harvest.