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philosophicalfolia

We went hard for harvest time today! 🏃‍♂️

We went hard for harvest time today! 🏃‍♂️🍄‍🟫🍂

While some other foragers may have gotten to all of the oyster mushrooms from the log we planned to go back to on our favorite running path (since it would’ve been a shame to harvest them that small), it didn’t stop @cjordan211 and I from running deeper into the forest with our tiny backpack to find other surprises!

Identifying, harvesting (including running with mushrooms for 10 miles 😂), cleaning, and cooking mushrooms is serious work, but I obviously think it’s fully worth it for these healthy, delicious, umami-packed meal staples! If you go out, this fall, be sure to cross-reference your mushroom IDs and stay safe, but have fun enjoying the gifts of nature, as well as the adventure! 🤩🌲🌳

🍁 Slide 1: Turkey tail and (probably) honey mushrooms (not harvested).
🍁 Slide 2: Finding our first chicken of the woods (laetiporus sulphureus).
🍁 Pholiota aurivella (not considered edible) and some other beautiful, unharvested finds, as well as the chicken of the woods we harvested.
🍁 A classic edible - dryad’s saddle (cerioporus squamosus).
🍁 Dryad’s saddle, baby chickens (etc.), unidentified LBMs (little brown mushrooms), and a rooting polypore (polyporus radicatus - probably edible aside from a tough texture but I am going to do more research).
🍁 Resinous polypore (ischnoderma resinosum), a meaty, steak-like, edible mushroom that I am excited to marinate and cook like a steak.
🍁 Chicken of the woods tacos (delish!), seitan (protein from flour that has a texture and taste like chicken if prepared properly), and pressure-cooked seitan with some dryad’s saddle and chicken of the woods.
🍁 A huge harvest of honey mushrooms (armillaria mellea - edible) at sunset.

Don’t be a chicken to foraging ‘shroomies! It’s never a bad time to get your foot in the door and start with very easy to identify species with no real toxic lookalikes, such as chicken of the woods!

🐓🍄‍🟫🐓🍄‍🟫🐓

Busy as a freaking BEE! 🐝 Lately, I… 🍎

Busy as a freaking BEE! 🐝

Lately, I…

🍎 Got some hard cider brewing (and used an actual hydrometer to take the initial reading of the specific gravity so I can calculate ABV when it’s done)
🍎 Made normal apple cider
🍎 Made spiced dried apples in the dehydrator
🍎 Made apple/alfalfa bunny treats
🍁 Made yummy caramel
🦋 Observed monarchs (and goats, chickens, bees, etc.) and hung out at Craig’s amazing parents’ farm, where we obtained farm-fresh treats
🍅 Harvested, spiced, and dehydrated tomatoes (🔥)
🏃‍♂️ Have been running consistently, with long runs and a few workouts (including trying a fun route to the Fossil Gorge and a track workout)
🕸️ Have experienced the conflicting emotions of being overwhelmed by spiders and being impressed by them
🫐 Made elderberry syrup
🛍️ Have been working HARD on researching and improving products for my shop (PhiloFolia) so I can “fully” open my online store, which I am very excited about
🛍️ Spent way too much money on high-quality product ingredients despite having a shameful financial status (I guess that’s just what it means to start a business 😬 but I am proud of being the kind of person who genuinely wants to make people’s lives a little better instead of just trying to make a quick buck 🤷‍♂️)
🌺 Have foraged and researched many incredible plants, always stunned by the medicinal uses of species I never knew were growing right in my city

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful transition from summer to fall! ☀️🍂

🌵 This snotty little cactus is a real pain, but

🌵 This snotty little cactus is a real pain, but it’s a wound-healing powerhouse and a delicious and nutritious vegetable if you can figure out a way to get the extremely sharp and painful spines (and hairlike “glochids”) off before use. The mucilage promotes collagen production and has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties that accelerate the healing of wounds. I very carefully used tongs and a vegetable peeler and STILL got about 5 teeny glochids in my hands (and one cluster in my hair somehow 😂). Thank goodness for tweezers, but god knows how that groundhog is doing that took a bite out of it! I will be adding the powerful mucilage to a new wound healing product I’m working on, and the rest are in my southwest salad (with air-fried tofu, roasted pine nuts, tahini lime dressing, etc.). Give prickly pear a chance… if you’re brave enough! 😱🏜️🔪

And that’s why they’re called “toadstools.”

🥹🐸🍄‍🟫

Hit the jackpot of *golden* oysters on my sweltering run through the woods today! (Also LOL at the fact that I was blasting the song “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters in the car afterwards and didn’t even realize the irony til just now 🤣)

I also found some cool orange mycena, hexagonal-pore polypores, and a deer mushroom!

🍄‍🟫 PRO TIP for processing oyster mushrooms: Tear/crumble them and fry them for a half hour or so until the water content is dramatically decreased so you can freeze them and add them to dishes while preserving their texture!

Happy running and foraging! Stay safe!

🤩🌿🏃‍♂️

I’ve wanted to grow sweet potato vines for years

I’ve wanted to grow sweet potato vines for years now, and I finally got some organic ones from the store to devote to this purpose. They are gorgeous plants that are cultivated for food and beautiful aesthetics around the world. Hilariously, I asked ChatGPT for everything I should know about growing sweet potato “suckers” (the sprouts that can be individually planted), and it basically told me (using a ton of energy/water resources and WAY too many words) to throw it into some dirt — can you guess what happened?! Yes, it got moldy just like you would think. On the bright side, the other sweet potato I had sitting in my vegetable basket sprouted some suckers just by sitting there! 🤣

As someone who (reluctantly) works in AI programming to make ends meet, I highly recommend being EXTREMELY critical of the downright misinformation, bias, and even manipulation when it comes to this tool. While I personally find it useful for things like troubleshooting product recipes for my shop or brainstorming marketing ideas, it’s certainly better to do your own research (with TRUSTWORTHY sources — not AI Instagram accounts or shitty blogs with no citations) on topics you actually care to learn about.

For the sweet potato vines, I am hoping to integrate them into my paludarium (fishtank/terrarium setup) eventually!

It’s a relief to know there are some things in the world that can provide me with real joy and which I can still trust to not manipulate and mislead me, such as my garden, pet rabbits, real books by educated authors, friends and family, etc.! Stay sane out there, and follow my account for zero-bullsh*t content!

🍠🪴🤖📚

#aintnobodygottimeforthat #sweetpotato #vine #indoorgardening #plantaesthetics #ai #intellectualintegrity

✨🍄‍🟫✨ Growing your own culinary mushr

✨🍄‍🟫✨

Growing your own culinary mushrooms really can be a magical experience — in between mixing up buckets of bulk substrates and bleaching stuff! 😂

These little naughty chestnut mushrooms were really exciting to see fruiting in the bag, even though they were supposed to wait until the bag was expanded into the bulk substrate. I’ve never grown them (or seen them in person!) before. This bag was contaminated with mold at first but I kept it around to see if it could recover, and yes it did!

Bulk substrates are how you expand a single colonized mushroom (“spawn”) bag into a bigger setup (to get more mushrooms of course). It’s usually straw, hardwood pellets, gypsum, boiling water, and/or other ingredients depending on the species you are growing.

#mycology #mushrooms #chestnutmushrooms #growyourownmushrooms #culinarymushrooms #ediblemushrooms #medicinalmushrooms

Episode 1! I forage, cook, eat, and talk about 3 d

Episode 1! I forage, cook, eat, and talk about 3 different under-studied mushrooms — Lactarius psammicola, cauliflower mushrooms/jelly/coral fungi, and Green Cheese Polypores (Niveoporofomes spraguei). Forgive my video editing skills lol! Please be safe and always ID mushrooms with extreme care if you are going to eat them yourself — but it’s okay to leave them to play their role in the ecosystem if you are unsure. I hope you enjoy!

#foraging #mushrooms #iowa #lactarius #greencheesepolypore #vlog

It must be a “downtime” for oyster mushrooms h

It must be a “downtime” for oyster mushrooms here in Iowa, since all of the ones I’ve been seeing are either far past their prime or just starting to develop. Take a look at these cute oyster mushrooms babies, though! Golden oysters and probably some lung oysters as well! …and don’t forget the artist’s conk, the jelly fungi, and the cute lil Chinese Mantis!

Trying my best to find peace in nature when my rage at the absurd level of idiocy and selfishness in the world tries to distract me from being able to enjoy being a proactive, intelligent person with morals. If you’re in the same boat…

#hanginthere

Thank you @cjordan211 for these thoughtful gifts f

Thank you @cjordan211 for these thoughtful gifts from businesses we both actually love to support (@raygunshirts and @prairielightsbooks)! All kind people with creative, fun, and insteresting products that are world-aware. ✨

🕯️🕯️🕯️ Never know what to do with

🕯️🕯️🕯️

Never know what to do with your extra candles? Make a repurposed candle QUICKLY by just combining all the leftover bits of wax in a small pan (I got the wax out of the old candles with a long knife, but a spoon will do, too), melting it all on low, placing a wick in whichever container you want to use, and then re-pouring the wax through a strainer!

I’m excited for this new, fun scent, and I’m always a proponent for decreasing waste, especially when it results in a very easy and enjoyable reward!

Try this at home? Comment your thoughts!

#repurposedcandles #candlemaking #sustainability #reducereuserecycle

Trying out a flower/herb press idea! 🌼🌿 I t

Trying out a flower/herb press idea! 🌼🌿

I think this one is gonna make it into my shop!😉

#philofolia

🎶 Roots n plants n roots n plants! 🫚🪴 No

🎶 Roots n plants n roots n plants! 🫚🪴

No one says it’s easy to try to make all your own food instead of buying it (in fact, we had to go to Trader Joe’s today, hence the delicious Impossible Meat tacos). I spent all day in the kitchen and constantly made messes just to clean them up again, but I did make progress on a ton of cool projects!

I deafened myself by blending and grinding. I roasted my dried dandelion root (it smells like chocolate 😱) and ground it into a powder to add to coffee as a hangover cure / healthy additive, ground all my dried garlic and onion skins into delish garlic powder, and also got my tarragon and oregano into their final forms in spice containers after the dehydrator.

I dug up all the burdock (or “wild rhubarb”) in our front yard while I could still tell where it was after the landscapers hired by our landlord went to town on it. Apparently all parts of the burdock plant are edible, so I will be roasting the roots to powder and use with the dandelion root, infusing the leaves into oil as an addition to my itch-relieving balm, and eating the rhubarb-like stems (somehow).

My last project of the day was getting the airlock onto my food-safe 5-gallon bucket for some ale-making! I prepped the ale by simmering wild-foraged spruce tips and dandelions with some lemons, spices, and a ton of sugar, so once it’s cool, I will add some yeast and start the process of turning into some beer-like drink! Stay tuned.

And of course, no day is complete without bunnies added for cuteness! 🐇

Landscaper, gardener, herbalist, urban forager…

Landscaper, gardener, herbalist, urban forager… what are labels anyway?!

Thank you @christinejanusiak and @lnicholson67 for hiring me to give your garden a makeover! It’s so nice to be able to do something I love for people I love as a “job.” I know my efforts are being appreciated! While maybe atypical, the benefits of this job included some herbs (a year’s supply of terragon, oregano, and dandelion root), some dandelion greens (that were sauteed with garlic, lemon, red pepper, salt, and parm for my dad’s birthday dinner), time hanging out with family, some generously gifted grown-from-seed vegetable plants from the neighbor, and the simple but potent medicine of just working with plants in the sun and rain! It did take me a few more hours to finish processing these herbs to get them ready to dehydrate, as well as a cool-but-almost-terrifying false widow spider crawling on my leg, but I swear it’s all worth it!

It was amazing to see the plant diversity in this garden! I mostly removed dandelions, tatarian honeysuckle, grass, maples, and some giant chickweed (which I will try growing out of my fish tank since it is apparently excellent at removing toxins from the environment). There were still many gorgeous and useful plants left, including wild ginger and red columbine (both of which have beautiful and interesting flowers), oregano, spotted dead nettle, raspberry, wild strawberry, blue violets, lilies, coneflowers, and other plants I didn’t even get a chance to identify! I can’t wait to see what it grows into! (Even if that means a new ‘hands-off’ ecosystem!)

🌷🐝🌲🪏🌱🪱🍓

My garden tower has colonized with Black King Trum

My garden tower has colonized with Black King Trumpet (a variety of oyster mushroom) mycelium! I am so excited to try my first experiment with growing oyster mushrooms outdoors. My only concerns are whether the humidity and light will be okay. I’m open to tips and advice! 🍄‍🟫

#mycology #gardentower #homegrown #mushrooms #oystermushrooms #blackkingtrumpet #philofolia #organic #gardening #experiment

What if I told you it was easy to become more inte

What if I told you it was easy to become more intelligent, have a longer attention span and better memory, and be able to regulate your emotions better? Feeling stuck at a desk doesn’t encourage genuine learning or wellbeing as much as we’d like, but many studies have proven that nature integration helps significantly improve all of these things. My latest post, “The Roots of Intelligence: Why Outdoor Experiential Learning is the Ultimate form of Education,” explores the science and logic behind the power of nature to make you smarter and, well, better — adults and students alike!

Inspired by my brother Jayden’s graduation with math and environmental degrees from Northland College as a member of the last graduating class from the first fully environmental liberal arts college in the country (an unfair and heartbreaking closure of an immaculate school), this post discusses how genuinely fun, immersive, and effective nature-based learning can be.

Check it out on philofolia.com (a.k.a. runningforthemind.com)!

🌱🎓💚🧭

Rated PG-13 for uncomfortable facts and mild swear

Rated PG-13 for uncomfortable facts and mild swearing, this latest blog post explores the absolutely dystopian country we are currently living in, as well as how we might think about and address those problems. It is strongly worded but not meant to hurt (unlike MOST of the policies and behaviors coming from our current administration). Read at your own risk and with an open mind. Insensitive or provocatory comments will be deleted. There is no room for homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia, other discrimination, or blatant hatred in my virtual space or life.

Read the post at runningforthemind.com (now also philofolia.com (which takes you to the shop page of the site, although this page is under construction)! You can still find my products on philosophicalfolia.etsy.com.

I think it’s hilarious how I have spent the equi

I think it’s hilarious how I have spent the equivalent of days foraging away from home (it’s never a waste of time), and all the best finds have been within a half mile of our house! We stumbled upon a total mushroom haven when nearing our house after today’s run, and this harvest is only about 1/5 of what we saw.

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫

I am very excited to try pickling the Dryad’s Saddle (apparently it tastes like artichoke hearts?) and drying the other half of our haul so we can use it as a powder in broths and cooking. These will hopefully be some good solutions to their chewy texture. Dryad’s Saddle is high in protein, beta glucans, B vitamins, vitamin D, fiber, and more good stuff that keeps you healthy.

Craig immediately identified the Golden Oysters too (I’m impressed!) and excited to hopefully clone and eat these beauties.

#iowaforaging #iowacity #goldenoystermushrooms #dryadssaddle #pheasantsbackmushrooms #mushrooms #foraging #runningfinds

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫 It’s a great

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫

It’s a great time to go foraging for Dryad’s Saddle (Pheasant’s Back Mushroom)! Key identifiers are the presence of pores on the underside (not gills), the obvious feathery pattern, their large size, and their strong, fresh, watermelon-y smell! They are best marinated and then cooked for longer periods of time to crisp them up and decrease their chewy texture, but they are delicious and nutritious.

I actually smelled these before seeing them on my run with @jordan_janusiak today through the fog in Milwaukee! There were a TON of huge ones just meters away from the bike trails, but I could only run with this one! 😝 Definitely enough for dinner, though!

When foraging, remember to always leave some for others and for reproduction. 🧑‍❤️‍💋‍🧑

Happy foraging!

#milwaukeerunning #foraging #mushrooms #dryadssaddle #pheasantsback #milwaukee #biketrails #cityforaging

Gotta “get out there and cut the lawn since it’s getting long”?

No, you really don’t…
It’s No Mow May!

And you’re not helping anyone except your uptight HOA if you are cutting it to look like artificial turf. Beneficial insects (like this Assassin Bug and pollinators), native plants (like Trilliums), and cute little foraging creatures (like bunnies) are dependent on plant diversity. Pesticides (if you haven’t heard) are also extremely harmful to humans, animals, plants, and water ecosystems alike.

We cut the area around our fire pit (our “immediate” backyard) with a super easy-to-use hand mower (that doesn’t emit nasty fumes, use gas, or require expensive maintenance) starting mid-summer just for a slightly clearer area, but our patch of unmowed prairie is our favorite feature of the yard. The animals love it too.

Maybe try a hands-off approach this year, or put your skills to more use by growing edible foods, native plants, or even mushrooms (like Wine Caps) in your yard! Then sit back, enjoy a drink in the sun, and watch and listen to the incredible wildlife that flocks to your mini ecosystem.

Comment any new, eco-friendly techniques you are trying this year! I’d love to hear.

#nomowmay #ecofriendly #pollinators #protectthepollinators #nativeplants

Foraging season has begun! 🌿🍄‍🟫🌳 Ju

Foraging season has begun! 🌿🍄‍🟫🌳

Just a few hourlong walks exploring nature this past week led to some incredible sights, foods, new plants, new mushrooms, cool animals, learning, and mental/emotional health benefits.

While I was mainly hunting morels with @cjordan211, we surprisingly didn’t find a single one in any in these juicy-looking places except for our own front yard! I did, however, find a ton of edible wild foods (ditch lily, hostas, garlic mustard, wild leeks, burdock root, redbuds, etc.) just behind our yard, which I made into a nutritious meal, as well as a medicinal “cracked cap polypore” (Phellinus robiniae) which has not been well studied, although I will be experimenting with it (using fermentation and decoction techniques) since *basically* all true polypores are non-toxic. The “natural deer grave” amidst the poison hemlock was an interesting, eerie, and magical sight to see as well.

Exploring new parks near Marion, IA was definitely a highlight due to the sheer beauty of the landscapes. We found a cool cup fungus and many intricate scenes with turkey tail, inkcaps, artist’s conks (which I will also experiment with in my homemade health decoctions due to its well-known medicinal properties), and more. Most excitingly for us was the tons of dryad’s saddle we found, which is a completely edible and delicious polypore that smells like watermelon! We sauteed it with some garlic and spices for dinner tonight.

No morels outside of our yard (yet), but we will keep trying! And we’re grateful for the experiences, food, and preventive medicine (anti-cancer mushrooms, etc.) that we did find!

#foraging #morels #spring #iowa #mushrooms #polypore #protectourpubliclands #parks #exploring #nature #dryadssaddle #artistsconk #crackedcappolypore

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philosophicalfolia

We went hard for harvest time today! 🏃‍♂️

We went hard for harvest time today! 🏃‍♂️🍄‍🟫🍂

While some other foragers may have gotten to all of the oyster mushrooms from the log we planned to go back to on our favorite running path (since it would’ve been a shame to harvest them that small), it didn’t stop @cjordan211 and I from running deeper into the forest with our tiny backpack to find other surprises!

Identifying, harvesting (including running with mushrooms for 10 miles 😂), cleaning, and cooking mushrooms is serious work, but I obviously think it’s fully worth it for these healthy, delicious, umami-packed meal staples! If you go out, this fall, be sure to cross-reference your mushroom IDs and stay safe, but have fun enjoying the gifts of nature, as well as the adventure! 🤩🌲🌳

🍁 Slide 1: Turkey tail and (probably) honey mushrooms (not harvested).
🍁 Slide 2: Finding our first chicken of the woods (laetiporus sulphureus).
🍁 Pholiota aurivella (not considered edible) and some other beautiful, unharvested finds, as well as the chicken of the woods we harvested.
🍁 A classic edible - dryad’s saddle (cerioporus squamosus).
🍁 Dryad’s saddle, baby chickens (etc.), unidentified LBMs (little brown mushrooms), and a rooting polypore (polyporus radicatus - probably edible aside from a tough texture but I am going to do more research).
🍁 Resinous polypore (ischnoderma resinosum), a meaty, steak-like, edible mushroom that I am excited to marinate and cook like a steak.
🍁 Chicken of the woods tacos (delish!), seitan (protein from flour that has a texture and taste like chicken if prepared properly), and pressure-cooked seitan with some dryad’s saddle and chicken of the woods.
🍁 A huge harvest of honey mushrooms (armillaria mellea - edible) at sunset.

Don’t be a chicken to foraging ‘shroomies! It’s never a bad time to get your foot in the door and start with very easy to identify species with no real toxic lookalikes, such as chicken of the woods!

🐓🍄‍🟫🐓🍄‍🟫🐓

Busy as a freaking BEE! 🐝 Lately, I… 🍎

Busy as a freaking BEE! 🐝

Lately, I…

🍎 Got some hard cider brewing (and used an actual hydrometer to take the initial reading of the specific gravity so I can calculate ABV when it’s done)
🍎 Made normal apple cider
🍎 Made spiced dried apples in the dehydrator
🍎 Made apple/alfalfa bunny treats
🍁 Made yummy caramel
🦋 Observed monarchs (and goats, chickens, bees, etc.) and hung out at Craig’s amazing parents’ farm, where we obtained farm-fresh treats
🍅 Harvested, spiced, and dehydrated tomatoes (🔥)
🏃‍♂️ Have been running consistently, with long runs and a few workouts (including trying a fun route to the Fossil Gorge and a track workout)
🕸️ Have experienced the conflicting emotions of being overwhelmed by spiders and being impressed by them
🫐 Made elderberry syrup
🛍️ Have been working HARD on researching and improving products for my shop (PhiloFolia) so I can “fully” open my online store, which I am very excited about
🛍️ Spent way too much money on high-quality product ingredients despite having a shameful financial status (I guess that’s just what it means to start a business 😬 but I am proud of being the kind of person who genuinely wants to make people’s lives a little better instead of just trying to make a quick buck 🤷‍♂️)
🌺 Have foraged and researched many incredible plants, always stunned by the medicinal uses of species I never knew were growing right in my city

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful transition from summer to fall! ☀️🍂

🌵 This snotty little cactus is a real pain, but

🌵 This snotty little cactus is a real pain, but it’s a wound-healing powerhouse and a delicious and nutritious vegetable if you can figure out a way to get the extremely sharp and painful spines (and hairlike “glochids”) off before use. The mucilage promotes collagen production and has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties that accelerate the healing of wounds. I very carefully used tongs and a vegetable peeler and STILL got about 5 teeny glochids in my hands (and one cluster in my hair somehow 😂). Thank goodness for tweezers, but god knows how that groundhog is doing that took a bite out of it! I will be adding the powerful mucilage to a new wound healing product I’m working on, and the rest are in my southwest salad (with air-fried tofu, roasted pine nuts, tahini lime dressing, etc.). Give prickly pear a chance… if you’re brave enough! 😱🏜️🔪

And that’s why they’re called “toadstools.”

🥹🐸🍄‍🟫

Hit the jackpot of *golden* oysters on my sweltering run through the woods today! (Also LOL at the fact that I was blasting the song “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters in the car afterwards and didn’t even realize the irony til just now 🤣)

I also found some cool orange mycena, hexagonal-pore polypores, and a deer mushroom!

🍄‍🟫 PRO TIP for processing oyster mushrooms: Tear/crumble them and fry them for a half hour or so until the water content is dramatically decreased so you can freeze them and add them to dishes while preserving their texture!

Happy running and foraging! Stay safe!

🤩🌿🏃‍♂️

I’ve wanted to grow sweet potato vines for years

I’ve wanted to grow sweet potato vines for years now, and I finally got some organic ones from the store to devote to this purpose. They are gorgeous plants that are cultivated for food and beautiful aesthetics around the world. Hilariously, I asked ChatGPT for everything I should know about growing sweet potato “suckers” (the sprouts that can be individually planted), and it basically told me (using a ton of energy/water resources and WAY too many words) to throw it into some dirt — can you guess what happened?! Yes, it got moldy just like you would think. On the bright side, the other sweet potato I had sitting in my vegetable basket sprouted some suckers just by sitting there! 🤣

As someone who (reluctantly) works in AI programming to make ends meet, I highly recommend being EXTREMELY critical of the downright misinformation, bias, and even manipulation when it comes to this tool. While I personally find it useful for things like troubleshooting product recipes for my shop or brainstorming marketing ideas, it’s certainly better to do your own research (with TRUSTWORTHY sources — not AI Instagram accounts or shitty blogs with no citations) on topics you actually care to learn about.

For the sweet potato vines, I am hoping to integrate them into my paludarium (fishtank/terrarium setup) eventually!

It’s a relief to know there are some things in the world that can provide me with real joy and which I can still trust to not manipulate and mislead me, such as my garden, pet rabbits, real books by educated authors, friends and family, etc.! Stay sane out there, and follow my account for zero-bullsh*t content!

🍠🪴🤖📚

#aintnobodygottimeforthat #sweetpotato #vine #indoorgardening #plantaesthetics #ai #intellectualintegrity

✨🍄‍🟫✨ Growing your own culinary mushr

✨🍄‍🟫✨

Growing your own culinary mushrooms really can be a magical experience — in between mixing up buckets of bulk substrates and bleaching stuff! 😂

These little naughty chestnut mushrooms were really exciting to see fruiting in the bag, even though they were supposed to wait until the bag was expanded into the bulk substrate. I’ve never grown them (or seen them in person!) before. This bag was contaminated with mold at first but I kept it around to see if it could recover, and yes it did!

Bulk substrates are how you expand a single colonized mushroom (“spawn”) bag into a bigger setup (to get more mushrooms of course). It’s usually straw, hardwood pellets, gypsum, boiling water, and/or other ingredients depending on the species you are growing.

#mycology #mushrooms #chestnutmushrooms #growyourownmushrooms #culinarymushrooms #ediblemushrooms #medicinalmushrooms

Episode 1! I forage, cook, eat, and talk about 3 d

Episode 1! I forage, cook, eat, and talk about 3 different under-studied mushrooms — Lactarius psammicola, cauliflower mushrooms/jelly/coral fungi, and Green Cheese Polypores (Niveoporofomes spraguei). Forgive my video editing skills lol! Please be safe and always ID mushrooms with extreme care if you are going to eat them yourself — but it’s okay to leave them to play their role in the ecosystem if you are unsure. I hope you enjoy!

#foraging #mushrooms #iowa #lactarius #greencheesepolypore #vlog

It must be a “downtime” for oyster mushrooms h

It must be a “downtime” for oyster mushrooms here in Iowa, since all of the ones I’ve been seeing are either far past their prime or just starting to develop. Take a look at these cute oyster mushrooms babies, though! Golden oysters and probably some lung oysters as well! …and don’t forget the artist’s conk, the jelly fungi, and the cute lil Chinese Mantis!

Trying my best to find peace in nature when my rage at the absurd level of idiocy and selfishness in the world tries to distract me from being able to enjoy being a proactive, intelligent person with morals. If you’re in the same boat…

#hanginthere

Thank you @cjordan211 for these thoughtful gifts f

Thank you @cjordan211 for these thoughtful gifts from businesses we both actually love to support (@raygunshirts and @prairielightsbooks)! All kind people with creative, fun, and insteresting products that are world-aware. ✨

🕯️🕯️🕯️ Never know what to do with

🕯️🕯️🕯️

Never know what to do with your extra candles? Make a repurposed candle QUICKLY by just combining all the leftover bits of wax in a small pan (I got the wax out of the old candles with a long knife, but a spoon will do, too), melting it all on low, placing a wick in whichever container you want to use, and then re-pouring the wax through a strainer!

I’m excited for this new, fun scent, and I’m always a proponent for decreasing waste, especially when it results in a very easy and enjoyable reward!

Try this at home? Comment your thoughts!

#repurposedcandles #candlemaking #sustainability #reducereuserecycle

Trying out a flower/herb press idea! 🌼🌿 I t

Trying out a flower/herb press idea! 🌼🌿

I think this one is gonna make it into my shop!😉

#philofolia

🎶 Roots n plants n roots n plants! 🫚🪴 No

🎶 Roots n plants n roots n plants! 🫚🪴

No one says it’s easy to try to make all your own food instead of buying it (in fact, we had to go to Trader Joe’s today, hence the delicious Impossible Meat tacos). I spent all day in the kitchen and constantly made messes just to clean them up again, but I did make progress on a ton of cool projects!

I deafened myself by blending and grinding. I roasted my dried dandelion root (it smells like chocolate 😱) and ground it into a powder to add to coffee as a hangover cure / healthy additive, ground all my dried garlic and onion skins into delish garlic powder, and also got my tarragon and oregano into their final forms in spice containers after the dehydrator.

I dug up all the burdock (or “wild rhubarb”) in our front yard while I could still tell where it was after the landscapers hired by our landlord went to town on it. Apparently all parts of the burdock plant are edible, so I will be roasting the roots to powder and use with the dandelion root, infusing the leaves into oil as an addition to my itch-relieving balm, and eating the rhubarb-like stems (somehow).

My last project of the day was getting the airlock onto my food-safe 5-gallon bucket for some ale-making! I prepped the ale by simmering wild-foraged spruce tips and dandelions with some lemons, spices, and a ton of sugar, so once it’s cool, I will add some yeast and start the process of turning into some beer-like drink! Stay tuned.

And of course, no day is complete without bunnies added for cuteness! 🐇

Landscaper, gardener, herbalist, urban forager…

Landscaper, gardener, herbalist, urban forager… what are labels anyway?!

Thank you @christinejanusiak and @lnicholson67 for hiring me to give your garden a makeover! It’s so nice to be able to do something I love for people I love as a “job.” I know my efforts are being appreciated! While maybe atypical, the benefits of this job included some herbs (a year’s supply of terragon, oregano, and dandelion root), some dandelion greens (that were sauteed with garlic, lemon, red pepper, salt, and parm for my dad’s birthday dinner), time hanging out with family, some generously gifted grown-from-seed vegetable plants from the neighbor, and the simple but potent medicine of just working with plants in the sun and rain! It did take me a few more hours to finish processing these herbs to get them ready to dehydrate, as well as a cool-but-almost-terrifying false widow spider crawling on my leg, but I swear it’s all worth it!

It was amazing to see the plant diversity in this garden! I mostly removed dandelions, tatarian honeysuckle, grass, maples, and some giant chickweed (which I will try growing out of my fish tank since it is apparently excellent at removing toxins from the environment). There were still many gorgeous and useful plants left, including wild ginger and red columbine (both of which have beautiful and interesting flowers), oregano, spotted dead nettle, raspberry, wild strawberry, blue violets, lilies, coneflowers, and other plants I didn’t even get a chance to identify! I can’t wait to see what it grows into! (Even if that means a new ‘hands-off’ ecosystem!)

🌷🐝🌲🪏🌱🪱🍓

My garden tower has colonized with Black King Trum

My garden tower has colonized with Black King Trumpet (a variety of oyster mushroom) mycelium! I am so excited to try my first experiment with growing oyster mushrooms outdoors. My only concerns are whether the humidity and light will be okay. I’m open to tips and advice! 🍄‍🟫

#mycology #gardentower #homegrown #mushrooms #oystermushrooms #blackkingtrumpet #philofolia #organic #gardening #experiment

What if I told you it was easy to become more inte

What if I told you it was easy to become more intelligent, have a longer attention span and better memory, and be able to regulate your emotions better? Feeling stuck at a desk doesn’t encourage genuine learning or wellbeing as much as we’d like, but many studies have proven that nature integration helps significantly improve all of these things. My latest post, “The Roots of Intelligence: Why Outdoor Experiential Learning is the Ultimate form of Education,” explores the science and logic behind the power of nature to make you smarter and, well, better — adults and students alike!

Inspired by my brother Jayden’s graduation with math and environmental degrees from Northland College as a member of the last graduating class from the first fully environmental liberal arts college in the country (an unfair and heartbreaking closure of an immaculate school), this post discusses how genuinely fun, immersive, and effective nature-based learning can be.

Check it out on philofolia.com (a.k.a. runningforthemind.com)!

🌱🎓💚🧭

Rated PG-13 for uncomfortable facts and mild swear

Rated PG-13 for uncomfortable facts and mild swearing, this latest blog post explores the absolutely dystopian country we are currently living in, as well as how we might think about and address those problems. It is strongly worded but not meant to hurt (unlike MOST of the policies and behaviors coming from our current administration). Read at your own risk and with an open mind. Insensitive or provocatory comments will be deleted. There is no room for homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia, other discrimination, or blatant hatred in my virtual space or life.

Read the post at runningforthemind.com (now also philofolia.com (which takes you to the shop page of the site, although this page is under construction)! You can still find my products on philosophicalfolia.etsy.com.

I think it’s hilarious how I have spent the equi

I think it’s hilarious how I have spent the equivalent of days foraging away from home (it’s never a waste of time), and all the best finds have been within a half mile of our house! We stumbled upon a total mushroom haven when nearing our house after today’s run, and this harvest is only about 1/5 of what we saw.

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫

I am very excited to try pickling the Dryad’s Saddle (apparently it tastes like artichoke hearts?) and drying the other half of our haul so we can use it as a powder in broths and cooking. These will hopefully be some good solutions to their chewy texture. Dryad’s Saddle is high in protein, beta glucans, B vitamins, vitamin D, fiber, and more good stuff that keeps you healthy.

Craig immediately identified the Golden Oysters too (I’m impressed!) and excited to hopefully clone and eat these beauties.

#iowaforaging #iowacity #goldenoystermushrooms #dryadssaddle #pheasantsbackmushrooms #mushrooms #foraging #runningfinds

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫 It’s a great

🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫🍄‍🟫

It’s a great time to go foraging for Dryad’s Saddle (Pheasant’s Back Mushroom)! Key identifiers are the presence of pores on the underside (not gills), the obvious feathery pattern, their large size, and their strong, fresh, watermelon-y smell! They are best marinated and then cooked for longer periods of time to crisp them up and decrease their chewy texture, but they are delicious and nutritious.

I actually smelled these before seeing them on my run with @jordan_janusiak today through the fog in Milwaukee! There were a TON of huge ones just meters away from the bike trails, but I could only run with this one! 😝 Definitely enough for dinner, though!

When foraging, remember to always leave some for others and for reproduction. 🧑‍❤️‍💋‍🧑

Happy foraging!

#milwaukeerunning #foraging #mushrooms #dryadssaddle #pheasantsback #milwaukee #biketrails #cityforaging

Gotta “get out there and cut the lawn since it’s getting long”?

No, you really don’t…
It’s No Mow May!

And you’re not helping anyone except your uptight HOA if you are cutting it to look like artificial turf. Beneficial insects (like this Assassin Bug and pollinators), native plants (like Trilliums), and cute little foraging creatures (like bunnies) are dependent on plant diversity. Pesticides (if you haven’t heard) are also extremely harmful to humans, animals, plants, and water ecosystems alike.

We cut the area around our fire pit (our “immediate” backyard) with a super easy-to-use hand mower (that doesn’t emit nasty fumes, use gas, or require expensive maintenance) starting mid-summer just for a slightly clearer area, but our patch of unmowed prairie is our favorite feature of the yard. The animals love it too.

Maybe try a hands-off approach this year, or put your skills to more use by growing edible foods, native plants, or even mushrooms (like Wine Caps) in your yard! Then sit back, enjoy a drink in the sun, and watch and listen to the incredible wildlife that flocks to your mini ecosystem.

Comment any new, eco-friendly techniques you are trying this year! I’d love to hear.

#nomowmay #ecofriendly #pollinators #protectthepollinators #nativeplants

Foraging season has begun! 🌿🍄‍🟫🌳 Ju

Foraging season has begun! 🌿🍄‍🟫🌳

Just a few hourlong walks exploring nature this past week led to some incredible sights, foods, new plants, new mushrooms, cool animals, learning, and mental/emotional health benefits.

While I was mainly hunting morels with @cjordan211, we surprisingly didn’t find a single one in any in these juicy-looking places except for our own front yard! I did, however, find a ton of edible wild foods (ditch lily, hostas, garlic mustard, wild leeks, burdock root, redbuds, etc.) just behind our yard, which I made into a nutritious meal, as well as a medicinal “cracked cap polypore” (Phellinus robiniae) which has not been well studied, although I will be experimenting with it (using fermentation and decoction techniques) since *basically* all true polypores are non-toxic. The “natural deer grave” amidst the poison hemlock was an interesting, eerie, and magical sight to see as well.

Exploring new parks near Marion, IA was definitely a highlight due to the sheer beauty of the landscapes. We found a cool cup fungus and many intricate scenes with turkey tail, inkcaps, artist’s conks (which I will also experiment with in my homemade health decoctions due to its well-known medicinal properties), and more. Most excitingly for us was the tons of dryad’s saddle we found, which is a completely edible and delicious polypore that smells like watermelon! We sauteed it with some garlic and spices for dinner tonight.

No morels outside of our yard (yet), but we will keep trying! And we’re grateful for the experiences, food, and preventive medicine (anti-cancer mushrooms, etc.) that we did find!

#foraging #morels #spring #iowa #mushrooms #polypore #protectourpubliclands #parks #exploring #nature #dryadssaddle #artistsconk #crackedcappolypore

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