Beautiful Backyard Salad

The finished masterpiece...

 My daughters and I gathered the following wildflowers and common weeds to add to our salad:

A nice patch of Chickweed

Some delicate dangling Chiming Bells

Lambs quarter weed in the foreground

Wild pink roses

So many wild plants are edible, very nutritious, and even tasty!  I have noticed when I buy store bought produce here in Fairbanks it does not last near as long in my refrigerator as I remember it lasting down in Oregon.  It must travel so far to get here that the shelf life is so much less.  I know that the vitamin content in produce lessens with each passing day after it has been picked.  What better way to really get good nourishment than picking and eating your nutritious weeds!  Many weeds are very easy to identify so that even a child knows how to spot them.  Some weeds are harder to identify and we've made a rule that one must first find the same weed in at least 3 different books before they can attempt a nibble.  If there is ever any question of it's identity or its value as an edible plant, we pass it by. 

My oldest daughter showing our creative design

Oh that my daughters would be able to identify and place value on everything good thing and despise the evil in this world.  It takes such time and effort to learn to identify edible plants, let them use the same amount of diligence in determining the wealth of everything that sets itself up in their path.  We all want our children to be well educated, what in?  What good is an education if it does not teach critical, godly thinking in order to discern right from wrong?  I think many do not stop to think about what an education really means.  We've accepted such a general and generic worldly view on this subject.   Every parent should spend a long and serious amount of time thinking about what defines an excellent education.