2024 November 28 Gratitude and Reciprocity

For over 40 years, my family has spent the week of Thanksgiving in Mohican State Park. I’m currently sipping coffee and watching the Mohican River slide past cabin #7.  Juncos and woodpeckers hop from branch to branch above. It’s chilly. Last night there was audible sleet and hail on the roof. 

A lovely Enoki mushroom cluster in moss on a log, Flammulina sp. 

I am grateful to my late Welch grandparents, Alice and Ervin Forrest, on my dad’s side, for starting this tradition. I’m grateful to my mom and my late dad for bringing us down from Cleveland every year. I’m grateful for the hiking memories, fires, forts, and full bellies when we returned from the woods. I’m grateful for a forest whose trails I know by heart, and a river that bends and flows. 

A perfectly formed Auricularia sp. also known as “Tree Ear” mushroom for obvious reasons.

I felt pure joy yesterday while Carli and I spent the morning hiking. We didn’t go far but we saw so much natural beauty. Surprisingly, the ground has not really frozen yet, so there are still tons of native green plants and beautiful flushes of mushrooms everywhere. I learned so much about the composition of the forest floor this time, with a sharper eye for plants and some great identification apps. I can’t wait to spend some days in the near future studying the native plants I never heard of until now. This is fun. I’m constantly inspired here.

Sochan, Rudbekia lacinata, an indigenous food source, still green on the partial shade forest floor beside the river. 

Carli and I are in the middle of The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I’ve read Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss by the same author. It feels good to read about reciprocity with nature from Indigenous perspectives on this colonial holiday. 

So happy this book came into the library right before coming down to Mohican State Park. Libraries are great models of reciprocity, by the way.

We never expected to find edible mushrooms this time of year. Carli and have had our eyes open for quite a few years now, and we’ve only spotted waterlogged remnants of laetiporous or pleurotus species. For that reason, we never bothered to apply for a foraging license. I love that the Ohio State Parks allow foraging within reason. Next year, we will apply before heading down. I would hate to miss out on a flush of oyster mushrooms or enoki like we witnessed this year! I like being in reciprocity with this forest. We can eat from her, and we’ll pick up and properly dispose of litter we find while out hiking. Giving back is an important part of mushroom hunting. I wish mushroom hunting books mentioned things like ethics and reciprocity along with ways to identify edibles.

Perfectly edible oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus sp. Frozen in their prime condition. 

Beautiful all around.