Today I watched a movie that my husband saw on his flight from the US over 18 months ago. He told me then that he thought I’d love it; I finally enjoyed it with the boys today.
The Biggest Little Farm is a beautifully filmed true story of a couple that decides to leave the city, buys dried up farmland and uses biodynamic principles to turn the land into a lush, healthy biosphere where crops and animals live in harmony and support one another in a cycle that becomes increasingly more powerful as time goes on.
Ducks are used to remedy the massive snail infestation, nesting boxes are installed to encourage predatory birds to make their homes in the orchard where gophers are damaging the tree roots and birds are eating the fruits, and animal waste products are a critical part of the process of strengthening the soil. (When the person was enthusing about the waste cycle supporting soil health, one of my boys laughingly said, “Just like you, Mommy!” Yep, me and my appreciation of duck doo. 🙂 )
Afterwards I was musing about how an approach that trusts the effectiveness of natural principles always means keeping your vision on the long term and investing more upfront. No quick fix to get the results you want and sometimes it looks like those using mainstream approaches are getting ahead, but by working together with nature, your efforts end up supported rather than thwarted and your job becomes easier and easier over time.
Exactly like parenting.
It feels harder when your child is throwing a tantrum to listen and guide their emotions, rather than firmly tell them to stop crying. It seems easier to punish a child who isn’t acting the way you want (an example from the film would be to shoot the coyote), but those problems then only temporarily go away. And new problems are created with that approach.
When you build your child up with your belief in them and your belief what they can be (ie trust the natural principles and be willing to give them time to mature, just as true of plants as children) instead of breaking them down with your criticisms and frustrations (film parallel – douse the crops with heavy doses of pesticides), they become stronger and stronger, and need less and less management and feedback the older they become.
This film is a heartening vision of what is possible, and seeing what is possible rather than being told how the world is on self-destruct mode is certainly a much more appealing approach for me. And it’s possible on a very small scale – these are principles that I try to integrate into my gardening.
Another very enjoyable and educational documentary that we watched three weeks ago was Kiss The Ground – I found it free on youtube but when I just now did a quick search to link it for you, I don’t see it there now. It might have been pulled or you might need to search a little longer than thirty seconds. 🙂 It’s worth the watch; if I had to choose between the above two films, I personally preferred Kiss The Ground because it was so much more informative though the cinematography of The Biggest Little Farm was fantastic.
There is also a TED talk (this was the first thing that I watched on the topic, after lots of casual online reading) on the transformative power of regenerative agriculture, the approach detailed in Kiss The Ground, ‘How regenerative farming can help heal the planet and human health’ by Charlie Massy. Understanding carbon sounds like a bore but it’s really interesting and actually has the power to reverse decades of damage to our planet.
A couple of weeks ago my oldest daughter called to let me know she was in labor, and since the next night I was scheduled as the keynote speaker for the online Jewish Homeschool Convention on the topic of: How to Enjoy Homeschooling: Trusting your child, yourself and the learning process, I quickly jumped online to give you the details before I headed out to be with her.
Unfortunately, it was only two weeks later when I got online again here that I saw that in my haste I didn’t push the ‘publish’ button! However, there are recordings of the great lineup of speakers for a nominal fee, if you’re looking for some inspiration/perspective/encouragement.
Back to my laboring daughter…I now have a beautiful grandson, joining our three granddaughters.
When my husband and I had a new baby, for the most part we were on our own. It wasn’t until our seventh child was born that we had parents living nearby, but by then we were used to doing everything ourselves and they were used to us doing everything ourselves, so the main support for me after birth was my husband and children. When there was a shalom zachor/ bris to make, we (ie my husband and kids) made all the food, did all the setup, cleanup and organizing. It’s so nice how different it is for my daughter to have so many family members to lend a hand – all of the adult married kids were commenting on how very different it is from when they were growing up.
We were hosted for four days by our second daughter, who lives a short walk from her older sister and made us feel very much at home. Not an easy feat, when hosting seven people all day and night (in addition to hosting the bris) in a two bedroom apartment! We rarely go away – the last time was for my daughter’s Shabbos sheva berachos almost three years ago – and we all enjoyed it so much.
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I wrote and rewrote in my head various posts for Down Syndrome Awareness month over the last weeks, and didn’t post any of them despite my intentions. I hope to share about why another time (time allowing, which is the big challenge).
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The weather report said that rain is imminent and that caused a flurry of activity in the last couple of days. Firstly, since we don’t have a storage shed, we decided after Sukkos ended to leave our schach in place on top of the pergola, and then to top that with a rainproof covering. Yesterday we bought the heavy duty covering and last night got my husband and ds13 got everything covered and rain tight. Such a relief to have it done before the rain!
Then it was on to preparing a dry spot for our animals for the rain. Right now that means two ducks, four quail and three chickens. (We got a chicken chick to keep the sole surviving quail chick from the batch he incubated company, but then the chicken outgrew the quail and we borrowed two chicks from a neighbor to keep the chicken company!) The boys decided to take the chickens to a local farm for the winter, where they previously sent our two muscovy ducks when a neighbor complained about them perching on our mutual fence a couple of months ago.
Ds13 waterproofed the quail pen and ds11 waterproofed the duck coop, and then ds11 and I laid out a path of synthetic grass leading to the animal area so that they won’t track mud into the house when it rains. (At least not from that area!) Ds13 pounded in six foot posts and strung a tarp over it to make a dry spot to keep their bikes in the backyard.
We also cleaned up the little corner of my yard that has become a dumping ground for various project materials. Before we bought the used kitchen that we installed (I’ll do an update on that separately, I’m pleased with how it’s turned out), we got another kitchen that didn’t work for us (it was my husband’s first time making that kind of purchase- usually I buy those things – and he used it as a valuable learning experience.)
Though we gave away all those cabinets, I’m left with three slabs of granite countertops and two sinks that I might want to use when I redo the kitchen upstairs. Yesterday I spoke to the handyman I was told could do this kind of work but he said that he can’t do the finely skilled cuts for an indoor kitchen that I would want. So I’ll think a little longer about if there’s another project I want to use them- a potting sink for the garden, maybe? -before passing them along.
Then there were all the boards stacked messily and other odds and ends from various projects. We cut some of the boards down yesterday to make additional shelving inside the kitchen cabinets and neatly stacked all the rest, so now we can get rid of all wood that was left. It’s so nice to have it look nice and be possible to walk through that small area.
I’ve done lots in the garden, and there’s still plenty to do! There’s actually something quite nice about that; it’s not a pressure for me. I really enjoy gardening. I’ve been fairly steadily adding to the garden beds – I have nine fruit trees now, along with a grape vine and a pitango bush, so most of my additions have been decorative plants and a few palm trees.
My next project is to install a drip irrigation system and possibly sprinklers if that will be necessary for grass; I made an appointment with a gardener to come in a couple of days for a consult so I can understand what’s involved, and see what installation we’re ready to take on ourselves. Then I want to put down some sod grass so I’ll have something beautiful instead of a big mud puddle in the winter. There’s not much of a chance of successfully growing grass from seed with two ducks free ranging around!
I recently learned the term dehisence, and for the first time recognized what the seed pods of periwinkle look like. My eyes were opened to the possibilities of gathering seeds. I gathered a bunch of the periwinkle seed pods with ds13, then we went on to gather seeds from the yellow gazanias and orange marigolds. I told him he could sprinkle some in whatever garden bed he wanted, and we’d see what came up. I’m not such a fan of planting seeds because I don’t tend to get them to a big enough size to transplant into the garden before something happens to them, but I’m packing these away and in a few months will plant them to have ready for the early summer.
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On a communal note, we enjoyed hosting a minyan in our yard during the Sukkos break (our family members made up half the minyan!). We even had a sefer Torah, which was very special. Once the boys went back to yeshiva, we ended the minyan. However, we appreciated the sense of connection with other attendees that was created and would like to continue to help build a sense of community at a time that it seems to be disappearing. Beginning this Saturday night, we’ll be hosting a weekly melave malka/kumsitz for men and teen boys.
Not to leave out the girls, though! Because quiet time for me to write or prepare classes is so limited in my life at this stage – and being that I get up so early, it’s challenging to stay up late enough to give classes – I’ve hesitated about offering classes for women even though I’m a teacher to my core. But a recent conversation with a teen inspired me to offer a teen girls discussion group/kumsitz, beginning this Saturday night. The focus will be what is essentially at the heart of all my classes, regardless of the topic, living a life with meaning and joy. And since I’ve committed to doing it, I’m going to somehow find time to prepare and stay awake!
I thought I’d leave you with my weekly menu plan, but naturally my planner has temporarily disappeared and since I can’t remember it by heart, I’ll have to leave you with my good intentions instead. 🙂 Since ds13 has recently gotten interested in cheese making, I’ve spent a lot of money on milk and we’ve been enjoying homemade yogurt and cottage cheese for breakfast this last week. I can also tell you that lunch today was chicken jambalaya and dinner is supposed to be sweet potato peanut burgers but will be a simplified version since I didn’t feel like making something with that many steps later in the day. :):)
Sending you all my warmest wishes for a wonderful week to come!
Companion planting is such a fascinating concept! This is the term for when you plant various plants together that enhance the growth of another, provide pollination benefits or help resist pests.
Around each of my fruit trees, I planted flowers that will help repel harmful bugs while attracting beneficial insects. The flowers I’ve so far planted are marigolds, zinnias and petunias. All of these attract bees and butterflies, while repelling harmful insects. (I’m going to be interplanting these with my vegetable plants once they go in the ground, too.) There’s lots of fascinating information online about what chemicals they release in the air and in the roots, what insects they repel (and even what harmful insects they draw in).
Also in that same garden bed I’ve added four different gardenias, lavender and sage that are also great companion plants! I’m planning to add in some more green herbs, like parsley, basil and mint (which will have it’s own area since it spreads like a weed).
I’ve been composting heavily in the center of this bed, which is why I have so many more plants in the middle than around the edges. I’m working my way outward. All of these plants will hopefully spread and fill in with time and become much more lush.
If you’re doing some planting, however small, consider adding some companion plants that will make the birds and butterflies happy, while helping your main plant stay healthy!
When we bought our last home five years ago, it was critical to me that it had a garden, and in fact the home we bought had a small garden (28 meters) as well as a large porch. I was so grateful for that outdoor space! I had an extensive collection of succulents growing in pots on the porch, and a small border of plants and two fruit trees growing in the garden.
We are now in our new home and I am SO grateful to have a much larger yard so I can do more extensive gardening! I just love being outside and getting my hands in the dirt. I even enjoy weeding. 🙂 Which is good, because my yard is one huge mess of 4 – 5 foot high weeds.
Though I did some initial decorative planting, my priority was to get fruit trees into the ground before it’s too hot so that they can set better. I’ve spent a few weeks reading about different fruits that I’m interested in (many exotic and unfamiliar to me) but honestly got a little overwhelmed thinking about it all.
I decided to keep it simple and enjoy gradually expanding and learning new things, rather than trying to buy everything I might want at once.
Here’s what this space looked like before. I was hopeful that the tree there was a citrus, but when I asked the guy at the nursery, he said it absolutely wasn’t. He thought it was probably ficus, a large tree planted for shade with destructive roots that rip up concrete, and strongly recommended removing it. So I did and it’s now in a pot next to my front door.
You can see the corner where I started weeding. 🙂
As soon as the local nursery reopened for in-person customers last week, I was there first thing in the morning!
Citrus are easy fruits to grow in Israel and I bought a Valencia orange and clementine; I don’t see the other citrus options being something we would use much of. I strongly believe in planting things you will eat. It doesn’t matter how well it grows; if you won’t use it, why bother planting it?
Additionally in this 18 meter space I’ve planted loquat and persimmon. I did quite a bit of reading about spacing for fruit trees to determine how many I could plant; I was surprised that fruit trees in a home garden can be planted just 18 inches apart if they are well pruned! In addition to typical planting, there are also some cool things you can do like espalier (growing along a fence) or growing them over a garden arch.
I considered putting eight trees in this space. The choice was: more kinds of fruits but more pruning of each tree, and less yield on each tree, or more fruit on fewer trees and less pruning. I decided to go with the latter.
Back to front: orange, clementine, loquat, persimmon, each surrounded by companion plants.
I got one grape vine, the Isabella, which I read is the only grape vine in Israel that doesn’t require spraying with pesticides. It’s good for eating and making juice. I only got one because grape vines spread tremendously so I’ve left over ten feet in each direction unplanted. I intend to tie it up so it will cover this very strong but not too visually appealing fencing.
A few days later at a different nursery I got two pitango bushes, which will grow into a living fence along the fencing we put in to close off the back yard. Pitango (also known as pitanga or surinam cherries) make a great hedge and also have edible berries. My preference is to grow plants that have some kind of edible output.
I also planted an Ettinger avocado in a different part of the yard (a pic of that will follow in a post regarding a different project). I planted this separate from the others because it grows much taller and I wanted it to be in a space where the shade it provides will be appreciated (ie not next to the pergolas which will be our sukka!).
When I go back to Beit Shemesh in the next couple of weeks to get the last of our stuff out and clean up our apartment, I’m going to take out the plum, nectarine and jasmine and replant them here.
I learned about these local edible blossoms just a few days ago here, and the very day after reading about them, saw a tree next to my house that looked like the picture shared. I was pretty positive the first time I walked by the trees after reading about them that these were redbud blossoms, but to be sure, we picked some to bring in and compare.
Photo by Bob Gress – the blossoms above are mostly closed and just beginning to bloom
Sure enough, it was a match, and I’m delighted to have another wild edible to add to my list of local foragable foods! The tree is beautiful, and now that I know what it looks like, see that they’re in bloom all over my city.
How can you recognize these lovely edible blossoms? The tree is usually less than twenty feet tall, with young trees having a smooth, gray bark. More mature trees have a reddish-brown bark with flattened scaly plates. The flowers are a beautiful pinkish color, and the central petal (called a standard) is flanked by two more petals (called wings). Below them are two more petals called keels. (Tell your kids all about this when you’re picking them and you’re learning about science and botany!) The leaves of the tree are like a heart shape. (More details here.)
Since we have so many dogs locally, I don’t do much foraging of things that grow on the ground for obvious reasons. Seeing the abundance of these blossoms growing on trees so close by has got my frugal juices flowing! I’ve scoured the internet for ideas on how to use them, and seen some yummy sounding ideas. Use them in muffins, pancakes, for dessert with yogurt and berries, sprinkled into salad, pickled, or made into jam!
Redbud blossoms have an almost nutty flavor; they more closed they are, the more tart they are; the open blossoms have a sweet flavor that is very pleasant. I wasn’t surprised to learn that they are high in vitamin C, because the tart flavor makes one think in that direction.
The young pods of this tree are also supposedly edible, but since they come out after the flowers, I haven’t yet had a chance to taste them. I often wondered when I saw these pods if they were edible, but didn’t know what the tree was called. Now that I know what the tree looks like, I plan to experiment by using the pods in stir fries in place of snow peas.
Last night I commented to dh that: 1) I really miss homeschooling (nothing like sending your kids to underscore how great homeschooling is!); 2) I missed ds5’s exuberant energy. He’s seemingly adjusting well to everything, except this boy who used to be happy and excited about everything now is constantly whining, complaining, and crying – I realized yesterday that he hardly ever smiles from deep inside anymore.
This morning the whining started when a sibling gave him a spoonful of sugar in his second bowl of oatmeal, and it wasn’t a big enough spoonful. You would have thought something terrible had happened, the way he began crying and yelling. I asked him to speak pleasantly, and he really seemed unable to.
I explained to him that we don’t go to school when we are sick because it could make people sick, and it’s not fair to the people around us to go to school when we are miserable; it makes people feel good when we smile and bad when we are unhappy. So it became a ‘gan Mommy’ morning (‘Mommy playgroup’ – what staying home with me was termed for the sake of ds2.5 so he would feel like he was doing what everyone else going to school was).
He was upset about not getting to go to school, but within a half hour, he was smiling. Really smiling. I could almost see him unwind and inwardly relax. It was so nice to see. I told him at 10 am we’d take a walk and go to the park, but when we got there, the officials told us they changed the hours for the winter and wouldn’t be open until 3 pm.
I’ve recently noticed that it seems to be prime foraging season here – in the US it was after the winter – and lately I’ve had a hankering to get outside and just harvest something! My motivation for this morning’s outing was that yesterday I noticed some rosehips when I was out with the kids, and wanted to check if there were more so I could prepare a big batch at once. So it didn’t make much of a difference to me where we went, and when ds5 suggested another park, off we went.
We detoured somewhat, scanning the rosebushes that lined the streets. On the way, I showed him what mallow looks like – I don’t usually pick any wild edibles around here that grow on the ground because there are lots of dogs. But it had just rained and we were in an area that didn’t seem to be a dog spot, so we picked some.
Then we entered a big gorgeous park that has a playground but is mostly a huge beautiful natural area, and while the boys were running around I kept my eyes open for rosehips, but instead noticed that some of the olive trees had some ripe olives still remaining. So when they finished running, I suggested we find an olive tree to pick from. But ds5 said, “I don’t want to pick olives, I want to pick carob!” He noticed right then that we were passing a carob tree, so I hoisted him on my shoulder and he picked a few nice long pods. The three of us snacked on them as we went along, and then found some more mallow off the beaten trail.
As we followed the mallow trail, we happened upon a low growing olive tree with a huge rock underneath it. This was perfect since ds5 could reach the olives by climbing on this big rock. Ds2 also wanted to pick, but it didn’t last long since it meant me holding him up high while simultaneously pulling the olive branch down low towards us. I gave him the olives I picked to put in the bag (he was much slower than we were, so this wasn’t really suitable), then switched his job to holding the bag of olives open, but that wasn’t a great job for him either. But I let him keep that job since he felt useful and ds5 and I filled our pockets as we picked, and periodically emptied them into the bag. We ended up with 1 – 2 quarts of fresh olives.
It was a gorgeous day, the sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining, and it just felt so marvelous to be out doing this. I felt so happy I almost cried – I didn’t realize how much I missed the feeling of being out in nature. And it felt so right to be with my littles, giving them opportunities for self-directed outdoor experiences, so unlike the kindergarten environment where everything is structured and adult-led. I watched ds5 and ds2 find a huge ant hill, try to feed the ants olives, mash some olives with a rock and show me about the dye that resulted, all while soaking in vitamin D from the sun. You can’t manufacture real experiences like this, and there’s something about these kind of things that is good for kids (and adults!) at a deep, soul level.
On the way out of the park, we found an abundance of rosehips concentrated on a few bushes – all the other bushes we found were still in bloom. Ds2 planted himself right next to one and got busy picking, and when I told him it was time to go a few minutes later, he looked at me seriously and said, “I’m not done yet”, and got back to industriously picking the rosehips and putting them in the sandwich bag we had with us. He was so focused and felt so accomplished! I let him pick a while longer, but then we really did have to leave.
On the way home we found a small lemon tree – they weren’t so big and I have lemons at home, but they were happy to be able to pick three of them. We got home with all of our treasures, tired after being out all morning but only one of us ready for a nap (me!).
I don’t honestly find foraging to be about frugality for me. We’re way too big a family and the amounts I can pick are so small that they’re not generally consequential, and the time investment – if looked at it strictly from an economic point of view – doesn’t usually justify the expenditure. But from an experiential and empowerment perspective, it’s definitely worthwhile. I like that my kids can identify plants and food that grow around them, and have a chance to be in touch with the physical world in a real way.
Do you ever harvest food growing in the wild? What kind of things grow locally to you? What do you like about foraging? Do you share my feeling that it’s empowering on a personal level?
Last night/this morning I was up until after 3 am with a couple of kids. They weren’t complaining, but they had high fevers that I felt warranted a close eye on them. In addition to giving them each a megadose of vitamin C, I applied cold washcloths to their foreheads, and simultaneously applied egg whites to their feet, afterwards followed by slices of potato to further draw the heat out through their feet. Thankfully, they woke up feeling better this morning.
But this morning I was definitely tired, and with some kids being kind of out of it as well, I invited them into my room to watch a riveting documentary with me – The World According to Monsanto. Well, riveting isn’t the word they would use, but it shows how media deprived they are that my two and four year olds sat with me and dd11 for almost two hours to watch the entire program! And it shows you what kind of thing I watch for entertainment. 😛
Prior to watching this, I was aware of the global domination successfully being achieved by Monsanto in controlling our food crops, as well as the contamination of non GMO crops across the world. But to watch this documentary opened my eyes even further.
For those of you who don’t know anything about Monsanto, they are a multi-national corporation that brought the world Roundup (herbicide), Roundup resistant crops, dioxin (key element in Agent Orange that injured so many US veterans), rGBH, the growth hormone that was given to cows, among manyother products. They have genetically engineered many, many crops, which all fall under their patents, making it illegal for farmers to save their seeds from one year to another (if you watched King Korn, you know all about that), controlling the prices of seeds for planting by monopolizing the field (no pun intended).
I’ve often seen Monsanto referred to as ‘evil’ online, but I’ve resisted this kind of language. I’m pro capitalism and think it’s a great service to the world when hard working people get up every day to offer their products/services to the world – it makes the world a better place. So I’m not anti-business of anti-profits at all – someone who does a good job deserves to be compensated well for it. But it’s deeply disturbing that so many people who run the company seem motivated far more by profit, and don’t seem to be concerned about the world they are literally endangering.
I wish I could say I was shocked that this company knew that their products were harmful to the health of consumers, but I’m a little jaded, I guess, because I wasn’t.
And I wasn’t surprised about all the people who were threatened or suddenly found themselves without jobs when they dared to speak out against, or even question, the safety of Monsanto products. The stretch of their reach is hard to fathom; they are an incredibly powerful company with connections to top people all over the world.
What I wasn’t at all aware of was how this company is changing the lives of small farmers in India, Paraguay, and Mexico (no doubt other places as well) dramatically for the worse. The GMO soybean and cotton crops that they are forced to grow (no other seed options are available to them anymore) require not just the purchase of Monsanto overpriced seeds, but also their herbicides and fertilizers. None of these costs were necessary to farmers when they saved seed from year to year, and planted on healthy soil that supported plant growth.
Do you think these poor farmers have proper protection from the incredibly powerful herbicides that they are using? Obviously not. Even those who choose to remain independent and refuse to grow GMO crops are being affected, as the runoff and pollen from GMO fields contaminates and poisons their fields, their animals, and their families.
Watching these villagers having meetings to understand the issues with Monsanto, and trying to figure out what they can do make me think that every time we make a choice to buy or not GMOs (genetically modified foods), we’re making a choice that helps the people who can’t help themselves. But whether people care about people in another part of the world or not, we ourselves need to understand that foods that are highly unnatural have been introduced into our food supply, and they’ve never been tested on humans before – we’re the guinea pigs.
Right after I watched this, I noticed another short video pop up, Millions Against Monsanto, leading up to World Food Day, which was yesterday. One of the goals of this advocacy was to get labeling in the US of GMO foods, so consumers can make an educated choice. I don’t know what is happening with this, but I think it’s a wonderful thing to make people aware of how dangerous GMOs are, and to encourage them to lobby for change.
The documentary was a full length film, and unusual for youtube, it was featured in its entirety. Here’s the link if you’re interested:
This is a story I’ve been wanting to share with you when it first began several weeks ago – particularly as it is happening to one of my regular blog readers and commenters, who we’ve had the pleasure of hosting for a holiday meal and whose daughter visited dd16 a few weeks ago. I’m embarrassed that it’s taken me until now to share about it with you, but with all that’s going on around here, everything is taking me longer than usual to get to it. 🙂
Julie is a homeschooling mom of 6 who decided to grow some vegetables in her front yard after her yard was ripped up as a result of sewer repair. She had raised beds built, and mulched the paths around – it’s an attractive and tidy looking garden. So what’s the big deal? That what she’s growing in those raised beds are vegetables, not flowers. When I told my kids about this, they couldn’t understand what the big deal was – when I told her she is going to fight this in court and faces more than 90 days in jail as a result of growing vegetables on her own property, within the legal guidelines of her city, they were horrified. As we should all be.
Here’s a recent news report – this story is getting bigger by the minute and I expect to hear the major talk show hosts talking about it in the coming week. To read more details, visit her blog at http://oakparkhatesveggies.wordpress.com/ and see what you can do to lend your support.
It’s a travesty that our government wastes tax payer dollars persecuting people doing good things, when there are cities filled with criminals and major issues needing to be dealt with. Kudos to Julie for not giving up and not giving in! It takes a lot of moral strength to stand up for your rights; people are very quick to give in and give up on what is theirs and say it’s not worth fighting for. I hope the city representatives back down and see what an embarrassment they’ve created for themselves – after all, the President’s wife planted vegetables in the front yard of the White House! And now they want to prosecute someone for doing the same thing somewhere else in the country? Absolutely ridiculous.
Something I’ve felt especially aware of lately is how being frugal and innovative truly requires a certain amount of headspace.
Last year I took the kids on a private tour of a eco-farming community that is in the works, and at one point the person I was speaking to pointed out a wild edible, lambs quarter. I was so glad to learn what this looked like since I had been specifically wanting to identify this particular weed for a while. It turns out it’s something I frequently see growing, even in my own yard! However, it was the end of the growing season at that point so I had to wait until spring in order to be able to pick some for myself.
Soon after spring began, I noticed lambs quarter springing up. Do you think I picked any? No, I didn’t. I just didn’t have the extra head space to pick it and prepare it – even though you could legitimately ask, how much energy did it actually take? I wasn’t willing to spend even that tiny bit of energy on something extra. So it wasn’t until this past week that I finally prepared some for my family for dinner.
Lambs quarter is nice because it can be used raw or cooked – I chopped it up into a salad with some cucumbers and tomatoes, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, and Real salt. It was tasty – not one of the kids made any negative comments. Lambs quarter can be used in place of spinach – one nice thing is that when you cook it, it doesn’t cook down as much because the water content is so much lower than spinach – so you end up with more food to eat. To use raw, I prefer the leaves and not the stems, but if you’re going to cook it, you can go ahead and use the stems as well – steam it until it’s soft. It has a whitish coating on the underside of the leaf, which is pollen, and I prefer to wash it off – there’s nothing wrong with it, but it lends a grainy texture when eating it.
If I were staying here, I’d allow some to take root in my garden beds, as I have with plantain, in order to have it conveniently located along with my other vegetables that are growing. Though I’m not doing this, I’ll still continue to keep an eye out for it so I can enjoy it while we’re still living in the US. And maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover it growing in Israel!
It’s fun to learn to recognize the free food that is all around us! Sometimes I look at a big area of weeds and wonder how much food is there that I just don’t yet know how to recognize as such! If you’re interested in learning about wild edibles that you can enjoy for free – and are organic to boot! – you can take a look at youtube to see videos that will make it easier to identify the particular plant you’re wondering about.
This morning my baby woke up at 5 am, and after nursing him he still wasn’t interested in going back to sleep. At times like these I figure I’m being sent an opportunity to get an early start on my day – no use bemoaning not being able sleep as much as I’d like!
I got up with him and we sat outside on the front porch for a little bit, enjoying the quiet of the early morning. We got a little damp while sitting there since yesterday (naturally soon after posting about how hot and dry it’s been) we had a fantastically wonderful day of rain, rain, rain! It was quite a downpour and within a half hour, all three of my empty 50 gallon rain barrels were full. My plants have gotten a wonderful soaking, which they really needed. So my porch seats were damp, too. But I didn’t mind a bit – I was so glad to enjoy the beautiful morning!
Then we went inside and I set the table for breakfast, then started making pancakes – ds11 made the batter last night before he went to sleep so it could soak overnight. I thought I’d feed the baby some pancakes, make enough for everyone else for breakfast, and go back to sleep with him before either of the other littles woke up, but things didn’t work out quite like that. The boys woke up and went to shul, dd9 woke up and chatted with me a while and helped me make pancakes, and then ds4 woke up. That was the end of my thoughts of going back to sleep!
He came downstairs and earnestly told me, “We have to do something about my sheet – it keeps making my clothes wet!!” He’s usually dry at night but a couple of times in the last week he hasn’t been, and he really thought it was the sheet that was doing it! When I explained to him that he‘s making the sheet wet, he indignantly told me, “Nah uh! I hold it in!” 😆 I asked dd9 to keep an eye on the pancakes while I gave him a quick shower and dressed him.
We headed back downstairs together and ds4 helped me flip the pancakes and remove them from the pan when they were done. Little opportunities like this make kids feel like a big help while building competence. A sense of accomplishment helps build self-esteem, too.
Then we needed to take the ducklings out of the hay-lined box where we keep them at night and put them in the yard; ds8 woke up and helped me with that since dd9 was busy feeding the baby bird we found (feeding baby birds is very intensive – they have to hand feed him frequently) and then had to daven (pray). The kids have been teaching the baby bird to fly and are really enjoying having it as a pet. We borrowed a cage for it yesterday but it seems to be sitting on someone’s finger most of the day, so it doesn’t spend too much time in the cage.
Once we were outside and finished getting the ducks set up with fresh food and water, I took the opportunity to do some much needed weeding in the garden beds. Since the ground was so moist it was easy to do. I had to pull up the spaghetti squash plant (that yesterday I mentioned getting two large squash from) since it was the first casualty of the season from the dreaded squash borer. I saw another squash plant this morning that will be dead in the next couple of days because of this bug, and decided to just be happy to get anything from my squash plants before they’re wiped out by the squash borers. It would be nice, if as the ducks get bigger, they eat these bugs before they wreak havoc on my garden!
Ds2 woke up around now and came out, and he helped me plant some onion bulbs, which he enjoyed. I have about fifty tomato plants that I didn’t get around to planting a few weeks ago when I planted the bulk of them, so I planted a few of them today (only four or five). Then I pulled up a few plantain plants by the roots, which grow wild and are considered a weed – probably about three pounds of it. I never thought to eat these until a year ago, when someone here on the blog commented about it when I mentioned harvesting it for medicinal use. Today I’ll prepare them as a cooked vegetable for lunch, chopped and sauteed with butter- it’s packed with nutrition and is tasty prepared like that.
By the time I came back in at 8:30 am for breakfast, I had gotten lots done! While I’d love to be able to get up this early on a regular basis, that’s not something I’m currently able to do, so I’m grateful that I was able to enjoy the opportunity today.
