Eat Your Weeds

My friend, Trudy, age 88, recently self-published a book of her watercolor paintings of edible weeds. She offers wild weeds as a free source of organic vegetables. Her freezer is full of nettles, sorrel, and fiddlehead ferns. She digs up dandelion roots and keeps them in her refrigerator crisper drawer where they sprout green leaves all winter. Her kitchen is a veritable den of red clover blossoms, sumac staghorns, and who knows what else.

Nature can be our outdoor grocery store. Shall we eat healthy, natural food? Or shall we consume junk food?

What healthy "food" are your senses consuming these holiday days?

What "junk food" of TV, shopping, internet, etc. are your senses of sight, sounds, touches, smells, and tastes consuming?

Take a walk outdoors, perhaps a mindful walk. Look at the weeds alongside the road. Eat/see/feel your weeds.

Gardening in the Snow

My 84-year-old friend, Trudy Crites, tells me it's time to scatter poppy seeds. NOW. Now when my flower beds are covered with a foot of snow.

You know how you feel when you hear truth?

Something inside relaxes. Oh! Yes. The body relaxes; then the mind gets busy and tells you a story. The mind is so entertaining, and the story so believable (even if it's not true), that it's easy to miss that initial body response of calmness.

Regarding poppies, i have tried scattering the seeds in the cold mud of April--a month before the last frost date here in the north country. I've never quite been satisfied with the results.
In late autumn, i've seen teensy-weensy two-leaved poppies volunteering, so i know they like to get an early start. Really early.

I'm strapping on my snowshoes right now to go out to the garden and plant poppy seeds.