Abundance

As we celebrate the freedoms we have, I also celebrate the abundance that nature provides. Red, white and blue… red blackcap raspberries (before they ripen), white elderberry flowers, and dark blue/purple gooseberries. The blackcaps are finishing, and the gooseberries are just coming on. I sure do enjoy a good berry season. The elderberry blossoms smell divine. Maybe I’ll celebrate freedom with some elder flower pancakes (with a few wild blueberries from the freezer thrown in for color) topped with blackcap/maple syrup. Freedom tastes good!

Rain has also been abundant around here. The “dry” ravine has run twice in the last 2 weeks. The rocky bottom is scoured, revealing rocks from the Paleozoic Plateau and below that have been buried in dirt for hundreds of thousands of years. Meanwhile the Mississippi River rises. It is in minor flood stage now, but the rains keep coming, so it will keep rising. It is unusual to have the River so high during the growing season, and trees generally don’t do so good with extended inundation during the growing season. So I wouldn’t mind if the abundant rainfall slowed down a bit to give some of the water time to drain away.

Speaking of abundance… we’re looking forward to learning about how to prepare wild foods with Chris Gavin as our teacher on July 27th. We only have a few spots remaining, so grab a spot if you’d like to learn more about turning some of that abundance into delicious! Information about that and other upcoming workshops (like mushroom foraging in October!) are listed on the Events page of this website.  I’ll also be doing a (free) women’s walk on Thursday July 18… I’m still hoping we can get to the top of the north bluff on this one.

I haven’t scheduled much else for July, as I’ll be heading to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to enjoy a 3-night paddle into the Wilderness next week. Maybe I’ll even find a bit of true blue (my gooseberries were a stretch) in a blueberry patch up there. Our expert guide for this small women’s trip will be my daughter, who is a guide and program director at Adventurous Christians (wilderness camp) on the Gunflint Trail. I’m kind of excited about this upcoming adventure. If you need anything from Iowisota next week, you’ll need to check in with Dennis!

Also note… my mailing list has gotten large enough (yeah!) that I can only do one automated mailing of my blog posts per month at my current fee level, but I can forward out notices from my email. So the second e-mailing of the month might come from iowisota@gmail.com instead of through Wix until I upgrade. You might want to put that email address on your list so my emails don’t go to your Spam folder.