by Winding Pathways | Nov 27, 2025 | Foraging, Nature, Trees
As Christmas approaches, nearly every American radio station will play the familiar “The Christmas Song” commonly called “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.”
The song was written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé in 1945 and made famous by the Nat King Cole Trio. Released in 1946 it became a Christmas melody popular for nearly 80 years. A pdf in the Library of Congress has an intriguing story.
Cruel Irony.
Chestnut blight wiped out Americn Chestnuts all over the East.
For thousands of years Native Americans harvested baskets full of chestnuts. So did Eur-Americans who swept across North America. Nutritious and abundant, chestnuts fed people and wildlife. Many were, indeed, roasted by open fires and on woodstoves.
The American Chestnut was one of the abundant trees in the Eastern Hardwood Forest.
It was a perfect tree with gorgeous honey colored wood that was strong, lightweight, and easy to work. Chestnut’s abundant nuts fed wildlife and people. Settlers turned their hogs loose into the woods to fatten on them.
Then one of America’s greatest ecological tragedies happened when an imported fungus created a blight that killed nearly every single one of billions of trees. They disappeared from forests and the human diet……almost.
Disease Resistant Options
Rich bought a couple of pounds of edible chestnuts from Iowa’s Stringtown Market and roasted them on our woodstove for a gathering of friends to enjoy. How?
Well, across the world are Chinese, Japanese and European chestnuts. Chinese Chestnuts resist the blight and have been planted here and there. The nuts Rich roasted were either Chinese or a hybrid of a few types.
Personal Connection to American Chestnuts
Growing up in wooded New Jersey Rich remembers fallen trunks of blight killed American Chestnut trees and small trees growing from their roots. They die before maturing enough to produce nuts. Rich’s Dad, Henry Patterson, salvaged wood from fallen chestnuts and fashioned many objects from it. Marion’s father, Les Fellows, remembers gathering chestnuts when he was a child in New Hampshire. He crafted picture frames that we think are from American Chestnut wood. The pictures in the frames are of Hardwick, MA, where Marion lived first out of college. Chestnuts are part of our personal heritage.
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Handmade Frames
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Honey colored wood.
Enjoy Edible Chestnuts
Although hard to find in the market edible chestnuts still make delicious fare. Many recipes can be found online. We like plucking them from their shells and eating them right after roasting. Here’s how Rich prepares them:
- Cover the nuts with water and boil them for at least 15 minutes to soften the hulls and leach out tannin.
- When they are cool enough to handle, use a stout sharp knife to make an “X” shaped cut on the top of each damp nut.
- Place the nuts in a cast iron skillet and heat on the woodstove. Watch them carefully and stir occasionally. The idea is to drive off most of the water.
Putting them on a cookie sheet and baking them in an oven also works well.
Then they’re ready to peel and eat.
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Slice the nuts
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Boiling softens the nuts’ shells.
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Chestnuts in cast iron pan roasting.
Beware
Edible chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts or buckeyes but the nuts look similar. Horse chestnuts are toxic. DON’T EAT THEM. Here’s how to tell them apart.
> Horse chestnuts have compound leaves with leaflets that radiate out like fingers on a human hand. Edible chestnuts have single elongated leaves, often with shallow pointed lobes.
> Nuts in tight husks that don’t have porcupine-like spines outside are characteristic of Horse chestnuts. You could call edible chestnut husks “vegetative porcupines.” Prickly!
> Horse chestnut nuts are entirely smooth, while edible chestnut nuts have a “nub” at their end. See the photo with the arrow pointing toward the nub.
Note the nub.
The Future
Enjoying Edible Chestnuts, Growing Them, and Saving the American Chestnut
We mostly enjoy peeling and eating edible chestnuts as they are. And, they work perfectly in many recipes. A good recipe source is at foodandwine.com.
(search for edible chestnuts)
Many nurseries sell chestnut seedlings. Pure American chestnuts are most likely to thrive when planted outside their native range where the blight still lingers. Many hybrids sold by many nurseries resist the blight. It’s wise to plant them a ways from the house for these reasons:
- Blossoms just plain stink. And the trees produce hundreds of “porcupines”. Don’t step on one with bare feet!
For these two reasons, we will never know why Marion’s dad planted the edible chestnuts near the house in New Hampshire.
The American Chestnut Foundation
The American Chestnut Foundation, tacf.org, has worked for years seeking ways to restore this valuable tree. Its website has excellent photos and information.
We hope some day to spend an evening sitting by our woodstove snacking on genuine American Chestnuts while listening to Nat King Cole’s Christmas song. Until then we’ll roast the hybrid Chinese Chestnuts we buy.
by Winding Pathways | Jul 24, 2025 | Foraging, Garden/Yard, Nature, Pests, Trees
The white mulberry is a trickster tree. We match wits with it often at Winding Pathways.
“All Around the Mulberry Bush” may be a kid’s jingle but the tree is an ecological pest with some positive traits.
Our front hedge is an example. It’s a dense growth of privet. Few plants can live in its shade but the mulberry has a trick that lets it thrive. The mature tree craves sunshine to grow to its full height of 75 feet. We wouldn’t think they’d stand a chance growing under our shady hedge. But it has a trick.
White Mulberry Trick
Birds poop out mulberry seeds when they roost in our hedge. These readily sprout, and the tiny tree sends up a skinny stem that quickly grows through the thick, shady hedge branches to emerge into the sunshine above them. We don’t want a mulberry there so we need to frequently clip down their tall leggy stems.
Another White Mulberry Trick
It’s a trickster in another way. Although called the white mulberry, Morus alba, it can have ripe white berries but more often they’re red to purple. Don’t let the color fool you. And that’s not all. Most trees have leaves of just one shape. Not the white mulberry. It has three common leaf shapes. See the photo. An individual tree can have all its leaves one shape, two shapes, or a mix of the three.
While many people join birds in eating the sweet fruits, it’s an invasive species that seems to take root wherever there’s a bit of bare soil. Then it grows like crazy. Cut it down and the stump sprouts that can grow a couple of feet in a flash.
Range of the White Mulberry
White mulberry trees grow throughout temperate North America and on other continents. Silkworms feast on their leaves, and probably white mulberry trees were introduced around the world to create a silkworm industry. The tree liked living in America but silkworms didn’t. They died out and a hoped-for silk industry never took root here.
Telling Apart the White Mulberry Cousin
Closely related is the native red mulberry, Morus ruba. It’s hard to find and may be declining due to hybridization with the exotic invader. Here’s how to tell them apart:
White Mulberry: Relatively small leaves. The top surface of the leaf is smooth and often shiny. It grows fast in the sun. Common.
Red Mulberry: It’s more of an understory tree. The fruit is red. The leaves are big – three to seven inches long with a sandpapery textured top surface and somewhat hairy bottom. Uncommon.
Although Red mulberry is native to Iowa we’ve not found any here. All mulberry trees seem to be the white species or hybrids.
Mulberry Tree Benefits
Firewood: We love burning mulberry wood. It’s an attractive yellowish wood that burns with a pleasant aroma as it gives off lots of heat. For example, a cord of mulberry contains 25.8 million BTUs of energy. In comparison, white oak has 25.7.
Food: Kids love the sweetness of mulberries. The berries normally ripen in June. Birds also flock to ripening mulberry fruit. They love them so much that they’ll eat mulberries before nearby ripening cherries. So, having a fruiting mulberry can increase a cherry tree’s yield. Mulberries can be eaten fresh and made into pies. We love adding some to our breakfast oatmeal. The fruit’s robust color makes an attractive natural die in drinks. Because mulberry fruit is sweet and rather bland it is excellent when blended with rhubarb or tart cherries.
Native Red Mulberries Are in Trouble
The native red mulberry tree is in danger. It’s uncommon and apparently declining, possibly because it so readily hybridizes with white mulberry. Red mulberries tend to live in small groves in forested, bottomland areas. Look for their large sandpapery feeling leaves. Finding one is a treasure.
White mulberry trees are tricky, but they are plentiful, prolific, and useful. We have a few growing at Winding Pathways. As long as they stay out of our hedge, we like them.
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White Mulberry Trickster Tree
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Mitten, oval, “other shape”
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Good firewood.
by Winding Pathways | Jul 3, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Foraging, Garden/Yard, Pests
A Variation on “The Four Horsemen”
A quartet of deadly and toxic plants lurks along trails and riverbanks in Iowa and some across much of the world. They are Poison Hemlock, Poison Ivy, Flowering Spurge, and Wild Four O’clock.
Poison Hemlock
We’ll start with Poison Hemlock. Socrates wasn’t the only person killed by it. The Greeks once used to execute criminals.
Poison hemlock isn’t related to the majestic hemlock tree. Rather, it’s a biennial herbaceous plant. In its second year it quickly shoots up to tower upwards of eight feet tall. In Iowa it prefers living in dappled sunlight where the soil is moist. That describes the land bisected by public trails paralleling rivers and streams—places where people go to recreate.
It’s deadly poisonous, but only when ingested. Walking or cycling by it creates no problem at all. But it’s wise to know about this potentially deadly plant. All parts of it are toxic to people and animals when ingested. Even dried, wintery stems are poisonous.
By early June, the tall green plants with feathery leaves begin bearing white clusters of flowers. Their prettiness is deadly.
Poison hemlock could be confused with Queen Anne’s Lace that’s sometimes called wild carrot. Poison hemlock also often lives near wild parsnips. This plant is also toxic, in a different way. It can create a vicious rash in people who rub against it with bare skin and then are exposed to sunlight.
Where Poison Hemlock Originated
Poison Hemlock is native to Europe and is especially common around the Mediterranean Sea. It was introduced to the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, and Asia, so today, it is a toxic invasive species worldwide.
The Internet and YouTube are loaded with sites describing this plant. A good quick read comes from the National Park Service at nps.gov/articles/poison-hemlock.htm.
Other Troublesome Plants
Unfortunately, several other deadly and toxic plants often live in the same places as poison hemlock. Here are a few.
- Poison ivy often lines trails. It prefers living on the edge of woodlands where it gets some shade and sun. Unlike poison hemlock, poison ivy is a native plant that causes a contact reaction. That means if human skin brushes against it a nasty itchy rash can follow. And, if a pet wanders through the poison ivy and then comes inside where a human pats it, guess what? The irritating oils are transferred and the human gets a nasty rash. A friend of our discovered this earlier this year. Also, state parks are notorious for having poison ivy growing where people contact it – along unkempt trails and winding up trees in campgrounds even. Rabbits and deer eat it and birds eat and spread the seeds.
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Birds drop seeds when they perch on campground posts.
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Poison Ivy loves edges
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Keep your distance from this beguiling, colorful plant.
Pretty and irritating
Flowering spurge is also common along trails. Cut the plant and get some of its sap on skin and a nasty welt is likely to result.
Unattended areas attract undesirable plants.
Wild Four O’clock also loves trail edges and is reported to be toxic.
None of these plants cause problems unless they are eaten or contact the skin. They won’t cause a problem for anyone just walking by
Be careful. Keep your distance.
by Winding Pathways | Nov 28, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging
Creating dinner
This fall we borrowed a Nut Wizard nut picker-upper from a friend and helped neighbors harvest gallons of black walnuts. We dumped them in our backyard and, over several weeks, delightedly watched a progression of squirrels haul them off to eat and bury.
They scurried off in all directions carrying a single nut in their teeth. After hundreds of squirrel trips our nut pile was gone. Those ambitious squirrels buried walnuts all over our property.
Derecho Destruction and Re-seeding Nut-Bearing Trees
Most folks don’t want or need walnuts sprouting in their yards but want to clear the yard of various nuts that fall from trees each autumn. The simple answer is investing in a nut wizard or borrowing one. This handy gizmo, which comes in several brand names, rolls along easily capturing nuts that you can then drop into buckets to dispose of. Eastern Iowa suffered a huge tree loss in 2020 when a derecho smacked us with 140 mph winds. Mature trees fell like matchsticks. Since then, we have been “reforesting” timber patches and urban streets and yards. Using a nut wizard to pick up nuts and re-purpose them helps reforest our area. This is a far better option than dumpstering them. A local nature center or park might be a good option to help replant lost trees. Or you can learn to shuck and process nuts for eating.
Squirrels Do the Work
Squirrels bury nuts in caches to retrieve them later.
Back to our squirrels. One morning we watched one use its front legs to dig a hole beneath our window, drop a nut in, cover it with dirt, and pat it neatly down. We’re sure it will be its breakfast on a cold January morning. Not all nuts get dug up, so we expect to find walnut seedlings all over our yard in the coming years.
Nuts An Amazing Food
Nuts are an amazing food for squirrels and people. Unlike most foods, nuts don’t spoil for months. Humans worldwide throughout history harvested walnuts, hickory nuts, filberts, chestnuts, and acorns and put them into storage for delicious eating during food-scarce winters.
Nuts are loaded with protein, oil, fiber, and vitamins. Squirrels, many bird species, deer, bears, and chipmunks have always eagerly gathered and stored wild nuts, but generally people today shun harvesting for good reason.
In past years people gathered and processed nuts. It took time and effort to collect, process, and store them. It’s much work. Planned “nutting parties” were somewhat festive occasions where neighbors gathered to collect and process nuts together. Probably many tall tales and gossip were shared that made the tedious processing more interesting.
Today it’s much easier to buy nuts at the grocery store but wild nuts remain a viable food.
Common Nuts for Wildlife and Human Food
Black Walnuts: Common in suburbia and woods edges, black walnut trees drop messy nuts by the zillions every early fall. Removing the husk, cracking the shell, and picking out the nut meat is a tedious and messy chore that yields delicious additions to cookies and cakes.
Chestnuts: The American Chestnut tree once ranged throughout Eastern North America and produced enormous quantities of nuts that were relatively easy to collect and process. Unfortunately, an exotic blight killed nearly all the trees a century ago. Today similar nuts are dropped from related Chinese and hybrid trees that resist the blight.
Hickories: Pecans are a species of hickory that grow mostly in the south, but Shagbark and Shellbark Hickory have a much wider range and are equally delicious. One hickory, the Bitternut, produces nuts so bitter even the squirrels leave them alone.
Acorns: Oaks worldwide produce nutritious acorns esteemed by wildlife but generally shunned by people. We prefer gathering White Oak acorns and processing them carefully before storing the resulting flour to add to muffins, pancakes, and cookies.
We’ve shared information on how to identify, collect, process, and eat nuts in past blogs. Plenty of information is also online on how to do it.
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Messy
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Nut Wizard
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Rolling up walnuts is easy.
At Winding Pathways we’re so happy to share walnuts with squirrels that we use a Nut Wizard to collect them in friend’s yards and bring them to ours.
by Winding Pathways | Sep 5, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging, Mammals
A few years ago, after seeing many squirrels with nearly naked tails we researched and posted a blog in February 2022. Furless Tailed Squirrels.
The response amazed us. People from around the world visited it and still do every day. We had no idea this condition was so widespread.
So, we’re posting a follow-up. Two winters have passed and our squirrels now have perfectly normal furry tails. We’re unsure if older squirrels have regrown fur or if the new generation never had the condition. Since most squirrels don’t live for more than a few years, we will likely see younger animals.
Whatever conditions caused them to lose their fur seem over. That’s not unusual in wildlife populations. If a serious disease or calamity reduces the population the condition subsides and survivors reproduce with enthusiasm, rapidly restoring abundance.
Based on our website traffic we suspect furless-tailed squirrels have been found far and wide. We predict that they, like our Iowa squirrels, will rebound with healthy furry-tailed animals.
A Short Squirrel Primer
Although many people dislike squirrels for their habit of gobbling up feed intended for birds, we like them. Squirrels are just as fascinating as goldfinches or cardinals, so we put out enough seed for both.
During the 2024 Summer Olympics, we were thrilled watching the graceful and powerful movements of Simone Biles, other gymnasts, and pole vaulters like, Armand “Mondo” Duplantis.
What happens when a squirrel falls?
We’ve not heard of a comparable competition for squirrels, but they are also amazing gymnasts and vaulters. In our yard a small oak and a large walnut live next to each other. Every fall the walnut is loaded with nuts that tempt squirrels. We love watching them climb the oak to its tippy top and then make an amazing upward leap to a flimsy walnut twig above. Like human gymnasts and vaulters, squirrels have impeccable balance, flexibility, strength, determination, and courage.
Treetop leaps aren’t always successful. Twice we’ve seen squirrels slip off high oak branches and fall 30 or 40 feet to the lawn below. Both times the hapless animals spread eagle, landed with a thump, and scampered off apparently uninjured. They are an amazing animal.
Late Summer Activity
As we write this in late summer walnuts and acorns are maturing. People may not like squirrels but these trees need them so much their annual nut crop is a bribe. Squirrels eagerly gather and eat many of the nuts but they scamper off and bury some, often a long way from the parent tree. Some nuts are never dug up and become a new tree generation. The exchange is a good deal for both trees and squirrels.
The rodents get nutritious food. Walnuts and acorns get free tree planting. Both win.
Hopefully, anyone reading this is enjoying squirrels that have grown fur on their once furless tails. Enjoy these amazing animals. To learn more about squirrels visit Animal Diversity.
by Marion Patterson | Aug 29, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging
Eatin’ Weeds
We don’t just pull weeds. We eat them!
Every summer gardeners spend hours pulling, digging, and spraying weeds that pop up overnight and grow like – Weeds! Marion’s family, especially grew up eatin’ weeds. Raised on a small, hardscrabble New Hampshire farm where the biggest crop was rocks, her family of seven supplemented produce with wild foods. Her dad, of the Depression era, knew the wild plants. So, she grew up eatin’ weeds and picking wild berries.
At the nature center in Kansas Rich was always looking for unique programs to present and wild edibles were a hit. Using the Euell Gibbons and Adrienne Crowhurst wild food guides, we learned which foods have the highest returns: easy to gather and process, moderately difficult yet rewarding, and survival-only foods.
We also realized that many are as tasty and nutritious as intentionally planted crops.
Dozens of weed species are edible, but we especially enjoy eating lambs quarter, purslane, and Asian dayflower that we haven’t planted but harvest from our garden. All were introduced from faraway continents and have gone wild. Each is easy to identify.
Lambs quarter
Lamb’s Quarters readily grow in disturbed soil.
This Eurasian native plant has many names. It’s sometimes called lamb’s quarters, goosefoot, or pigweed and has the scientific name Chenopodium album. Lambs quarter is a fast-growing annual weed that we first notice in early spring. We pick and eat it about the same time in April that we plant spinach and lettuce. We keep picking and eating the new shoots as the season advances.
Identification and Preparing
Lambs quarter is easy to identify. One characteristic we like is the leaf’s ability to shed water. Dunk a leaf in water and it looks silvery. Like most wild and garden greens, Lambs quarter is best when picked young and tender. We wash and steam it for a few minutes, much like we cook Swiss chard. Topped with melted butter, it’s delicious. Very young leaves can be rinsed and eaten raw in salad.
Asiatic Dayflower
Likes partial shade.
Since lambs quarter is wind pollinated its flowers aren’t showy. That’s not the case with Asiatic dayflower. Its sky-blue blooms last only a single day but add color to our garden. It prefers living in partial shade and thrives under our rain barrels and alongside raised beds in the garden. Botanists call it Commelina communis.
Like lambs quarter, the young leaves and stems are delicious in a salad or can be lightly steamed.
Purslane
Cultivated world wide
Although Americans constantly pull weedy purslane from their gardens, it is actually a planted crop in India and the US Southwest. Native to the Mediterranean region, it was introduced around the world centuries ago. Purslane is a fleshy plant with the scientific name of Portulaca oleracea.
Purslane grows like crazy and loves hot soil and full sun. It’s somewhat mucilaginous and tends to be gritty. Well-washed young stems and leaves can be eaten raw or steamed. The plant is high in oxalates, so people with kidney problems may want to avoid eating it.
Foraging and Safety
In this era of high food prices families seek ways to trim the grocery bill. Gardening helps and a small flock of backyard chickens adds delicious eggs, but foraging wild foods is becoming increasingly popular.
There are cautions. Many plants have lookalikes that could be inedible or even toxic.
Fortunately, the Internet is loaded with reliable information that helps a novice identify edible plants and learn how to harvest and prepare them for the table. Plenty of printed books are available, but the very best way to learn is to find a skilled forager and tag along on a collecting spree.
Cardinal Rule and Cautions
A cardinal foraging rule is to identify any new plant by at least three sources before attempting to eat it. Don’t take our word for it. If you want to try the plants we mention above, double check identification and edibility on at least two websites, books, or with an expert person.
Cautions. Most people may be able to enjoy eating a certain plant but you may be allergic to it. So, for the first meal or two eat a new food sparingly to make sure no unpleasant symptoms arise. Also, avoid picking plants that may have been sprayed or are alongside a road or near a factory where they might be contaminated by emissions. If you want to go on private property, always have landowner permission before collecting. In public parks make sure picking or gathering is permitted before picking.
Resources
Books:
Euell Gibbon’s classic Stalking the Wild Asparagus got us started on foraging decades ago.
A comprehensive modern book is Nicole Apelian’s Foragers Guide to Wild Foods.
Adrienne Crowhurst’s classics, The Weed Cookbook and The Flower Cookbook were staples in Marion’s family.
App: An app that helps identify edible and nonedible plants is SEEK by iNaturalist.
Websites: There are many. Often a good way to use a website is to first identify a plant and then GOOGLE it. Usually, that will lead to sites that further help identify the plant, give its history, and tell whether it is edible or toxic.
