Highlights
OCTOBER 2022 - Bike Rides, Mushroom Walk, Al Lima
ACTIVITY ALERT - What have the rainy days and cool nights brought us?
Let's take a walk in the forest and see....
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Friday's Sunset Moonlight Ride
ACTIVITY ALERT - Perfect weather, rainy and cool, for this past Saturday's October Mushroom Walk! Next walk in the forest November 12, Saturday.
Saturday morning's mushroom hunters out in the forest.
Appears to be the mock oyster mushroom (Phyllotopsis nidulans).
Saturday's Sunset/Moonlight Ride - Oct. 15, 2022
Saturday proved to be a wonderful night for a bike ride. Some started at Kettle Point and some started in Bristol but we all met in Warren near Del’s Lemonade. It began as a balmy night and got cooler as the evening progressed. Beautiful sunset, a lot of deer sightings, light wind, minimal bike path traffic. A perfect night!
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INFO ALERT - You were meant to be wild! Return to the forest, your ancestral home - Part 4
Forest colors to dye for! A wool knit cap with a mushroom motif, created from mushroom dyed yarn. The most famous mushroom used as a dye is the aptly named dyer's mushroom (Phaeolus schweinitzii). It can be found growing on old spruce, hemlock, fir and pine trees and stumps. For a list of some mushrooms and the colors they produce, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_dye For more info on dyeing with mushrooms check out this site, https://namyco.org/history_mushrooms_for_color.php or simply google "dyeing with mushrooms."
Don't be greedy when gathering mushrooms. Picking the mushroom "fruit" does not harm the mycelium, the mushroom "plant". Always leave a third to a half of what you find alone so their spores can spread and continue the survival of the species.
Feeling creative? This is a fun activity to do with kids. Just make sure you have a few extras for each child since what you etch into the mushroom you can not erase and do over. The artist's conk mushroom (Ganoderma applanatum) is a perennial fungus that grows as a shelf or bracket on trunks and large branches of hardwood trees. As you can see in the photo the top of the shelf or cap is woody and hard. The underside of the shelf, the pore layer where the spores develop, is white and soft and can be easily scratched with sharp pointed objects leaving a permanent etched brown line. For more info go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganoderma_applanatum You can find some interesting artistic conk art work, some quite detailed, here: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=artist+conk&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-153677-346401-4&mkcid=2&mkscid=102&keyword=&crlp=560045938203_&MT_ID=&geo_id=&rlsatarget=dsa-19959388920&adpos=&device=c&mktype=&loc=9009548&poi=&abcId=&cmpgn=15214202782&sitelnk=&adgroupid=128195422263&network=g&matchtype=&gclid=CjwKCAjw-rOaBhA9EiwAUkLV4ideQKPvM8Ec6kGewr-_2zympa-zQGVI346Bo1OWI9wCIg3QK1AypRoCYaIQAvD_BwE
A powerful medicinal mushroom found in local forests that contain old eastern hemlocks and hemlock stumps and logs. The hemlock varnish shelf polypore (Ganoderma tsugae) is very closely related to the highly valued Asian “miracle” mushroom reishi or ling chi/lingzhi, Ganoderma lucidum. Both mushroom species contain triterpenes, polysaccharides and sterols and both can be made into a “tea” reportedly containing immunotherapeutic properties, anti-tumor inhibitors and enhancers for anti-viral and antibacterial activity. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganoderma_tsugae
Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) is a polypore (fungi that release their spores through pores on the underside of the fruiting body) occasionally found growing on various species of birch (Betula) in northern Europe, Asia and North America. In our neck of the woods it is found on old yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) trees.
Brewed as a “tea” chaga has been used as a tonic and medicine for centuries by the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia, Russia and Siberia.
The West “discovered” chaga in 1968 when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's autobiographical Cancer Ward was published. In his novel Solzhenitsyn's Dr. Maslennikov notices how cancer-free Russian peasants are. Could this be due to their habit of drinking chaga tea? He makes the connection and patient ...and main character ...Oleg Kostoglotov (Solzhenitsyn) benefits from his discovery.
Today, chaga is in demand worldwide. A celebrity fungus among us. Like ginseng it is touted as a cure for hundreds of ailments and conditions. Is chaga potent medicine? What are its therapeutic effects? Is it just an old, dried hunk of fungus? Much ado about nothing? Maybe something in between? We don't know.
Chaga extracts are still being tested and studies are being done at leading medical facilities and research labs around the world. Chaga extracts contain the polysaccharide beta-glucans and the terpenes sterol, inotodial and betulinic acid. A Russian cancer treatment, Befungin, is made from chaga extract and cobalt salts stabilized in alcohol.
Those wanting some chaga tea no longer have to go off into the woods hunting for it. Today, chaga tea, chaga capsules and other chaga products can be found for sale by simply doing a “Google” search. Checking around Chaga products can also be found at your nearest health and nutrition store, pharmacy, some supermarkets and on the Internet.
Chaga is also known as one of the tinder polypores. These polypores are perennial mushrooms, dense and woody, used to start and carry fire. Otzi the 5,300 year old “iceman” found in the Alps was carrying a belt pouch that contained a sophisticated fire starting kit and pieces of a tinder polypore, related to chaga, to hold the spark when Otzi wanted fire.
Photos, above, of lion hunter and prey in a New England forest. The formidable looking weapon the hunter is carrying is used to reach the lion's mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) often found high above the ground where a large branch has broken off a beech tree and left a wound or in a trunk hole or beech tree hollow. The lion's mane mushroom is another potent medicinal mushroom with some cautions. Check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hericium_erinaceus and google "lion's mane mushroom" if you want more info.
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Al Lima - We Will Miss You
Alfred J. Lima passed away October 18, 2022. Al, quintessential community planner and a truly gentle man and wonderful friend, was always up for any challenge and adventure that involved planning and advocating for preservation of our city's unique character. He had a wonderful holistic approach to planning, placing equal emphasis on all uses of land for all the right purposes.
We, Green Futures, approached Al over twenty years ago when we were seeking help and advocacy in further protecting Fall River's municipal water supply and watershed lands and the adjacent last large unfragmented forest, in Bristol County, that surrounded this critical public resource. Al liked the idea, named the land preservation initiative the "Copicut Greenbelt" and became a Green Futures member. After years of effort and advocacy, and involving many state and local officials and everyday folks, Al's Copicut Greenbelt became the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. What a marvelous accomplishment in this rapidly urbanizing area of the state.
Al had the right talents and skills to multitask and would have numerous community betterment projects in various stages of development all progressing at the same time. When he heard about our plan to "free" the much abused Quequechan River, the river that gave the city its name, he jumped right in and ignored city and state naysayers that said it would be impossible to construct a walking or bike path down the old railroad line, from Westport to Britland Park, because the old railroad trestles would have to be replaced and it would be too expensive. When things looked especially dark and folks were ready to give up you know what Al would say? "Don't despair, we have to find a way to make this happen ....and we will." And, so we did and today we have the beautiful and green Alfred J. Lima Quequechan River Bike Trail right in the heart of the city. Thank you, Al!
In a city like Fall River, positive thinkers are few and far between. When Al proposed we campaign for the city to vote on adopting the Community Preservation Act (CPA), a funding tool that can be used to preserve open space, historic preservation and create affordable housing, almost all of us thought it would never pass. Indefatigable Al and equally indefatigable wife Pam campaigned day and night ...and it passed.
There are so many things Al did to make Fall River a better place it is hard to remember them all. He authored a number of books, conducted historic bus tours of Fall River and historic boat tours of the Taunton River ...and there was so much more.
Al's friendship, wisdom, love and ability to always take the high ground and never give up no matter the opposition was truly amazing. What a lovely, remarkable man. Thank you, Al. Godspeed!
Al was a teacher too. Here he is, wearing a yellow shirt, leading a bicycle tour on the history of Steep Brook and the Taunton River.
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