“I see trees of green” … Oh wait, and grasshoppers too!

(Look at what’s on her arm down below!) Hehehehehe 🙂

“I think to myself”… “What a Wonderful World”… Now you are getting it… 🙂

Our Forest Stewards have been hopping, flying, and catching up!

Wow! Last week (09/24/24 and 09/25/24) was nothing short of amazing.

On Tuesday 09/24, we made sumac lemonade as a class! 🙂 Using one locally foraged sumac from our walks and the rest generously donated from Dwight Zietlow of the Wild Harvest Festival. 🙂

Here our Stewards are spreading out the cheesecloth to hold the wild sumac!!!!

The photo below is a closeup of the staghorn sumac berries, photo courtesy of Forager Chef Alan Bergo (@foragerchef).

In the photo below, we placed the staghorn and smooth sumac (stems and berries included!) wrapped in the cheesecloth and poured lemonade into a large pot. We brought the pot of lemonade and sumac to a boil, and let it boil for a few minutes, then let it cool.

Here is a Forest Steward who is patiently waiting for the sumac lemonade to cool!

Finished product – yum!!!!

Some of the stewards thought that the sumac lemonade was “too spicy” – perhaps it is because the sumac berry is used in Middle Eastern spice blends, such as za’atar! 🙂 We added more lemonade if necessary. 🙂

Here is a recipe I was inspired by, also there are so many recipes online, so feel free to try your own version or style of it! 🙂

(The photo below, from top of photo to bottom: maple leaf, Virginia creeper leaf, and wild river grape leaf)

We learned about tree and leaf identification from an Iowa Conservation pamphlet! We visually saw the differences between a poisonous Virginia Creeper and the edible river grape (leaves, berries, stalk color and structure, etc.). We learned about several different plants and how to distinguish them, including mullein, plum, and many others!

Here is a photo of one of our Stewards tracing a Virginia creeper leaf and writing a noticeable characteristic about it (for example, the leaves are palmately compound, composed of 5 leaflets – the leaflet amount can range from 3 – 7 too!).

We went on a grasshopper hunt! We caught many grasshoppers and decided to name each of them like they were corporate workers in offices (i.e., Kevin, Cathy, Bob, Steve, Rachel, Todd, Josh, etc.) :).

And instead of working in cubicles, they had to be placed into the bug “cylinder” for their work week. 🙂

Don’t worry, the grasshoppers were released shortly after! 🙂 They had PTO!

Below is a steward with a dragonfly that landed on their hat! 🙂 The steward also has catnip in their hand! 🙂

Below is a photo of highlights from 09/17 and 09/18, different conversational tidbits in Spanish to practice, and what “Singing Nettle Forest Stewards” means and what we stand for at our learning program. 🙂

We love to read the Elephant and Piggie books in Spanish! 🙂 Here is Ms. Chris reading to the stewards!

We have been reviewing or learning the days of the week in Spanish, and on 09/25, we worked on translating the song, “What a Wonderful World” in Spanish! It was so interesting to translate the famous Louis Armstrong song into Spanish because there are some nuances to consider, such as rhyme, rhythm, meter, syllables, and colloquial words!

We saw flowers (I have never seen this flower in the wild before, I think it is a mallow flower!), mushrooms (unsure of this type of mushroom!), and a millipede! 🙂

Thank you parents, families, and stewards of SNFS for making this such a “Wonderful World”!!!! We appreciate you all deeply and believe each of our stewards are making a difference in our communities.

Sending blessings your way always,

~Christine Shoemaker

Director & Learning Guide of Singing Nettle Forest Stewards, 501 (c) (3)

P.S., Below are some honorable photos from last week too… 🙂 catching a butterfly named Sunshine, supporting a cattail to stand upright, finding milkweed pods, watching videos about Spanish-speaking countries and different verbal accents (and specific words or phrases) that some Spanish-speaking countries have, playing Velcro catch, and many more!!