I did a thing
My life is generally like waiting at a bus stop. I'm hanging around for ages, with not a bus in sight, and then suddenly, all at once, there are three.
So if you hadn't heard, I was in the New York Times article about Black Foragers. I was happy to be included and I have to say the writer, Dr. Cynthia Greenlee and I got on like a house on fire. She actually felt bad that I was only in about a paragraph of the edited version that appeared in the paper, but seeing as Adriant Bereal managed to get five pictures of me on the website with another four in the Wednesday August 4th's Food section of the print edition, you won't hear a complaint from me.
And just like that sudden queue of busses, opportunities are presenting themselves a plenty, but I'm taking a measured approach to all of it. Being in the Times, in the Food section was pretty much bucket list material, but so is the idea that I could share with with people. I prefer "sharing" to teaching because I love this. I mean really, I went from a kid who was no friend of the great outdoors, who had major grass and green allergies and now I'm out there as much as possible, with people and without. I'm photographing and IDing and studying and loving it all. I want to share what I know about the things you're stepping on, so you can appreciate the amount of food and medicine that's literally on your doorstep (sometimes growing right through the cracks).
And all of this is going to require more of me and of my website. And it really is time. So with a revised focus on foraging and appreciating those plants (formerly known as weeds) for their edible and medicinal benefits, I hope to inspire more people, with my urban foraging exploits. So I hope you're ready for all the new that's coming at you.
You know, when I named my company Landed Gentress, so many people tried to get me to change it to something that had soap or essential oils in the title. Even then, when I'll admit, that I didn't fully know what I was doing, I did know that I didn't want a product specific name, I wanted something that tied in with my connection to land. I'm glad I stuck to my guns, because now more than ever, it's that connection that is guiding my path forward, while still having my back.
Congrats! Hope you feel proud of your work! 💜