Saint Louis is a magical world for children and a wonderful place to grow up. This map invokes formative childhood memories of Saint Louis and celebrates teenage touchstones and interests.
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Turns out, Saint Louis has invented a lot of teen-friendly foods. First you make the map, and then the map tells you what you see. You never know what that might be!
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Here’s the story guide that goes along with the “Fly Away Home” map:
Loyal fans and followers are welcome to download and printout the story and map for personal use. If you’d like a small poster, there is a limited number available at The Nook, a gift and gathering space in Ladue that benefits St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
You can also be the first to buy these adorable pillows from Zazzle and send your student off with hugs from home.
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The pillows are 16″ x 12″ and have the “Fly Away Home” image on the front plus a quote from our great poet T.S. Eliot on the back: “The end is where we start from.”
Here’s the link for the pillows, they are priced at around $30.
It’s fun to watch Saint Louis fall in love with itself, and if you’re like me, or Ferris Bueller, you know that life moves pretty fast, and you have to stop and look around once in a while. If you don’t you just might miss it. #FlyAwayHome
The Sustainable Backyard Tour began in 2010 in Saint Louis. It’s a grassroots event, one of the first of it’s kind, and it just celebrated it’s 7th anniversary in 2017. Known affectionately as the SBYT, this is a free event by locals, who throw their garden gates open to the public each year, to showcase best practices in organic vegetable growing, beekeeping, chicken farming, native habitats, water retention and clean energy. Typically, over 40 hosts showcase their backyards and gardens every year. Green Spiral Tours took advantage of the SBYT to visit the celebrated Urban Harvest Food Roof in downtown Saint Louis. The Food Roof is fantastic!
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Located downtown near the City Museum, and above Wave Storage, you can easily park on the street next to Wave Taco, which offers a volleyball tournament arena, several tons of white Florida sand, and a tiki bar serving tacos, beer and margaritas. To get to the Food Roof, enter through the doors at W-ave Storage, and make your way up the stairs to roof. When you pop up, expect to be impressed by an exceptionally well designed space and vibrant scene.
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5 staff, 15 interns, 300 volunteers, and several master gardeners help make the Urban Harvest Food Roof what it is today. It’s a beautiful rooftop farm, showcasing best practices while collaborating with a cluster of food partners. The Food Roof is the brainchild of Mary Ostafi, an EarthDance Farm graduate; Mary is a trained architect, who brings high design and great intentionality to everything she touches. The Food Roof is the first rooftop farm in Saint Louis, and is growing into a localized network of farms, gardens, educators and food distributors in north Saint Louis.
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There’s a chicken coop and greenhouse on the roof, plus hydroponics, a community garden, test garden, and gathering space for events, educational functions and weddings. It’s incredible, and, it’s beautiful.
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70% of the food generated is donated to partner organizations, including the STL Metro Market (the Food Bus), the Fit & Food Connection, St. Patricks and the kids at Flance. Green Spiral has hosted field trips to both St. Patrick’s and Flance in the past. St. Patrick’s serves under-priviledged populations, and has one of the first “kitchen incubators” in the country. Flance is a Platinum-level preschool – only the 4th such school in the world – and what happens inside the building is as impressive as the green building structure itself. It’s exciting to watch these world class, cutting-edge sustainability programs grow, right here in Saint Louis.
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Now here’s the best part: if you want to visit the Food Roof, and missed the chance during the SBYT, you can drop-in any Saturday morning from 9 – 12, when the Food Roof is open to the public. OR, you can attend any number of special events, such as workshops, Happy Hours, Harvest Dinners, or yoga. The events serve as fundraisers to help fund the many programs. Find the time to visit this incredible and beautiful farm – on a roof! – in downtown Saint Louis; you’ll be glad you did.
The end begins in the kitchen, for a short trip to the strawberry fields can leave you with long hours in the kitchen, when you might rather be napping. Start with a simple recipe and work backwards from there.
insert recipe here
Located near Creve Couer Lake off Page Road and the Maryland Expressway, Thies Farm is a long favored Green Spiral strawberry picking destination, and it’s nice to watch their eco-tourism business grow. It’s important to “Know Your Farmer”, and strawberry picking is a good first step in building eco-literacy in children. The best age to pick strawberries seems to be from “The Magic Years” (pre-school) until second grade.
Miles of Smiles
Thies Farm now has three locations; here is the GPS location for the strawberry fields in Maryland Heights as well as the phone number: 314-469-7559. Call before you head out to make sure the strawberry fields are open. Farmers live outdoors, and they’re getting better at using technology, but the phone beats Facebook on most days. Green Spiral almost never cancels a trip due to weather, and neither should your adventure group, but do know that strawberry picking is one of the few things you can’t do in the rain. The fields open at 9 am and you will want to get there early to beat the heat.
You will get hot, and you will get dirty. Children’s clothing will get strawberry stained, and so will your knees. Take a sunhat or hoodie, and a bottle of water per person. Short rubber boots are nice for kids. The strawberry window lasts for about two or three weeks, and it’s easy to miss during the busy month of May. Strawberries need sunshine to ripen, but when starts to get hot, know that your strawberry window is beginning to close fast.
People want to know if it’s okay for kids to eat strawberries in the fields, and Farmer Dave once told me, (Jessie), that it was okay. That said, there’s a big difference between a toddler nibbling on one precious strawberry, and a teenager mowing through dozens of strawberries that belong to someone else (the farmer). Obviously, the important thing is to teach children about reverence and respect, for food, the farmer and for each other.
Real Food Comes from Sunshine, and Dirt.
Strawberries are on the dirty dozen list, and many people ask if Thies strawberries are organic. They are not, as it is difficult to grow organic strawberries at scale. The best way to get local organic strawberries is to be first in line at your local farmer’s market, or to grow them yourself.
Strangely, when researching the topic of eating strawberries fresh from the fields, it turns out that the greatest danger from strawberries comes from people “fingering” the strawberries in the grocery store, which is why strawberries now come in those clam-shell containers. Gross! As they say “dirt is not dirty, people are dirty;” so fear not the strawberry in the field, and be polite by not switching strawberries from container to container with your fingers at the grocery store.
That’s me, Jessie, and Virginia
As a nature teacher and mom, I encourage you to study the many complex issues surrounding the simple act of picking strawberries. In my estimation, the experience of picking strawberries as children is so indelible, and so important, that it might well be considered part of a “true core curriculum”.
Put strawberry picking on your bucket list, and make sure kids don’t grow up without picking strawberries. Begin with the end in mind,
After one of the coldest winters on record, Green Spiral families ventured forth on a warm day in April to visit the famous “Chicken Ranch” in Kirkwood.
Ranch Fresh Eggs!
The Chicken Ranch is simply the fun name that Bill and Joan Ruppert have given their backyard hobby and chicken house — the complex is big enough to hold 50 chickens, and includes a second story look-out post! It’s quite famous in chicken circles, and if you ask to be on Bill’s email list, you’ll get an informative email about chicken happenings about town from time to time.
Let’s go see the chickens!
It was super fun for the kids to feed the chickens, mingle with the chickens and even collect some eggs. After a mink came through a few years ago (yes a mink) and wantonly killed many of the chickens, the Rupperts are in the process of rebuilding the flock, now numbering about 23. They have all sorts of chickens including Americanas, Speckled Sussexes, Barred Rock Plymouths and Rhode Islands. They also have a rooster, called Ike, who came with a hen called Tina. See if you can spy Ike, the fancy white rooster below:
So many chickens so little time
Fond childhood memories of rural chickens was a theme and the link between generations; who will keep backyard chickens in the future without fond childhood memories to draw upon? Would a factory farm allow Green Spiral Families to tour their chickens? How exactly to you check a chicken to see if it’s about to lay an egg in time for dinner? These are the kinds of questions that rise up when you join an adventure learning group together.
checking the chickens
Many Green Spiral field trips involve something unexpected. Sadly, or not, there was no misadventure associated with this trip; only a pleasant outing on a warm spring day. The only surprise was that we got to buy fresh eggs at the end of our field trip!
Each a different color.
Of course, the real prize was getting to talk to Bill Ruppert in person. As a purveyor of wholesale plants, he’s an expert in horticulture and a major player in the movement towards native landscaping; he’s recently worked on the Citygarden, Novus International, and the MICDS projects. If you get a chance to hear him speak, I would recommend it. Here’s Bill, plus a few links:
(#6) Red Solo Cups are not really recyclable, which is so sad, because the Red Solo Cup song is really fun. Here’s the “bad boy” version of the song, in case you’ve not seen it:
Now, what we need to do is create a good green cup, and make up a great new song to go with it!
At 22 million views, “red cup living” is culturally drubbing those of us drinking from the “good green cup” — it’s just so much more fun to be naughty than nice! At some point, however, we’ll going to have to learn to be nice to ourselves and to our mother earth.
Yet, I digress from the central topic of green and sustainable field trips in the Saint Louis area.
Here’s a terrific field trip for teens, scouts, and greenies of all ages (except for little kids) — a trip to the recycling facility at Resource Management Company in Earth City. Ask for Gary Gilliam. 314-770-9898, or send him an email at Gary_g@rmcrecycle.com. Gary’s happy to offer field trips at any time, as field trips are good for growing the recycle business. And here’s the really good news, not only is this field trip quite interesting, it’s absolutely free!
Many people are surprised to learn that Saint Louis has one of the most progressive recycling ecosystems in the country, and Gary is one of the “solutionaries” who helped figure out how to do it.
“All Together Now”
The short answer to recycling success is the rise of the “single stream” process, which means “throw it all in and let the recycling facility sort it out later”.
Gone are the days of sorting bottles from cans into little blue bins. Volume makes the economics work, and switching from little blue sorting bins to big green carts on wheels brings enough volume into the recycling game to make recycling sustainably profitable.
Less than 30% of Saint Louis households currently recycle their trash, so every field trip to a recycling center builds “customers,” thus bringing all of us, earth’s creatures included, into ever greater stability, success, and sustainability.
The original cave man
Our waste stream is valuable; and Gary is emphatic about it: “There’s Treasure in Your Trash”! While it’s important to understand the economics of sustainability from a macro-view, most people on this field trip will want to know exactly what can be recycled, and what cannot.
Here’s a link to the Saint Louis County Health Dept ‘Recycling Becomes Me’ website. Download it, bookmark it, Facebook it, or pin it so you can find it when you want it, as these reference guides can be surprisingly hard to find.
When it doubt, throw it in. That’s the beauty of single stream!
Back to the economics for a minute: aluminum cans are “infinitely recyclable”, and represent lots of ‘embodied energy’, thus they are the most valuable of recyclables. Metals like aluminum foil and tin cans are the “treasure in the trash”. Because aluminum cans are made from bauxite, a finite mineral strip-mined from the earth’s crust, it’s especially important to recycle them always.
After metals, plastic is the second most valuable material for recyclers, especially #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE), which are recycled into furniture, playgrounds, puff clothing, and carpeting.
Now here’s where things get complicated, because I can’t help throwing children’s health into the economics mix. I think it’s so interesting that the most valuable recyclables, plastic #1 and #2, are also the safest for food. We don’t know much about plastic in our food supply, but what we do know isn’t good. Of course true blue greenies reading this post will have been drinking from glass or metal containers for years.
Avoid plastic #3 PVC (sometimes called the ‘poison plastic’) as well as #6 and #7.
Back to that naughty red solo cup, which is polystyrene #6, a kind of styrofoam. Styrofoam has been listed by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen, and when it melts into your soup or coffee, you can taste the plastic.
Eco-Mama says: “Don’t drink plastic, kids”! Try to avoid Styrofoam as graciously as possible so you don’t turn into one of those weird people with all sorts of annoying food rules that are impossible to follow. Beyond health considerations, styrofoam is not recyclable.
The red solo cups, and other styrofoam pieces, are optically sorted out of the single stream process, and disposed of as true waste. Technically, red solo cups ARE recyclable, but you’ll have to organize your own field trip to find out for sure.
Do NOT throw grocery bags into the single stream receptacle (although the recycle facility will indeed sort them out later.) Return your grocery bags to your friendly grocery store, or bring your own shopping bags to market, to market, to buy a fat pig.
Here’s a photo of a superior collapsible shopping “bag” you can buy at Schnucks for about $5. As a bonus, the baggers in the check out line find the boxes much easier to load than bags, and if you keep to your grocery list and within the limits of the box, you will significantly reduce impulse purchases.
A box for your bagger
And to help you remember that plastic grocery bags have nowhere to go, here’s an amusing “mockumentary” about what happens to the “majestic plastic bag” as it searches for a home during it’s long lonely life:
If you sneak a peak inside your own recycling bin, it comes as no surprise that paper and cardboard comprise the bulk of recycling waste stream by volume; paper gets bundled and shipped to Iowa or deadheaded to China. Bring on that dream of a truly paperless society! Don’t make me upload pictures of clear-cut old growth forests turned into direct mail envelopes.
Enough about what to recycle, here are your tips for hosting a recycle field trip: A group of about 20 – 30 people seems to be the right number for this field trip; a smaller group works just as well. It might be nice to team up with another organization to maximize numbers and enjoy the synergistic effects.
The first half of the field trip is a lecture by Gary in a nice conference room with video cameras, and the second half is a tour of the plant. Plan on spending about two hours, plus travel time to Earth City. The location is well marked on GPS maps: Resource Management Company; 4375 Ryder Trail North, Earth City, MO; 63045
Again, here’s the contact information for Gary Gilliam: 314-770-9898, Gary_g@rmcrecycle.com.
It’s fun to watch the bulldozers and dumpers come in; count the dumpers and turn it into a math exercise on volume. Count the number of workmen pulling pieces from the line and make some calculations; labor is a big expense for recycling companies. On the other hand, it also represents job creation in the new “green economy.”
Study each machine to fully understand its job, and challenge yourself to make a map of the assembly line after you come out. Notice that the plastic grocery bags that have no place to go. Look for red solo cups. Ponder the magnitude of our waste stream and wonder where it all comes from and where it all goes. Ask about the odd things that find their way into the recycle center. (hint: lots of eyeglasses and TV remote controls, which get recycled along with the newspapers!)
Again, there is something life-changing about real life experiences as opposed to watching video, so go in person if you can. If you go, be aware there is broken glass everywhere, and that a fine plastic dust fills the air; if you have asthma or are sensitive to respiratory issues, this may not be a good trip for you. Bring sturdy shoes and maybe a N95 face mask. The footing is fine, you will be walking on stairs with grates, sometimes covered with broken glass; but this is definitely not a place for high heels or fancy shoes.
I personally would not bring little kids on this field trip, due to the broken glass and air quality conditions. This is a good tour to do when it’s too hot, or too cold, for comfortable outdoor adventures. The work area is exposed; it was a cold day when we visited, and we were cold. If you visit in summer, you will be hot.
I urge you to take a moment after the field trip to reflect on what you’ve learned, integrate it into your learning, and share that with those around you through blogging, Facebook, Instagram, graphic visuals, funny videos, etc. Let me know if you go, by posting what I forgot to mention in the comment section below, thus helping future adventurers.
I leave you with this green coffee cup video by those smart and funny med students at Washington University:
In Summary – Maplewood is attracting a constellation of businesses devoted to sustainable and healthy living, and children learn through their senses, so Green Spiral combined the two into a “Sustainable Sensory Tour” of the City of Maplewood. Key “take aways” include how much you can learn on foot, and the power of small group learning. You simply learn more, faster, on foot, and in a small learning group, than you can by driving to an establishment all by yourself.
Starting at The Salt Room, we learned about the salt caves in Poland, and about how salt is used therapeutically in other parts of the world to address respiratory issues. From Clay, owner/operator of the Salt Room, we learned the story of bringing the Salt Room to Saint Louis as part of their family’s odyssey in addressing their daughter’s asthma. The Salt Room is literally a room made of salt, with salt on the walls, and piled thickly on the floor. Participants lie comfortably in lounge chairs, the lights are turned low, soft music plays, and pulverized salt is infused into the room. It’s much like going to the beach. Small children are given toys and allowed to play in the salt like sand. The sessions last a little less than an hour, and the rates are quite reasonable, however, the Green Spiral walking tour allowed us only enough time to get a “taste” of the Salt Room before pressing on with our busy morning. http://mysaltspa.com/
Moving along to Kakao Chocolate, with chocolatier Brian Pelletier, we learned about FairTrade and sustainable chocolate practices. Most of the world’s chocolate is grown on small farms, which means family farms, where child labor is essential, so issues surrounding certification and child labor are complex and filled with subtly. Brian knows his chocolate and is clearly devoted to bringing the finest and most ethical chocolates to market in Saint Louis. Kakao adds value by blending chocolate, and using as many local and sustainable products as possible. In the center of the chocolate shop is a long table, used for chocolate tasting parties after hours. Chocolate Party dates are difficult to come by, as the tasting parties are popular. The cost is $10/per person and you are allowed to bring your own wine, with no corking fee. We were reminded that dark chocolate is one of the most antioxidant rich foods you can possibly eat, and that probably helps sell a bit more chocolate, but what a wonderful way to make people happy and support your local merchants. http://www.kakaochocolate.com/Home.aspx
Around the corner, behind the Schlafly Bottleworks building, we found the gardeners of the Schlafly Gardenworks, Nolan and Jack. Nolan gave us a tour of the gardens and everyone asked a lot of questions about what was growing in the newly planted fall garden. The compost pile greets visitors on their way into the garden, and at this time of year, the compost pile is predictably full of spent hops and tomato plants. As any gardener knows, healthy soil is the first rule in gardening success, and the compost pile is key to feeding the soil.
At one point, Nolan pulled a “weed” from the garden, purslane, and held it up to us, exclaiming at how this little volunteer plant was probably the healthiest thing to eat from the garden, full of omegas and antioxidants. This is exactly why field trips are so important: learning to identify purslane, or indeed, learning about anything important, like gardening, healthy food, and parenting, is almost impossible to do over the internet, and requires lots of face time mixed with real world experiences. Most people don’t realize that Schlafly Bottleworks has a garden, located just around the corner from the patio, so if you haven’t found it yet, it’s totally okay to get a beer from the bar and wander out to enjoy the garden. Also, know that food from the garden goes into both restaurants, and shows up mostly in the daily specials. http://schlafly.com/bottleworks/gardenworks/
Finally, we found ourselves getting weary and were relieved to land on the soft couches in the reading room at Cheryl’s Herbs, located further down on Manchester. Cheryl’s Herbs embodies a whole world of healing, healthy living and herbs, and we were honored and delighted that Cheryl herself came out to chat with us and share some of her deep knowledge with us. She sprayed a hydrosol of orange blend mist into the air, and the children immediately settled down to nurse and play. Cheryl’s Herbs offers free “Healing Night” forums, about once per month, which are very much worth attending. Watch their web-site closely for these dates. At these sessions, Cheryl gives a little talk, followed by short talks by other practicioners, who might be energy workers, therapists, etc. http://www.cherylsherbs.com/
Social Impact: While many were interested and couldn’t make this exact date, 18 people came out to enjoy the field trip, along with the Maplewood editor of Patch, which is always a thrill. In case you don’t know Patch.com, they are a “hyper-local” news service that reports on neighborhood events, including school board votes and football scores. http://maplewood-brentwood.patch.com/search?keywords=green+spiral Rachelle L’Ecuyer, the Director of Community Development in Maplewood, served as our tour guide; upon their request, Green Spiral made a $60 contribution to the Ryan Hummert Scholarship Fund, in honor of a young fallen fire-fighter, who died from a sniper attack in the line of duty. As a note, the park across from Stone Spiral Coffee in Maplewood, is dedicated to Ryan Hummert. www.cityofmaplewood.com/ryan.hummert Green Spiral families clearly enjoyed the field trip as evidenced by the action provided to the merchants’ Facebook pages after the field trip. To be sure, a bit of cash was sprinkled along the way, enriching the Maplewood merchants by some small measure.
What you can do: Watch the above establishments on Facebook. Schlafly in particular is a nexus point for sustainable practices, with many groups including Slow Foods and Green Drinks meeting regularly in the Crown Room at the Bottleworks. The best way to keep up with the Schlafly events and activites is to watch the Gardenworks Facebook page, and to check the physical announcement board for posters, located just inside the front door on the way into the restaurant.
You also might be inspired to host your own sustainable walking tour of Maplewood, by contacting the above merchants through their web-sites and referencing Green Spiral Tours. Many other entrepreneurs came to our attention as a part of the walking tour, including Foundation Grounds, Pie Oh My!, Shana Watkins Photography, Scheidt Hardware, Saratoga Lanes and Mystic Valley. Visiting four merchants in one busy morning worked out just fine, but you might consider exploring two locations in depth, followed by lunch!
Green Spiral Tours
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