I was told today by my mother (Grandmama Bear) about the benefits of letting children come into contact with ‘good germs’ such as those in soil, leaf litter and grass.
We as parents often find ourselves (and I’ve done it myself) snatching our kids away from touching stereo-typically ‘dirty’ things such as mud. Obviously bad bacteria such as those in and around animal droppings and rubbish dropped by litter louts will still be avoided but today will be a ‘good germ’ day!
It’s a foraging day today, we’re going to pick Hazelnuts with my son ‘T’ who is 13 months old. He’s got a new found love for walking now and – though it does take FOREVER to get anywhere – he has a lot of fun crunching leaves and kicking stones as he strolls along.
Myself, Grandmama Bear and Grizzly Bear (Grandad) did all of the picking but T had fun putting the nuts into the bucket and eating blackberries we gathered along the way.
Hazel (Corylus avellana) are pretty abundant where we live but the nuts aren’t worth picking most years, luckily this year is a mast year so the nuts are big, full and well worth collecting.
The hazel is a deciduous tree or shrub, it grows to about 12ft, its leaves are broad, rough to touch, hairy and have serrated edges. The young twigs are hairy and it bears green and yellow catkins in winter. It’s fruit is oval and held in a cup (think acorn) which looks like folded leaves.
I am a qualified Arborist so I’m pretty good at tree identification but it’s always best to use a proper identification book and if you’re not sure – don’t eat it!
As usual Grandmama bear utilised things along the way to keep T entertained, feeding him lots of juicy ripe blackberries straight from the top of the bush (good germs) and using the wooden benches to play ‘horsey horsey don’t you stop’.
There was a lot a dog mess around so T didn’t get to play on the ground and we only picked fruit and nuts from places out of the reach of even the tallest hound. I climbed (not too high) up an Ash tree and T got passed up to have his first real ‘up a tree’ experience, I think he liked the way the bark felt as it had a thin layer of moss (another ‘good germ’ collector) in areas for him to rip off and throw away.
Hazelnuts ripen and fall from the tree naturally however, honestly speaking, if you leave it too late chances are somebody (like me) will have harvested them before you ever get there. We found the best time to collect them was when the leaves start to yellow (August/September depending on the climate) and only on mast years when there are a lot of nuts on each tree.
It’s always responsible to only pick the best and biggest ones as the rest will mature for a later visit and it will give the birds and other animals chance to eat well before the winter too.
Happy foraging everyone! Mama Bear x
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