photo by Betsy Sandlin

Green Greetings.

This pretty picture, from my dear friend Betsy Sandlin, captures for me these last sweet weeks of spring. (Summer begins May 1, less than two weeks away). I am delighted to be home and enjoying my own spring, though I thoroughly enjoyed the flower-filled, marvelous springs in Italy and Arkansas.

We had a fabulous first work weekend, which is also the orientation weekend for the live-out apprentices. (Live-out apprentices can start any time and there are still openings in this year's group.) The live-out apprentices learned to use their field guides on a "spring ephemerals" walk in the woods with me on Sunday.

We got the tipi up and we got the fountain in the pond. We moved all the plants out of the greenhouse and onto the deck. We make nettle soup plain on Saturday and nettle soup fancy on Sunday. We took down the storm window and put in the screens. We made wild salad, too.

After everyone left, I went for a walk, winding up at the barn. And what did I see? My shadblow tree in bloom. I literally jumped for joy! My heart leapt with joy too!   

My shadblow tree grows close to the barn, and was damaged by the barn fire. It was uncertain whether it had survived, as it lost all of its leaves from the heat and they did not regrow last summer. My friend, and spell-companion, Rose and I made ceremony for the health and restoration of this tree frequently since the fire. It was the first healing thing we did in the burned area. We watered her, sung to her, brought her compost, listened to her, and invited the earth energies of this place, the Ancient Ones, to assist us in revitalizing the only shadberry tree on my land.

It worked. She is alive and blooming! Only a small portion of the tree – the part furthest from the barn – is in flower, but that part is exuberantly in bloom.  The tree and we are rising from the ashes. We are blooming. May you bloom too!

Green blessings
Susun

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Wild Salad

The group gathered for the work-exchange weekend learned well and quickly how to put together a delicious wild salad. This is the beauty they made on Sunday.
It contains: garlic mustard leaves and garlic mustard true-leaf "sprouts" (Alliaria off.), baby cronewort (Artemisia vulgaris), chickweed (Stellaria pubera), dandelion leaves and flowers (Taraxacum off.), periwinkle flowers (Vinca minor), ground ivy leaves and flowers (Glechoma hederacea), and some organic lettuce. We ate it with garlic mustard root vinegar.