Category Archives: Life

The Mommy Stroke

Posted on by
2

I haven’t been a “swimmer” for years; I’ve been more of a dunker and wader ~ I swam just to cool off and play with Mathew. On my last visit to Florida, I made a concerted effort to swim daily. Since I was spending so much time assisting and taking care of my folks, I decided I needed to take care of myself too and relieve some stress. In the past, I would walk everyday, but with 95° F and 100% humidity this time, swimming seemed like a better way to go.

When I was a kid, I was a rather good swimmer. At camp, I excelled during competitions and received a Red Cross Junior Life Savings certificate.  By the time I got to junior high, I found more interesting ways to spend my time and lost my passion for swimming.

Over the past 5 years Mike has started swimming again and is very good. His strokes seem effortless and he does wonderful flip-turns against the wall. We always applaud the turns. I never had a reason to learn to flip-turn since I always competed in lakes ~ there were no walls to turn on.

I started my laps with the crawl but my strokes did not feel effortless, and I had a hard time going straight. I was swimming diagonally across the pool. Interesting tangent: The crawl is now known as freestyle ~ they changed the name because it is the most common stroke used during a freestyle competition. Therefore, as a result the name of the stroke is used metonymically (a thing or concept that is not called by its own name but rather by the name of something it is associated with). So then, I tried the breaststroke, it felt much better but was not fun. I discovered that I love the backstroke and sidestroke. Perhaps, it was because I could see the world as I swam by and the strokes made me feel strong and glide through the water.

I always thought of the sidestroke as the “Mommy Stroke,” since you can swim and watch your kids at the same time. Or, perhaps it was the only stroke I ever recall my Mom using. I decided to Google it and found out that I must be the only one that calls it the Mommy Stroke. However, it is no doubt known as an efficient and low energy stroke compared to other strokes. It allows the swimmer to perform for longer periods of time without tiring. The Navy SEALs use an adapted sidestroke known as the Combat Sidestroke, but it is more involved than the Mommy Stroke.

I am happy to say that I was able to swim 280 yards a day alternating between the backstroke and the Mommy Stroke. It is a far cry from Mike’s 1000 yards a day but he is a “real swimmer” and I am just a Mommy 😉

Have you ever heard of the Mommy Stroke or did I just make it up? If so, please share.

 

 

Wild Food

Posted on by
Reply

While hiking Mt. Battie in Maine, we came upon one of nature’s wonderful gifts ~ ripe blueberries along the trail. Nothing is better than discovering fresh fruit, especially blueberries, while hiking. Of course, we proceeded to “eat our way up the mountain.” Mathew was so excited about our great fortune that he just had to share and alerted other hikers to our discovery. One woman responded, “Oh, I thought we shouldn’t eat them.” Our response was, “Why?” She said, “They’re poisonous.” Fair enough; if you do not know what blueberries look like in the wild, it makes perfect sense not to eat just any berry that happens to be blue. Pokeweed and Belladonna have blue berries, and they are not something I would want to snack on.

Picking blueberries!

Picking and of course eating blueberries along the trail!

Nevertheless, I suspect her suspicion of foraging wild foods goes deeper. She did claim to purchase wild Maine blueberries in her New Jersey grocery store. Wyman’s of Maine has been selling fresh frozen wild blueberries since 1900. I think the fact that these delicious orbs did not come in a neat package from the grocery store might be the tipping point of whether a person decides to eat them or not. This really confused Mathew since he thinks of a grocery store as the “place where you buy processed food.” And he views unprocessed food to be generally healthier. I personally love the fact that we are eating something the minute it is picked, capturing as much flavor and nutrition as nature has to offer. Moreover, the blueberries had not been handled by anyone except me. Not all fruit and vegetables are washed/sanitized before they are put into containers for sale. As consumers, we must trust that the pickers/processers are using the highest degree of food handling safety standards. Unfortunately, things are not always perfect and contamination happens, whether a worker does not wash their hands after using the bathroom or the work areas are not clean. For me, picking my own fruit/vegetables is best ~ hey, I am a forager at heart.

blueberries

YUM!

There are wild blueberries all over the North America but Maine is the place to go. They have over 44,000 acres of wild blueberries. Wild blueberries have been harvested commercially since the 1840s. Interesting, there is more nutritional benefits to wild blueberries than cultivated ones due to their size. Wild blueberries are much smaller than the big, juicy cultivated varieties, maybe less than half the size. Therefore, a cup of cultivated blueberries will hold perhaps 80 or 90, that same size cup will hold more than 150 wild blueberries ~ and that is why the benefits of wild blueberries are technically greater. See, most of the nutrients of blueberries are packed into the skin. A cup of wild blueberries has a lot more skin than a cup of cultivated blueberries, thus packed with quite a bit more powerful disease-fighting antioxidants.

Foraging can be challenging for the inexperienced. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it. The thrill is indescribable and delicious to boot. Go with a knowledgeable guide and take a copy of the Peterson Field Guide: Edible Wild Plants. I promise you will not regret it.

 

All information is shared for educational purposes only and has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.