walking past a salsify-eating cockatoo

It's just great that Penny has recovered from her gastroenteritis and I can walk along without stressing about whether she's scouting for food. (She always is, but I'm hopeful she won't make herself sick.)

As we stepped onto a path today, I noticed a cockatoo in the distance. Penny didn't, because she was nose-down checking out for edibles. Or good smells.

We approached, and the bird flew up into a nearby tree, holding something in its beak, and then nibbled on the plant it was holding.

I wish my phone could take a better photo, but if you zoom it up a bit, I think you'll see that it wasn't a grass stem. It was something more substantial. Inquisitively, I looked around to see what the plant might be. And there was a clue...

And lots more clues, actually - clumps of stems bent down and snapped off, all along the edge of the path. Also, a clump that hadn't yet been attacked...

Salsify. How interesting. It's considered a weed in Australia, but recently I've discovered it is edible.

Once we moved further away, the cockatoo landed on the path again and, after considering the available plants, decided on a big grass seed head, which it took up onto the old tree to eat.

Penny and I headed home for our own breakfast, and I'm pleased to say that Penny is now eating her normal range of food, instead of being limited to a 'gastro' diet.

walking at Heide Art Gallery

We don't often walk at Heide Museum of Modern Art, because Penny has to be on lead, but every now and then we tour around the lovely grounds and take special note of the two wonderful kitchen gardens.

I've been noticing a plant lately that I thought looked like a weed, and finally discovered that it is salsify. It's an edible weed, as I discovered when I did a 'weed walk' recently with Adam Grubb. 

The one in the bottom kitchen garden at Heide sure was huge. Penny and I had a good look at it, wondering whether it might be something interesting to grow at home. Penny loves her vegetables!









I wonder whether it grew as a weed and they left it there, knowing what it is, or whether they deliberately planted it?

dogs and edible weeds

In the park the other day I was intrigued to see Penny investigating a patch of mallow.

I'm super interested in edible weeds lately, and thought maybe Penny had joined me in the search for free comestibles. (Just had to dash across to Dictionary.com to check whether I'd used this word correctly, because it's the first time I ever got a chance to write it!)

Here's Penny investigating the mallow.

Here's a closer look at her and the weeds:

But wait a minute! What was her rear end doing? Oh, no, that's why I don't gather edibles from the dog park.

She was eating weeds soon afterwards - her favourite - grass. I hope she checked first that no one had peed on it.

dry weather for dog walking

I took some photos yesterday of the dry ground in a local park, but was so excited by a chance meeting with one of Penny's littermates that I decided to leave that post for today.

It's very dry everywhere we go. I think the soil is becoming hydrophobic, which will mean even when it rains it won't soak in.

When we were in Darebin Parklands recently, I didn't notice any purslane, which is usually a real survivor, but there were some in this park yesterday, looking as if they were just managing to live. Purslane is edible and we often eat it in salads, but I  use the cultivated form that we grow at home, where I know the leaves are clean. (It's in a pot on a stand where we can be sure it doesn't have dog-wee on it, lol.)

We also saw some mallows, which looked to be surviving a little better, but I still wouldn't eat them, of course, with so many dogs around. We have our own pot of mallow at home and it's much more luxuriant. We eat a little of it in salads, but do find the 'furry' leaves a little strange. But it's supposed to be good for you and the taste is nice.

Park mallow:

Our mallow at home:

Penny and our vegie garden

Penny likes some veggies in her dinner, and last night she had a little piece of cooked asparagus. I'm glad she doesn't realise that edible plants grow in our garden - because our asparagus bed is sprouting beautifully. That's very strange, actually, because it's the middle of winter.

Our very first shiitake mushrooms are emerging from the inoculated log, too. Very exciting! Penny wouldn't know anything about fungus being edible, because I've never given her any. I don't think it would be safe for her.

But something has been looking at the log, where it sits on a green plastic garden chair, because we noticed a fresh possum poo right beside it. Here's hoping that the poo fell from the tree above. I'd be disappointed if the possums pinched our mushrooms!