I love dandelions! I pull some out in my flowerbeds, but otherwise they are allowed to grow and cheer up our lawn through the summer. Over they years we've been fascinated at how they change over the season - sometimes staying low to the ground, and sometimes stretching tall. I've not eaten them, but am going to try making ink from them this summer.
At our old house I had a patch of thistles and blackberries in one back corner along the fence, and they were impossible to keep up with so kept returning every year. I just did what I could to keep them confined to that one area. The birds loved it. I suspect the people who bought our house aren't as into gardening as I was, so I wonder what it looks like now?
Ink! I would love to know more about that. I have a friend I've slightly lost touch with who went deep into making inks at one point. It was fascinating to read her writing about iron gall and inks in famous forgeries.
Hopefully the birds still have a place at your old house! I think that a lot about the messy, unkempt field in our old house, which was full of red-winged blackbirds on swamp grasses and cattails.
What I've read about making natural ink indicates it's not really that difficult, and nothing too fancy is needed for the ingredients beyond the plants you're using (in most cases). I've started saving avocado skins and pits, which make a purplish color. What I'm lacking right now is an old pan to boil things up in that we don't use for food! I'll be able to go to the thrift store soon - one more week to being fully vaccinated!
I have a feeling I might be venturing into a new hobby in the next few years ... this sounds so cool! And thrift store pans is probably perfect. Or yard sale.
I am also a dandelion farmer, although I do it on the down low because the neighbors would revolt if they knew that what appears to be benign neglect and inattention is active cultivation and encouragement. They are such a low-maintenance, forgiving, and amiable, if invasive, life-form. I've admired their resilience since I was very young because my grandfather would pay us a bounty of nickel each for every dandelion (with roots attached) we pulled whenever we drove up to visit from Missoula. No matter how many I harvested, I could count on a thriving and profitable crop every time we returned.
Dandelions are the best. I really don't understand what people have against them except that they're not grass. They're even pleasant to walk on!
What a wonderful story about your grandfather and abundance :). I don't think I learned to appreciate them until sometime in the last 15 years when I learned about their nutrition value and how to make jelly out of the flowers. They're amazing and bright and cheerful and so much easier to grow than pansies. Plus the deer don't eat them.
You're right; people don't like dandelions because they're not grass. I don't get that because grass isn't edible and, as you point out, dandelions are. They resent moss for the same reason but I have allowed what used to be a small patch of grass in my back garden to revert to moss, which—in Seattle—is a maintenance-free substitute. And also wonderful to walk on.
This is the kind of discussion I appreciate! I wish more high-profile people would engage at that level. I can see the argument for "we need to use this technology or else humanity is in deep trouble" but if the proponent is unwilling to talk about the problems created by extraction and waste then all we're doing is making the same mistakes over again, with longer lasting damage. I can buy that Vitamin A rice is a good thing! That doesn't require me to accept genetically modified golf course grass as a necessity. Kind of like being an opponent of factory farming of animals doesn't mean I think people need to give up meat (I'm certainly not). But trying to engage on that level generally gets the "anti-science environmentalist" response, which is tiresome.
You bring up a point I was thinking about yesterday (related to the AAP newsletter probably), which is that coming up with a solution for, say, nuclear waste requires being a species or at least a societal system that takes waste management seriously. People come up with good solutions for things all the time but if those physical solutions aren't maintained then they leak like everything else (I'm thinking specifically of the Hanford site here, which has double-walled containment that was never meant to leak).
I'd prefer a world where those things were a reality, too, but also don't believe that's the world we live in. But it's good to know that other people are thinking about these things in more complex ways.
I don't think it's naïveté at all. I think this is exactly the space where so many people like yourself are focusing energy in hopes that a paradigm might shift. I think "we didn't even know it was there because we sort of assumed it was" is kind of right. I've talked a bit before about this, but I do believe that the stories we believe about ourselves--as a species or society, not just as individuals--have tremendous power. I'd like to think I grew up fairly well versed in politics and power (talk about naiveté!) but there are so many assumptions I made about ... I guess the phrase now would be the grown-ups in the room. I didn't like them most of the time but I assumed at some subconscious level that they were there and doing things for somewhat justifiable reasons.
We should have been able to have better conversations about a lot of things, but I *hope* we are learning from that and finding more people who ask these deep questions. The precautionary principle isn't treated with quite the derision it once was, and that seems a positive shift if it can keep going.
I love dandelions! I pull some out in my flowerbeds, but otherwise they are allowed to grow and cheer up our lawn through the summer. Over they years we've been fascinated at how they change over the season - sometimes staying low to the ground, and sometimes stretching tall. I've not eaten them, but am going to try making ink from them this summer.
At our old house I had a patch of thistles and blackberries in one back corner along the fence, and they were impossible to keep up with so kept returning every year. I just did what I could to keep them confined to that one area. The birds loved it. I suspect the people who bought our house aren't as into gardening as I was, so I wonder what it looks like now?
Ink! I would love to know more about that. I have a friend I've slightly lost touch with who went deep into making inks at one point. It was fascinating to read her writing about iron gall and inks in famous forgeries.
Hopefully the birds still have a place at your old house! I think that a lot about the messy, unkempt field in our old house, which was full of red-winged blackbirds on swamp grasses and cattails.
What I've read about making natural ink indicates it's not really that difficult, and nothing too fancy is needed for the ingredients beyond the plants you're using (in most cases). I've started saving avocado skins and pits, which make a purplish color. What I'm lacking right now is an old pan to boil things up in that we don't use for food! I'll be able to go to the thrift store soon - one more week to being fully vaccinated!
I have a feeling I might be venturing into a new hobby in the next few years ... this sounds so cool! And thrift store pans is probably perfect. Or yard sale.
I'll certainly document my ink adventures on IG and in my blog, so will keep you posted when I give it a go!
Yes! I don't have any social media anymore but I can definitely follow a blog :)
I got tired of writing my newsletter (never missed a Sunday for almost 3.5 years) so went back to blogging. :-)
https://schistosity.blogspot.com
I've always felt the same way about dandelions. They're gorgeous.
The dandelion love here makes me happy :)
Loving your sociological analogies and goat lawn mowing!
The goats were the best! Kind of pricey, though.
I am also a dandelion farmer, although I do it on the down low because the neighbors would revolt if they knew that what appears to be benign neglect and inattention is active cultivation and encouragement. They are such a low-maintenance, forgiving, and amiable, if invasive, life-form. I've admired their resilience since I was very young because my grandfather would pay us a bounty of nickel each for every dandelion (with roots attached) we pulled whenever we drove up to visit from Missoula. No matter how many I harvested, I could count on a thriving and profitable crop every time we returned.
Dandelions are the best. I really don't understand what people have against them except that they're not grass. They're even pleasant to walk on!
What a wonderful story about your grandfather and abundance :). I don't think I learned to appreciate them until sometime in the last 15 years when I learned about their nutrition value and how to make jelly out of the flowers. They're amazing and bright and cheerful and so much easier to grow than pansies. Plus the deer don't eat them.
You're right; people don't like dandelions because they're not grass. I don't get that because grass isn't edible and, as you point out, dandelions are. They resent moss for the same reason but I have allowed what used to be a small patch of grass in my back garden to revert to moss, which—in Seattle—is a maintenance-free substitute. And also wonderful to walk on.
That honestly sounds delightful. Moss is just such a pleasure of a thing.
Read Robin Wall Kimmerer's tribute to moss in the Witness to Rain chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass. It's spectacular.
It is 💕 I love that book so much!
This is the kind of discussion I appreciate! I wish more high-profile people would engage at that level. I can see the argument for "we need to use this technology or else humanity is in deep trouble" but if the proponent is unwilling to talk about the problems created by extraction and waste then all we're doing is making the same mistakes over again, with longer lasting damage. I can buy that Vitamin A rice is a good thing! That doesn't require me to accept genetically modified golf course grass as a necessity. Kind of like being an opponent of factory farming of animals doesn't mean I think people need to give up meat (I'm certainly not). But trying to engage on that level generally gets the "anti-science environmentalist" response, which is tiresome.
You bring up a point I was thinking about yesterday (related to the AAP newsletter probably), which is that coming up with a solution for, say, nuclear waste requires being a species or at least a societal system that takes waste management seriously. People come up with good solutions for things all the time but if those physical solutions aren't maintained then they leak like everything else (I'm thinking specifically of the Hanford site here, which has double-walled containment that was never meant to leak).
I'd prefer a world where those things were a reality, too, but also don't believe that's the world we live in. But it's good to know that other people are thinking about these things in more complex ways.
I don't think it's naïveté at all. I think this is exactly the space where so many people like yourself are focusing energy in hopes that a paradigm might shift. I think "we didn't even know it was there because we sort of assumed it was" is kind of right. I've talked a bit before about this, but I do believe that the stories we believe about ourselves--as a species or society, not just as individuals--have tremendous power. I'd like to think I grew up fairly well versed in politics and power (talk about naiveté!) but there are so many assumptions I made about ... I guess the phrase now would be the grown-ups in the room. I didn't like them most of the time but I assumed at some subconscious level that they were there and doing things for somewhat justifiable reasons.
We should have been able to have better conversations about a lot of things, but I *hope* we are learning from that and finding more people who ask these deep questions. The precautionary principle isn't treated with quite the derision it once was, and that seems a positive shift if it can keep going.