Recently, Daddy got a cool book about the common vegetation on the west coast that are edible and medicinal. We'll spare the comments about his obsession with Survivorman and Man vs Wild that would naturally fit in here. Since buying this book, we've been looking forward to the weekend when we could test it out. This morning/afternoon we went for a hike in the woods to see what we could identify.
We brought some plastic bags to collect specimen and our survival guide and of course, snacks. The kids had a great time filling up their bags with rocks and sticks and pine cones while we were busy observing the few plants that were not in hibernation. We found manzanita (to use in a sitz bath for bum troubles), ferns (good when new and curly), sage (to season dishes), parsley (to season dishes), miners' lettuce (good in salads), serviceberries (good in teas), stinging nettles (good for soup) and about 5 more plants yet to be identified by us. We plan to go out again sometime in April when things are in bloom and there should be a plethera of plants to choose from.
Our little girl's favorite part was finding the two sparkly rocks (Quartz) that she brought home with her and her little brother's favorite part was, of course, the snacks. We may not be able to live off the land, but it's a fun excuse to play outside. Plus, I'll definitely pay more attention to what I'm walking on next time we're hiking.UPDATE: Upon further inspection, we realized that the sage was really rockcress and the Miner's Lettuce was really Amaranth. Oh, and the parsley was really sanicle...we're rookies, get off my back already.
