Tellus Mater

07/08/2024

Thank-you all for coming out for a wander! Appreciate you all engaging so much! Bridge Substance Misuse Programme Stablemates 👌 🌱💚

31/07/2024

Really proud to have been asked to write this piece for https://www.slowfood.com/✨️🍄

https://www.slowfood.org.uk/2024/07/31/the-joys-of-foraging/

Foraging instructor and proud member of the Association of Foragers, Lizzy Mary Jane Farmer, shares her foraging journey, along with tips and tricks, with Slow Food UK. Foraging and me “Slow Food Believes in Good, Clean & Fair food for all. Whether you are a consumer looking for good food, or a pr...

23/07/2024

Hey everyone!

Just a quick hello and to thoroughly recommend you guys making your own cordial/squash if you cba!🤣

I made two bottles of Cherry plum cordial with the ones I picked recently last night, and just look at the colour on them!! 💛

Also a lil jar now fermenting of wild horseradish too just for fun!

For all things fermented I must use this prime opportunity to recommend you check out Wild Pickle aka Emma, who is both a beaut and also Queen of The Ferments!

So do go check her out and all the brill stuff that she creates! 🌱

20/07/2024

Happy Saturday all! I've been quite ill over here! So lacking slightly in energy for hikes or indeed much more than a gentle bread bake!

However I am nearing the end of the first draft of the kids book I started writing only few weeks ago!?

I'm at precisely 28'129 words🤣, and I've had a great time so far writing it. It's been such a learning curve, and I also didn't realise the amount of Googling and contacting people who know their shizz that I would have to do, to keep it as accurate as possible! 😅

I'm also excited to be making an announcement over the next week or so about something completely different! So watch this space! 🙂

Plus a few more foraging dates are being added to my website, mostly in collaboration with some fantastic venues, and may pop up something else too! 😉

19/07/2024

Seems fitting for today!

18/07/2024

Cherry plums are ready here! Go Go Go!
💛💚💛

These will likely be whacked in my new snazzy catering vacuum packer!

I literally used a foraging walks income to buy this much needed bit of kit for preserving wild food makes and so forth!

So thankyou to all of you that book to wander with me. 😊

It truly makes so much difference to my work and progress!

Have you found your nearest cherry plum tree yet? I reckon they lurk nearer than you realise.👀

Ps Bread Recipe 'No2' is up on my blog!

18/07/2024

Boo!

I can't believe it's nearly the Summer holidays!?

Just a quick post to say thans to all of you that attended one of my sessions at Lyveden, National Trust over the weekend just gone!

You were all so lovely and I had the best time too!

Hopefully you all know now that you can forage too, just taking some time, care and with a good book or two to start!🌱

I have another date there for October so do watch this space for our last session of the year, where we will be going after the fungi! 🍄🍂

Special thanks to the team there too for having me! See you all again soon! 💚

12/07/2024

Huge shout out to Mhm Banbury and Radio Horton, managed to jump out the tub in time to catch the last half!

Well done all of you, great slot! 💪💚✨️

In other news! I'm so looking forward to seeing the first victims for our foraging session at Lyveden, National Trust tomorrow! 🤣

Please do wear comfy but well fitting footwear! I do not recommend open toes, we will be off road as it were, so please dress accordingly.

It's not too late to come along to either session, there are limited spaces now on tomorrow's but a few more for the shorter session on Sunday!

Please book via their website if at a loose end! 🍄🌱

The weather has been perfect for fungi as my partner and I went out for a recce today elsewhere so let's keep our fingers crossed! 🙂

11/07/2024

Finally added one of the recipes I have been asked about loads to my blog/website. Would love your feedback and hopefully it's clear enough as I tried hard to make it simple! 😅

https://www.tellus-mater.co.uk/post/the-bread-recipes-no1

08/07/2024

Quite a lot of photos coz we found quite a lot of mushrooms! 😳🤣

Beaut of a morning here in Northamptonshire with !

So many pics and thought some of you would appreciate the glut of Pleurotus we found, both ostreatus and pulmonarius!

Roughly 3.5kg in weight, some gifted, some going in our dinner, and some to dehydrate.

Found on two separate logs that fruit so often, we clearly missed a super flush in the two weeks to date that we didn't visit!

Anyway!

Life over here is great atm thank f! 😅 I'm celebrating 1.5 years of giving up alcohol and busy with 'werk' in all its guises!

From writing a children's book (I'm 22k words in!), to planning out future projects and kick-starting those. Which equates to lots of paperwork! But so very worth it all!

Everything I do currently brings me joy, so feeling very grateful.

Have a great week everyone. ✌️💚

01/07/2024

Just a little wave to remind you that I'm headed over to Heath Farm Holiday Cottages this Thursday for a foraging session! Do contact me if you wish to attend!

I'm off to deliver a Mindful Monday session this morning over in Banbury which I'm excited about!

Have a lovely day everyone! 🌱

29/06/2024

Happy Saturday everyone!

We've been busy bees over here and feeling very lucky to be alive!

Just a couple of pics of some dog roses. I'm not a flowery kind of gal but these are stunning and so short lived! 🤍🩷🤍

28/06/2024

A lovely session foraging today with these four top sports!

Thankyou all for coming along and wandering together, courtesy of our lovely hosts Sheaf Street Health Store ❤️

See you again for another session soon hopefully! 🌱🍄

28/06/2024

See some of you very soon Sheaf Street Health Store let's go learn some delicious wild edible foods!

Have a top weekend everyone! 💚

25/06/2024

It's crazy exciting over here! 🤣

I've gone and rinsed the werk account and spoilt myself with a new spatula that arrived this morning! 💃

Some meadowsweet drying well too, in the sunshine hitting the dining room table.

24/06/2024

Good Morning everyone!

Oh my gosh isn't it hot already today? Not going to berate the sun of course, but today I am most certainly stopping indoors and catching up on some admin and I'm also apparently writing a book!

So, if I have seemed a bit off the radar it has been for good reason!

I am however truly excited to see some of you this Friday at Sheaf Street Health Store! There are some spaces remaining, so do please take a look at the poster below if you are at a loose end and fancy a wander for wild foods together!

Have a great Monday all and be kind to yourselves. X

13/06/2024

Here they bloody come!

A lovely prompt start for the False saffron milkcaps/Lactarius deterrimus over here for 2024's season!

I'm still trying to make a truly orange coloured loaf 🍞 from these. 😅

Now to do a load of hiking in the weeks ahead to check all the other locations for both these, the true Lactarius deliciosus and the Lactarius semisanguifluus too!

04/06/2024

This month come along to our Northamptonshire ACRE Friendship & Foraging session.

Everyone is welcome and it will only be a short walk coupled with some lovely conversation and friendships formed. 💚

Just turn up or if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

03/06/2024

Home after a lil nine miler today to start the week! 👌✨️

A rabbit with mixy. A beau woodland, wild horseradish and even the walnuts are progressing on the trees!

Also a phat as f bag of garlic mustard seed pods gathered for a brief spell in the oven and then the seed extraction/separation.

Then to make bread. With said seed! 🌱

02/06/2024

A sneaky lil sunset forage in July? Let's do this!

I have also done a random 'Pay As You Feel' for x5 of the x20 spaces-for those that wish to do more nature based learning and activities etc, that perhaps can't afford the full whack, I hate charging anyway!

So yes! The event blurb explains more! Once the charity is set up (it's nearly there!), there will be a lot more funding to accommodate this stuff/deliver more for free/subsidised to enable more folks to get involved. (This should all be free in an ideal sane world.)

But for now, as a lil self-employed person bobbing about tryin' to make a livin' doing what I love to do, this is hopefully a gesture as a small token indicator of all that Tellus Mater/Immercia In Nature the charity aims to do long-term.

Let's go! A one off evening event to forage at sunset.

02/06/2024

The oysters are pinning over here!

This log has been like a good friend these last few years. Always there and many times it's produced kilograms of both beautiful and indeed delicious fungi.

Have a great Sunday everyone, will be paying it another visit next weekend to hopefully fill my 'big basket' the kids got me for Christmas! 🩶

Also some Lycogala epidendrum/wolf slime mould squishing and D harvesting our own percy Dryad's saddle off the tree in our garden.👌

Oh and late summer and perhaps even some autumn dates too will be added to my website today or tomorrow! 🍄

https://www.tellus-mater.co.uk/

30/05/2024

Thought I'd share my fave pic from the weekend Lamport Hall Rural Life weekend!

And a lil wave as I am now taking bookings for our second session of the year at Heath Farm Holiday Cottages.🍄

Link below for more details, feel free to email me with any queries on [email protected]
https://www.tellus-mater.co.uk/event-details/foraging-adventure-heath-farm-2024-06-15-10-00

29/05/2024

Few pics of a stunning chicken of the woods/Laetiporus sulphureus from yew tree to plate!

Last night's dinner!

Great for non meat eaters. Or for us who eat both meat and quality fungi! 🙂

Picked up en route home from the weekend in a graveyard!

The host was a yew tree, and it's great to be able to demonstrate/remind/educate folks that you can eat this safely and worry free. The yew 'toxins' don't get absorbed by the fungi. I'm sure others can explain this more concisely but in layman's terms...

Some folks can have it disagree with them irrespective of the host tree, so it's one worth sampling a small amount in the first instance, then you're good to go!

Winner winner chicken dinner! 🧡💛🧡

29/05/2024

Boo!

Super excited to be leading the first session of the year again at Sheaf Street Health Store!

See some of you soon! 🌱

27/05/2024

Breakfast was great! 🥚🍞🍄🌱

Scrambled duck eggs, common hogweed, dryads saddle mushrooms and a bit of leftover onion on some of the wild garlic and hogweed bread we made.

Now to say hello to the visitors for the last day of the Lamport Hall Rural Life event! 🙂

25/05/2024

Do pop by and say hello to us if you are planning to come along tomorrow or BH Monday to the Lamport Hall Rural Life Weekend!👩‍🌾👨‍🌾

We are there with both Lee's ducks and to chat all things foraging, living rurally and trying to keep a hold of the good life both living, working and educating in Northamptonshire and beyond!

If I can, there will be a pop up forage (times tbc) and even my youngest is coming with us to camp overnight!

See some of you soon hopefully! 🙂

22/05/2024

Just a quick reminder!

June 7th! Broadway Tower 10-1pm I'm leading a foraging walk!

Adults £35 and kiddies under sixteen are free!

So please drop me a message or email to [email protected] to book on.

We've had so much rain here so fungi wise...boom! 🍄✨️

20/05/2024

Today has been awesome!

My first post for a while! Cerioporus squamosus the Dryad's Saddle is so beautiful.

Hope everyone is well! I've been so busy these last few weekends 'werking', so today it was lovely to take a roam with just !

Also a huge thanks to the twelve of you that came along to the session on Saturday Heath Farm Holiday Cottages, and it's lovely to be able to say yes, you got it! 👌

Loads of things are a brewing here! Some of which are truly exciting in terms of keeping going with living and working in nature/outside!

I'm crap at keeping secrets, but for now. 🤐

It's all good wholesome stuff and includes longer term plans goals and following all the darn signs! Which have waved loudly at us both. So!

Watch this space! Keep doing what you love peeps! 🌱