And I did it with my bare hands. Of course, at this young stage their sting is pretty mild.
I made a pot of stew rife with some of these nutritious nettle greens, stewed in chicken bone broth with carrots, celery, kale and sweet potatoes, seasoned with oregano, garlic powder and salt and pepper.
Nettle harvest isn't the only sign of spring. You've already met the crocuses. Yesterday I noticed daffodils blooming. And the vultures are back. Two of them, anyway. On the windiest of windy days earlier this week we saw two vultures circling. Even in the high wind (gusts of up to 40 miles per hour) these large birds seemed unruffled. They dove into the wind, moving forward without a flap. Instead they merely angled their wings to guide themselves through. Pure inspiration. Face the wind and move through it without struggling, but flowing. Taoists, surely.
The inspirational flights of the vultures prompted us to rename our little piece of paradise as Spirit Bird Farm. We had tired of Cedar Springs Farm, a name we chose before we really knew this place, and when the springs still ran, filling the pond. The springs are no longer reliable, although the cedars are even bigger and more abundant.
We have lots of spirit birds here. The hawks were very prominent in the sky this past winter. Occasionally bald eagles fly overhead. Barred howls laugh uproariously in the night. The crows have their charms. And then we have all these songbirds and other small birds.
But it is the vultures that define our sense of spirit bird. Soaring and circling, swooping and rising, rising, rising... silently, gracefully. They always seemed to be making the most of their "work," their search for food. And when a silent shadow passes over me as I work outside, I am reminded to be here now, for I too am mortal.
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