Skip to main content

Random thoughts and pieces - Spring is getting near.

    Over the past few days the temperature has been on a roller coaster ride as we hit peak highs and small dips that remind us that this is Western Pennsylvania and winter may not be over till April.  However the days are getting warmer and spring - once a faraway dream - seems to be sneaking in.   

    I was even able to open the windows a few days ago and the last of the snow; dating back to mid December, has finally melted away.   

    The other night I watch as a family of deer grazed outside my front window nibbling on the first green sprigs of grass, our youngest cat looking on in fascination.  Spring is coming.  The days are getting longer and I think about planting some flowers and seedlings obtained through the Mercer Country Conservation website.

    I'm thinking that the native wild flowers and grasses will make a nice addition to the home.  

    I plan on letting part of the yard go wild again this year, letting it be overrun with native plants, I'm even considering taking up food foraging.  I've always been interested in taste, flavor and texture and as I learn more about food, the more curious I am about how nettles taste or how to cook a fiddlehead fern.  We have fiddleheads growing in our yard as it is, why not take advantage of them?

    Plus I like the idea of having a new skill, and one of my favorite memories from college was a field botany class where the professor would often cook up what she had found out in nature for our labs.  Plus there is an economic component to this as well.  I am not becoming a miser by any means but with rising costs and other environmental concerns, learning to forage only makes sense.  

    How many of us as kids enjoyed the wonderful taste of wild blueberries or strawberries?   How many of us have enjoyed the taste of dandelions in a salad  or a spring of wild onion?  The odd taste of a wild apple pulled from some old ancient tree?  Just thinking about it brings me back to my youth. 


    So I sit here, wondering where I can learn to forage like a pro.  Where I can find some proper containers for a garden and will I actually do these things?   I am lazy and sometimes - most times, if I am being honest - my plans come to naught because of my laziness.

    After 55 years I have become conditioned to certain ways of doing things...and life will simply not allow for those ways anymore.   I know deep down that we can't stop climate change, but I have to do my part...to quote the poet "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."  That's one of the reasons my diet is changing and yea, that's one of the reasons I want to have a garden too.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Paradigm shifts and Project 2040

In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “ There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy. ” His observation has been echoed by people ever since and changed a bit over time, but has remained a stark warning. Only anarchy the way most people think of it rarely occurs.  We have found that people are more likely to band together when their communities face some sort of disaster, be it from war, plague or natural disaster.   We are all too familiar with pictures and videos of communities digging through the rubble of bombed buildings searching for survivors...but how many of us remember the moments during the Covid epidemic of people singing from their balconies?   When you have a community; people will always help people.  Despite these bleak times the things that make us human - our compassion - will see us through. Recently my life changed due to issues with a car .  While, in the scheme of things it was a minor crisis it did make me think if things coul...
1 comment
Read more

Want a greener and technology advanced future? Look to the Amish for guidence.

Years ago when I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina I was teaching 7th and 8th grade science.  One lesson in particular I remember very well.   It was on the uses of technology and I hoped to impress upon those kids one thought and one thought only.    Technology is neutral; it's what you do with it that matters. At that time there were no computers in the classroom and cell phones were still big bulky devices.  However these kids would be one of the first generations to deal with the technology we now take for granted.  So it was important that they at least an inkling of the promise of technology,  and how to deal with those consequences of technology. I still have my concerns about how we as a society approach technology and what, if anything, we have learned about it. We can learn from the past of course, but that's always jaded.   If only we had a real world example in the here and now that could serve as a guide on how t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hallowed grounds

      September got away from me it seemed,     A lot of personal things happened in the last month which made me question a few things, including if it was worth continuing this blog; considering how my readership is so small.   In the end however I decided it was.  Rome, as the saying goes, was not built in a day.     I can already feel the winds of the coming winter starting, our garage is all ready full of three tons of wood pellets for our stove and yesterday was the first day we lit it.   It was not a bad or particularly cold day but we had a chill in the house that caused my hands to be ice cold, and lighting the stove helped chase that chill from them.            Soon it will be time to work on winterizing the home.  First however, we had one last trip that Sue and I had wanted to make; or more of a pilgrimage of sorts.  We were going to visit the National...
1 comment
Read more