. . . Make Dandelion Jelly.

It's surprisingly easy and a fun transformation for the kids to watch. Yesterday, in a moment of "I NEED TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!" desperation, I sent Ben (6) and Lily (4) outside to gather a bowl of dandelions (just yellow ones, thank you very much).

I used a combination of recipes found online, only to later flip to "dandelion jelly" in Carla Emery's The Encyclopedia of Country Living (one of my favorite books) and discover that the combination I so originally came up with was written in easy language in her book. So much for the Internet!

At first, the two children were a little disgusted at the thought of actually digesting something that they picked from the yard. But this gave us a chance to talk about other flowers that we eat (cauliflower, broccoli, cloves, artichokes -- well, OK, we don't eat those but SOME people do).

And come to think of it, some of the things I've seen my kids ingest are FAR more disgusting than a household weed. . .