Foraging for fun?

Unexpected foliage

For a couple of decades early December was foraging time. I went nowhere without a pair of snips and some lengths of sturdy string, just in case I stumbled across that perfect stash of desirable foiiage, twigs or berries. I would walk dogs in places I never usually visited, drive along unfamiliar lanes, walk through woods either searching the ground or looking skywards to see if the perfect cones appeared. Some days I returned home with the back of the van or the roofrack covered in bundles of lichen-covered larch dripping in little cones, branches of fir foraged from recently pruned plantations, bundles of alder, bags of bright berries or stacks of teasels. I cut builders’ bags full of bracken from my own field edge to wrap round hoops roughly woven from coloured willow from a friend’s basket willow patch.

My studio would fill with heaps of material to make wreaths and decorations, joining the boxes of beech that had been ready since October. In summer the working whiff would be floral, in winter it was a heady mix of glycerine preserved foliage and fresh conifer. When I began the making for the year everything was reasonably tidy, within a week or two it always deteriorated into some sort of woody chaos. When I began each winter it was with enthusiasm, within a week or two that had usually evaporated. I didn’t fundamentally dislike the process, I enjoyed making a select few, but I was swiftly disenchanted when there were quantities to make and despatch, dragging myself resentfully to the workbench.

I have no need to think about stocking up on wreath making material this year, and this morning I took a favourite route for the early dog walk, my mind empty of thoughts about foliage. Approaching a path off a back road that I often take, I saw that there was a heap of something beside the track that looked freshly dumped. From a distance – my eyesight is not the best - I wondered if something deliberate had been placed there, awaiting transport up the snicket into the woods. As I approached I realised it was a heap of bin bags and a few boxes, and Minnie the younger spaniel, who usually just plods along a few inches away from me, scampered off and jumped on the pile, sniffing madly with her tail going like a windmill.

Minnie has obviously missed her vocation, and she finally had the chance to be the sniffer dog she might be in her dreams.

Many of the sacks contained foliage. Possibly merry Christmas foliage but definitely not decorating material. And definitely not the sort of foliage anyone would expect to see bagged up on a quiet Gloucestershire track.

Marijuana leaves spilt out of some of the overstuffed top level sacks, dozens seemed to be chock full of the headily scented foliage, unlabelled cardhoard boxes were filled with stalks from where the leaves had been neatly stripped or snipped. Lower level sacks were full of spent growing medium, then there were bags of used wrappers from gloves and lights, sacks of polythene film, watering cans and a pump spray.

I couldn’t help roaring with laughter, I definitely hadn’t expected to stumble on the emergency clear out from someone’s dope producing enterprise. It must have been seriously hurried, but why did they leave all the sacks of neatly stripped leaves?

Perhaps it’s a good thing that I haven’t quite moved back into my house so have no drying facilities. Even though it’s been thirty years or more since I smoked anything stronger than a roll up, and decades since I even smoked one of those, and I have no intention of rekindling then habit, I couldn’t help thinking it was rather a waste to leave it all there!

I’m going to walk back later. I expect most of the pile will have been cleared. I hope so.

I live a few miles from Stroud which has had a pretty alternative rep since the 70s. This has to be a marvellously Stroudie type of flytipping

!