There are over 100 documented species of fruit or berry-producing edibles for mammal consumption in the Roaring Fork Valley. Vanessa Harmony has set out to educate, monetize and proliferate the region s natural rooted assets.
This is the sixty-first in a series of articles from the staff of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center that will provide resources and outdoor activity ideas for students and families. The public can help the nonprofit NWDC get through this challenging time by making a donation at https://hikeandlearn.org/donate/. Join NWDC for guided hikes and other exciting nature programs listed here: https://hikeandlearn.org/programs-and-events/.
Coming from a mushroom-foraging family and raised in the Pacific Northwest, I have been looking for mushrooms since I was carried in a pack by my mother, or on my father’s shoulders as a spotter, helping get a bird’s eye view over the dense understory of underbrush. Over twenty years ago, I moved to Colorado, a far drier and less vegetated region, and finding mushrooms here, for many years, proved enigmatic to me. But over time, I have come to be able to locate and identify 12 varieties of edible wild mushrooms here in the Wet Mountains, and regul
David Anthony Martin
This is the sixtieth in a series of articles from the staff of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center that will provide resources and outdoor activity ideas for students and families. The public can help the nonprofit NWDC get through this challenging time by making a donation at https://hikeandlearn.org/donate/. Join NWDC for guided hikes and other exciting nature programs listed here: https://hikeandlearn.org/programs-and-events/.
The first time I encountered a ringtail was not out in the woods, it was in my home. I was sick and had awakened in the night with a fever, and as I entered the kitchen, there it was, sitting on the kitchen counter like some fey creature, head cocked curiously, large dark eyes staring at me nearly unblinking. I thought for a moment it must be the fever making me hallucinate. I was a bit shocked as I had never encountered them before and had no idea that they were a part of the local ecosystem. This beautiful and exotic creature w
Nature’s Classroom: Colorado Edible & Medicinal Native Plants, Oregon Grape
David Anthony Martin
This is the fifty-ninth in a series of articles from the staff of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center that will provide resources and outdoor activity ideas for students and families. The public can help the nonprofit NWDC get through this challenging time by making a donation at https://hikeandlearn.org/donate/. Join NWDC for guided hikes and other exciting nature programs listed here: https://hikeandlearn.org/programs-and-events/.
A late spring walk in our greenways and wild areas will reveal lot of wildflowers blooming, attracting pollinating insects and hummingbirds. Dandelions, of course, are a common and easily recognizable example, but another plant, commonly known as Oregon Grape, is also an important food source for bees and butterflies. Oregon Grape, Mahonia (or Berberis) repens is a member of the Barberry family, which grows in the foothills, montane, and subalp