I live in a landscape of strip mini-malls. In these increasingly ever-present and very American places, it’s challenging to feel connected to land... I'm not crunchy. I don't wear a nut bag around my neck, I don't wear hemp shoes...But I also remember what it was like to have a relational experience with a landscape. I grew up spending summers at my grandparents’ farm on the eastern shore of Maryland. I used to pick wild blackberries, catch a dinner of blue crabs and run between the rows of the tall corn plants that were “as high as an elephant’s eye by the Fourth of July.” I knew what wild garlic looked like; when the figs of the fig trees were ready to eat, I ate them... ...I was determined to practice PBL — place-based learning... ... the goal has been to find wild chives, which grow along roadsides. And to try the berries of the dogwood trees; I read in my Wild Edibles field guide that they taste like mango. It’s been revolutionary to be outside, in the suburbs. We have embraced simply walking, observing, feeling the dirt under our feet and occasionally bringing home something we harvested with our own hands...
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