Ingredients :
Vodka
Juice (grapefruit ? )
herb (catnip ? )
Ice (strawberry ? )
Sweetener ( if your juice is too bitter / sour )

 Preparations :
If you have one of those martini shaker things, put the ice, juice and vodka, herbs and sweetener in it and shake it all about. Pour into glass vessel. Enjoy.

 Notes : My grapefruit juice from Oceanspray tasted like grapefruit RIND juice, i would have gotten the fresh grapefruits, but they looked to be in terrible condition and way overpriced. SO i added the last of some maple syrup I had to it, and it was vastly improved. A slight bitterness was also added from the catnip i snatched from outside the front door, with also a hint of herbal complexity. If you want to infuse the herb into the alcohol to fully take advantage of the taste of that herb, use a dried herb and let it soak in the vodka for at least 24 hours. 

This week's Backyard Wild Harvest Menu:

1. Fiddleheads
2. Violets
3. Nettles
4. Nipplewort
5. Garlic Mustard

Sunny Savage joins Dr. John Kallas, of Wild Food Adventures in Portland, Oregon for a class on making marshmallows out of the common mallow plant. Dr. John Kallas has been teaching wild food classes since 1978, and truly embodies the spirit of scientific inquiry, and all the positive discoveries to which that can lead. With an open and inquisitive mind, he has been doing the work to answer some of the oftentimes vague or loose historical references, around the use of wild edible plants.

For many years John has worked to develop a recipe using common mallow (Malva neglecta) to make marshmallows. The traditional way of making marshmallows was to use the root of the marshmallow plant (Althaea officinalis), which grows in marshy areas. But the above-ground parts of common mallow are also mucilaginous, and this plant is widely available to most people throughout North America. Watch the video below to get an idea of how to make mallowmallows using the small fruits, buttons, cheeses, or peas as John likes to call them, of the common mallow plant. We also briefly discuss how he has noticed differences in when plants are ripening due to climate change.

More wiki - nerding - out :


Rewilding is large-scale conservation aimed at restoring and protecting core wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species. Rewilding projects may require ecological restoration, particularly to restore connectivity between fragmented protected areas, and reintroduction of predators where extirpated


The word "rewilding" was coined by conservationist and activist Dave Foreman, one of the founders of the groupEarth First! who went on to help establish both the Wildlands Project (now the Wildlands Network) and the Rewilding Institute.^[1] The term first occurred in print in 1990.^[2] The concept was further defined and expanded by conservation biologists Michael Soulé and Reed Noss in a paper published in 1998.^[3] According to Soulé and Noss, rewilding is a conservation method based on "cores, corridors, and carnivores."^[4] The concepts of cores, corridors, and carnivores were further expanded upon in Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations of Regional Reserve Networks, (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999), edited by Soulé and John Terborgh. Dave Foreman subsequently wrote the first full-length exegesis of rewilding as a conservation strategy in Rewilding North America: A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century (Island Press, 2004).^[5]

Rewilding is the process of re-instating the role of keystone species to human society where the expression of this role appears lacking. The term originates in conservation biology in which "rewilding" stands for the re-introduction of keystone species into areas where such species appear locally extinct. Rewilding in the anarchist context applies this concept to initiating and regenerating human culture that embodies the role of a keystone species.

In green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism, humans are said to be "civilized" or "domesticated" by civilization. Supporters of such human rewilding argue that through the process of domestication, human wildness has been altered by force.^[1]

Rewilding is about overcoming human domestication and returning to behavior inherent in human wildness. Though often associated withprimitive skills and learning knowledge of wild plants and animals, it emphasizes the development of the senses and fostering deepening personal relationships with members of other species and the natural world. Rewilding intends to create permanently wild human cultures beyond domestication.^[2]

Rewilding is considered a holistic approach to living, as opposed to skills, practices or a specific set of knowledge.

Spotlight:

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why this old dead white dude ?

He has a fondness for weeds and a quote for us today.

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered . . . (or what has been forgotten {in my opinion})

Ingredients :
Violets
Dressing
Fruit

Preparations :
Combine Violet leaves, stems and flowers with chopped fresh fruit or dried fruit and add dressing.

 Notes : There is a patch along the path in the woods by my house, where the yellow variety grow under salmon berries, next to a sheep pasture. I add dried cranberries, golden raisins, little pieces of mango, whatever is floating about on it's way to the compost bucket. Simple dressings like oil and vinegar bring out the real taste and flavor of wild greens, but cheese is good too.



The Violet

Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its color bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,Instead of hiding there. 

Yet thus it was content to bloom,
Its modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade. 

Then let me to the valley go
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.

Jane Taylor