I'm a city girl. Born and bred. Unfortunately the city where I grew up, though on the Mediterranean, suffered war and chaos that living things other than human almost all but disappeared.
Real parks were a tough find. "Wild" life consisted to stray cats and dogs, and the occasional brave pigeon. The situation was so bad that when I moved to Germany, I thought there were two kinds of ducks in the park. The brown ones and the colourful ones. Yes. That bad. Martin was laughing so hard at me it still stings a little. I grew up with very little nature.
No matter. One can learn and here I am.
The problem is when my little girl points at a bird and asks: "What's that?", all I can offer is "Errr, a bird." Duh, she knows it's a bird. Same with plants and flowers. Her father on the other hand, knows his birds, flowers, trees, wild berries and even mushrooms. He takes us on mushroom and berry collecting trips. So to redeem myself in front of my three year old, I've acquired two books on birds and flowers. Next up, a class with a local wild foraging walk - that will have to wait though until the baby can do without his milk for a few hours. Maybe a book until then, but I keep thinking of Mark Twain and misprints and dying...
Note to self: instead of picking the flower, next time take a picture. Much more informative. And also, poor flower!
Real parks were a tough find. "Wild" life consisted to stray cats and dogs, and the occasional brave pigeon. The situation was so bad that when I moved to Germany, I thought there were two kinds of ducks in the park. The brown ones and the colourful ones. Yes. That bad. Martin was laughing so hard at me it still stings a little. I grew up with very little nature.
No matter. One can learn and here I am.
The problem is when my little girl points at a bird and asks: "What's that?", all I can offer is "Errr, a bird." Duh, she knows it's a bird. Same with plants and flowers. Her father on the other hand, knows his birds, flowers, trees, wild berries and even mushrooms. He takes us on mushroom and berry collecting trips. So to redeem myself in front of my three year old, I've acquired two books on birds and flowers. Next up, a class with a local wild foraging walk - that will have to wait though until the baby can do without his milk for a few hours. Maybe a book until then, but I keep thinking of Mark Twain and misprints and dying...
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| My first try. I see this yellow flower everywhere and the book tells me it's a "Scharbockskraut", less celandine in English (Ranunculus ficaria) |
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