…in which I go into the woods.
So, having been unable to find greenbrier in sufficient quantities in my own backyard, I decided to head across the road to see if I could find a large enough root to make beer. Back at my other home I would have just slipped on a pair of sneakers and gone off to ramble. Here there are snakes and thorns and who knows what all else just waiting to assault so I donned my sturdy pants and heavy rubber boots and packed a knife that could kill a small wild hog but not a large one and a pair of gloves and set on my big adventure. Twenty feet away from home.
I sharpened my eye for sign of greenbrier. I looked up to see if it was in the trees. There is a great variety of trees.
Aah, and here we have some greenbrier, a good hearty plant with a thick stem. I take a handful near the root and pull. Shouldn’t be that hard; the trees are all growing in sand. Perhaps there is something down there holding on the other end.
I decided I would go home to get a spade to dig the root but in the meantime I explored a little. Is that caribou moss I see? Surely not.
Looks like the woodpeckers have been busy but not as busy as the bugs which got there first.
Not far from that dead stick was a hole. It was about eight inches in diameter. I knocked but no one came out.
I sat in this little clearing for a spell to see if any critters would go by. Not a one.
A couple of pretty pics.
I was never very far from home; you can see the house through the trees.
When I got home I looked up the recipe for greenbrier root beer again in another source. I now realize that any alcoholic beer made from a root is considered root beer and beer can certainly be made from greenbrier but to make it taste like our favourite soft drink you have to add sassafras. That means harvesting another wild plant and I have yet to get the first ingredient. Methinks I will just file the information on greenbrier in the back of my head and use it later if I am stuck in the woods and just dying for a brew. Remind me to keep a package of yeast in my backpack, right next to my book on edible wild plants; my memory is not to be trusted.
© Judy Parsons 2016
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