“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
Upon discovering these words from Ben Franklin years ago, I quickly realized the extraordinary value of investing in one’s education. A casual look at my bookshelves, notebooks, and study habits over the years easily confirms this.
What does all of this have to do with nature?
Almost everything.
As a way of learning nature skills, I am a big proponent of investing in quality education. While I believe that books and websites are excellent learning tools, I feel that in-person training from exceptional educators is an often overlooked yet essential strategy for acquiring information.
This is why I am a huge fan of attending educational events, and why I recently drove to central Pennsylvania to study with a visiting mycologist from Oakland, California.
This mycologist, whose name is Alan Rockefeller, is an expert on the topic of DNA sequencing and he travels all over North America studying and teaching classes on mushrooms.
I acquired an incredible amount of value during Alan Rockefeller’s event and decided to document the experience. If you are interested in learning more about Alan’s work, and especially about the motives behind one man’s devotion to kingdom Fungi, check out the brand new video!
A recent trip to a living American chestnut tree brought me directly to two late winter mushroom species. While snapping a few photographs, I could not help but think that — as paradoxical as it sounds — without fungi, perhaps the lone, living American chestnut tree would not exist at all. You can read more about these thoughts (and two mushrooms) on Instagram.
Thanks for reading and watching… and as always, thank you for your support!
-Adam Haritan
Paths I Walk 