Wild Edibles!

Chickweed, Cleavers, Miner’s Lettuce, Dandelion… These wild edibles are all around us now with incredible nutrients to support our body’s desire for Spring Cleaning. You and your children can just go out to your front yard, walk down the side walk or take a jaunt in the parks and fields. There you can all discover some or all of these wonderful plants.

Sad to say that many call them “weeds” but in fact, they are gifts from Spring Time.

Children LOVE picking plants straight from the Earth and eating them up or taking them home to prepare a wonderful salad with. Most children will actually eat the salad with DELIGHT, when they have been the ones to harvest these plants.

Chickweed

chickweed

Use Chickweed instead of Basil for a great pesto!

Miner’s lettuce

miner's lettucee

Add Miner’s lettuce to your wonderful Spring salads. Can you taste them? What is their texture like?

Cleavers

cleavers

Cleavers make a fine cold brew tea. This is good if anyone has swollen lymph glands. And, if everyone one is well, just see how they stick to your clothes. They would love to go on a walk with you so they can let their seed babies journey to another place to begin to grow.

Dandelion

dandelion

What better liver herb and spring cleaner than the Dandelion!!! Put it into your salads to add some bitter herbs in your diet. We never get enough bitters these days.

Important tip: When foraging, avoid places that may have been sprayed with herbicide or are likely to be polluted. Avoid busy roads and areas surrounding old painted buildings because they are likely to be contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.

Have fun!

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Outside Adventures with Fire and Earth

Fun Outdoor Activity: Making Stick Bread  

making stick bread over a fire

INGREDIENTS

A fresh sapling stick roughly 1 1/2 inches in diameter
1 cup Flour: I have used gluten free as well
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon melted salted butter or any other kind of oil you like
1/2 – 1 cup water

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. With little children they can clean the sticks by using a good and sharp vegetable peeler or, if older, a sharp knife. Remove the bark and any imperfections from one end of the stick leaving a cooking surface of about 6 inches. The saplings are still wet so they will not burn as easily over the fire.
  2. In a bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Add in the butter/oil and then gradually pour in the water a little at a time until a dough has formed. You may not need all the water. At this part it takes playing with to really get the right consistency. If using gluten free this is where care really needs to be had as it doesn’t form as well as Wheat.
  3. Divide dough into 3 equal portions and roll into a snake about 3/4 inch thick. Wrap the snake in a spiral motion over the end of the stick pressing it into the surface. Secure the end by pressing them firmly. Again, play with it all. You just want to make sure the dough isn’t so wet that it flops off and into the fire.
  4. Cook for 10 minutes over coals rotating often. Remove by gently sliding the bread up and off the stick using a hand protector. Melted butter, honey, maple syrup or anything else you think would be nice is always fun to put on after it is cooked.
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Playing with Nature in Springtime

  • Take a walk down the street and see how many leaf buds and/or different kinds of flowers you can find.
  • Each morning, send one of your children outside to feel the weather.
  • Make a chart, of sorts, with words or pictures of how hot or cold it is.
  • Is it a sweater day? Coat day? Rain coat day? No-sleeve shirt day?
  • Check the clouds. Are they Puffy? Thin? Thick? High? Low?…
  • Take a Smell Walk, and notice the different smells for a day, week, month.
  • Go out every night for a week or more and feel the air.
  • First thing in the morning, listen to how many birds are singing. As springs comes along you will hear more and more birds.

colorful birds

All of this can take very little time. Just keep doing it for fun for a month or so and pretty soon you will start to notice some differences. You will begin to see that Spring really IS here!!

And, for more inspiration, listen to this story called Spring is Just Around the Corner.

Have fun!
Wendolyn

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