Archive for Urban Foraging
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!
Spring Greens
Posted by: | CommentsThis is that wonderful time when the new Spring greens are coming up! These greens are the ones that help clean the Winter funk out of us, even when used in tiny amounts. Dandelions are the mainstay of these greens so far, and they are noted for gently tuning up and toning up the kidneys, liver, and intestines as well as giving us a wonderful helping of the bitter that prompts our gall bladder to release bile into the digestive tract. This is the reason so many Europeans have bitters or a bitter green in a salad before a meal! It gets all those juices flowing so digestion is enhanced. You don’t need much for this…just a leaf or two. This was the Spring tonic used for centuries as tea, salad, greens, and simply picked and eaten. Try it! I think your body will like it!
Add this to your Spring salad
Maybe you didn’t know that I am also the Urban Forager (urbanforager.co) here in Denver. So this is also the season when I start taking people on Wild Edible walks around urban neighborhoods. I have included a link to the first walk of the season, and there are limited spaces available so I suggest you sign up early to reserve your space. You can also book your own Wild Edible walk with me! See you soon for Spring Greens!
http://tentiko.com/collections/frontpage/products/finding-food-in-the-city
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!!
