Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our weekly celebration of service. My name is Tracy Yovanovich,
and I'm honored to serve as your president. It's good to hear the energy in the room. I think everybody's
enjoying this beautiful weather. Could you, Tyler? Thank you. You already knew. You read my mind. And
it's nice to not have a jumping screen this week. That's awesome. All right. So in the spirit of being
international and staying in tune with where in the world are all the different rotary clubs,
I wanted to share this one in particular. Joy, I'm so glad you're here, because you'll particularly
like this one. Amman Jordan has a club, and it was started by eight rotoractors. How cool is that? We
always talk about our rotoractors here at IU, and eight rotoractors started this club in Amman. And
Craig and Jim are having their own meeting over here.
They get busy with national aid funding, bringing medical support to families in Jordan. That's their
big project. They work with families who don't have health care. I thought, hmm, that sounds kind of
familiar. And that was started in 2012. But I was particularly interested in this one because of the
rotor reactor impact. You never know the influence that you're going to have out in the world. And these
are the kids that come from IU that come from other schools, which is fantastic.
And with that, I will ask Heidi Schultz to come up and share a reflection. Good afternoon, everyone.
There's something about this time of year that naturally invites reflection for me.
The seasons are changing, routines are settling in, there's a sense of both momentum and transition,
and fall often feels like a season of beginning again, but with a little more perspective since last
January. As the pace of the year continues to pick up, especially at my house with four busy kids, I've
been thinking about how easy it is to move from one responsibility to the next without taking the time
to notice what is going well, who has helped along the way, and
what we've been given the opportunity to contribute. Gratitude is often thought of as a personal virtue,
but I think it's also a community practice. It changes the way we see people around us. It reminds us
that none of us accomplishes much entirely on our own. Every strong organization, every strong community
is built through relationships, generosity, encouragement, and people willing to invest in something
beyond themselves.
That is part of what I think makes service so meaningful and what makes groups like our Rotary so special.
So much of service is about planting seeds we may never fully see grow. We support people we may never
meet. We strengthen organizations and communities that we may not see visible right away. We give our
time, energy and resources because we believe the future is worth investing in.
And I think that's one of the most hopeful things about service. It's an act of faith in one another.
It says that people matter, communities matter, and the work we do today can create opportunity, stability,
and hope for someone else tomorrow. So as we move into this new fall season, I hope we can all carry
both gratitude and perspective with us, long enough to notice the good.
The colleague who always follows through, the volunteer who says yes without hesitation, the neighbor,
the student, family member, or friend who is working hard and trying their best. And when we notice,
let's say so. Because gratitude doesn't just make us feel better, it strengthens relationships,
deepens trust, and reminds people that what they do matters.
In a world that can feel heavy at times, choosing to notice the good and continuing to invest in one
another is no small act of service. So thanks to each of you for the many ways you contribute to our
community and one another. I think I would say I'm Verklempt. That was amazing. Thank you, Heidi. And
with that, Dr. Winston, if you would come up and introduce our guest.
When I call your name, if you could please stand and be recognized. We have guest Kate Cedar is the
guest of Melinda. Nell Cronke is the guest of Melinda. Lynette Marshall is the guest of Rex.
Katie Beck is a guest of Sarah Laughlin. Kim Arnold is the guest of Tracy. And do we have any guests
online? No, we do not. All RotorX. Okay. Rotarians, excuse me. All right. Thank you for that, Dr. Winston.
Tyler, if you could bring us back up. For birthdays, there are no birthdays this week, but we do have
quite a few anniversaries. We have Tom Gallagher for two years, Leslie Kutsenko for two years, Art Ohmick
12 years, Bill Perkins 22 years, Randy Saunders one year, and James Wolf 24 years, four of those with
us and 20 with his club before, so quite a few anniversaries. Now, hold on, we've got lots of announcements.
Just a reminder, I had lots of questions on this. Everyone in this room is invited to Charlotte's service
for Rotary. There are two services. There's one on Thursday, which everyone in the city and county and
state and world, because Charlotte is Charlotte or was, is invited on Thursday. All Rotarians and close
friends are invited on Saturday. And that's at the UU Church at 3 o'clock. OK, any questions on that
one? All right.
different music. Okay, I know that we have Sally Gaskell singing. I know Alon is playing the flute.
It's going to be quite, oh, and Amy's singing as well. So it's going to be quite something to behold,
as is to be expected. We also have a remote that's not working. Hold on. Can you
There we go. We also have Kim Gray's celebration at the same time at the Presbyterian Church.
I will be doing, on behalf of Rotary, I will be presenting perspectives on Kim and how much we loved
her and everything she contributed. So I would ask for all of you, I've gotten feedback from some of
you already, but if you could share, email me some insights and how you would like Kim to be remembered
from your perspective. I know the family would really appreciate that.
And there's also a visitation because of the two services at the same time, which is, it is what it
is. But there is a visitation in the morning from 11 to 1, so you can certainly stop by and pay your
respects that way, okay? All right, next, I'm gonna fly through some of these and stick on a few more.
Rotary Book Club, Wednesday the 14th, Be There or Be Square, Rotary Toast, individual tickets are on
sale. Do we have the flyers, Jill? I forgot to get those. So we have flyers up front.
We've only sold 173 tickets so far. So I would ask if you could take extra flyers, please. We'll put
some on the tables and try handing those out to people you think might be interested. We need to show
up and support Lori Burns-McRobbie. She's done a lot with the community, certainly with Middleway House
University, a number of efforts out there. I know she helped out with Beacon as well. So if you could
help us stimulate those sales, that would be fantastic.
Parking update, the Henderson garage is no longer free. The only free parking is at Atwater and IMU.
And then for the holiday party update, we did have to increase by $2 the ticket price. So it's $62 a
ticket. I don't think it's gonna break the bank. But food costs, I think everybody knows food costs
have gone up. And so we wanna make sure we have decent food like last year was fantastic. So put that
on your calendars and more to come on available for sale.
Uh-oh, I know I went too fast. Get out the vote. Everybody should know in the spirit of civic responsibility,
you need to show up. And at 501 North Morton, the early voting will be starting next week. So let's
get the vote out. Secondly, if anybody has time this Saturday, Lotus Festival needs volunteers to help
with the carnival from 530 to 1130. If you're able, the phone number's here. It will be in the roundabout.
They'd appreciate any support you can get.
And then lastly, we need volunteers for our district grant project. Michelle's got the sign up sheet.
I just signed, I hadn't done it yet and I should have. We need 14 to 24 people more to sign up. We have
about eight or nine or 10 right now. But this is part of our backpack.
Pack Buddy program where we'll be packing those backpacks, say that five times fast, for two hours on
Sunday. So if you could sign up ASAP with Michelle, it would be greatly appreciated. Then next, perfect
timing for Dr. Winst to speak, they have MCCSE has a strong community ambassador program.
These are four sessions that they've designed. They've already got a cohort that started this spring
and they're working with the chamber on this. The intent is really to get some people in the community
that understand how the schools operate. Doesn't matter if you have kids there or not, but we need advocates
out there with the media challenges, with the SCA-1 bill and things that have happened. We need to get
people better educated about what's working well, what's not, where help is needed. So it's an excellent,
excellent opportunity for some of us to sign up
and participate. There are four dates in the spring, and I didn't print out my sheet, but there are
four dates in the spring. You can find it on the MCCS website. I will make sure that's in the roundabout.
I'm going to be signing up to do it, but I want to be able to better speak, and I know that there are
many of you in the audience who would also like to represent and help MCCSC and how we're represented.
Okay, so I am not a beauty pageant person really. I know that's shocking for most of you. But this caught
my eye and there's a couple of reasons. First of all, an IU alum won Miss USA totally off my radar.
I had no idea because I just don't follow it if it's not in the sports. But what I really wanted to
point out in the spirit of expanding our minds and changing, she's the first person over 30. She's a mother.
So Miss USA is actually a mother and first person over 30. So if they can change, we can all change,
going back to what you said. And my gosh, she's from IU, which is amazing. And she's a master's in public
health, which speaking of, and I didn't have this on here, but we have congratulations to Whitney, our
double doctorate. She got her doctorate.
Thank you. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this journey. And I have one
more comment about Justice. We were actually classmates during the Masters of Public Health program
at IU Bloomington, and she's a human being and a great public health professional. So I was very excited
when I found that she was, she's Miss USA. Yeah, totally. She brings the Miss Universe to the US. To what?
Hopefully she becomes Miss Universe. Oh, there you go. There you go. Go big or go home. I like that.
So no, I mean, she and she's running the philanthropical arm. I think it's St. Jude's. So I mean, she's
she's the real deal. So that's amazing. So anyway, then I got a text from Dave and Cynthia Cynthia at
Merida and they are going to Rotary meetings and they actually had an induction ceremony they attend.
Our induction ceremonies aren't quite so glamorous. I'll just say, Mr. Baker, we can work on that.
But hey, that's pretty cool. Again, in the spirit of international, there's a lot happening out around
the world. All right. And with that, I will turn it over to Lynn Schwartzberg, before you put that bread
in your mouth, to introduce our guest.
Well, thank you, President Tracy. Today, I am delighted to bring something a little different to this
club. I'm happy to introduce Monique Philpott. She is the president of Soulcraft, a local non-for-profit
and member of the Folk Education Association of America. There are many, if you go to the Soulcraft
website, I was fascinated. There are many people that I know that are instructors and conveners with a huge
variety of skill sets. Monique is a facilitator, storyteller, crafter, ceremonialist, amongst many other
community building attributes. It sounds like a Rotarian. I first became acquainted with Monique while
researching a story for Bloom that I did on a four-part series of
on foraging that Earth Eats was going to have on the radio, and I thought, oh, we'll write about that.
What is foraging? What can we forage here? And I found Monique. She shares Earth-based traditions with
students here at IU, and also they get very dirty. She has built playscapes through rotary
from natural materials for children in many parts of the world including Africa, Central America, and
Mongolia. She currently works with IU students discovering hidden wild places so they can cook up delicious
wild edibles. She has drunk, hold on, fermented horse milk. She said it was delicious.
And interestingly, is very nervous speaking in front of people. So let's give a warm welcome to Monique
Philpott. Thank you. First, I would just like to say thank you to all of you. I was very much welcomed
just from walking in the room and I find that Rotarians have really big hearts and are naturally or
not naturally maybe taught to be curious and open-minded and always growing and so I just really appreciate
everyone and what you bring to the world so thank you for having me. So foraging
was thinking a lot about what I would say here and really like what is the point of foraging because
foraging is going out and looking for food in in the landscape in the in the wild places it can also
be in your garden though in between maybe the plants that you're putting there on purpose. We do have
grocery stores though so
Why would I forage when I could also just, I could actually just do it all online and have it delivered
to my house. I could have food delivered to my house. So I was really thinking about this. And I, this
past Friday, I took a field trip.
Every Friday I have a kids class. Some kids have been coming for years and some are new faces and it's
an all day long program. Some kids are missing school to come out and be with us on Fridays. Some kids
are homeschooled. Some kids, they're all from all different places. And we took a field trip just to
forage. And so I was really thinking about this on this field trip and what I would say today.
Let's see. Next slide.
Oh yeah, that's who I am. We have lots of different classes in Soulcraft, all different kinds of traditional
skills. Forging is one of them, but there's lots of different things. This past Sunday, we just had
a class on sharpening, sharpening all your tools and how to do it. So all of our classes involve all
different ages and all different traditional skills, doing things with your hands.
So this is what I wanted to talk about first. This is what we did on Friday. So these pictures are a
few years old, those kids. So we went out to this place. It's a swampy area. It is a place that really
most people, I think, would never choose to go. Maybe you would choose to stand on the edge and look.
but with foraging you you can't just stand on the edge and look you have to get into the places you
have to go walk and you have to reach and dig and this place is no exception it's to me this is this
food highlights why i forage and why i think people come back to foraging and this is also like the
golden egg of foraging like
This is not an easy thing to get, but when you do, the satisfaction that you feel is, is visceral in
your whole body. So it's called a mud banana. Has anyone heard of a mud banana? Okay. Mud bananas are
delicious and amazing. And they're the, they're the thing that the kids are holding. And they're also,
when you slice them open, um, they are being cut open here, right there.
So that's a mud banana. And to get a mud banana, you have to go to a swamp and you have to get prepared.
You can't wear shoes to get mud bananas because the swamp eats your shoes. And if you go in, you might
not come out with them. Or if you do, you'll be missing some straps. Maybe the sole of your shoe disappears.
So you gotta go barefoot. So that's already like,
Oh, and, and it's a little stinky, you know, it's like where all the leaves have collected and the water
isn't that deep. It's maybe, maybe actually like the water is only a foot deep. But when you first step
in, you sink in to like clay and leaf debris and you kind of get that anaerobic smell of, you know,
decaying things.
and you step in there and you know you can't see because in Indiana the water isn't pristine like the
previous side where it's nice and blue it's kind of murky and you don't know what you're stepping into
and you know I have to convince people to do this so I so I'm telling them about it and and you got
to get in there and you can't see anything and then to you know you you have these
These beautiful leaves that have this little deer hoof pattern on them. They're like lily pads, but
they're not lily pads. Um, and these beautiful flowers that are just absolutely gorgeous. The most beautiful
flowers I've ever seen. Lotus flowers. Um, Lotus grows in our area and they are a mud banana is the
tuber of a Lotus and Lotus is phenomenal. And most people don't even know that Lotus flowers grow in
our area. They're beautiful.
And then you also have these seed pods. And I actually brought some to pass around because they're so
alien-like. They're just bizarre. And so you actually have to ask them and follow them. You have to
go up to these lotus pods, which look like shower heads above the water. And you have to hold them and
reach down into the water. And then you hit the clay and you have to push the clay away.
And it's like a rope. And you have to follow this rope without your eyes. And you have to just use your
fingers. So you're digging, and people at first, they just try to do it with their hands and their butts
out. And then at some point, your back is killing you, and you're like, forget it. And you just get
in there. And sometimes the water is right here in your head. The rope is taking you deeper. And sometimes
the rope splits. So there's a fork in the road.
And you don't know which one to do. Which way do you go? Like most forks in the road, right? Well, the
best thing is to just get a friend and each of you take one of the forks. And then, so you're splitting
and then you go deeper and eventually you feel something kind of like a banana. It's kind of hard and
longer than the rope that you've been following. And then you keep going and you break it off.
And then you, you still don't, you haven't seen anything. You can't use your eyes. You're, you're just
seeing little spiders on the water all around you. You, you see the muskrat den over there and you think,
I wonder where that muskrat is right now. Uh, I'm not sure. And, and you also might see a heron fly
by, um, some deer poking out. So you get this, you get, you get the mud banana and then you break it off.
You clean it off and you hold it up. And if it looks like a banana, then it's, it's a banana. And then
you hold it up in the air and you got a shout. And then everybody else who is with you is like, Ooh,
I want one of those. Okay. So we just spent, you know, it depends. Sometimes you get lucky in five minutes
along a rope and you get one. Sometimes you can be there for hours and you never get one. And so you
just don't know. But the hunt, it's like that hunt, you know, you just, you want the thing,
you want it. These people I take typically have never had a mud banana before. They have no idea what
it tastes like. They don't know what it even looks like. And you have no idea what you're doing. You're
just in there.
And every time I go, I still get a little shaky and like the thrill of like, oh man, why am I doing
this? Whoa, I'm about to step into the swamp again. Hello, swamp. Hello, lotus flowers. Hello, funky,
weird shower head looking things that are nuts that we can actually eat also. But when you find one,
there's nothing like that feeling because you worked for it.
and it was exhilarating to get in. I also every time there is a creature called a toe biter in case
you don't know. It's a toe biter. It literally bites your toes and it lives in the water around here.
I've never experienced it. They say it's excruciating. I think it's more like a wasp. People exaggerate
pain, you know? So every time before I go in, I do say a little like, not today, toe biters, not today.
Not for these guys that are with me. This is the first time. On Friday, we collected 30 mud bananas.
Kids were shouting, I got one. And then all the other kids would be like, I gotta get one. I gotta find
one. You know, we're working so hard to get these. 30 mud bananas. I mean, some of them are three inches
long. They're like, you know, how much food is that? Not much. But it's just so fun. That's like the most
Epic thing you can search for as far as wild edibles, mud bananas. We don't, it's not necessarily what
I would go for right away. Some other things that we collect. Acorns, maybe you recognize that tree
on the left. It's right in front of the IMU. It's the oldest tree on campus, over 200 years old. Years
ago we named it Grandfather Experience.
We asked the kids, what do you think this tree's name is? And that was the name that they felt like
it was telling them. There is a child in that tree. They climb it. We talk about it. We check it out.
We look at it year after year. We collect acorns. We make acorn cheese. You can make cheese out of acorns.
We make candles, floating candles, art. We dye things. There's also ginkgo nuts on campus. You can make
things with black walnuts. There's a delicious liqueur you can make using black walnuts. Something called
dinosaur beans. Who doesn't want to eat something called dinosaur beans? They grow around here as well.
So there's other things that we can collect. These are all right now. But the reason why I forage and
I continue to forage is
this is that when I am going out and foraging, I don't just go for the mud banana. I'm going for the
full experience. I know that now. So when I go out to the swamp, I know that I'm also likely to see
migrating animals because it's always in the fall that you gather them, migrating birds. I also always
get to see the muskrat den or multiple of them. I see deer. There's other food. I see how much bigger
the trees have gotten since the last year that I was there. And sometimes you find little things like
the top left I found when we were collecting maple syrup, which is like one of the most exciting things
of winter is maple syrup. Of course, that's a frost flower.
And they only emerge from the earth during certain times of year when it's warm during the day and cold
at night. It's like when the sap is rising, you see frost flowers. The thing on the right is something
we find in water. It's called a freshwater coral. And it is funky, weird, jelly-like thing that is a creature.
It's amazing. People don't realize we have coral in our water here. The bottom left is called a glass
slug. It's a type of caterpillar that's about the size of a nickel. And it's very lacy and absolutely
beautiful. And then next to that are boogie woogie bugs. They're only out in the fall, and if you blow
on them, they dance for you. They really do.
And, you know, so when I'm going out to forage, I accidentally run into all these other things too.
And so all of a sudden I realize, oh, I always see these creatures when I go look for mud bananas. My
point was to get the mud bananas. But before you know it, I've met all kinds of other beings that live
in the swamp or near the swamp. Last year,
we got a lot of rain about the time that we would go gather for mud bananas and so that means that there
was actually too much water to gather them because you have to be able to dig into the clay and not
drown or I don't like to use scuba gear or snorkels so we didn't go and so last year I remember thinking
in the winter time that
I didn't really feel like I actually experienced fall in the way that I usually get to because I didn't
see the lotus flowers. I didn't get to see, I didn't get to feel the excitement of finding a mud banana.
So as we're finding all of these different foraged foods, we're also making friends with all the other
beings that live there. The last few years,
we have often had super dry weather and fall is my favorite time for gathering mushrooms but when it's
really dry we don't get any mushrooms that's been pretty common for the last so times are changing the
weather's changing as you can tell so as somebody who's been foraging for a long time i have
In my head, I have a map that relates to the seasons, where the best things are and when. And it's not
just a map of things. It's not just things that I go collect. It's like trees that I have connected
with over years that provide me with food. And I always take people with me. It's not a solo activity,
typically. And so I always have friends with me. I always have students or kids that I've grown up with
or that have grown up with me with me.
And you start to notice, like the last few years, there's a berry called a spice bushberry. This is
the first year I've collected spice bushberries in probably seven, five to seven years because there
hasn't been enough water during the summer to help them grow. And so
It's like I become, I become, these are all, these all become friends of mine. All the beings that live
nearby become friends, the birds are friends, the plant beings are friends, all the things that I discover.
And then also, I feel like my best friends are the ones that I've been able to do these things with,
along with family members who help me. So part of the reason that I continue to forage is because
these places have all become my family and I have to visit them even if I I mean secretly I could actually
just go to the international store and buy mud bananas I don't tell my students that you know from Asia
because they're very popular lotus roots are something that are eaten lots of places
But I would actually prefer to go and visit my friends, the lotus and all the animals that are there
because they're my family now. I visited them over and over. So foraging is a way that connects me to
the land in a way that I haven't found anything else to. And it increases my family. So wherever I go,
even if I'm traveling outside of the US or other places in the US, I still see similar animals, similar trees.
similar plants and I recognize them and they're kin. They're kin to me. So it gives you a sense
of groundedness and extended family like what I haven't felt with anything else. I will always also
say that people who forage or go out and actually
use the things that the earth is providing are willing to protect it because it is their family. So,
if I can go off trail and collect some things, those people are going to protect that area very, very
vehemently because they love it and they get something from it all the time. So, that's another reason.
Some people question whether foraging is actually sustainable.
And I've learned different things, you know, you never take you never take all of something that used
to be a practice. And I have been very active in reintroducing species that have been wiped out, especially
in Indiana. We've had a lot of things totally wiped out. So when I go to different places, I'm actually
planting along with collecting
I was also taught always to give gratitude before collecting something to recognize that this plant
is no bigger or smaller than me and that it wants to live just as much as I do. So I'm going to give
thanks before I collect it. And then also what we found is that the more people learn about foraging
and get excited about it, the harder it is to find things. There's just more hunting going on and searching and
it really speaks to the need of more green space. We need more green spaces, more wild spaces. There
actually is not enough for everyone to collect wild foods with the land and how it is used and divided
up right now. So we really need more wild places. There's also all wild food has way more nutrition.
They're nutrient dense.
So anytime you can just throw something in your food, even just a little tiny bit, or take a bite of
something, I liken it to taking a multivitamin. It's chock full of vitamins, and there's lots of medicine
and things too, and it's just in our backyard. To me, that's like a side benefit. So I have...
I was, my mother is German, my father is American. I grew up in a tiny little village outside of, on
the border of France and Germany. It's a tiny little village. And when we were there, we would, my aunties
and uncles and cousins and everybody would go walking through the forest, because whenever you're bored,
you go walking through the forest. And we would collect mushrooms and collect all different plants.
And then we would come back and we would give them to people like my Tante Maria there on the right.
She couldn't go with us anymore. She couldn't do the hikes. She couldn't carry all the things. So she
was like the ultimate check. So we would bring back all the mushrooms. She would look at them, tell
us what we did or did not do correctly. She'd clean the recipes.
of how to cook up everything. And so that was a little bit about, that was kind of like how I grew up
there, understanding how everybody of all ages is involved in the process of food, of cooking food,
of promoting getting food. She probably also enjoyed a quiet house while we were out. That's definitely
And then also when I was older, I started to get curious about why when I was here in the US, because
I went to school south of Indianapolis, why no one knew any plants in their backyard. Like no one knew
anything. We had fruit trees growing up and we had gardens, but people just didn't know about what was
in their backyard. And so it kind of led me down a path to seek out
people from this land who know and understand plants and also culture and like why in some places do
they still know plants and why in other places do they not know about plants. And I love the example.
I realized how special it was to have my aunt as that person, the elder who would check over all these
plants because it included her in the activity. It was quite beautiful.
Um, let's see. So when I was in Germany, we learned about stinging nettle that also grows around here.
Just in case you didn't know, if you ever run into it, you will remember it. It stings.
I'll talk about plantain a little bit. That's a European plant, so when I was growing up, whenever you
were stung by a bee or a wasp or anything that's painful, you would go grab a piece of plantain, you
would chew it up, and you would stick it on your little sting. And so I just grew up doing that, and
I realized at some point, I was pretty old, that not everybody around here was doing that, and that I maybe
Kind of funny and and people were grossed out by it They were like you chew it up and then you stick
it on your on your body. That's disgusting And I remember when I was in my 30s I was beekeeping and
There was I was just every time I got stung by a bee which is something that happens when you're beekeeping
I would do this like all the time and it still would hurt. It's not like it just made it disappear,
but it did
There was a light sting there and I'd still get a welt of some kind, but then I'd move on. And there
was one time when I was beekeeping that it was at night, I was moving a hive, it was 95 degrees and
honey bees are very
angry when it's hot outside. They actually don't like it, just like me. Um, we were all kind of grumpy
and I got stung. Um, I had gloves on, I had full gear on, but they snuck their way into my gloves and
I got stung on my wrist, which is a very sensitive part of the body, um, five times. And normally I
would have been searching for the plantain, but I was so, I was just tired and hot and sweaty and I
just wanted to go home. So I didn't.
That was the first time in my life, in my 30s, when I did not put it on my sting. And by the time I
got home, my hand looked like someone had taken a latex glove and blown it up. My hand was blown up.
It was huge. It was like a balloon. And it was going down my wrist, and you could see the line. There
was a physical line. My hand was bright red, and it was just moving up my arm slowly. It was slow.
And it got to about here where my arm was just looked like a cartoon blown up so big. And I started
hallucinating and my husband said, okay, I think we're at a point where we either have to go to the
doctor or you need to take a Benadryl or something. And cause I could just guess it'll be fine.
It'll be fine. It's fine. And then I was like, not even there. So he just gave me the Benadryl take
this and everything ended up okay.
Since then, I've always used the plantain and I've never had a reaction again. And I learned that at
that time that I'm pretty positive I have an allergy to the venom of the honeybee, but I never knew
I had the allergy because I always use this plant. And this grows everywhere. It's in our backyard all
over the place. It's so easy. There's so many plants like that that are either medicine or food that
are helpers
and that are extremely efficient. Oh yeah, there's supposed to be another slide there somewhere, where'd
that go? Okay, whoops. That's where I would start. So I had, there's a missing slide somehow.
People ask, I would not start unless you're just super adventurous with searching for mud bananas.
I mean, if you want to, I'll take you out this Sunday, actually.
We're going out. We're going to the swamp. But it's very easy to just go into your own backyard and
learn what the plants are in your backyard. Just learn those plants so that we're not tourists of our
own backyard. A lot of the forage species that are super delicious are actually just growing in between
the plants that we plant or that we pull out of our garden that provide perennial food. There's a plant
called lamb's quarter that I love that is like
you can use it like spinach, but it just comes up on its own and I don't have to think about it and
it's edible and delicious and way more nutritious than spinach. And that just grows in our yards. So
it's very easy to just learn about, just start with your own backyard, take classes, and then eventually
maybe you'll be lucky enough to get a mud banana. So I'd like to offer time for any questions
in case anyone has one. I saw firsthand it was back there behind, either, right? I mean, Michael,
you go. Thank you for not only giving us this education, but also entertaining us. It was beautiful.
So I've seen a lot of, I saw a lot of plants, fruits. I've seen pawpaw, I've seen, but I've seen something
called, we call it as a kid, a hedge apple or sage orange.
And I imagine that not many people thought that you can eat acorns. So what's the process of preparing
these items to eat, to consume? Is there a special process or can you just pick them up and go to town
or not? Yeah, that's a great question. I wouldn't walk around just putting things in your mouth. Yeah,
not everything you can just grab and
eat and munch on there are processes to some of these things like acorns are a great example it's very
natural for someone to just kids go and they just open it and eat it and right away they're like oh
it's horrible because there's a process of having to you know
You have to soak them you have to dry them all you have to grind them. It's a long process It's very
easy, but you do have to do a process Some things like plantain I can just pick that and put that in
my salad So there are some things that you can pick right away There are some things that take a while
to process and I personally really like teachers and in-person Learning books are awesome, but there
are some false things written in books. They're not all
So I'd always check multiple sources and then also if you can find a class to learn how to do these
things. It's great. Hedge apples are fascinating because they are so funky. They look like brains. They're
like the green brains that are on the ground right now and they
I don't know that they're edible for humans. I see squirrels eating them, but we have used them for
glue. They have a white sap that is inside of them. So even if it doesn't have an edible use, it might
have a utilitarian use. And my acupuncturist in town, she takes them and puts them in the corners of
the office. And she says that it keeps bugs away. So yeah, hopefully that answered your question.
little. Thank you. I loved this presentation. When I was a kid, I used to go around and just eat everything.
I mean, I can't believe I'm alive. Yeah.
The poke berry, the poke berry. I know it's poisonous, but isn't it okay to eat one or two berries?
That's a great question. So poke berry is a plant that grows really tall and it has, you know it because
it has those maroon colored berries that squish super easy and kids squish them and you get the dye
all over your hands. And it's just natural to just want to like squish them and eat them. So interestingly,
it is just the seed.
the poisonous and you have to actually crunch down on them and open the seeds to get that poison inside
of you. So a lot of times people will call poison control because they see this dye on the side of their
toddler's mouth and they're like, Oh my God, my child ate this poisonous fruit. And the poison control
says, you know, it's, it's probably going to be okay because they didn't sit there and like munch it.
They've just got it down. Um, and actually it's, they're very medicinal. And so, um,
so there's times like if i have a cough that just will not go away like a something chronic that is
not leaving i will take a poke berry and eat it not the seeds i'll just take the the berry the flesh
of the berry and eat it maybe one a day cough goes away immediately yeah and the root is also very um
extremely medicinal so like you'd use it in like
for cancer, things like that. So it's actually an amazing plant and you don't need to be afraid of it.
Yeah, pokeberry, amazing. Yeah, thank you. Don't you have to be pretty careful when you're picking mushrooms?
Yeah, I would highly recommend learning mushrooms from someone. And I always say when you're first learning
mushrooms, aim for ones that do not have gills. So gills are, you know, if you flip a mushroom upside
down at like a portobello mushroom, those lines are
gills and they're very you you touch them and they fall apart and the majority of poisonous mushrooms
have gills and Are very bright colors, but there's also some delicious ones that are bright colors that
you can eat but It's pretty safe. If you flip a mushroom over and it doesn't have gills I do recommend
Having a teacher though for sure having a teacher because there are some mushrooms that could that could
really hurt you and
Mostly from, there's not too many things that will actually kill you. You'll just get diarrhea,
puke a lot. You know, we don't really want that either, but you know, as far as death is concerned,
it's not. Oh, we got a question. We got a question online. Nope. No questions online. I don't see anybody's
hand in the lions.
like just the flower or all of it because you know I mean I have tons of it in my yard I have a whole
garden so there's something called the blue zones if any of you have heard of the blue zone so blue
zones across the world are the places where people typically grow to be a hundred years old or older
um those are called the blue zones and what and they've studied these people what are they doing um
that helps them to grow healthy over a hundred years um and one of the things that they all have in
common is that they all gather regularly multiple times a week a plant that grows very close to them
in their backyards that is bitter that they either make a tea with or eat as a green
Dandelion would be ours, one of ours. We have a few, but dandelion greens are bitter. They're really
good for the liver. And so in the spring, you can very easily pick them and put them in a salad. When
I was growing up, we had some Greek friends. Greeks eat a lot of dandelions. And so we were always,
you know, eating dandelions because they were always having us go and pick them. You can eat the flowers.
I take the flowers and put them on
salads and stir fries. You can eat all parts of the dandelion. I highly recommend eating the dandelion
because of that bitterness, um, that's there and because, you know, it's been well studied, it's a totally
safe plant and they're beautiful. Um, they're part of the blue zone diet, which, you know, can't go
wrong with. So yeah, great. And we do have somebody online now, Martha, Martha, Martha,
And Martha, I tried to unmute you and I cannot. So you're going to have to unmute yourself. Right. Um,
in the 1960s, I lived in the Boston area and there were, I think they were Italian women because that
was in my area who gathered in the roundabout and picked dandelion greens, which
has made me think about what kinds of, how are we to be careful about what we eat and gather that it
isn't contaminated by automobiles? I eat poke greens in the spring. Yeah.
And how are we sure that they are safe? Yeah, that's a great question. Those rules have changed over
time. So they used to say only gather food a minimum of 100 feet away from any road. And then that made
urban gardening really hard. So they changed those rules. I don't know.
You know, it's hard to say because our environment is contaminated with a lot of things, especially
automobile exhaust travels over and that has heavy metals in it and it's settling in different places.
It's a good question. I don't eat. Indiana has some of the worst water in the country, so they recommend
really not eating anything from the local waters, which is a big deal. And
So I still gather from local waters, but I don't do it all the time. For me, it's still worth it to
go once a year and gather some food just so I can connect with the water and the plants and the action
of doing it. But it's not something that I would eat all the time. I recommend planting things in your yard.
I've moved a couple times to different locations in Bloomington and I take and collect the dandelion
seed heads and I blow them all over my yard, which most people do not do that. But I want dandelions
and I know my yard is clean.
and so as clean as I can you know have it and so that's one way for me to do it and I really recommend
we need more green spaces and we need more wild spaces but we also just need to learn about the plants
that grow naturally here which are often food or utilitarian so that we can have safe places um and
also fight for fight for cleaner cleaner land spaces
So technology has enabled us when we're outside, we can be on our phone, we can be listening to a podcast.
So as you spend time with the young people and you teach them, how do you try to get to them the message
of being present when they're out in nature and actually seeing and hearing and smelling instead of
being in their own electronic world?
Yeah, well, we have a rule that says no electronics, so that's one way. But also,
when I teach and the way that I was taught was by doing and so you you can't be on your phone if you're
in the swamp or if you're gathering the berries or if you're the one that's holding the container or
if you're cracking the the acorns you literally just can't be on your phone and also it is such a visceral
experience to be in the weather and you know tapping the maple trees or or boiling the sap together
they will choose the more visceral experiential activity, but sometimes getting them out the door is
the hard part. And that's more about gear and getting used to being uncomfortable and also knowing that
there's a treat at the end, which also the way that I was taught to teach about these things and that was
those lessons were given to me by Native Americans that storytelling is huge. So before we go gather
or go in some uncomfortable place, I'm going to tell an epic story of, you know, being in this place
so that they're like, whoa, can we do that? And so it's also about the stories that we tell and how
I'm framing it in my, you know,
Am I framing it that this is going to be really hard and we have to go out in the rain and it's we're
going to be cold. I'm going to skip all that and maybe I'll mention it and say let's prepare for that.
But also there's this gold at the end and that's what that's that's what I want to aim for. But typically
you know they they choose they choose those things even my IU students. They all put their phones away
and you know participate in the class and the doing in the gathering and stuff so.
This has been amazing. I'm going to move away from foraging just for a moment. I apologize, but I'm
really curious about your work with Rotary Club on an international level and playground building. And
if you could just tell us a little snapshot of what that was all about and how you engaged with that.
Yeah, so there's an organization
that was started by a professor at IU, who was the father of some kids that I worked with, John Raychek,
if anyone knows him. And he started an organization called Play360. And he created designs for playgrounds
that were based on using local materials that were often very cheap,
or free and that were specifically educational playgrounds. And so we would go, we would travel to other
places and work with the community, work with schools or orphanages on building playgrounds for the
purpose of education and talk about why play is important and also like engage the whole community.
So parents were coming out and everyone was coming out to build these playgrounds often made of tires or
fence posts, which are very common and using the most basic materials. So that was what brought me to
different places. And some of those places we worked with rotary clubs because they had volunteers that
were willing to come out and help build the playgrounds, whether it's painting the pole, you know, the
fence posts or whether it was digging holes or any part of it. So that's when I actually first learned
about what a rotary club was. I had no clue what a rotary club was, but then I met people
in Ethiopia specifically, was the first time I worked with rotary and they were so kind and wonderful.
It just opened my heart to rotary. Thank you.
Monique, that was fantastic. And in honor of your program, we'll be donating $100 to C Jam for the quarter.
And by the way, Gus, you might want to check your meals and have somebody taste test before you eat
because Connie, I'm a little worried, a little worried about that.
I want to thank everyone who's helped bring today's program to fruition. Marilyn Wood, thank you for
greeting. Dr. Winston, thank you for introducing the guests. Lynn, thank you for a wonderful programs
and introduction. Leslie, thank you for on Zoom host. Heidi, what a wonderful reflection, really. Sarah
for doing reporting, Michael for camera as always. Alon, Peggy for photography. Thank you for that. Jill,
Just stepping right in there. We love it and Tyler much smoother this week than last. So thank goodness
for that. Our next meeting will be here in the Georgian room on October 6th. Will have the district
governor Matt Millies. He's going to be our guest. Our club secretary Liz Irwin will be hosting a fireside
chat and we need questions from all of you for the fireside chat. So it's not just us coming to him
with questions. We want everybody to give questions so in the roundabout.
Or if you want to email questions directly to Liz, that is fine. But we'd like to get everybody. This
is a different format than we typically do when the district governor comes, but it's much more relaxed.
It should be interesting, but it won't be interesting if nobody brings questions forward. So please
help us out on that. And yeah, Tyler, you had a question? I just wanted to mention if anyone's curious about
Uh, the dandelions, but is a little squeamish about picking them. Sometimes I see dandelion greens,
uh, at fresh time. So you can win at fresh time at fresh time. Yeah. Or you can come next door. I have
a neighbor who's got a yard full. Help me out. Just saying, I won't say which neighbor. Um, anyway,
and with that, if you're able, please stand, we'll do the four way test. Oh, Liz, sorry.
So in the roundabout, there is a link where you could submit questions to help us out with the fireside
chat. And with that, of the things we think, say, or do, first, is it the truth? Second, is it fair
to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial
to all concerned? And fifth, is it fun?