We finished week 8 of our spring semester and have one week to go. The final week is when students go out for the solo experience, putting the things they have learned into use and reflecting on the entire semester. It is the culminating experience that bookends the entire semester.
Maine spring weather has been very cool, with many nights still close to freezing. Last night there was some snow in the mountains, but we didn’t get any.
Foraging season is in high gear, and I’ve been eating cooked cow parsnip greens, stinging nettles, and today will get some milkweed shoots. Yesterday we finished making crooked knives on a campfire, and while we were bending and tempering them we pulled a bunch of cattail shoots from the pond and cooked them like Cossack asparagus. This is when you put the whole shoot on the fire to singe the outside, then pull off the burned leaves and enjoy the roasted and steamed center shoot. It’s my favorite way to eat cattails. The fields are loaded with salad greens, as this is the time of year when many of the small greens you see are not too tough or bitter to put into a salad. Some of what we’ve been eating are dandelion greens and ox-eye daisy greens, with young blue-bead lily leaves chopped up for a cucumber-like taste.
Five of my apple seedlings made it through the winter in pots, and are vigorously growing and ready to be put in the ground. Also the rhubarb is up and the juneberries are in flower with the berries starting to develop.
With the plants have come the bugs, so it is smudge-pot season. Although the recent bout of cool weather has kept the bugs at bay. Everyone has adapted and people are almost never sitting still without a smudge pot smoldering nearby.
So there is a lot going on. Tomorrow we’re out on solos, then back in camp for a few days to wrap up the experience. Life here is good.
