Marcia Bonta

  • Food for Wildlife

    After three lean years, our oak trees finally produced a bumper crop of acorns last September. Forewarned by hordes of blue jays screaming from the treetops as they plucked ripe acorns from the oaks, I had to be careful on our steep trails not to slide on the fallen nuts that were more hazardous than…

  • The Mushroom Man

    “I was trained by the gypsies,” Bill Russell told me.  “They would come to set up camps near my home in Turtle Creek, southeast of Pittsburgh, for six weeks every summer.” The gypsies may have added to his growing knowledge, but Russell caught mushroom fever while hunting field mushrooms with his parents when he was…

  • A Fruitful Year

    Some years are more fruitful than others.  Last year was one of those years.  From mid-June until mid-August I never set out for my morning walk without slipping a pint jar into my pocket.  I wanted to be prepared to pick first the low bush blueberries, then the huckleberries on the powerline right-of-way, and later,…