{"id":7368,"date":"2015-08-01T21:14:06","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T03:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7368"},"modified":"2019-08-19T18:02:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T00:02:20","slug":"lammas-wild-harvest-and-the-notch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7368","title":{"rendered":"Lammas, Wild Harvest, and “the Notch”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"nibbled

About two days too late for this big bolete. The squirrels had already been at it, and most of it was too soft. M. said it was a Great Mother Mushroom and we had to leave her to spread her spores. OK.<\/p><\/div>\n

Many of the Pagan bloggers are putting up their “Happy Lammas\/Lughnasad” posts. My archaeoastronomical friends who study mysterious ancient solar alignments point out that “real” Lammas is still six days away<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there is “the notch.” In 1986, when I moved to this part of Colorado, a friend told me, “Something changes around the first of August. It’s still hot, but there is a change.”<\/p>\n

This year I really felt it. On July 30th I was standing out in front of our volunteer fire department at sunset \u2014 there was a little rain squall to the west and a partial rainbow to the east, and the air just felt . . . different.<\/p>\n

Liatris<\/em> <\/a>is blooming too, the flower that marks the turn into High Summer.<\/p>\n

After one quick trip on July 10th<\/a>, M. and I geared up yesterday for our harvest. Never mind the garden, it’s mushroom time in the Southern Rockies. Off we went to the boreal (OK, subalpine) forest \u2014\u00a0 up, up, up, about a 4,000-foot elevation gain.<\/p>\n

A shock. Someone was parked in “our” spot on a certain dirt logging road. And a bulldozer had been working the road too \u2014 there is some salvage logging going on. We parked the Jeep a few yards further on. Shock again! Someone was camped up there\u2014a vehicle and a blue tent.<\/p>\n

On the warpath now, we communicated by signs and whispers. This way . . . circle right, check the little patch of woods we call “the mushroom store.” There’s a good bolete, grab it.<\/p>\n

Then we come to the Forest Service drift fence, follow it to “the little gate” (there is also a “big gate”), walking quietly.<\/p>\n

A man is calling a dog \u2014 “Sheena, come!” \u2014 on the other side of stand of firs.\u00a0 Into a further maze of old logging roads, now snowmobile trails in the winter, we plunge, walking quickly.<\/p>\n

I stand in a clearing, waiting for the GPS receiver to access its satellites so that I can re-locate some good spots saved as waypoints a year ago. M. circles me, looking down. After years of mushroom-hunting in this area, I know the lay of the land, but how far up the edge of “the boggy meadow” was that good stand of Boletus edulis<\/a><\/em>? Technology has its place.<\/p>\n

Once we are a quarter mile from the Forest Service road, we start to relax. As so often happens, the farther from the road, the fewer people you meet.<\/p>\n

In Westcliffe, the Wet Mountain Tribune<\/em>, a weekly, headlines, “Shroomers are Coming<\/a>.” The Search & Rescue volunteers will be ready.<\/p>\n

The truth is, SAR spends most of its time on climbers falling off peaks in the South Colony Lakes\/Crestone Needle area of the Sangre de Cristo Range<\/a>. Go into their building, and the main room is papered with topo mags and photos of that area.<\/p>\n

But there was<\/em> Frida. She was one of the “old German ladies,” an acquaintance of Dad’s, and a member of the mycological group in Colorado Springs, as was he. Military town that it is, Colorado Springs has a population of German GI brides like her. Years ago, M. and I encountered some of them walking through the woods with their shopping bags on the back side of Pike’s Peak. They taught us some mushrooms (Dad was away in Washington state then.) They became iconic to us.<\/p>\n

A decade or so ago, Frida was lost overnight in these mountains. She was found the next day, in good shape. But somehow Search & Rescue locked onto her as a type specimen of the absent-minded mushroom hunter.<\/p>\n

For Christmas 2001, Dad bought us a memberhip in the mycological society<\/a>. Colorado Springs was too far to go for membership meetings, but we hoped to rendezvous for their “forays,” as the serious mycophiles call them. We signed up for one \u2014 it was cancelled due to drought.<\/p>\n

That was a dry year, big forest fires popping up, including the Hayman Fire that threatened suburban Denver. (“All of Colorado is burning today<\/a>.”)\u00a0 And then Dad was gone.<\/p>\n

This is not a “foray,” this is a meat hunt.<\/strong> M.’s Opinel mushroom knife <\/a>is flashing. Boletes. Hawk’s wing. Velvet foot. Even a puffball, just for bulk.<\/p>\n

“We need to leave by 2:30,” she says. Other responsibilites. We make a wide circle back to the Jeep; then she steps behind a big fir with the bags while I, wearing just my day pack, stroll to it, start the engine, and drive down the road to pick her up.<\/p>\n

We plan to go back on Thursday. That is almost solar Lammas \u2014 the Sun hits 15\u00b0 Leo on Friday. It is really “Lammastide,” not “Lammas Day” \u2014 a short season. And we will be harvesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of the Pagan bloggers are putting up their “Happy Lammas\/Lughnasad” posts. My archaeoastronomical friends who study mysterious ancient solar alignments point out that “real” Lammas is still six days away. But there is “the notch.” In 1986, when I moved to this part of Colorado, a friend told me, “Something changes around the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,63,31],"class_list":["post-7368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-lammas","tag-mushrooms"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1UQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":698,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=698","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":0},"title":"The corner of the year","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"When is Lammas?Predictably, Lammas\/Lughnasadh postings popped up on Pagan e-lists and blogs on the 1st of August. But that is just what the calendar says. Astronomically, according to the online astronomical calculator, it comes at 1541 hours GMT on August 7.But I think it's when the hummingbirds start to leave,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13722,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13722","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":1},"title":"Step Aside, John Barleycorn","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"See the Shaggy Parasol mushrooms? They were not there two or three days ago. Yet Lammas comes and they burst forth, full of fungal goodness. Here just north of the Colorado-New Mexico line, August is the heart of mushroom season. You can find them at other times too, but your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lammas\"","block_context":{"text":"Lammas","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=lammas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shaggy-p-ground-level.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shaggy-p-ground-level.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shaggy-p-ground-level.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shaggy-p-ground-level.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shaggy-p-ground-level.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":919,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=919","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":2},"title":"And the Corn Palace Too","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Victorian Slind-Flor puts the \"Loaf\" in Lammas, with photos of the Palouse region and, even closer to my heart, the sacred Corn Palace of Mitchell, South Dakota, one of the great Roadside Attractions of the northern Plains.A quick flashback to a 1980s cross-country drive with M.: camping in the Black\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lammas\"","block_context":{"text":"Lammas","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=lammas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8151,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8151","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":3},"title":"In Praise of Harvest Time","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Some (Northern Hemisphere) Harvest\/Lammas celebrations, only not called that. This one, I think, is from Iran: This one comes from the island of Cyprus: And while we're in the mood, let's not forget Whitman McGowan's \"White Folks Was Wild Once Too,\" with video that is NSFW if you work in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dance\"","block_context":{"text":"dance","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dance"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8727,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8727","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":4},"title":"On Getting Reaped at Lammas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend in Poland has a small farm, and he has been teaching himself to mow the meadows with a scythe. We have email conversations sprinkled with words like \"snath\" and \"peening,\" which I know only from reading.((He is an American expatriate, but I suppose that he has learned the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"herbs\"","block_context":{"text":"herbs","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=herbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"large hailstone in palm of hand","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/oles-hail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1747,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1747","url_meta":{"origin":7368,"position":5},"title":"What I Do Instead of Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Lammas, according to my authoritative source, fell on Saturday by the solar calendar, so M. and I were only a day early when we celebrated our own wild harvest. Lammas (or whatever you want to call it) does not seem like a highly ritualistic holiday\u2014certainly not one on which you\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7368"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10806,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions\/10806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}