Foraged, not free!
Maybe the dandelion leaves I pick from my garden could be classed as free as nothing else seems to eat them apart from me. But just because I’ve not handed over money to someone for the thing I just collected from the wild doesn’t mean it’s totally free. There is an impact, a cost that’s not money.
Yesterday I found a beautiful hen of the woods, a joyous score of yummy mush. And large windfalls are bounty I can preserve now, as I prepare to live off only wild food for three months in the Wildbiome project.
As always I didn’t take it all but I took a fair chunk, and when I was cleaning it up and getting it ready to dry I discovered a whole city of woodlice and I’ve come along and destroyed their home and taken away their food.I know they just little creatures that probably don’t have the brain capacity to think beyond mating, eating and survival. But they’re still alive.
If this had been another human destroying another human’s home and taking all their food, there would be outrage, it would be in the news and people would be calling for my arrest. hile I was sorting the mushroom I had an image of really angry and shouty woodlice coming at my hands with tiny pitchforks!
This is the cost of wild food and all food eaten.we just don’t see all the insects and small mammals harmed in food industry. Food is not free, and it should have more value than just money. I’m not going to waste a single part of my mushroom because I couldn’t live with the guilt of taking away the food and shelter of another living being and then letting it go to waste.
To absolve myself, after picking the mushroom, I carefully gathered all of the woodlice that were living in there and gave them all the scraps. This included a bit of porcini ,another prize mushroom that I’d picked. felt I had to share with them. I put the woodlice in a sheltered area of my garden with the remainder of their mushroom meal in the hope they live on.However, that’s probably going to have an impact too, Nothing we do is impact free and it’s good to remember that!
