Wild Food Wanders

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the time of Shelter in Place, we’re finding time outdoors more nourishing and crucial than ever.  Connecting with ourselves, others and nature through gathering food from the land puts us in touch with aspects of human existence that continue to matter, as part of our collective heritage.  With that in heart and mind, in the knowledge that we’re currently permitted to gather outdoors, and knowing that it’s easy to meet plants and mushrooms while keeping responsible space between us, What Got Gathered is still planning on conducting Wild Food Wanders.  We’ll stick with the current plan (specified below), and will also happily arrange private foraging walks on other days as well.  Let’s “stay at home,” and be reminded together that the forests, prairies, marshes, riverbanks, treetops and sky are home to us all.  Now back to what we already wrote:

We’re excited for this year’s growing season, and looking forward to sharing the joys of foraging with you!  Andy Gricevich will again lead a series of wild food wanders in, around, or not all that far from Madison.  We’ll talk about motivations for gathering wild plants & fungi for food and medicine, harvesting ethics, safety and identification.  Sometimes we’ll hunt for particular species; at other times we’ll wander more freely, using freshly honed skills of awareness to see what shows itself to us.

Be ready to go off-trail, move through buggy, thorny and muddy spaces, sample the flavors of the forests’ abundant pantry, and connect with our deep evolutionary capacity for recognizing the patterns of nature.

Specific locations will be decided based on the transportation situation (which might involve car-pooling) of the participants, and will be announced well in advance of a given date. 

Each wander is $40/person for a three-hour walk; each walk is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., though we may ask participants if they’re able to meet at alternative times in some cases.  There’s a limit of twelve participants per walk, so sign up now to reserve a spot!

Andy Gricevich is a self-taught forager whose six or seven years of obsession have given him the wild food knowledge of an indigenous four-year-old.  He’s excited to share that constantly growing knowledge with you, employing the vocabulary of a Euro-American in his middle 40s.

NOTE: We’re planning for three-hour sessions (not counting travel time, if we get out to Governor Dodge or Devil’s Lake, for example).  It’s easy to imagine running as much as an hour longer; it’d be a good idea to plan for some time-flexibility.

ANOTHER NOTE: All participants will be required to sign a waiver.  We won’t tell you to eat anything we’re not 100% certain of.

ONE MORE NOTE: We also hope to host a number of pop-up walks this year, when we realize conditions are perfect for something, and we don’t already have a walk schedules.  Follow us on the icky Facebook, and/or sign up for our mailing list (possible soon) to stay in the loop!

ONE MORE MORE NOTE: We’re also open to scheduling private wild food walks!  Write to whatgotgathered@gmail.com if you’d like to talk about that.