This morning, my children and I headed out to meet an acquaintance and her dog at Butterfly Farm, a restored prairie with walking paths about 15 miles north of us. This farmland was purchased by an eco-friendly couple of city transplants, Jerry and Esther Lott. They built the imitation barn home pictured above and restored the prairie themselves. After their recent deaths, both from cancer, they donated the land to a nonprofit that has an adjacent bike trail. Now it is open to the public, but no one really knows about it yet, so we had the whole beautiful place all to ourselves.
At first, the children all whined in concert. This was a bit irritating and embarrassing, as we were with this woman who is childless, and I didn't know what to expect of her reaction. She was quite laid back, thankfully, and we found our way into a wood along the edge of the property, where the children cooled off. The girls began to have fun.
We saw lots of fascinating insects and beautiful butterflies. The adults and the dog caught sight of a chipmunk, but the kids couldn't sight it among the underbrush. I am so enamored with foraging now that I was quite excited to see massive amounts of elderberries in bloom.
After walking over a mile and listening to my oldest whine nonstop, the woman finally found a way to distract my son. They began inventing ice cream sundaes. My son wanted to put tic-tacs and chocolate chips in his. The conversation went on and on, and I felt a bit of discomfort, but less than I felt when he was whining. And, it inspired me to make banana-mint "ice cream" when we got home with some of my grapefruit mint leaves from the backyard. It was a hit!
Today's Food
8:30 a.m. About 12 cups watermelon
11:30 a.m. Banana-mint ice-cream (about 4 frozen bananas and 6 mint leaves)
1 p.m. About 1/2 cup mulberries and 1 1/2 cups red raspberries while picking
5:30 p.m. 8 small dried figs, 2 Medjool dates, some shredded zucchini "pasta" with a sauce made from Roma tomatoes, an orange pepper, a little basil and onion powder, and a date for sweetening, about 1 cup iceberg lettuce
8 p.m. Some broccoli from my garden, 4 medium strawberries, more figs and 4 dates
9 p.m. About 2 cups watermelon
About 2350 calories, C-P-F 90-5-5
(This is day 6 of overeating emotionally. Come on, let's get it together!)
Today's Exercise
About 75 minutes of slow walking
3 comments:
" My son wanted to put tic-tacs and chocolate chips in his. The conversation went on and on, and I felt a bit of discomfort, but less than I felt when he was whining."
LoL! I love your blog. I am helping raise my grandson and can relate to so much of what you are saying, plus it brings back all those, delightful, frustrating, embarrassing, unforgettably beautiful memories of my children when they were small. How lovely that you used the make-believe game to inspire you to make "real" ice cream, minus the tic tacs!
Store up all these wonderful memories so that you can use them to fire the grid and share the love and excitement we feel every day with the world.
Have a rawsome day, keep writing!
Connie
"I am so enamored with foraging now that I was quite excited to see massive amounts of elderberries in bloom."
I laughed when I read this because I'm always looking for foraging opportunities too! The wild blackberries here look like they're going to be ready a bit earlier than usual, and I have several neighbors with fruit trees that I've noticed haven't harvested in past years, so I'm going to ask them if they mind if I harvest from their trees. No sense letting good food go to waste!
Hang in there. You're doing great!
This doesn't have to do with your post but it occurred to me you would probably like the movie, The Gleaners and I. It is a documentary about people who make their by scavenging for food in France. I loved it. Here's a webpage about it: http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id1001.htm
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