Petals & Roots - Kids Herbal Club finale

We had four great weeks with a group of kids here, exploring the world of herbs, herbal remedy making, and harvesting wild foods as part of our first Petals & Roots Kids Herbal Club.  During this series the kids learned about safely identifying herbs (by using our senses, stalk shape, leaf pattern, flower, etc), how to carefully and respectfully harvest herbs, and how to store and dry them, how to incorporate wild herbs into our meals, and how to make a few basic remedies. 

We packed the days with hands-on activities, including harvesting the particular plants we were talking about.  We made green smoothies with dandelion, cold frescas with mint, steeped sun tea with lemon balm, sketched plants in our journals, transplanted herbs into pots to take home, had a herbal scavenger hunt, built simple plant presses that fit in a backpack, and made an all purpose healing salve with plantain.  Hopefully this series sparked a continuing interest in the wonderful green world for these kids, an understanding that these wise and useful plants are all around us and we simply need to pay attention, learn and practice.  It was amazing how simply sitting with the plants (while sketching, or harvesting) was a special part of each week.  We don't slow down and do that often enough.

Here are a few photos of the creations from our last day together - edible flower cupcakes, topped with an assortment of edible herbs and flowers from the Little City Farm garden (we did a little tour around the garden and found 20 types flowers that were ready for eating today, including: dandelion, sage, lavender, chive, calendula, marigold, thyme, kale, fennel, clover, violets, heartsease, and rose petals!).  What a lot of beautiful creations (and adventurous eaters!), and a nice reminder of the vibrancy, joy and colour that herbs can bring to our life through our food (food as medicine). 

We hope to offer this Petals & Roots Kids herbal series again in the fall, focusing on herbal roots, seed saving, and other fall-related herbal projects.

New at the homestead: Part 1 Baby Chicks

Spring brings many new things - and this spring we've added new baby chicks to the homestead again.   There are 4 cute little peeps currently housed in a large plastic bin with heat lamp in our living room!  Soon to move out to the greenhouse, and the eventually (when they are old enough to be outdoors with the other hens) we'll introduce them to our older girls in the hen yard.  These peeps are now a week old, and growing quickly.  The feather tips are sprouting and they are trying out their "flying" by darting around their enclosure and flapping their little wings.  We are using a great book called Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy Healthy Chickens Naturally, (she also writes a great chicken blog) with loads of tips on getting the chicks off to a healthy start using herbs and other simple natural approaches to bedding, cleaning, an so on.  Our daughter and her friend made up a special chick herbal blend last week in preparation for the arrival of the peeps - using herbs like garlic, lavender, chamomile, chickweed, nettle in a dried mix to supplement the commercial chick food.  We've lined the bin with bran (which they can eat and does not cause complications for their digestive systems like straw bedding could at this age), and they sleep on a pile of old wool socks in the corner under the heat lamp. 

Here are a few photos of the little peeps when they had just arrived - named by our almost 8 year old: Cloud, Cranberry, Cherry and Freckles.