Today DD2 came home from school very excited.
Apparently she walked home a different way, and went past a field that was 'absolutely bursting with huge dandelions'.
Of course she wanted to pick a few for the piggies, so set off with the collecting bag and some scissors.
And she came home with this!
And yes they are dandelions in a cat litter tray.
We use the tray as our 'foraging box' and whenever bring home anything we have foraged we rinse it and put it in this box for a few hours to allow any creepy crawlies a chance to 'disembark'.
Clearly this is way too many dandelions to feed, so normally I would lay them out in the sun to dry and be fed another day.
But is it September.
In Switzerland.
And there isn't a lot of sun going on here right now.
Plus Winter is coming and it seems such a waster to throw away beautiful, fresh dandelions, when in a month or two everything green will be covered in snow.
So I dried them in the oven.
I wasn't sure it would work, but I laid them out on several paper lined baking trays, cooked them at 60 degrees in a fan assisted oven for 1.5 hours (with a short break in the middle while I cooked human food) and they came out green and crisp and totally delicious (according to the piggies).
Tonight they had one crisp dandelion each, and I haven't seen them wheek for more food like this in ages.
Tomorrow we will all be making a trip to 'Dandelion Meadow' to stock up for Winter.
I would love to hear if anyone else collects forage for their piggies, and what their favorites are.
In addition to the dandelion leaves we are also drying lots of hazel branches (complete with leaves), and I also dried some blackberry leaves back in the Summer (although these are almost all gone now).
Apparently she walked home a different way, and went past a field that was 'absolutely bursting with huge dandelions'.
Of course she wanted to pick a few for the piggies, so set off with the collecting bag and some scissors.
And she came home with this!
And yes they are dandelions in a cat litter tray.
We use the tray as our 'foraging box' and whenever bring home anything we have foraged we rinse it and put it in this box for a few hours to allow any creepy crawlies a chance to 'disembark'.
Clearly this is way too many dandelions to feed, so normally I would lay them out in the sun to dry and be fed another day.
But is it September.
In Switzerland.
And there isn't a lot of sun going on here right now.
Plus Winter is coming and it seems such a waster to throw away beautiful, fresh dandelions, when in a month or two everything green will be covered in snow.
So I dried them in the oven.
I wasn't sure it would work, but I laid them out on several paper lined baking trays, cooked them at 60 degrees in a fan assisted oven for 1.5 hours (with a short break in the middle while I cooked human food) and they came out green and crisp and totally delicious (according to the piggies).
Tonight they had one crisp dandelion each, and I haven't seen them wheek for more food like this in ages.
Tomorrow we will all be making a trip to 'Dandelion Meadow' to stock up for Winter.
I would love to hear if anyone else collects forage for their piggies, and what their favorites are.
In addition to the dandelion leaves we are also drying lots of hazel branches (complete with leaves), and I also dried some blackberry leaves back in the Summer (although these are almost all gone now).