Archive for Awareness
It’s Spring! Fresh Wild Greens are Back!
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s that lovely season when the early Spring greens are up in abundance and are at their peak of nutritiousness. It is also the time when I start my wild edible walks and talks as the Urban Forager! This coming Saturday, April 12th, I will be opening the season with a foraging event at Denver Sustainability Park. We will focus on the Spring greens that our Grandmother’s knew were the best help in clearing the Winter ‘funk’ out of our bodies, gently and surely. These little greens will also nourish you with a super load of vitamins and minerals. So come join me for a two hour experience of learning, foraging, and asking any questions about wild edibles that you have. You can sign up for my walk or contact me for a tour of your own backyard and neighborhood! Remember, if you know your wild local edibles, you’ll never lack for food!
New Year, New Life – Really? Really!
Posted by: | CommentsGrandmothers know that when change lands squarely in your lap, it is time to accept it, adjust to it, and keep going. Now I don’t suggest that this is without some moaning and groaning, mumbling and whining. In fact I highly recommend some amount of whinging to clear that from your system. I have to love where I am to be there, so when I am ‘told’ it all must go, I’m not going to stuff it! It is hard to move on! So allowing the normal emotions to flow through me is the only way to get on with it for me.
This 2012 thing came at me in December with a will of its own. I ended last year with a bang – not a whimper! I learned that the lovely couple that owns the home I’ve been living in for the last 5 years wants to move in – for understandable reasons. So I’m packing. Then I learned that my email had been hacked and most of my email addresses are gone, my contact lists are gone, and my UrbanForager.co website had been taken over by a phishing scam. So it is closed for now. That pretty much sums it up. Oh yes, and since I had to have a new engine put in my car, it is not the same vehicle at all any more. Good car, but I don’t love it like I used to.
So I have given up my attachment to my car, my home, and whether or not I am an online presence at the moment. What I also know is that when it gets this messy, I look for the Hand of God/dess. Nothing else makes sense to me. What is Creator up to this time, I wonder? So I consult my personal Oracles and find there is no information at this time…Blank Rune, standstill, wait and see…hummmmm.
Taking one step at a time, I am packing as if I will be putting everything in storage. I am getting myself ready for some ‘walk-about’ time. I am sorting and letting go of all that does not serve me now and all that does not bring me Joy. Those are my prime questions for all that I have: Does it bring me joy? Does it serve me NOW? And finally – Do I want to take care of it any longer?
This is an interesting project. I have decided to let go of all the things that are ‘everyday’ and pull out all of the ‘Good Stuff’ I have been saving for…??? The translucent German china that breaks so easily? I’m eating on it until it’s gone. The crocheted placemats Grandmother made when my parents were young marrieds? On the table now to get worn out. You get the idea. Enough saving anything already! My children and Grandchildren get to hear the stories of these things now by being around me as I use them. They won’t know why I have it if it is in a box!
Some I will give away with the story of them attached. Some I will sell if no one wants them. I wish to be free of the ‘saving for…’ syndrome once and for all. It is NOW and they are here, so I will use them or pass them on. This goes for the books as well. I know where to get more, if I remember I want them again. Some I am reading fast, then putting them in the yard sale boxes. I will have no more than 3 or 4 boxes left, and ones I can lift I might add! Cooking and preserving books; plant, bird, and nature books; a few reading books; and some odds and ends like that. I am finding when I pick up a book that I loved and can’t get beyond the first page or two, out it goes.
An interesting idea is that I have shifted so much during the past year or so these books and things wind up being so Last Century, so Last Millennium that they no longer have anything current to say to me! I am climbing out of the sandbox and all the toys I used to love are now no longer interesting except in an historical way. I have neither the time, the energy, or the where-with-all to continue carting around that sort of history. <SIGH> What history I need is in me. This other stuff is really not relevant any more.
So off I go… Keep tuned and I will share some dreams for the future I do have in the next blog! Happy New Year!!
Robin Redbreast in Distress
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday my neighbor across the street called me up in the middle of the afternoon.
“You want to see something really bizarre? ” he said. “Well, maybe not bizarre…there’s a Robin caught in the apricot tree, would you come over and help me get her loose? She’s tangled up in some string.”
Of course I went right over after making sure I had a clean, soft cotton handkerchief in my pocket.
At first, I couldn’t see Ms Robin. (Yes, both of us called the Robin ‘she’, so…) Underneath the almost ripe apricots hanging here and there from the bowed branch, a large Robin was hanging with one leg hooked around a small dead twig. At first we thought she was pinned to the tree by the twig, her leg pierced at the joint.She was very quiet at the moment, panting heavily, her chest heaving and her eyes looking as if they were slightly bulging.
Then, detecting a new presence, she started to beat her wings as hard as possible, working herself off of the twig until she hung at another odd angle from the branch. Now I could see the very tiny string, more like a thread really, wound around both of her feet at the ankle, and wound around the small branch of the tree. It must have been a plastic fiber because even though it was very slender, she couldn’t free herself. Although no bigger than a decent sized cobweb strand, it just wouldn’t break no matter how hard she struggled.
Maybe we could lop off the branch and then untangle her? As my neighbor went to find pruners or something, I just kept watching Ms Robin, holding the handkerchief in my hand. I wanted to wrap her up in the cloth so that she would stop struggling. If I could hold her around the wings, then we could see what needed to be done without hurting her.
I started doing a little hummy noise under my breath and focused on carefully moving closer while she was trying to untangle herself. She was almost out of her mind already, so I just wanted to sooth her and calm her down. Suddenly she stopped moving and was hanging directly upside down under the branch.
I reached forward quickly with the handkerchief between my hands and surrounded her terrified little body. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but she was quiet. I asked my friend for scissors as I tried to loosen the thread around her tough little ankles with my pinkies while waiting. I kept murmuring to her, hoping it would be a comfort, and praying it wasn’t making it worst.
My friend carefully snipped the tiny bits of super strong thread that held Ms Robin to the branch. Then he clipped what threads he could without cutting the leathery skin on her ankles and finally her feet were free! I walked out from under the overhanging branches of the apricot tree and gently tossed Robin up in the air. She made it to the top of the wooden fence next door in a couple of wing beats.
We watched her sit still, with her beak open, panting from the exertion and fright of being bound to a tree. A dish of water was set out close by, but not so close as to scare her further. After awhile, I went home. She wasn’t moving from that fence until she gathered her strength back and I didn’t want her to worry about my presence.
Blessings Robin! May you live long and prosper!
