Oh What Fun

I received a package in the mail the other day, it was from one of my many writer friends. Since all the isolation and lockdowns of the last year and a half we have not had the chance to see each other in quite a while. This package brought me right back to the weekly classes that we so enjoyed happily cramped in a room to share our love of penning something we could share with each other.

The package, I was told, was long overdue as much as two years. I think it was one of those ’roundtoit’ things, you know one of those ‘I’ll get around to it’, and I am just tickled that my friend had her roundtoit moment at the same time she had one of her ‘near the post office’ moments. Anyway, I just wanted to share the sweet sentiment of this lovely gift since you all know my passion for foraging in our forest and the love I have for sharing the bounty that I collect, grow and tend. Over the years I have had the opportunity to share delicious Chanterelles with many of my writer friends, visitors to the farm and perfect strangers, that last one is a completely different story where I mixed up a friends car with one that looked similar in a parking lot. I’m sure the owner of the vehicle was surprised, perplexed and maybe quite disgusted that someone would leave a bag full of floppy fungus on their windshield.

My writer friend travels the corners of the world, so unlike my stick-to-the-farm, barely-out-of-Oregon wanderings. She found this little treasure when abroad and thought of me!

This colorful mushroom was purchased from a Scandinavian Handmade Design Company called En Gry & Sif and the origins are quite fascinating;

It all started with a back packing trip to Nepal in 1999. The plan was to continue to the further east, but the interest and love to this amazing country made us stay. We saw how the Nepali people used felt. We wanted to combine simple Danish design with this fantastic raw and rustic fabric, and the idea of “Én Gry & Sif” was born.

“Én” in Danish means “one – and only one”. All Én Gry & Sif products are handmade, so there is only “one” of each, since there will always be small differences in each product.

Én Gry & Sif is Danish design, but all handmade in Nepal by very skilled workers. All products are made of pure natural wool from New Zealand.

It is mostly women Én Gry & Sif support by their work, since it is shown that the women are the best to make sure that the income goes to the families.

In 2009 Én Gry & Sif got there Fair Trade certification from The World Fair Trade Organization.

I am enjoying my little felted mushroom even though it is fashioned after the Fly Agaric of the Amanita family, a deadly poison type of mushroom that I avoid completely when tromping around in the woods! Having this safe version is just my cup of tea.