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March Seeds Bring April Greens

It’s spring and it’s gardening time again! It was the shortest winter in history (although I perhaps would not have said that mid-January). I planted a few of our beds a couple of weeks ago. It’s our seventh gardening season in our backyard, and I actually sort of know what I’m doing now. It helps that I have two eager helpers. Ezra, who’s six, and Ira, who’s two, love the garden! Their faces light up at the very mention of planting.

Once we’re in the garden, our activities usually go like this: Ezra and I till a bed. Ira finds a “wormy.” Ezra and I spread fertilizer on a bed. Ira plays with the wormy. Ezra and I plant some seeds. Ira finds another wormy. Ira is enthusiastic about invertebrates.

We’re excitedly watching starts grow and seeds sprout, and we’re already harvesting a bit of lettuce and kale that self-started, perennial herbs, and lots of dandelion greens. Have I mentioned it’s prime dandelion harvesting season?

Wild foods tend to be much more nutritious than the produce in our supermarkets or even farmer’s markets. Jo Robinson, author of Eating on the Wild Side, explains that when we bred the bitterness out of our produce, we also lost nutrition. “The more palatable our fruits and vegetables became … the less advantageous they were for our health.”

Fortunately, despite many efforts to eradicate it, most of us have a wild edible green growing in abundance all around us, and it’s a nutritional powerhouse. A half pound of dandelion greens provides:

649% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin K,
338% of your vitamin A,
58% of your vitamin C,
39% of your iron,
20% of your Riboflavin,
19% of your calcium,
19% of your vitamin B-6, and
9% of your dietary fiber

Don’t let all those nutrients go to waste! Check out this post or this article for more information about this humble super food and recipes. This year I can’t wait to try Rachel Turiel’s dandelion pesto.

We’ll likely be seeing many more April showers, but you’ll hopefully find us sloshing around the garden playing with wormies or armed with a colander eying our neighbors’ weeds. Wishing you some similar spring-time revelry.

Is it gardening season where you live? If so, what’s coming up in your garden? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Free Range Learning

By Abby Quillen

It’s the perfect time for me to read Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything, which author Laura Grace Weldon sent me for review consideration. My husband Aaron and I spent much of February visiting schools because our five-year-old son Ezra will be eligible to attend kindergarten next year. Although we’re planning to enroll our boys in school, I’m glad I read Weldon’s book, which champions a way of homeschooling that verges considerably from what most public and private schools offer.

Weldon calls for highly individual, interest-led, experiential education that gives children lives full of “conversation, music, play, stories, struggles and overcoming struggles, chores, laughter and the excitement of examining in depth any of the rich wells of knowledge that humanity has to offer.” She’s critical of any system that “makes the child a passive recipient of education” whether it’s a public school or a homeschooling curriculum that prescribes conformity to standards. She doesn’t advocate any one prescribed style of homeschooling, but a flexible mix and match according to what best suits a family’s needs.

At 301 pages, published by Hohm Press, Free Range Learning looks like a textbook, but it’s not a dry read. Weldon’s writing is as clear and lively as on her popular blog, and she presents considerable eye-opening research about the value of homeschooling, like the following:

One study tested homeschooled as well as schooled children using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, a measure of social development. On this test, the homeschooled children scored higher in socialization, communication, daily living skills and maturity. Overall the mean score of the schooled children stood at the 23rd percentile. In contrast, the mean score for the homeschooled children stood at the 84th percentile.

Weldon also gives homeschooling parents and homeschooled students a voice in pages of anecdotes, like this one by Linda from Ohio:

I did not plan to stay home with Jeffrey. As a licensed occupational therapist, I’d been eager to get back to work in a hospital setting. But when we put him in school he did very poorly. They slapped three labels on him before he turned six. We put him in private school. That was worse. We could see school wasn’t an option for him. So Matt and I reassessed. Now I have a part-time practice at home. … I think our family is closer as a result of this style of education, and Jeffrey has no evidence of the problems the school pointed to. I’m glad our son didn’t adjust to school and we didn’t accept their labels.

When we chose not to send Ezra to preschool this year, I realized how counter-culture homeschooling is. “Which preschool does he go to?” we’re asked regularly when we’re out and about. When I reply that Ezra stays home, many well-meaning parents relay the importance of preschool for a child’s social skills and development. I’m quietly heartened that the research suggests that young kids who stay home with involved parents thrive. In the same vein, I imagine homeschooling parents breathe a sigh of relief when they read Weldon’s supportive research and case studies.

She devotes the second half of the book to providing reams of ideas for exploring different subjects with kids, including all of the usual school subjects as well as business and finance, volunteerism, and ethics. In nearly every chapter, she provides an abundance of resources, including lists of youth organizations, mentorship programs, learning communities, online courses, service travel agencies, etc.

Weldon’s ideas and resources are impressive, but her real gift is her compelling and joyful vision of what a quality home education can look like:

Among today’s homeschoolers are children who wonder aloud any time of day and whose questions are answered. Children who stay up late to stargaze, who eagerly practice the violin and study Latin, who slosh in the edges of a pond to see tadpoles, who design their own video games, who read books till noon in their pajamas. These children are empowered to be free range learners.

I was lucky to grow up with voracious lifelong learners, who were my greatest teachers. Books were stacked on every surface in our house. On weekends, we visited ghost towns and museums, attended history lectures, and met all kinds of interesting writers and thinkers. My parents liked to joke that they homeschooled us, but we also went to school. I hope to follow in that tradition with my kids.

Truthfully, when my older sister went to school, I begged my parents to send me to preschool, and I loved school all the way through college. As an adult, though, I’m increasingly concerned about our approach to schooling. As Weldon points out, our standards-obsessed education system, with its focus on test scores and grades too often discourages creativity, curiosity, risk-taking, and initiative. As my first child embarks into kindergarten, I’m just as concerned as Weldon that “the very structure of school makes the child a passive recipient of education designed by others.”

My family is fortunate to live in a community with an abundance of school choice, and we’re planning to send Ezra to a public alternative school that favors interest-led, project-based learning and favors cooperation over competitiveness. I hope it’s a good fit for him and that he loves school as much as I did. If it’s not, we’ll re-evaluate and happily consider other options, including homeschooling. No matter what we end up doing, I’m thrilled to have Laura Grace Weldon’s beautifully written book at hand. It’s every parent’s job to create an enriching household that fosters a love of learning, and Weldon offers an invaluable resource for doing that.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

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Eat Bitter Foods for Better Health

By Abby Quillen

Your mouth probably puckers at the thought of eating something bitter. But according to many experts, including clinical herbalist Guido Masé and integrative physician Tiearona Low Dog, a small dose of bitter can prevent and cure a litany of complaints.

Why do we need bitter foods?

Masé explains that plants developed bitter compounds to stop mammals from eating them. Then mammals developed detoxification systems, i.e. our livers, to deal with the bitter compounds. So bitters are the reason we have a liver, and it doesn’t work right when we don’t eat them.

Masé and Low Dog say ingesting more bitters, particularly before we eat, can:

Improve digestion

When there’s no bitter flavor in our food, Masé says we run the risk of poor digestion. “We see fat and cholesterol synthesis problems in the liver. … We see food passing untouched through the digestive system.” He recommends that instead of trying to “restrict, restrict and remove, remove” for concerns like toxicity, chronic inflammation, liver dysfunction, and digestive complaints and sensitivity, we “reincorporate bitterness.” When we activate our taste buds with the bitter flavor before a meal, the pancreas secretes enzymes, the liver secretes bile, and the valves through the compartments of the gastrointestinal tract work better. “As a result, the drama of incomplete digestion is really tempered.”

Nix heart burn

The mouth is not the only thing that puckers when we eat bitters. According to Masé, the valve at the bottom of the esophagus also scrunches up, keeping acid in place.

Eliminate food allergies and excema in adults and children

“I’ve seen big changes in the skin when we focus on enhancing digestion and restoring the microflora in the gut,” writes Low Dog in her book Healthy at Home. She prescribes children’s bitters for kids with food allergies, to be taken a half an hour or so before dinner. She also recommends bitters for adults with seasonal and environmental allergies.

Curb sugar cravings

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, we shouldn’t seek to eliminate the sweet taste from our diet, but to balance all five tastes. In the same vein, Masé is convinced that ingesting more bitters is the solution to sugar addiction. “Just make sure you get a little bit of bitter every day and you’ll find that your relationship with sugar is a whole lot easier.” He carries a tincture of bitters in his car and takes a little bit before he goes to the grocery store. That way, he insists, it’s easier for him to keep the chips and sweets out of his basket.

5 ways to ingest more bitters:

Greens

One of my favorite foods — dandelion — is a bitter. You can learn more about how awesome dandelion is in my (all-time most popular post) Dandelions are Superfoods. Chicory, arugula, radicchio, escarole, turnip greens, mustard greens, watercress, endive, and other bitter greens also make delicious pre-dinner salads.

Coffee and Tea

Coffee is probably most people’s favorite bitter food, and it’s been shown to be amazing for the liver. (But it’s the bitter taste that’s healing, so don’t sweeten it up too much!) Dandelion root, burdock, milk thistle, hops, gentian and other bitter herbs make excellent pre-meal teas.

Tinctures

Urban Moonshine, Herb Pharm, and other companies make bitter tinctures and tonics that you can take with a glass of water as a quick before meal ritual.

Dark chocolate

Dark chocolate is a delicious way to add some bitterness to your diet, and it was featured in this week’s People’s Pharmacy because of its many other health benefits.

Cocktails

Bitters are a common bar ingredient. Look for bitters at your grocery store and learn how to mix up a Manhattan, Rob Roy or Old-fashioned.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Are you eliminating foods? Instead, try adding more bitter foods to your diet. #health” quote=”Are you eliminating foods? Instead, try adding more bitter foods to your diet.” theme=”style1″]

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Do you like bitter foods and beverages? Have they helped you solve any health issues? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Celebrate the First Day of Spring

By Abby Quillen

Finally . . . the first day of spring is almost here! Here are some simple ways to celebrate.

Explore

Go on a hike and identify wildflowers if some are sprouting in your area. Or visit a local farm and see if you can get a glimpse of calves, lambs, or chicks in the barnyard.

Play

Fly a kite. Or make dandelion or clover chains and wear them as spring crowns.

Gather

Hunt for spring flowers, cherry buds, egg shells, a bird’s nest, and other signs of spring. Decorate the house with crocuses, daffodils, tulips, or dandelions.

Observe

Watch the sun rise and set. (You can find out what time it will rise here.)

Plant

Sow seeds. Have each family member pick a favorite flower to plant. Designate a special garden, and make a ceremony of it.

Read

Check out this list of novel s “where the characters blossom and where there is hope in the midst of struggles, like flowers on bare branches.”

And don’t forget about the kids. Check out some of my family’s favorite spring picture books:

Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schur
Spring by Ron Hirschi
Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown

We also enjoy reading aloud from The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson.

Eat

Make a spring feast with the first crops of the season. Dandelion leaves, steamed nettles, and asparagus are delicious spring greens. Other traditional spring foods include eggs, ham, and sweets. Eat outside if weather permits, or have a picnic on a blanket in the living room.

Make

Attract birds to your yard by making these easy Audubon-approved bird feeders out of peanut butter and bird seed.

Or create your own traditions to welcome spring this Thursday.

Resources for seasonal celebrations:

The Artful Spring by Jean Van’t Hul
Ceremonies of the Seasons by Jennifer Cole
The Spring Equinox: Celebrate the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson
Together: Creating Family Traditions by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes
The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule

Do you have plans or ideas for how to celebrate spring this year? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

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Why You Should Sync Your Schedule with the Seasons

By Abby Quillen

“Then there are those rare days … that dawn with a clarity that muscles its way into every home and studio and office . . . There’s a delicious radiance that seems to come from the things themselves . . .” – David Abram

We experienced our first spring-like day this weekend — birds singing, sun shining, daffodils in full bloom, windows open. Ahhh.

All day I was bursting with ideas and creativity. Most of us keep making our to-do lists and checking off items right on through the darkest, coldest months. Summer and winter were interchangeable in my former workplaces. Not once did a manager suggest we adjust our work to be more in sync with our natural seasonal inclinations.

But these first spring days have a way of showing us how stubbornly linked our minds and moods remain with the seasons.

One of my friends manages an organic farm. Not surprisingly, his life is more in sync with nature than most of ours. In the winter, he rests or travels. Then in the early spring, he starts working, gradually increasing his hours with the longer days.

But you don’t have to trade your computer for a hoe to get more in tune with nature. One independent author realized that winter was an excellent time to stay inside writing, whereas spring was the ideal time for book releases, so that’s how he arranges his life now. Some companies have started giving employees extra time off during the summer since that’s when people want to be outside and with family. My dad was a freelance writer, and he took nearly every afternoon off in September for fall hikes.

[clickToTweet tweet=”You may be healthier and more productive if you sync your life with the seasons. #productivity” quote=”You may be healthier and more productive if you sync your life with the seasons.” theme=”style1″]

I’m fortunate to have some flexibility in my working life, so I try to pay attention to nature’s cycles and adjust my life and work accordingly. But it’s not easy because our modern lifestyle — climate controlled houses and vehicles, cities lit up around the clock, ripe tomatoes available year round — are so adept at inoculating us from nature’s whims. Planting a garden helps since I have to pay attention to and cooperate with nature from spring to early fall.

But every spring I realize how hard I’ve pushed myself to keep exercising, producing, and working at full capacity right through the winter elements. I suspect winter colds and influenza are nature’s way of saying, “Enough. Rest already,” since many of us are bad at heeding the weather’s hints.

It’s noteworthy that until relatively recently, many cultures observed the new year in March. These early spring days, with their “delicious radiance” do seem a perfect time for making resolutions, for birthing books into the world, and perhaps for opening new businesses and starting ventures. What might the rest of our work lives look like if could take our natural seasonal inclinations into account?

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Do you adjust your work with the seasons? Could you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Pause. Relax. Breathe. Plan.

By Abby Quillen

You may be in need of a retreat to pause, relax, breathe, and plan. #sabbatical #work — Photo: Rennett Stowe

Last week, I realized I lost a lot of images in my blog conversion. It was an awful feeling to scan through my older posts and see years of pictures wiped out. I spent a night feeling pretty devastated.

But the next day, as I scrolled through old blog posts looking at the damage, I couldn’t help but look at the other things too, like all of these words I’ve worked so hard to write week after week, year after year. All these stories, memories, and ideas. How much my kids have changed. How much I’ve changed.

So often we don’t take these moments to pause and reflect on how we’ve evolved and where we’re going. We keep navigating forward, one foot in front of the other, without stepping back to reflect, analyze, brainstorm, and strategize.

That’s why I’ve decided to see The Case of the Missing Photos (Have I mentioned Ezra, now 6, is crazy about mystery novels right now?) as a message to do just that.

I’ll be taking my own little managing retreat to think about my business, my writing, and my short and long term goals. I’ll be pausing, relaxing, breathing, and planning.

Spring feels like the perfect time to think about the future and growth, with the sun shining and the flowers and trees just starting to come to life here.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Have you taken time to pause, relax, breathe, and plan lately? Do you need to? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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