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My husband tells me I’m getting a little obsessed with gathering wild edibles. But here’s a success story: Max and I made fruit leather from berries we discovered along a local bike path.

Tasty Autumn Olive fruit leather! by sgb

The tree is Autumn Olive, related to the Russian Olive and not a “true” olive. In the fall, it sports tart red berries with silvery spots. The lone tree caught my eye at 12 miles an hour, and even though I’ve never seen this species before, my brain said “Autumn Olive.” See, oh doubting husband, those hours spent poring over wild edible books have not been wasted!

Autumn Olive close-up by sgb

Once I confirmed that the tree was indeed an Autumn Olive, Max and I returned with shopping bag and pruners. In no time at all, we’d filled the bag with small branches. (Next time, I won’t clip the branches, I’ll strip the berries straight from the tree. But this plant is considered invasive in many places, no harm done by slowing its growth a little.)

That evening, we were ready to dig in. Had a fabulous time sitting on the floor and stripping the berries into a bowl. The simple beauty of the round crimson berries made me smile, and we had a misplaced sense of pride about the quantity we had gathered.

Stripping berries by sgb

We washed ‘em, cooked ‘em, ran ‘em thru a food mill. (Hey, nobody said processing wild fruit is easy! That’s why those pioneer women could birth their babies while traveling the Oregon Trail. That, and because they had to…) Then we sweetened the resulting runny magenta mush with lots of honey. One night in the electric food dryer, some kitchen shears (sorry, pioneer women, technology happens), and, viola, a bunch of beautiful if slightly mouth-puckering fruit roll-ups.

Finished Fruit Leather in the Dehydrator Tray by sgb

Look out, Ma Ingalls. I’m after your cookbook, and your husband.

Important aside: According to the Wild Berries & Fruit Field Guide, Autumn Olive has no toxic look-alikes. But, as always, be careful eating wild plants. Some are quite poisonous.

Chances are good that yellow woodsorrel is growing somewhere near your home. This little clover-like plant has delicate yellow flowers and is informally called "sour grass". When I was a kid, my friends and I would eat the sour leaves and flowers, and over-react to the tingling in our jaws. Many consider this plant a weed.

Thirty years later (thank you, Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants), I’ve learned that you can make a refreshing cold beverage—a cross between lemonade and tea—from this plant. Want to try it?

• Gather a bunch of sorrel. You can find it in almost any untreated yard (and do be sure your plants don’t have chemical herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers on them). My bunch was 4 or 5 inches in diameter.

• Trim off the roots and rinse thoroughly.

• Steep 10 minutes or longer in hot water. I probably used about 20 ounces of water, and my drink turned out very mild.

• Strain out the plant, chill, and sweeten to taste with your favorite sweetener.

It’s that easy. And a fun way to teach children about the many ways that plants enrich our lives.

Note: A number of reputable sources describe yellow wood sorrel as a safe edible plant. But it contains quite a bit of oxalic acid (which is in many foods). It should be consumed in moderation, and avoided by people with kidney disease, kidney stones, rheumatoid arthritis, or gout.

For more on yellow wood sorrel, see:

www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/yl_sorrel.htm

www.kingdomplantae.net/yellowWoodSorrel.php

For more about children and nature, see a new local blog: trackinginthemud.wordpress.com

Last week, my three-year-old started noticing (and chasing) what he calls “snow butterflies.” These white and very pale blue beauties are typically one of the first butterflies of spring. They are actually spring azures, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Snow butterfly” is a perfect name—it’s descriptive, memorable, and Max came up with it himself. Which takes the pressure off of me to identify the next butterfly we spot—which I almost certainly will not be able to do!

In my younger years, I had a short, mostly unsuccessful internship in environmental education. It was then that I learned this technique of letting children name trees, bugs, flowers, whatever natural treasures they find. “What would you call it?” is a useful question, in many contexts and for many reasons.

In her amazing essay, “The Sense of Wonder” (available at the Lawrence public library), Rachel Carson reminds us that we don’t need to give young children names and explanations, at least not always. We simply need to share a sense of wonder and pleasure at what we find.

She writes: "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder…he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy... “How can I possibly teach my child about nature—why, I don’t even know one bird from another!” I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel."

And later: "If a child asked me a question that suggested even a faint awareness of the mystery behind the arrival of a migrant sandpiper on the beach on an August morning, I would be far more pleased than by the mere fact that he knew it was a sandpiper and not a plover."

So, my job with young Max is simply to reawaken my senses—and my sense of wonder. No need to know much. I like the sound of that. Wonder what crazy-named natural treasures we’ll find today?

[For more blogs about children and nature, visit trackinginthemud.wordpress.com]

For my outdoor wanderings, I almost always go to a natural area near my home in central west Lawrence. It’s not the nicest of areas; there’s litter, and the woods is full of invasive honeysuckle (which really changes the character of a forest). But I can walk there, which means that whatever I observe and experience teaches me something about my neighborhood.

Lately, I’ve been heading in that direction even when I’m going out for a stress-relieving power walk. Who knows what I might learn, even when my mind is a million miles away? And tonight, under a yellow, rumbling sky, I spotted a coyote. I didn’t get a great view, but it was enough. Enough to know that it was a coyote, enough to make my day, enough to keep me coming back.

So I will go to bed tonight knowing, firsthand, that this coyote and I share a territory. Doesn’t that make the world a better place?

[For more blogs about kids and nature, visit trackinginthemud.wordpress.com]

Last month, in a story called Nature vs. Nintendo [http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/mar...], the Lawrence Journal World asked me and other local moms how we balance screen time and outdoor time for our kids. Helping my kids appreciate the natural world ranks high among my core parenting values, and I feel like we’re doing a reasonable job in this domain. But we’ve struggled to find the right rules and expectations for screen time. And it has certainly become harder as my older son ages out of the sheltered preschool years.

A part of me feels guilty because my kids have any screen time at all. “Wouldn’t it be great to have no-TV kids?” I think to myself. No worries about the content of TV shows, movies, video games. No negotiating screen-time rules. Plus, the sense of pride or satisfaction that I imagine comes from raising completely unplugged kids. Mostly, there’s a part of me who wants what tracker-naturalist-mentor Jon Young calls “feral” kids: kids who catch frogs, call in owls, build shelters from sticks, and sneak up on foxes.

We don’t have a gaming system, but we do allow certain TV shows, movies, and computer games, and my reasons come down to these:

1) I need a regular breather from parenting--I can’t speak for anyone else, but, for me, parenting is hard work. I sometimes struggle to keep my patience. I always struggle to find enough time for my part-time job, my household chores, and, yes, my sanity-savers, like exercise and walks in the woods. I struggle to find enough quiet. So, I plan my kids’ limited screen time almost neurotically so that I can have 30 minutes or an hour to myself.

2) I want my kids to fit in--Although I greatly admire the parents who have chosen to surround themselves with other unplugged families (mainly through home-schooling or the Prairie Moon Waldorf community), this has not been our path. So of course my seven-year-old has friends who play video games. It sounds insane, but I believe he needs some basic joystick skills to navigate the world of elementary school friendships. This seems especially true for boys.

3) I don’t want to be the parent who always says “no"-- My sweet seven-year-old calls me occasionally from a neighbor’s house to ask if he can watch a movie. Sometimes I say yes, sometimes no. But it hurts me a little every time. When is he going to start wondering why he has to call and ask? When is he going to feel more than just short-term disappointment when I say no? When is he going to feel real resentment because the limits we set are more limiting than those he sees in other homes?

This last one keeps me up at night. And I’m beginning to believe that the consequences of too many no’s will be more harmful than the consequences of lightening up.

So….. I’m trying to find a new set of rules or guidelines—something that gives my son some more latitude when he’s with friends but something I can live with. I guess my husband and I will never have feral kids. But, with the right set of rules and relationships, can we still have happy, well-rounded, cloud-watching, owl-calling, earth-loving, frog-catching kids? Can they wield both sticks and joysticks? Can it be both Nature and Nintendo?

[For more blogs about kids and nature, visit trackinginthemud.wordpress.com]

In my parenting fantasy, my kids spend hours outside a day. They head out after breakfast and play for a good long while. They eat lunch outside. The back yard is their play arena, and the tree house is where they go for comfort and alone time. We have story time outside and take walks every day no matter what the weather. Got the image?

Confession: My kids often need to be poked and prodded to go outside.

What’s keeping them inside, I ask myself. If they want to read, why don’t they take a book outside? If they’re bored, why don’t they wander out to look at the clouds? If they want to be in a fort, why not the many outdoor options?

Well, I haven’t put my finger on the causes of this reluctance, but I have lucked into a few sometimes-solutions.

1. A backyard clothesline—I love my clothesline, not just because it allows me to ignore my electric dryer, but because it gets me outside. And when I head outside, chances are my boys will, too.
   

2. Yard work—Ditto #1, and see my wordpress post about raking leaves and mud http://trackinginthemud.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/max-the-mud-one/

3. A backyard fire pit—Especially useful on cool days (like the ones we’re having now, when it should be sunny and warm, grrrrrr!)

4. A good game of hide-n-seek—What kid doesn’t love the thrill of hiding and seeking? Even more exciting when an adult joins in (at least for my young-ish humans)

All of these work the same way, I think. My kids cross the threshold, then nature works her magic.

How do you poke, prod, or otherwise encourage your kids to be outside?

[For more blogs about kids and nature, visit trackinginthemud.wordpress.com]

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My family and I are gardening at Faith Community Garden. This is my first attempt to grow vegetables in several years, and my earlier attempts were mostly unsuccessful. Inspired by the local foods movement and several local gardeners, I’d wanted to try again. But our yard is very shady, and the community gardens I’d seen in East Lawrence seemed too far away. When I heard about a new community garden on Kasold and learned that there were a number of families with children involved, I signed on.

Faith Garden has a “crazy-quilt” mix of growing spaces. Twenty four-foot by eight-food beds are assigned to particular community gardeners. (My family tends two of these). There are communally-tended beds with perennials like berries and asparagus and space-intensive plants like corn and beans. And there are several young fruit trees, including apple, peach, plum, cherry, and pear.

My goals for our garden experience were modest. I saw this first season as a season of learning. And I wanted my two young boys to experience planting, tending, harvesting, and eating family-grown vegetables. With the help of more-experienced gardeners, I chose what spring and summer veggies to plant. Because I wanted to engage my kids, I picked out colorful varieties (like purple carrots and neon orange beets!) and varieties with exciting names. (“What kid could resist eating a Dragon Egg cucumber?” I thought.)

Well, that cool, rainy spring threw us off a bit, but we eventually got all of our spring plants in the ground. Soon came the thrill of first growth. It was exciting to watch the seeds sprout and the transplants grow. “Look at this!” we called as we wandered from one spot to another. We cheered our own plants and those in other beds. We took pictures.

A short time later came the joy of first tastes. Little snacks straight from the soil. Radishes at first, and some nibbles of herbs. Then peas and lettuce. I loved watching my boys jockey for the next dirt-covered radish, and I marveled that they would eat such a spicy bite. They certainly wouldn’t have eaten radishes at home, and that is one of the most magical qualities of home-grown food. “This,” I said to myself and anyone else who would listen, “this is what it’s all about. If we only grow snacks, not enough to shape a meal, this is enough.”

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But there was more! We’ve recently had our third near-religious gardening experience: the awe of bounty. Enough carrots and garlic to fill my harvest basket more than once. Enough Dragon Eggs to share with friends and neighbors. So much squash on the vine I’ll be giving it to my enemies. “We’re growing FOOD!” I exclaim to myself.

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When I look at the cucumber and squash plants spilling over the beds in every direction, I have a strange feeling of competence, even power. “This giant plant, this amazing vegetable, grew from a seed I planted!” But of course these feelings are misplaced. It’s Mother Nature who’s competent and powerful, not me. It’s Mother Nature who created—and continually creates—the wonder of a seed. This is vividly illustrated by the veggies growing in our beds that we did not plant. One of these “volunteers,” I think, I hope, is a descendent of a melon we got last year from Rolling Prairie Farmer’s Alliance, brought to this summer’s garden in a big bucket of homemade compost. I can hardly wait to harvest this! Imagine the dinner conversation about cycles of life. Surely we’ll notice on this particular evening how Mother Nature feeds us every day with seeds and dirt and water and sun.

I haven’t yet said much about the “community” in “community garden.” Without a doubt, it’s been more fun to have these experiences with other Faith gardeners, most of whom I didn’t know several months ago. We’ve planned together, shoveled together, been excited together, and shared the early harvest together. Faith Church of the Nazarene has contributed in countless ways, including giving gardeners use of land, water, tools, storage space, and meeting space. Other people and organizations—like Farmer John Pendleton, the Lawrence Fruit Tree Project, and the Lawrence Sustainability Network—have donated plants and shared expertise. Their generosity reminds me how lucky I am to live in this part of the planet we call Douglas County.

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Not everything has gone as planned, of course. My family’s first planting of beets was a total bust. We got only five bites of spinach, and our onions were the size of pearls. Our squash is smothering our basil, and the sunflower house, sigh, is not shaping up to be a house at all. As a group, we may have let the crabgrass and bindweed take our beans.

But it’s all good, says this community gardener. My boys have fought over dirty vegetables, I’ve proudly served a few dinners with a preponderance of homegrown food, I’ve been reminded of the joys of giving and receiving through the gifts of friends and strangers, and I’ve experienced in a new way one of the miracles of our universe. Yes, even before this growing season ends, I can say with awe and thanksgiving: It is indeed a bountiful harvest.

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