I started foraging. I guess I needed another hobby? Because the six hundred hobbies I already have (and often abandon) weren't enough, apparently. Foraging comes naturally to me, as I have hoarding tendencies and love being in nature and often examine leaves and bugs and things very closely. Foraging gives me an excuse to combine all of these impulses and also to say, so did you know you can use acorn caps to make ink? Which means that I am not just bending over collecting acorns for no reason, but actually I have a very good useful reason to stuff my pockets with acorns and acorn caps and then put them in a plastic container where they will remain for an indeterminate number of days or even months.

One plant I have learned to appreciate as a result of foraging is the pokeberry. Pokeberry dye is a stunning pink color. I used to go after pokeberries with a vengeance, yanking them up as soon as I recognized the reddish woody stem and the pointed green leaves. Now I harvest the purple berries when I come across a plant. It's so simple: you put the berries into a plastic container, use a slightly smaller plastic container to crush them, then strain out the pink dye. I used to think pokeberry was an invasive, toxic plant, but I was wrong, in fact it is native and also edible, though only when it is young and cooked properly.

When life is feeling out of control, as it so often is these days, I find it helps to slow down and look at plants. The grasses are beginning to flower, which means it is a good time to visit a prairie. Speaking of appreciating the moments we often take for granted, here's an entry from my comic diary, from Saturday, September 6th, documenting one of the many events over the past week that reminded me that it is the little things, always the little things, that keep us going.

Some Things That Kept Me Going These Past Few Weeks

I have been extremely remiss in recommending anything as I have been busy with freelance work and also getting Michaela back into her school routine. So here are just a handful of things that I've enjoyed, in no particular order.

1. I have yet to find a show to fill the Andor-shaped hole in my heart, but Chad persuaded me to give Alien Earth a try and I confess that I'm hooked. It is weird in the way that a Coen Brothers movie is weird or the first few episodes of Succession, where you're not sure quite how to respond to it—is this extremely dark comedy or a very serious take on living in a technocracy or both at the same time? The jury is still out, tbh. PSA: this show is not for people who were never particularly interested in watching aliens eat people and then lay their alien eggs in their organs. Lots of blood and sticky substances.
2. We went to an outdoor screening of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the movie holds up. Michaela loved it. I was around her age when it came out, so it was fun to watch her register the possibilities of teenage life still ahead of her. It reminded me to revisit this essay by Steve Almond. It's behind a paywall but shhh, here is a pdf.

3. After experimenting with sunflower pollen I was pleasantly surprised to stumble on this article and learn that scientists are doing the exact same thing and are discovering potential new uses for it (far beyond trying it out as pigment), including reusable paper.
4. This New Yorker story by Chris Ware about artist Mary Petty has some of the most extraordinary illustrations I have ever seen. (Thanks to Chad for making sure I saw it.)

That's all for now. It's almost noon and way later than I normally send this newsletter. Thank you for your patience!

More next week, I promise.

Love,

Claire