By Eve Leonard

I’ve been thinking about hunting and gathering lately. No, things aren’t that bad financially in our household, yet. But you know how a theme takes hold, then everywhere you go, there it is?

Why, in the dead of a Bainbridge Island winter, a winter that won’t let go, a ridiculous winter that keeps powdering us with snow, should it seem that everyone is talking about living off the land? Perhaps it is the economy.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when something caught my eye. It was a letter-sized sheet of paper printed up from someone’s computer and carefully ensconced in a plastic sleeve and tied to the base of a trunk of a tree.

On the little poster was the request to not cut down the tree. “It’s really old,” the note said, “but it gives delicious apples every year.”

I was on a roadside in the northern part of our island, on a piece of land offered for sale. It seems easy to imagine someone being concerned that a new buyer might look at the lichen-encrusted, gnarly, stumpy old tree in the dead of winter and fail to see its beauty, its bounty.

I can imagine, too, that person dalily walking his or her dog past the tree, year after year, waiting for those wonderful apples to ripen.

Ever since I spied the little poster, the almost daily theme around me has become hunting – and sometimes fishing – and gathering. Maybe it’s because so many of us, myself included, are reading Michael Pollan’s book, “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” At work just yesterday, two guys were comparing notes on where to fish, how the catch has been, where they’re digging razor clams.

I know people here who pop down to the gravelly beaches on the west side at low tide to fill their buckets (and then their bowls) with clams, and I envy my crabbing and shrimping friends.

I hesitate to mention it, but also I’ve overheard more than one person discuss the logistics of putting a Canada goose or two on the table. I’ve even heard talk of making a meal out of the local deer, pesky foragers that they are,

Who among us hasn’t nibbled or gorged ourselves at the wild blackberry vines? Tame stuff compared to goose hunting, although I’ve been advised not to harvest any berries that lie below a passing dog’s trajectory.

I’ve harvested wild blueberries in Alaska with my sister-in-law, where you wear bells on your toes to alert the bears – who also are out picking berries – that you’re nearby and would rather avoid a close encounter. Berry hunting on Bainbridge is tame, indeed.

This week, my favorite building inspector, in the middle of tapping walls and assessing voltage in outlets, began to speak with great enthusiasm about the wild mushrooms found on Bainbridge. A budding mycologist, he spoke of chanterelles in the Grand Forest, of portabella-like, plate-sized mushrooms lurking in our woods if you know where to look.

I know this man well. His life’s work is to make sure our homes are water-tight, perfectly up to code, and safe beyond all reckoning, and there he was salivating at the idea of popping wild and potentially lethal mushrooms into a pan with some extra-virgin olive oil.

That got me to thinking what else I might find to pop into my mouth. I can hardly wait for summer to grow more tuberous begonias – for their food value. I’ll never forget the first time someone cajoled me into nibbling daintily on a petal. Such splendor, such lemony goodness. But this is a cultivated crop. Give me wild, give me free.

I’ve always chomped on the fronds of wild fennel and I harvest wild mint to munch. I’ve heard of nettle soup and dandelion salads, but haven’t tried them yet. Talk about eating locally. I suspect we relatively few people on this island the size of Manhattan could do quite well.

Then I Googled “foraging” and found “Wildman” Steve Brill (his quotations), who gives foraging tours in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs. In Central Park he’s found amaranth, for example. He’s got the photos to prove it, and full, if cryptic, instructions: “Can eat leaves in Spring (seeds in Fall.) Like spinach. Eat raw or cooked.”

His list of edible vegetation goes from amaranth to yarrow, and then he moves on to the edible mushrooms. All found and eaten on an island called the Big Apple.

Maybe it’s time for me here on the Little Apple to add foraging to that list of things I do, not because I must, but because they’re grounding and bring me such pleasure, things like baking bread or knitting. I’ll have you over for a fine wild mushroom gratin. Bring your appetite and a good field guide.

Eve Leonard is a writer and real estate agent.