Last time I was in the forest, I took a wrong turn and got lost. It was also dark and I barely saw where I was going and my sense of direction is awful. That sounds like a nightmare, but I stumbled into something very valuable that time: a whole river of yellow clay.
I didn't have time or energy to take some clay with me that time, I was busy finding a way back (I did get back safely) but today I decided to go back there, locate the river of clay, and haul home as much as possible, in order to make all pottery ever.
Actually, I had 4 goals for this mission: to check if there's still any chestnuts, to see if I can find any mushrooms, to get more planting soil, and to bring home clay.
Forest was magically beautiful. Red leaves carpeting the whole area, trees glowing in green and yellow. Nobody around for miles. I got exhausted biking there, but as soon as I entered the forest, I was more than fine. The air felt alive and revitalizing. I talked to a tree and it was like nothing bad was happening anywhere.
I found more chestnuts, which was a surprise, it's pretty late in the season for them. Then while collecting them, I saw a little baby deer! It was so tiny I thought it was a bunny before it stood up on its legs and ran away. It was super sweet. I also found my usual spot with red clay, because imagine if I mixed red and yellow clay and made like a mixed vase? That would be so pretty.
That's the soil I use for planting all my seedlings. It's made entirely from composted leaves, so everything grows well in it. I'll need it soon because I'm starting new plants for the spring very early. I found two mushrooms right at the end of the trip:
These are only edible if that ring on the stem can be moved; they're the same species even though the right one is a bit older.
And finally, I went to find it again. A river of clay.
It goes on and on like this, it's not as visible because it's covered with leaves right now, but it looked like the entire forest was flooded with it last time I saw it.
I don't really understand how come all this clay is here, even though I didn't find any clay this color anywhere else in the forest? What happened to put this giant body of clay here? It goes on for a whole mile. Sometimes stuff in nature is like that, you only find a certain thing in one place, and a lot of it right there, and then nowhere else even a bit.
It's perfect. It's so soft I was almost sinking in it while trying to collect. It's so clean I don't even think I have to melt it and strain the rocks out.
I also found one extra thing I didn't hope to find there: extra fine sand! I gathered it up happily because I learned it's beneficial to mix it with composted soil, for little baby plants. I'm going to try that and see if plants growing in that soil do better than ones growing in compost only, I'm very curious.
I gathered up a full bag of clay and went home with my rucksack very heavy and my heart light. Being inside of the forest did a lot for my mental state, and, by my own standards, I was rich. If you have chestnuts, mushrooms, compost, clay and sand, what more could you possibly wish for? Those are the means to eat, to grow plants, and to create pottery. Forests are the best.