Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 21/52 Spring Forest Walk, The Hunt For Oyster Mushrooms and Feast on the Beach With Three Generations of Friends An early evening forest walk while hunting for oyster mushrooms and identifying edible plants brought foragers together who share a love for nature and community connection. We started our adventure with a tailgate happy hour while snacking on stinging nettle cookies. The 2-mile trail gave us an inspired opportunity to move and discover the spring offerings including the downed logs and dead standing trees that uniquely house the growth ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 20/52 Part 2   Sea Vegetables at the Oregon Coast   With instructor John Nicholas Kallas with Wild Food Adventures After filling my bucket with enough mussels and barnacles for an evening feast with friends, our course at the Oregon coast shifted to sea vegetables! I really enjoyed the taste of teriyaki seaweed and was delighted to discover the sacred nori and eat it raw. When the tide came in we made our way down the beach to a beautiful waterfall. Our instructor introduced us to the delicious wild sweet pea with its lovely edible flowe ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 20/52 Mussels, Acorn and Goosneck Barnicles   With instructor John Nicholas Kallas with Wild Food Adventures   Wild food upgrade to my diet on the Oregon Coast with a group of eager students who arrived at 5:30 am at low tide, with buckets and rain gear to join instructor John Kallas for a workshop on harvesting mussels and barnacles. Acorn barnicles look like little volcanoes, you don't see them in restaurants because as John described they grow on ships and are seen as pests, but they are excellent food! You can't take these directly f ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 19/52   Resiliency, Breathe & Mindset Post 1 of 2: The Plunge: With Miles Lukas, Certified Wim Hof Instructor and Founder of Breath Fitness   May 7, 2022: There was wind, rain, hail and moments of sun for the much anticipated course, Wim Hof Fundamentals, hosted by Wildkind Academy. In this 4-hour workshop we were well-prepped for our final challenge, a two minute ice plunge using the techniques we were taught throughout the day. The following images offer an insight to the beauty and accomplishment of all the participants who demo ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 18/52 Seaweed Forage | Oregon Coast With John Kallas, Founder of Wild Food Adventures Since harvesting seaweed has everything to do with the tides, this wild food forage involved a 3 am wake so I could rise and shine and be on the road for a 3.5 hour road trip to the Oregon Coast to catch the unveiling of the seaweeds! Instructor John Kallas, founder of Wild Food Adventures based out of Portland, offers a variety of edible plant workshops and this 3-hour course was worth the journey. Turns out seaweed is just as photogenic as the fungi growing i ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 17/52 Nettles | Our spring plant ally Ten friends sat around a large picnic table each holding a homemade oatmeal cookie loaded with dried nettle. We had started our morning with a deep dive into the many gifts of stinging nettle that includes a trifecta of offerings: Edible, medicinal as well as utilitarian. What better way to truly appreciate this incredible plant than to consume it in a rich buttery cookie? With a rare April sun break and a beautiful trail to explore, we headed out to observe the spring forest and harvest nettle. There were man ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 16/52   A Camping Anniversary | PNW   This is a story about two best friends Jason and Jeff from Massachusetts, who made a decision during the shut down of Covid to bug out of town each month, head to the backcountry and have a good time while practicing their Bushcraft skills. My kind of people! I have been entertained by their journey this past year as they bring humor into their YouTube videos that feels unique. Whether it's their constant East coast banter, or educational how-to's or even the music shared as Jason has an incredible t ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 15/52   Shellfish Forage & Feast   One of the highlights on the yearly Rewilding calendar is heading west to harvest oysters off the beach and forage for manila clams in the sand. This was the second year that Wildkind Academy has partnered with Human Nature Hunting School to bring community together for this experience. Twenty people arrived from all over to have a unique experience. Brittney L Hamilton with Operation Ward 57 made sure that there was an opportunity for Veterans as well as caregivers of those wounded in battle to a ..read more

Field Notes from Jess: Rewilding 2022 Week 14/52   When community Gathers   There is strength in community. We gathered together under a canopy of cedar trees. The youth were building a campfire and nourishing food was prepared. Laughter and stories were exchanged and connection was felt following a 4-hour presentation on preparedness and the vulnerabilities of modern society given by Nathan Donnelly from Seadon 6 ALONE, History channel. These conversations feel relevant and necessary as the journey to rewild has everything to do with integrating a more holistic approach to resil ..read more