Family Farm

Bruce (my husband) and I have been itching to try cross-country skiing for a few months.   A few miles from where I grew up there is a world-class cross country skiing center run by a Scandinavian who is a former Olympic skier.  Before we hit the trails we had breakfast with my grandparents.  My grandmother is the town historian, and has done extensive research on our family's history in particular.    As it turns out, the cross country ski center was first settled by my great-great-great-great grandparents in the 1850's.   They were given a land-grant and acquired the property by farming it for a set number of years.   

The Original Cramer farm. 

Apple trees, I believe, growing at the farmstead site

I have always loved the golden contrast of the Beech leaves in the dark green, brown and white woods of winter.

Bruce learning to ski

I thought this little spot of lichen looked like a hammered silver brooch

Ah.... Hemlock...   

One of my favorite trees

I will be making Hemlock tea in the next few weeks and will report back on it's palatability.    There is an entire blog-worth of hemlock information which will accompany it!   

Sweet Fern, Sunshine & Shadows

On another day, grey and overcast, my husband and I took a short snowshoe at another Wildlife Preserve.  The grey sky and snow seem to elucidate the shapes of the skeletal plants and trees.   

This is a Sweet Fern plant.   A blog viewer recently mentioned Sweet Fern and ironically I had just taken this picture!   Sweet Fern is good for more than just a good cup of tea.  It is not actually a fern, but has fern-like foliage.   It is and has been used for many different purposes.   I have one account of it being used by an Iroquois woman as a poultice for a toothache (ca. 1747) along with other accounts of it being a good toothache medicine.  Modern science has revealed that Sweet Fern contains a rather large amount of  the compound caryophyllene, which is also present in the oil of cloves - used even in the modern day for toothaches.

Sweet Fern is also an astringent and styptic, which means that it contracts blood vessels in soft tissue injuries, helping to stop bleeding.  The Native Americans chewed the roots and drank the tea to treat the coughing up of blood.  Of course, like most medicinal plants, it was used to treat fever and stomach ills.

Sweet Fern also contains compounds found in eucalyptus, so it is not surprising that it can be crushed and used as an insect repellent.  I found one source stating that making a cigarette of sweet fern and smoking it while fishing is good for keeping the mosquitoes at bay.   (By the way, if you ever want to try smoking wild plants, please understand that smoking the wrong ones can kill you - just like eating the wrong ones).  

Most interestingly, Sweet Fern is often cited as being a very effective treatment for Poison Ivy.  I never knew that anything other than Jewel Weed could be used for Poison Ivy!   Hopefully I don't get the chance to test it out this summer.

Lastly, Sweet Fern seems to have some preservative effects, and can be used to line containers holding berries and fruit.   There is, no doubt, some chemical component which helps to keep the fruits fresh for extended periods of time.

Pokeweed!   Poisonous when mature, Pokeweed shoots are said to be delicious.   I will have to post a more detailed account of this plant in the spring when I can try them for myself.  The berries are very dark purple and can be used for dying and as ink.  

We took another snowshoe out on a beautiful sunny day, where the contrast of the blinding sun on the snow and the dramatic shadows compelled me to stop and take some pictures.

Early January

Well... it's not as if I didn't get out at all in January! 

These red pine trees have been planted in dramatic rows.  The area in which they grow is being re-forested as wildlife habitat.   Sometimes when you see trees planted in this fashion they are a remnant of the government work projects created during the depression era.   These trees, I think, are not old enough to fit into that category and I guess they have been planted to aide the habitat creation efforts.  

These red pine trees are very bright orange indeed and are so abundant that the whole forest takes on a strange orange and pink hue.  Red Pine is not mentioned as a source of food or medicine in any of my books.   I do think, however, that in a pinch you could use the needles as a tea and I would bet that they contain a decent amount of vitamin C.  

I believe that the squirrel to whom this pile of acorn shells and pine cones belongs would disagree, and finds the red pine to be a highly nutritious sort of tree.

I am not sure what this plant is - it was growing in sandy soil - but I thought it was deserving of a portrait.