Wild foods...

Today I set out to gather some wild foods for supper. Ramps or wild leeks are next to a good venison steak my favorite wild food. Every spring I head out with a lunch and water bottle stuck in a backpack determined to return with the pack filled with ramps. Most people eat only the onion like bulb but I gather the tops as well. Dehydrated, they make the most wonderful spice of them all. I never grill anything without sprinkling a pinch of dried ramps on first. And baked potatoes are never better than when slathered with butter and a pinch of ramps.
The bulbs can also be dehydrated and later added to soups and chilli. But the way I like the bulbs best is fresh and fried with potatoes. The strong garlic flavor is something you either love or hate. Ramps can be found in rich damp hollows of the bigger woods along the river in spring but as summer starts like many woodland plants the tops dry up and die back.





I dug the ramps in a cool hollow above the Little Miami filled with lovely wildflowers. I jumped three does walking in that milled around up on the ridge the entire time I was there. I would think they had left then would stand after digging some ramps or looking at a wildflower only to have them snort again. I dont think they ever did move off of the same hillside. After thirty years of being around deer, I can never tell just what they are going to do in any situation.






Rue Anemone




Toadshade Trillium




mayapple







waterleaf







After collecting enough ramps for supper, I went to an old farm left to ruin to look for some morels. In a low swampy hollow there is the remains of an old spring house. Just the old foundation mostly crumbling down and the old pipe drove into the bank to gather spring water. Here in the grass I found some pretty yellow morels poking up here and there. Hard to find in the grass, I found one squished under my pack when I went to leave.




















Later, at dads, we took a walk thru his woods and found another mess of darker morels on a bank scattered here and there. Not a bad haul for one day poking around in the spring woods.