Farm Forage Salad

Today the sky was a mix of small puffy clouds and sunshiny and thick heavy grey skies. At times I worried, the sky might open and I might get drenched. In the end I did in fact get drenched but not by the sky caving in from the thick clouds up above me. Instead I walked slowly with great hesitation into the water out behind the chicken coop once I finished my garden work for today.

Today, I planted a crap ton of lettuce. Moving it from the greenhouse outdoors into a raised bed that lives among many other raised beds. The lettuce, thus far is joined by some cress some kale that survived the winter, a few other herbal odds and ends, some infantile basil, baby bean plants that seem a little made at me, parsley, chives…. With snow peas to be planted soon and some watermelon, tomato, cucumber, peppers, and many other assorted goodies. Also, the bees arrived! So the lettuce is hardly lonely or alone out there. Soon too some berry bushes and rose bushes for rose hips will be added as hopefully will be an official strawberry patch if I can get to it.

The season of light and outdoor fun seems to have officially begun, with the new bees buzzing in their hive, Pikku, outdoors helping me plant the lettuce. Digging holes for me to pop the baby plants into. Once hot and tired, I headed for the pool, which was finally of a temperature functional for swimming. It was lovely to feel the water closing in around me. I guess it is possible (with enough dandelion tea anyway, to get the water out of the girl, but getting the girl out of the water….. Well, that is another issue all together.) I grew up in the water. Mostly the ocean, and the mill ponds of Cape Of Cod. Nothing is more natural than jumping in a swim suit, clothed, in my underwear, in my birthday suit, into any body of water warm enough to swim in. There is a freedom and joy I find in the water out behind the chicken coop. Though it wasn’t put in as a place to play. The pool, is a safety device. It is there to prevent collapse, heat stroke, or death, on hot days working hard in the garden. (One year I had to abandon my garden when I nearly collapsed form the heat. I was alone here on my farm. It would have been over a week before anyone found my body.) After that, the pool went in, as an out door cooling station. It isn’t a toy nor is it an extravagance. It is safety. Growing up, a pool was never necessary in this area except maybe a few days a year if you didn’t have access to air conditioning. The climate has shifted so much…. I should be thrilled to have a pool but I am not. I am horrified that it has become necessary. It has just become so warm here of late… It can’t be healthy for the planet. Nor is it safe for gardening.

In addition to all this, just the other day the bees arrived! We set up the hive and dumped them in wearing our big white bee suits. We feel ridiculous in our suits, we look even more ridiculous than we feel. But thems that don’t want to get stung, do what it takes to not get stung. For a moment in my suit, I felt like an astronaut and wondered if we could cancel gravity as if it were Tesla, and if we did, would I float away in my bee suit??? Swim through the air rather than the water? Dr. Farmer Moomin, assured me such an event would be an impossibility. Dr. Farmer Moomin, has been teaching me things again… Poor guy, I am a miserable student. He was teaching me about 4 dimensional math, and also why you can’t divide by 0. I am still not convinced of the latter, but the former was interesting since he used a kitchen spatula as an illustration of how 4 dimensional math works. Evidently two dimensional and three dimensional math are essentially the same thing…. Which weirds me out since 2 and 3 are completely different numbers… I really must get a text book on math and physics, I am sick of feeling stupid. No, I am sick of being stupid. While I may be mathematically incompetent, I am not so bad with agriculture. Starting the bees together would have been a lot of fun, but we did it in the pouring rain. Today though, was nice, I went as close as I dared to just look and see if they were getting on in their hive. It seems they are.

After my swim, and gardening, I read my book club book called The Life List. It is proving to be a very nice quick read. It is one of 4 books I am reading right now. Another by Bradford or Vena Angiers, about leaving Boston for British Columbia, to pull a Thoreau, out in the wilds living a subsistence survivalist lifestyle. The next is a book on forestry and forest homesteading. The Woodland Homestead by Brett McLeod is about how to use the forest, and read the forest for best results in homesteading, which is relevant here as half the property is forest. The last one, is the second book in the Foxfire series, which began as a magazine started in an appalachian high school, by a visionary of a teacher. It’s goals was to document and teach the old ways of life in the region, prior to the invention of electricity. The Foxfire books today, are about a folk tradition that is all but gone. But the voice of a period in American history and lifestyle lives on through The Foxfire books.

When we began to get hungry and I couldn’t stare at words on a page any longer, I put the books away and grabbed a bowl. I started in the greenhouse. Ripping little bits off some of the baby vegetable starts of various kinds. Then wandered outside, and foraged in the spring garden still in it’s infancy. Which means, I have to be careful how much I take from any given plant. If I take too much I kill it. Which would really be bad. But if I take just a tiny bit, it will live on and thrive and produce so much more through the next few seasons. Chives, kale, basil, parsley, baby lettuce leaves, and a little left over store bought radishes and peppers and cucumber…. Then, I put on my esoteric herbalist forager hat. I went in search of mustard greens growing wild in the muck by the edge of the woods, in my little “field,” I found dandelion leaves and some beautiful wild violet flowers. I call this a farm forage salad, because it is the best of all worlds of the farm. Store bought when not in season, tender vegetable garden bits, and wild foods. Another time I may just do a full blown forage salad from only wild ingredients. But unfortunately due to the time of the year, nowhere seems to have enough of anything to be a salad functional in size all on it’s own. But mixed together, we get quite a special treat! The thing about foraging is it is important to know what you are collecting. Important to be sure it is what you think it is. I am very careful about this as not being sufficiently careful can cause cause sickness to yourself or others, which is just unacceptable. So I am careful when I forage, to only collect and use the things I know to be safe.

Now that dinner is over, and my glorious salad has been eaten, it is time to pick up my knitting and sit around watching something on television, so that the day can slowly slide away into history, where it will live on as a good memory. The world is losing it’s collective mind. India and Pakistan, are now going at it, which will likely end in a Nuclear Winter for the 5 people left on the planet when they are done. Ukraine and Russia, can’t stop fighting cuz Russia won’t piss off and the American president lacks the balls to deal with the situation, Or maybe it’s brain cells and not balls that are the problem? Meh, let’s call it both. Then you have Israel and Palestine… It’s almost like everyone went Covid crazy and went all anti social and insane and now here we are, watching Carney, force himself to stay in his chair in the oval instead of fleeing the insanity… The point, isn’t even what is happening or what your position is on what is happening. The point is turning to nature when the world loses it’s mind. There is something healthy, about taking from the earth and more importantly leaning on it in difficult moments. It offers a reliable cycle and some predictability, a certain kind of stability. Spending time outside in the sun and with nature, is perhaps the best way to feed one’s emotional state something healthy. I am glad that I have a home where I can do that. Not everyone does.

There are many ways to reconnect with nature and yourself. Hiking, fishing, walking the sand flats, swimming in a local lake or pond, spending time outside having a picnic, climbing a tree, enjoying the forest, get out in the garden, consuming foods that are safe and nutritious and natural, breathe in some fresh mountain air. There is no wrong way to lean into nature in a crazy world to help maintain your well being and mental health. Just being with the fresh spring green as it wakes after a long winter rest can help on so many levels. I hope to be back outside doing more planting tomorrow!

Well, as usual,
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm