Sh'roomin'

Who would have ever thought that I'd find mushrooms interesting? In the previous decades of my life, the equation was simple: want mushrooms? Go to the grocery store and fill bag. Now? "Look Mom! There's a mushroom in the backyard!" ... "Woohoo honey! Go grab the book!".

What book are we referring to? What magical book could elicit an excited response? Well, in this case, it is one of our newest acquisitions: National Audubon Society's Field Guide to Mushrooms!!! It came in quite handy yesterday when we found this in the backyard:

Here I was, thinking "Yay! Maybe it'll be a 'choice edible' and we'll have another item to add to our 'forage for this' list!" However, Pumpkin, Mommy & said field guide identified it as a Green-Spored Lepiota...a VERY poisonous mushroom that can cause "one to two days of violent purging."

Hmm. Guess we won't be eating that after all.

Along with our field guide, we acquired a few other "choice edibles" in terms of brain food. Pumpkin is fascinated with The Self-Sufficiency Handbook and is anxious to put together her very own beehive. Among wanting to own/operate her own zoo and aquarium and dinosaur park, she wants to have a solar/wind-powered farm and raise items for farmers market. Is 7 too young to start teaching the basics of solar/wind power? I have a homeschooling cousin who was drawing circuits by the age of 5, so probably not. Things to ponder as the new school year starts up.

Pumpkin "reading" The Self-Sufficiency Handbook

Yay for the Library Reading Program!!!

The midwest seems to start up earlier than the northwest...back-to-school sales are already up and going. By July 5th, the holiday items were being taken down and pens/pencils/notebooks were being put up. Wow! They don't waste much time here, do they? Maybe it has to do with harvest. We're currently in the middle of wheat country. I had no idea that cattle were such an integral part of the wheat harvest...they plant the wheat in the fall, wait until it starts to show up, then toss a herd out in the field to keep it mowed down all winter long. If the wheat stalk makes a "knuckle" and it freezes, it will not grow past that knuckle again, and will not produce wheat. Amazing what one learns in traveling.