Cold Spring on a hot day

I have discovered how to work without interruption. Train travel.Without Internet.

A one-and-half hour ride on Metro North up to Cold Spring, beside the Hudson, is perfect for writing. Write one way, write the other way, forage inbetween. The only downside is carrying the laptop with a ton of camera equipment: merci, Frenchman! It was unseasonably hot. July in May.

Above, a train picture en route: Inwood Hill Park (where this weekend's wild foods walk will take place).

And then we were there.

In the water of this stream we saw a school of what I think were indigenous eastern brook trout - they had a distinctive white line on the leading edge of their fins. They schooled in the shade.

The relief of trees. We sat down and ate lunch.

The baguette above I picked up at Sahadi's after my Saturday wild foods walk in Prospect Park. The sausage came from a "general dealer" (hardly) - in Cold Spring, where I also spied a lovely bunch of books:

After our streamside lunch I chanced upon some wood nettles (Laportea canadensis). Memories of last year's lovely trip to Stockport, and Laura Silverman's memorably good nettle soup.

I didn't have gloves.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! 

And then we found ordinary stinging nettles (Urtica dioica). I looked the other way. My hands were still crying, even though I'd rubbed jewelweed juice all over them.

The jewelweed (above) is lovely and the terrace is covered in it this year. You can eat the tender leaves, too - they're not just good for stings and for hummingbirds.

I picked the first pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)I have seen this year, and we ate it for supper.

A frog friend. Anyone know what s/he is?

And then it was back home in the train again, with a look up now and then, to see the beautiful, greening woodlands flash past.

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