Curing A Craving and Natural Medicine

I am craving mushrooms. I would sell half of my clothes right now for a hefty basket of chanterelles. They sound SO good. Its high fall here and sometimes warm and sunny and sometimes so blustery and chilly that I think I might be foolhardy leaving the potted fig outdoors at this point. We are getting a decent amount of rain and so it seems like perfect mushrooming weather. I have only to get out there and hunt them up! It doesn't help that the day before yesterday I found a giant puffball with the kids and brought it home, only to find out that it was too mature to be any good for eating once I cut it open. Off to woods! I can tell you what we will be doing once the kids are up from nap. Time for a mama hike.

The leaves are getting really beautiful here, the maples are amazingly red some places and a firey orange in others, the ash trees all the color of good egg yolks. There is a maple at the top of the hill with a big mangled limb like a crooked elbow that points towards the hospital and gets redder every day, almost like its a warning sign in nature. Makes me want those mushrooms all the more, having trees waving warning signs at me about taking care of my health.

Am still enjoying Eating On The Wild Side, its so full of information and details that I have to put it down for a minute and verbally comb through the recommendations with A or my sister to put it all in perspective and consider it all. Interesting to think about all the little tweaks that we can make to our eating and our food supply to maximize the good that's out there in The Big Medicine Cabinet of the outdoors. I firmly believe that food is our best medicine and that most of our health problems today are caused by bad eating. Next on my list is The Jungle Effect which talks about looking at your family tree ethnically for hints about how to eat well for your own personal pleasure and wellness. I have been thinking about that a lot for a couple of years but had no idea that someone had actually written a book on the subject. Will report back when I can tell you something about my opinion.

I would love to look into essential oils and teas a little more. I use them a tiny bit. I have Tea Tree around for disinfection, Garlic Oil for ear aches, Clove Oil for pain relief, Peppermint Oil and tea for headaches and nausea, Licourice Tea for sore throats, Plantain Oil for skin problems, Nettle Tea for immune boosting and asthma. But that's it. Anybody care to share their favorite oil or tea for a specific ailment? I would kind of love to have a Natural Medicine Cabinet for winter.

The Flip Side of Weakness

Its Single Mama Week at our house. A is pulling 9 to 5's in California and I am here, manning our urban homestead. Been reading Gladwell's, David and Goliath which is not a sacred book about the Sunday School story but a super readable social commentary on underdogs and cultural giants, power and clever thinking outside of the box. I'm really enjoying it a lot and its making me think that I should spend some time brainstorming. I'd like to through the things that I think are my shortcomings and the places where we as a family are odd or can't quite measure up and see what hidden strengths are there and also what fresh thinking can do to help me/us accomplish things that seem otherwise difficult or impossible. (Also, I now want to learn more about my Mennonite spiritual roots, the Huguenots and the Quakers. I'm a pacifist in my soul.)

Been thinking about Single Mama Week like this a bit today and yesterday. Its hard to be apart but in some ways, if we're optimistic and energetic...it can be a chance to connect more deeply. If we do what we plan we will have real conversations twice a day in special, private, kids are asleep kinds of settings. We mean to talk and hang like that in normal life but I think we actually end up being more scattered than that. A business trip is also a good chance to reboot our texting, photo sharing, spur of the moment phone calls and short love note emails. More contact in some ways means more connection, even though we aren't in the same place physically.

The other strength to being apart for a week like this is that A can get caught up on sleep and kid-free space and I can get caught up on projects. The evening time after the kids go to bed is free...I can read, I can paint, I can work on the house, I can deep clean the cellar....whatever is nagging me on my list can actually get my full attention because there's no call drop everything and watch Game of Thrones episodes with my husband. God knows I love watching Game of Thrones with my husband...I'm not complaining...I'm just saying.... Looking at the flip side of the loss means seeing what can be gained and there's always something to be gained. I am determined to think that way normally anyhow but this book is pushing me to be resourceful about how to strategize and visualize the hidden goodness of my own "losses."

Am also reading Eating On The Wild Side, which is SUPER INTERESTING nutritional data all about which foods are the most nutrient dense, which varieties are the best to grow for nutrition and even how to prepare them for the best dose of nutrients. Fascinating stuff. There's all kinds of little nuggets of info:  carrots are best eaten cooked....and its best to cook them whole and then cut them up for serving, shallots and scallions are the most nutrient dense onions and outpace bulb onions by fathoms, tomatoes release more nutrients the longer they are cooked....tomato paste is out of sight! Some of this stuff connects to the stuff in the other book. Its amazing what foods are popular and are cultural giants and yet have so little nutrition. Some of the least known and loved or the marginalized and not trendy (cabbage anyone?) are the best picks. 

Breaking my routine and reading, are my latest reminders to examine my life, my habits and my assumptions.