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Yesterday's workshop on Edible Wild Plants took us to a shady stream punctuated by two water falls with a diversion through a natural looking stone and concrete swimming pool, on a farm that is home to three generations of the original farming family, each involved in supportive occupations keeping the land alive and working. There is a horse farm, a vegetable CSA, a timber framing operation, and a poultry CSA piloted by a grand mother and her son and daughter and that daughter's daughter and cousin.
The piece de resistance of the day besides the butterfly bush in full flight, the magical tent beneath a drooping ancient spruce tree, warm clear sunshine, beady wet new-mown grass, and a recently expired sulpher colored moth which we posed as a decoration on the day's salad, was the making of that salad.

Of the things that we pass by everyday scornfully referring to as just weeds, the following became the abundance of nature in full radiance, topped with a mustard vinegrett dressing:

tender parts of:
dandelion, leaves and buds
wood sorrel,leaves and flowers
sheep sorrel
knotweed, leaves and flowers
plantain, broad and narrow leaved
chicory flowers
amaranth leaves
galensoga, leaves and flowers
red clover, top leaves and flowers
curley dock
violet leaves
lambs quarters
garlic mustard
wild chives
and purple leaf purilla

The salad was carefully constructed to balance the flavors including smaller amounts of bitter and sour, rounded out by lots of milder flavors, so as not to be too intense.

I love this century, you can use your dishwasher, or go down to the local stream, grow fresh salads all summer by mowing the lawn, to produce a constant supply of new growth or go the the Food Hole and see your friends.