My book is finished!

The book is written so that children can learn several common plants easily found in places that are allowed to be wild, even in your own back yard or garden.  

I included some of Claire's scrap book pages about plant identification and the recipe that she and Celeste chose to make for their evening meal on the day they foraged for food.  

It also includes vitamin/mineral information that Claire finds on the internet.  

The book encourages parents and children to do more research and of course, to eat the weeds :-)

Here are a few sample pages

Finding food in my back yard

Since I have places in my yard that get no mowing ( my garden ) I am able to see what might sprout up on its own.  I pull plenty of Bermuda grass but I am finding so many edible things that want to be there naturally.  Last night I made curried greens from some of the plants that I allow to stay in the garden.  Just for fun, I researched their nutritional value . ( I love Google!)  Turns out that Purslane has more omega3 fatty acids than ANY other green veggie and was among the highest in Vitamin A.  Dandelion was in the top 4 green veggies for over all nutritional value.  Lambsquarters, more good stuff than spinach!  Poke Sallet ( don't EVER eat this raw, boil and pour off water and then cook again )   High in protein, folate, magnesium, Vitamins A and C and B6.  Wood sorrel for a lemony taste Vitamin C.  And this stuff doesn't have to be planted, tended, weeded, poisoned!  It is provided for you for FREE ( which is my favorite word )

Why is it we have so trained ourselves that it isn't food unless we buy it?  I don't know but if you took a look at the prices on ORGANICALLY grown anything you might start taking a look at what grows in your own yard.  Why not do an experiment.  Turn over a small portion of your back yard and see what editable goodies find their way to you.

This is some purslane that I found growing in my basil box. 

After a Walk in the Woods

We took a nice walk in the woods two days ago when it was about 55 degrees out and then worked on this the next day when it didn't get above freezing.  Surprisingly we found a tree full of persimmons long after the season was over.  Every tree in the woods was totally vacant of persimmons EXCEPT one and it was absolutely full of them.  We have had several hard frosts and an ice storm which should have cleared every tree.  Don't know how this one held on so long.  Anyways the persimmons, having been through those extreme weather conditions, had turned a very interesting shade of blue, almost like a blueberry.  I just had to bring some home to paint.  Later in the day we found a tree that had dropped a bunch of acorns too and the squirrels hadn't found them yet.  I have been meaning to try to make some acorn flour and these were so big and meaty that I couldn't resist.  When I started to make the acorn meal and boil it, it smelled just like molasses.  I called my husband in and asked, " what does this smell like?"  to which he replied, " Molasses."  I am excited to try some bread made from this flour.  Perhaps a loaf of banana persimmon bread is in order.

Church and Lunch in the Woods

We got up early on Sunday and went for a little foraging trip to the woods.  We found a couple different eatable mushrooms ( which were delicious ), some poor man's pepper, greenbriar, and buckbrush ( we weren't that hungry ) and some delicious ground cherries.  Yummy!

Wood ears ( brown jelly like ) Oyster mushrooms ( gills run under the cap and down stem)

Buck Brush

Greenbriar ( climbs, has tendrails )Some are used like a root crop, try digging them, first through the stickers, then they are tough to get out of the ground, cook like potatoes or you can make flour from them by chopping up and adding to water to later collect the starch in the bottom of the water for flour.

Ground Cherry ( has a little lantern like husk, bright orange fruit delicious

upside down oyster mushroom on willow

poor man's pepper ( best when green )

wood ears