Mysteries of Seward Park

Joseph and I went back to Seward Park to forage again. I have read that salal berries can be used like blueberries in pie, so I wanted to collect a big bag of them and try it. This time, though, we ended up on a different trail, where the salal was sparse and what berries we found were dried up and unappetizing. Even with the paucity of berries, there were some interesting and mysterious things to be discovered.

First mystery: what is leaving all this fur around? It has guard hairs in it like dog fur, but we saw it everywhere! Unless someone was shaving Akitas in the park, I think it probably came from a wild animal--maybe the feral rabbits? I was tempted to try to collect it and make yarn from it (hey, free yarn!) but there were bugs in one clump, so it wasn't a good idea.


We also found a mysterious sap-producing tree. It was too tall to be able to see what its leaves looked like, except that it's a broadleaf of some kind. Here is a picture of its bark:

The leaves in that picture belong to a nearby bush and not to the sap tree. The sap tree's branches are all really high up.

This is the sap. It seeps out and makes long projections that look a lot like Gummi-Worms. This is not an evergreen tree and the sap-gummis aren't pitch. I tasted one to see if I could identify it, and there was a mildly sweet taste--not as sweet as maple sap--but what was really interesting to me was the mouth-feel of this stuff. It was slightly slippery and humectant, reminding me of glycerol. Once I know for sure what kind of tree this is and how edible the stuff is, I may be able to make my own dry-mouth treatment stuff!

We also saw a really big owl. The picture of the owl is a little blurry, as the light conditions were kind of weird and I didn't get close enough. The owl seemed to regard me as no threat; he looked at me a bit as I approached, but didn't hiss or puff up or fly away. It looked like he just thought I was an interesting oddity. He looks sinister in this picture, but owls are actually real sweethearts who love to snuggle.