What’s New
We will continually be adding new pages and updating existing pages as our experiences and adventures grow in this beautiful place we call home. Check in here to see what’s new and click through directly to new content. We hope you will enjoy this fun journey as much as we enjoy sharing it with you!
February 26, 2022: Butter chicken of the woods recipe
We don’t usually put recipes in the “What’s new” page but this one is just too good not to share! If you’re a lover of Indian cuisine you are going to LOVE this version of butter chicken made with chicken of the woods mushroom, it is out of this world good! I’ve included a recipe for palak paneer that is the perfect accompaniment to this meal. Enjoy!
February 26, 2022: Summer Oyster Mushrooms
Oops, life happens and suddenly it’s been 10 months since our last post! High time we got back to sharing the joys of Calder Wilds with you all! We thought we’d start with the delicious oyster mushroom that we found growing in abundance here last summer. We’ve also added some more recipes to other pages and a dozen more insects, edible mushrooms and more to various other pages so feel free to browse through…
May 2, 2021: Wild Plants & Wild Leeks
Join us as we start on our new adventure of discovering all the edible plants that grow here on our property and in the surrounding forest. We know that there are many plants and flowers around here that are either just plain delicious and others that have medicinal properties that help with all sorts of ailments. So far we have harvested wild leeks and absolutely love their potent, garlicky flavour that has enhanced many a meal. We have included some super yummy recipes that have now become a staple in our home…
March 22, 2021: Our Vegetable Garden
A page all about our bountiful vegetable garden! A huge project every spring, summer and fall but it keeps us supplied with the most delicious, organic food all year round. It’s a labour of love that not only feeds us but is also a hugely enjoyable way to spend a few hours outside every day. Some recipes included and more on the way!
March 22, 2021: How to make “sun”-dried tomatoes
We have a bunch of recipes on the vegetable garden page including how to make your own sun-dried tomatoes (actually dried in the oven and dehydrator but they still taste amazing!). More recipes using all our garden goodies will be added periodically so check back for dinner ideas if you’re ever at a loss of what to cook!
November 14, 2020: Birch Polypore
The super versatile birch polypore has many of the same medicinal qualities as the chaga mushroom but it also has a bunch of other interesting uses. We have recently found about a dozen birch trees sporting these fascinating fungi and have had a fun time harvesting and preparing them. Click on the link below to learn all about this ancient shroom.
November 8, 2020: Beavers
Meet one of the busiest animals we have here in Calder, the tree-felling, dam-building North American Beaver. These super productive rodents have made themselves at home at the Three Ponds, a magical place that provides them with all the food they can eat and an underwater sanctuary to keep them safe from predators.
November 2, 2020: Apple Orchards
We are lucky enough to have many apple trees growing here on the property and love the annual traditions of pruning the trees, harvesting, making apple cider and apple sauce and in 2020 they even helped in setting up a marriage proposal! The uses for this delicious fruit are endless!!
October 22, 2020: Bear’s Head Tooth Mushroom
Another day, another edible mushroom find! This is our first mushroom from the tooth fungi group, which include a lot of very tasty edibles, so we were understandably very excited to see this little guy perched on a fallen log while we were walking down by our favourite little stream on the property. Not only is it pretty but delicious too!
October 12, 2020: Shaggy Mane Mushroom
We found it! We’ve had our eyes peeled for this unique looking, edible mushroom for a while now and today we spotted it, yay! Harvested, sautéed and ate it too :-). Definitely a very tasty addition to our growing list of wild mushrooms!
October 12, 2020: White-tailed Deer
Meet the elegant white-tailed deer, the most common wildlife we see here in the Calder wilds. A peaceful creature that shares the forests and fields with us and entertains us nearly daily with their seasonal antics. Enjoy some of our photos from the very young, day-old fawns to the big bucks clashing antlers in sparring matches.
October 4, 2020: Chaga
Chaga has been our first experiment with medicinal fungi and what a great one to start with! It has been proven to prevent and cure cancer, can treat the common cold and flu and generally strengthens our immune system to help prevent a number of other ailments. It’s a fascinating mushroom with a long history of usage throughout thousands of years. Read more to discover how to harvest and prepare this black beauty yourself.
October 3, 2020: Mammals & Bears
It’s time to get really wild! One of the absolute pleasure of living in this wilderness is sharing it with a plethora of beautiful wild animals. From the cute little chipmunks, busy beavers and elegant white-tailed deer to the prowling bobcats, howling coyotes and magnificent black bears, this place has it all! As we often say, it is like living on permanent safari here! The Mammals page will give you an oversight of most of the different species we share this forest with and the Black Bears page will take you deeper to meet some of the individual bears that we see here on a regular basis. Check back later for more detailed pages on the rest of our furry neighbours. Enjoy!
October 2, 2020: Insects & Spiders
This page is devoted to all things creepy and crawling. We start you off gently with the pretty butterflies, ease you along with the cute (although highly poisonous) furry caterpillars and then quickly jump into the eight-legged arachnids. This overview page will be added to continually as we discover and photographically capture the many, many different species of insects and spiders that fly, crawl, dart, creep and hop their way around our woods.
October 2, 2020: Reptiles & Amphibians
This is an ever-growing page where we will post all the different kinds of reptiles and amphibians that we find here in the Calder Wilds. This page won’t be for everyone as I know some of you have expressed a serious dislike to all things scaled and slithering but personally we love sharing the wild with these fascinating creatures. There’s nothing like hearing the shake of a rattlesnake’s tail to make your heart beat faster and make you feel like you live in a wild, wild place! Here you can enjoy these serpents from the comfort and safety of your couch :-). Stay tuned for more in-depth pages on the individual species… Dive in if you dare!
October 1, 2020: Birds
We are lucky enough to be surrounded by an abundance of bird species who also call these forests home. This year we have recorded over 100 different species already and are still adding more. This overview page will give you an idea of the variety we have here from the tiny hummingbirds to the glorious eagles. We will be adding to this page as we capture more photos and species and will also delve deeper into some of our feathered friends. Stay tuned for the Birds of Prey page coming soon!
September 29, 2020: Wild Mushrooms
Hunting wild mushrooms has been a growing passion for us since the summer of 2019, when we harvested our first chanterelles. Our knowledge and experience leap-frogged in 2020 with the addition of chicken of the woods, pear-shaped puffballs and a few other edibles. Join us on our fungal adventures and click below for photos, stories and recipes of some of the delicious mushrooms growing here in the Calder Wilds.
September 15, 2020: Maple Syrup
This is the first page we put together and it’s all about how we harvest and make our own maple syrup. From harvesting the sap from the maple trees to boiling it down to get the deliciously sweet syrup. Click below to find out all about how this fascinating process works!
September 6, 2020: Calderwilds.com is born
We had been talking for the past year about creating a website where we could gather all the photos and stories of our life here on the hill and share them with friends and family around the world. In early September 2020 we finally “put the first shovel into the ground” and created a domain. We brainstormed for a morning trying to find the right name for our website before the perfectly descriptive Calder Wilds came to mind. It’s a name we both loved and encompasses the wildness of the forest we live in and includes the name of the brick factory that once operated here 100 years ago. The fun of creating a website which would reflect our love of this place was ready to begin!