The cessation of snow and ice has led to the resurgence of field trips to explore the area, and I'm finding more and more things to develop a fondness for in this strange land of Northern Illinois.
Arboretum
The other week, a friend from knit group very generously invited the boys and I to come to the Morton Arboretum on her member pass, and that was a lovely day. I learned quite a bit about local flora: myriad varieties of oak and magnolia (not the ones I'm used to) and maple (so many maples!), ash and beech and birch and larch and spruce. Lilac is a novelty, as are cherry trees and crabapple, viburnum and peonies. Holy wow, PEONIES.
There were tree houses connected by rope bridges for the boys to climb (they even convinced me to haul myself across the skyway once -- Trixy kindly but firmly declined), and ponds where you could wade and catch tadpoles. I was out in the sun for hours and got burnt -- but not heat exhausted. I seldom got burnt in Florida, because I couldn't be out in the heat long enough. WEIRDNESS. I like it.
Feel-Good Farming
Last week, the boys and I went on a homeschool group expedition to an organic farm. I still haven't really connected with anyone in that group, but the tour was excellent. Farmer Nate knew what was up. We learned about microgreens and soil blocks and transplant shock and bacterial pest control and the importance of living soil. We saw the greenhouses and portable hoop houses and learned how they're able to grow spinach even with snow outside. We learned that after mid-February the angle of the sun shifts so that it no longer has to shine through so much atmosphere before hitting ground, and that's when you can harvest enough of its energy to start seedlings. It's like scientific magic.
The farm supplies restaurants in Chicago as well as more local Whole Foods-type grocers. After the tour, Seth told Farmer Nate that he planned to be a chef in a restaurant some day. Nate confided that he had BEEN a chef, and he got so interested from talking to his organic suppliers that he made the transition to farming, and now he still dabbles in haute cuisine with his own produce. Talk about creative control.
The farm also has bee hives, which we unfortunately did not get to see. We did purchase raw honey from their market, though, and I had to exercise great control not to purchase one of every flavor: they had lavender-infused, cinnamon, rosemary, and cocoa honeys. So intriguing, but so expensive, alas.
Suburban Sun-Dancing
Yesterday, we all went on a field trip with the church's RE group to the home of a retired Lakota Sioux sun dancer and his wife. We learned about the medicine wheel and the prayers to spirits in the 7 directions, we got to smell burning sage and sweetgrass and cedar, see the sweat lodge, and participate in a pipe ceremony. I sat in their living room while the drum beat and they sang in a language of First Americans, and I marveled that my white self was being granted this experience. It's a really good thing to be taken out of your usual modes of cognition sometimes and to glimpse that others' can be so different, and that it works so well. I feel this morning that we're all aliens with a common planet.
Well. My teapot is empty, and laundry awaits. Happy June, everyone.
