Forage Walks and COVID-19

[Updated 3/29/20: Unless we are given the all-clear (unlikely), April walks are cancelled]

For the curious and concerned, here is how things are, and our current drill at home:

🌷 For anyone who has purchased tickets for a walk, credit will be offered for any future walk in more normal times. If this is a hardship for you, or if you were coming from out of town I will issue a refund.

🧼 This is our preventive routine at home, and out and about (the Frenchman and I have always been slightly obsessive about common sense hygiene, but our normal measures have been ramped up):

🤲 Hands are sanitized if we are away from home, using a 70% ethyl alcohol gel. We do not touch our faces. We wash our hands the second we walk through the door.

💳 Anything store-purchased in containers or bags is first wiped down with sanitizing solution* on our landing - our new staging area before anything comes inside.  Our door handles and common surfaces are wiped down with the solution twice a day: taps, light switches, handles on anything that opens and shuts (including fridge, dishwasher and oven), credit cards, keys, and phones.

*1 tablespoon bleach to 16 fl oz/473 ml water in a spritz bottle.

⛑ Indoor surfaces touched by objects from the Outside are wiped down immediately with sanitizing solution. But we have that staging area.

🤛 There is no handshaking. Forget about hugging. And elbow bumps are better than fist bumps. But there is no emoji for an elbow bump. Yet. [Update: This seems quaint, now. That was before the six-foot rule.]

🌿 Foraged ingredients are gathered in clean places in clean bags by my clean hands. They are washed or cooked, as always.

For you at home? Pay attention to anything anyone has handled or touched at any point: Objects, delivered parcels, mail, money, door handles, shopping basket handles, so on. Shared surfaces are the enemy.

My personal feeling is that being outside* is the best antidote to stress. These are stressful times and stress is very harmful. Please do go out, walk, and find nature. It helps.

[* Poor South Africans are not allowed to exercise. This is very rough]

New York is blessed with big and small green spaces. Prospect Park and Central Park, of course, but Inwood Hill Park, Pelham Bay Park (the Bronx), Forest Park, Alley Pond Park (both in Queens), Mt Loretto Unique Area, and Conference House Park (the last two are on Staten Island) are my favorite wild refuges and places to stretch your legs.

Another unlikely therapy for stress is...the jigsaw puzzle! I discovered this quite by accident in Cape Town - this gorgeous $19.95 botanical illustration by Johannes Gessner cured a heart condition (serious arrhythmia) of three months that had befuddled cardiologists and cost thousands of dollars in testing (the tests revealed that I have a very strong heart!). It concentrates one's mind in uncertain times and blocks out the noise - real occupational therapy (my issue was probably embedded stress - family-related, triggered by an anniversary). I know, I'm off topic.

Here is Bug Slayer, from the the Elderberry chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast. Timely. Three parts gin, 1 part each of elderberry cordial and fresh lime juice. Elderberry has antiviral properties.

If all goes as planned - and it may not - I will also be: In Inwood Hill Park for a Forest Revival on April 11th, at Green-Wood Cemetery for blossoms galore on April 18th, teaching at the New York Botanical Garden on April 19th, guiding an Earth Day Invasivore Walk on behalf of the Alley Pond Park Conservancy on April 22nd (just $10), leading a Between the Woods and Water walk at Pelham Bay on April 25th, and hosting an Edible Plant Blitz at Fort Tilden on May 16th. You can read more about the first and last two on my Forage Walks and Classes page.

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