I'll be gone for a while...

 

Natural Cordage

 

I'm getting ready to lead a group of ladies out on an "Art of Nothing" Women and Wilderness week long excursion.  We literally go out with nothing but the clothing on our backs and learn to live within the natural order of things.  We have all kinds of women, from those who have only spent a few days wandering well kept paths to those who have lived in wilderness settings far away from civilization.  We have older women with adventurous souls and younger women with the joy of living.  Basically we have all age and skill levels take this course.  We learn to make shelter, tools, find food, make our water safe, but most of all we learn to work with nature instead of fighting against it. 

Hook, Line and Sinker, Nature Style

When I was asked why we didn't call this a survival week I said because the word "survival" seems synonymous with the word "struggle" and that is not what we do.  Most of the ladies comes with their sleeves rolled up and are ready to work hard but they find very quickly that is not the case.  It is only the modern day world that sees survival as this huge project that must be accomplished.  In an Art of Nothing week we find that when we stop trying to go against nature, most things fall into place and those that don't we live fine without.

 

Firing Pottery Made from Natural Clay

 

One woman told me that she never knew how hard she worked and how little she gained from that work here in the modern world until she was on one of our week long gatherings.  Here we do what is necessary to go on and we don't work extra for all those things that society tells us we need.  When we work together we build the bonds that no amount of "stuff" can ever take the place of.   Modern people have been fed the line of, 'if you have stuff you will have friends, so work hard for lots of stuff so you will have lots of friends'.  Humans are group animals, we don't like to be alone, so many buy into the modern day way of thinking and work hard, usually to make other people money, so that we can buy stuff so that we can have friends.  Problem is, that doesn't work, so we work harder and buy more stuff because obviously we didn't try hard enough in the first place.

 

Bone Whistle

Actually, work, play, tears and laughter are what brings us together.  There is no competition in the wilderness.  We bind together in the fun job of finding, harvesting and preparing food.  We make shelter if, and only if, we need shelter.  Other than that we lay under the stars and have the best view on the planet.  Our creative side is nurtured with all the different things we can make for free from our surroundings. We use all of what we harvest and make so there isn't much waste.  What waste there is comes from nature and goes back to nature, the epitome of the sacred circle.  And all of this is sooo much easier than what we have been led to believe.  In fact it has been shown that "primitive" people had more leisure time than we modern humans do.  Basically because they were not been fed the idea of work for stuff to have friends.  They went right to work with friends and skipped over the middleman "stuff", which to me has always had a trickster spirit anyway.

 Flint Knapping

 

To see a person first make fire with a bow drill that they made while walking into camp, to taste food that comes straight from nature, to hold your creative objects that you made with absolutely no money, to know you could disappear into the wilderness and not only survive but thrive in Her arms, there is nothing like these weeks I know of.  It takes the first three days just to decompress.  It is shown that a person cannot break free of society's teaching until the have been away from its influence for at least three days.  This is why many native tribes sent young vision seekers off on vision quests, to get them away from their society's influence so they could witness their true spirit's journey.  It is amazing to see this awakening of sorts, to see a person step into themselves, some for the first time.  I am grateful for each of these ladies and for my own awakening that happens every time I leave society and simply LIVE.

 

Leaching Acorns

In case you can't tell, I'm really looking forward to the journey that I start tomorrow night and I hope everyone else has an excellent adventure this next week.  Or you find a few moments of rest...which ever you need the most.

Primitive Trap 

 

Eggs and Egg Shells

 

 

 

I wrote this a while back and decided to post it to this blog.

 



Chickens are a natural part of many homesteads.  Even many urban homesteaders who aren't allowed animals on their site are allowed to keep chickens for eggs.  If your community doesn't allow the keeping of chickens you should go to your counsel or board and fight for the right of people to be in control of their own food source.  It should be illegal for municipalities to not allow people to raise their own food within reasonable levels.  Most people who have chickens start off with them for their eggs.  Feed the chickens, watch out for the few diseases they have, make sure they have enough room, and they will provide you with a wonderful protein source; eggs.  The only problem I can see with owning chickens is that sometimes you get too MANY eggs, and then, like during the zucchini rush, you can give them away to neighbors and friends who don't have chickens or make angel food cake and custard from scratch...yum.

Eggshells are just as important as the eggs inside them here in this house. We really, truly can't get enough of them. When I found out one of my friend, who raises her own chickens, was just throwing them out, I asked her to save them for me. After finding out all the uses for them, she decided she and her family needed them more than I did.

Now, when I'm talking about using eggshells, I'm talking about those of us that raise our own laying hen and therefor our own eggs. If you don't or can't raise your own, I understand, but see if you have people around you that do that will sell you some. Home raised eggs and their shells are SO different from the ones you buy in stores. The shells are thicker, chemicals aren't used to clean the shells, the shells aren't waxed, and the eggs themselves are higher in healthy amino acids than their distant store bought relatives. The main difference is this case is that eggs raised on a home farm tend to not be exposed to as many bacteria as eggs from a factory farm and so the shells are safer to use. If you can't find farm raised eggs, make sure to sterilize your eggs shells by baking them in a 220 degree oven for a couple of minutes to kill any nasty stuff that may be on them.

So on to the uses. Most people who raise their own laying hens will have done several of these uses, but just in case, here are some I know. Please list your uses so I can add it to my list of reasons I wish I had more eggshells.

First is that eggshells are pure calcium. If the chickens can't scratch or aren't given some sort of calcium supplements (such as oyster shells), their bones will get weaker and the eggshells will get thinner. The chicken uses the calcium from their own body to make the shells. So you can feed them back to your chickens to help keep them healthy. If you think of this as cannibalism, many birds will eat the eggshells after the chicks hatch just to keep predators from finding the chicks. It is natural for birds to eat their own eggshells.

You can also grind it up and sprinkle it over your dog food and cat food. Predatory animals need a good amount of calcium and most cat and dog food does not have enough in it. We put some in the hog slop to keep their bones strong too. Even though we have heritage breed pigs, they still can put on weight so fast their skeleton can't support them. The more modern breeds of pigs are bred to put on lots of weight really fast. Their skeleton can literally collapse from all the extra weight they carry.

Of course we humans can use it the same way too. Calcium deficiency is on the rise in industrial countries because we are eating poorer diets. Too little calcium leads to bone deterioration, thinning hair, and what most people notice, receding gum lines. Eggshells is what our hunter/gatherer ancestors use to eat and so our bodies have evolved into being able to assimilate this calcium into our system. Not into eating eggshells? Well, an eggshell tincture worked even better.

This is the one I made last night. If you want to make one, they are quite easy to do. First crush up your eggshells and put them into a jar with a cover. Then you cover them with an acid. Apple cider vinegar works best because it helps aid in digestion and makes sure your body can absorb most of the calcium in the shells, but lemon juice works too. Don't fill the jar all the way to the top though because you can see when you combine the alkaline of the eggshells with the acid of the vinegar, foaming does occur. Shake this a couple time a day for about ten days. No need to strain this tincture. The acid is slowly dissolving the eggshells and making them easy to drink. As long as there are still eggshells in the jar, you can keep adding more acid over them. This one jar with about 7 eggshells in it will last me 6 to 9 months. This can be tweaked for extra minerals by adding some nettle and/or horsetail tincture to it. Either way, this is a better source of calcium than those pills some people take because this is what our bodies already know how to consume.

Other medical uses for eggshells are as an antacid. If you even hear the Tums commercials they always tote that it is 'Tums with calcium'. Yep, that's because calcium neutralizes acid (it is an alkaline). By crumbling up eggshells and taking a spoonful if you have over indulged, you are doing the same thing without all the artificial colors and flavors of tums. If you still need a bit of flavor to help the eggshells go down, make a thick paste of honey and eggshells and take a spoonful of that.

For the garden, eggshells can be added in bulk to help neutralize acid soil as well. It take a great deal of eggshells to do this, but adding them with hardwood ash will make acid soil be able to grow many more crops than it could before. In smaller amounts, eggshells add calcium back to the dirt your food is grown in. Those plants use this calcium and will be stronger and also will give you more calcium when you consume them after harvest. Ground up eggshells sprinkled around tomato plants will help prevent blossom end rot, a disease that is caused by too little calcium. Some people go as far as starting their tomatoes in eggshells to give them that extra boost in calcium. Then they plant the whole thing, eggshell and all, deep into the garden. Roughly broken up eggshells will help keep things like slugs and snails away from your plants because they don't want to crawl over the sharp eggshells.

For another use for eggshells, we turn to science and see what they are up to. A study out of Denmark is showing that a thick eggshell tincture made of lemon juice and abraded eggshells (don't ask me what is different between abraded eggshells and crush eggshells) are helping young children with stress born food allergies. The eggshells are sterilized in a 220 degree oven (important for children because of their undeveloped immune system), then abraded into a small amount of lemon juice. This is given to young children 3 times a day. Studies are showing the the food allergies can disappear in as little as 2 weeks. It is an interesting study that I am keeping an eye on to see what it is in the eggshells that help children overcome stress.

Moving on from the shell itself is that membrane that we took out before we washed the egg. It has it's own healing uses as it is protein (the egg being the most complete natural protein known). This membrane can be to "draw out" things that are inside our skin. Such as if you have a sliver or tiny piece of glass you just can't get to come out, wrap a piece of eggshell membrane over it. It acts as its own bandage and draws on the foreign object, making it easier to take out. It can also be used over boils and blisters to draw out the moisture and pus that may lay under the skin. If you can get enough of them, they can be wrapped around sprains and bruises to draw down the swelling. Pimples can be brought to a head by wrapping an eggshell membrane over them and can really be helped in a thin sliver of garlic is put under the membrane. Ingrown toenails and swollen, torn cuticles can be helped with this method too. Again turning to science we see that they are starting to use eggshell membranes combined with household sugar on large area burns to keep infections from forming.

Eggshell membranes work best fresh, but can be dried and wetted when needed in a pinch. Still, if you can, try to use them fresh from a chicken egg. Duck eggs can be infected with bacteria that makes them unsafe to use the same way.

Because this post is getting really long I thought I would get to the egg itself and only put a couple uses for that (because mostly what we do with eggs is EAT them).

A hard boiled eggs crushed, shell and all and wrapped in a piece of cheese cloth can be applied to bruises to bring down swelling. Egg whites can be beaten into a frothy cream and soothed over minor burns, including sunburns, especially if you add a couple teaspoons of apple cider vinegar to it. This will help keep the skin from tightening up, causing more pain.

So the incredible, edible egg, as the old commercials use to say, has so many more uses. It has been used for healing as well. An eggshell tincture is one of the easiest home medicinals you can make, and yet can give you and yours a great deal of return. Give it a try. If you've been buying calcium supplements, here is a much cheaper, yet much better source. Our bodies crave it, because our hungry ancestors use to eat the egg, shell and all. Our genetic code remembers this and is waiting for our thinking mind to do so as well.

Elderberry Syrup

With the 2012 drought, many of our wild edibles and medicinals have had a hard year of it.  Some came ready early, some were very sparse, and some did not even come at all.  One thing 2012 taught us about harvesting wild edibles and medicinals was that we harvest when the plant tells us it is right to harvest, not when man made rules or calendars tell us.

The elderberry bush with its two wild medicinals is one of my most harvested plants.  I harvest the elderflower in late spring and the elderberries usually about now.  This year though the elderberry decided to play a different game.  Every plant decided to come to bloom and berry at a different time.  There was no rhyme or reason to it.  Bushes that were within five feet of each other would bloom weeks apart.  The bushes out by the field ponds, where they get plenty of sunshine, bloomed later, while the ones down at the wooded creek's edge where there is little sunshine bloomed early.  That's the exact opposite of how a "normal" year is.  No, when it comes to wild plants, 2012 was anything but normal.

About a month ago I took the apprentices on a wild plant walk and we found what I figured to be the last vestiges of the 2012 elderberry crop.  We gathered up what we could and returned home to make elderberry syrup.  Because there wasn't much I divided it up between the apprentices and they took it home.  I figured I had just enough to get my little household through the winter months and hopefully we would have an easy spring on colds.

Yesterday I went down to one of the wild cherry groves by a hidden spring to gather chantrelle mushrooms to dry for the coming winter and low and behold I found a whole patch of elderberries in full fruit.  Yay!!!!  So now I have chantrelles drying in the dehydrator and I just made a batch of elderberry syrup, making sure my household will have their immune booster if this ends up being a nasty cold and flu season.

Okay, first let's describe the elderberry bush for those who do not know it.  Elderberries tend to like to grow near water.  While I have seen some on hillsides, the majority of them are in low areas or near water sources.  My spring house is ringed with elderberry bushes, pushing their roots down into the water as if flows out of the spring house.  The elderberry bush has compound leaves.  This means its leaves have a central stalk with many leaflets coming off of it.  On separate stalks come a white umbrelle flower or a bunch of little flowers all together in a domed shape, usually in late spring.  They have a wonderful scent that you can smell long before you come near the plant.  Later in the year these flowers are followed by little green berries that slowly turn deep purple by late summer, early autumn (usually). 

As a warning, only the ripe berries and the flowers are edible.  While not in high amounts, the rest of the plant, including the green berries contain a very low amount of a plant based cyanide.  People hear that and they get scared of the plant, but the amounts are so low that you would have to eat tons of it just to get sick, much less die from it.  Most people couldn't make themselves eat that much even if they were trying to hurt themselves.  It's really nothing to worry about, but something that should be mentioned.

Now the flowers, also called elder blow, are dried in a well ventilated area away from direct sunlight and then stored well sealed so they can't absorb moisture.  Drank in a tea, this flower is one of the three fever reducers that most herbalists know about, elderflower, mint, and yarrow.  They are the best fever reducers because while other plants can lower fever they do so by first raising it so that your body breaks into a sweat.  If a body is already weakened by prolonged fever, raising it, even by a slight amount can wear it out to the point of making the person VERY ill.  Elderflower, mint, and yarrow cause a sweat without raising the body's temperature.  They are the three safest and most effective fever reducers in the herbal world.

Elderberries rival even the most powerful immune system stimulants.  If you feel a cold coming on, a good shot of elderberry syrup will help your body fight off what is attacking it.  Elderberry wine was originally made as a medicine and only later did we decide to drink it as a beverage.  Sambucol is the commercial product made from the black elderberry of Europe as a cough medicine and a cold fighter.  It has been used in Europe for ages and is only now coming to America.  The thing is, our native Common Elder is just as good and free for the using.

So, first gather up the berries.  Because they grow in clusters they are quite easy to gather.  Simply hold a bucket under the clusters and snip them off with a scissors into the bucket.  Try not to take all your berries from one bush for two reasons.  First, these berries are the bush's children.  They grow them to carry on the next generation.  You WANT them to carry on the next generation.  Just in case something happens to those bushes, the berries can plant themselves and you will still have elderberries for years to harvest.  Second is that each of these elder bushes have their own unique DNA.  By getting elderberries from many different bushes means you get many different DNAs to help keep you well.

Once you gather your berry clusters find yourself a quiet place to sit down and comb them off the clusters.  This is a meditation of sorts.  Like witches of old use to meditate while sweeping, a repetitive action (hence why witches and brooms are still linked in the mind of many people), you will be doing a repetitive action to get all the berries ready for the pot.  Take a CLEAN comb or hair pick (I have one reserved strictly for the kitchen) and simply comb the berries off of their clusters into the pot.  You may have to stop from time to time to get a stray twig or unripe berry out of your pot, but that's okay.  This actually goes quite quickly too.

 

 

Then put just enough water to float the berries into your pot.  The water shouldn't cover the berries, just enough so you can see it at the edge.  Put this on the stove and heat it slowly to get the juices out of the berries.

 

Heat this until the berries begin to lose their color.  This can take a long time as you don't want to over heat your berries.  This was four gallons of berries and water and it took close to 8 hours to get to the point.  In the picture about you can see how dark the berries are.  These are fresh berries.  They get much lighter when they are ready to be taken off.

When you feel they are ready (your water should now be a dark purple juice) pour this through a sieve covered with a cloth.  If you have another pan to pour it into this works the best.

 

 

 

Carefully squeeze all the juices out of the elderberries.  This can be hot so sometimes it is easiest to fold the cloth over and press the juices out with something heavy, like a plate with a gallon of vinegar on it.  Once the berries are pretty dry, they can go to the compost pile and the juice can be put back on the stove.

 

Here I add honey.  Elderberries are not very sweet berries and most people do add some sort of sweetener to the juice.  I add about 1 cup of honey for every 1 gallon of juice I have, but you can add what taste best for you.  Since I am canning my juice for storage and I don't want to use the high temperature of a pressure canner, I add lemon juice to raise the acid level of the juice.  This was a little over 3 gallons of juice so I add one cup of lemon juice per gallon plus one to grow on.  Just to be on the safe side I added around 4 and a half cups of lemon juice to this.  You can buy PH test strips if you are nervous if you added enough, or use red cabbage water to make sure your drink is acidy enough for canning in a water bather canner.

 



Then into your scalded jars (jars are scalded by putting them in boiling water for at least 5 minutes) and then into your water bath canner.  Any large pot with a lid works for a water bath canner.  Just make sure you put something down on the bottom of the pot to keep the jars off of it.  I use jar rings or a cooling rack if my water bath canners are busy.  Make certain that your jars are covered with a couple inches of water and set that pot for boiling.

Once you get a good, rolling boil going, time off 30 minutes and then shut off your heat.  Let the boil come to a stop naturally and then you can take off the lid and set your jars on a towel to cool down.

There, you have just made, and made ready for storage a very old remedy for colds and flu.  Store it in a dark place and take it out when you feel a cold coming on.  I usually use a recipe of 1/2 kombucha and 1/2 elderberry syrup for adults, making a glass of this that they can sip on throughout the day or 1/3 kombuch, 1/3 elderberry syrup, 1/3 water for younger people who may not be use to the strong flavor of both other ingredients.  I'll even make up a bottle of this and take it with me if I am going to be in close quarters with many people.  Of course you can't take it on a plane (it might be a dangerous liquid) but you can drink some before you take a flight to help with flight colds that seem to come from flying.  If you can. have a glass of it to sip on when you get off the plane too.

Elder bushes in Europe were called Mother Elder and it was believed if you cut one down you would never have a good garden until you made right with the Elder Spirit.  Here on the North American continent and American Indians called the bush Sister Elder, and said she sang people into wellness.  Amazing how people from two separate worlds found the healer in similar plants and built legends around that healing gift. 

If you can find elder in your area, you have found an amazing friend that will gt you through some of the rough times of the year.  Give her a try and whether you see her as Mother or Sister or just as Friend, she will be there for you when you need her.



 

Wild Rice

 

To tell about wild rice here near the Great Lakes we must first start with the story of the Ojibwe people who came here from the east near "The Great Salt Waters".  The Ojibwe people came into knowledge a great prophecy called "The Seven Fires".  Each of the fire had a prophet that told The People what was to happen in the future and how they were to prepare for those times.  We are now in the Sixth Fire or The Hidden Times when all of the wisdom and sacred items of the people have been hidden from sight...hidden but not forgotten.  When the Seventh Fire comes into being a new people will rise and the wisdom will be brought out of hiding and shared with the all.  How they came to live here along the largest fresh water lake in the world was for told in both the First and Third Fire when they were told to travel west until the came to the place where food grows on the water.

They moved west until the reached the shores of Lake Superior, where they fanned out, looking for the place mentioned in the prophecy.  Finally, after searching for a very long time they came across a stand of wild rice growing as far as the eye could see.  They knew that they had finally made it home and here they have stayed.  The Ojibwe word for wild rice is manoomin which means good seed.

Wild rice is a main staple to many people of the region.  It is not actually a rice, but a grass seed from the plant Zizania aquatica that is high in starch and quite delicious.  While some American Indians celebrate the three sisters of agriculture, beans, squash, and corn, here in the Great Lakes many of the tribes celebrate the three gifts of the wild lands, wild rice, maple sugar, and venison.  Wild rice was the starch that helped the people keep their energy up and get through the cold winters.  It is easy to store and easy to transport, both of which were important traits to the semi-nomadic Ojibwe.

 

I have been gathering wild rice with my father's family since I was very young.  I remember sitting up front and tapping the rice while Uncle Jim paddled at the stern, pushing us through the dense rice beds.  To harvest wild rice is to become part of the lake, the slow moving river, or the mouth of a creek.  You cannot gather wild rice from the shore, you must delve into the sacred world of Water, Herself.  A narrow boat such as a canoe is the best way to do this.  That way you disturb as little of the grass as possible yet still have an open helm to gather the rice in from the tapping.  The rice does not ripen all on the same day, so once we start to see the grains on the stalks we go every few days and tap more into the canoe until the season ends.

After this is done the rice must be winnowed, we do this by either throwing it up over a tarp on a windy day and allowing the wind to blow the chafe away or we do it in the barn in front of fans.  Then it goes into a big pot over a fire where we stir and stir and stir until it is all roasted.  This is my least favorite part of the process.  It's hot and tiring work to stir those many pounds of rice to make sure it doesn't burn.  But I tell you, the aroma of roasting rice is heavenly.  The rice is then bagged and split between all that helped and we come back in a few days to do it all over again.  Usually I end up with around 70 lbs of it to get my through until next wild rice season. 

One of the things about wild rice and humans is that we have developed a symbiotic relationship.  Yes, the wild rice feeds us, but during the tapping of the rice, much of it falls into the water.  By harvesting it in the old fashion way, we actually plant the next year's bed.  When humans don't harvest a bed, the bed usually either gets smaller or stagnates in size.  This relationship has been going on for hundreds of years and both humans along The Lakes and rice has evolved to be what we are now because of the harvest.

 

For hundreds of years this staple of the wild was free for the taking.  People who lived by the lakes would harvest it, and protect the lakes from pollution because rice beds are sensitive.  Then a few years back the Wisconsin DNR decided that if you were not American Indian you needed a permit to do what you had been doing for years.  At first I was both a bit ticked off and I understood.  What ticked me off is that my family had been caring for the wild rice beds that grew in our valley since before Wisconsin was even a state, much less had a Department of Natural Resources.  What I was trying to be understanding about was I was thinking that maybe there was over harvesting of the rice and by issuing permits, the DNR was making sure there was no over harvesting.  Okay, I could give up a little to gain protection for wild rice that grew outside our valley. 

The first day I went to get my licence though I was asked if this was for personal or commercial use.  I said personal, we did not sell our wild rice.  I asked how many commercial licences they were giving out. I was told there was no limit, as many people who wanted to could gather wild rice, they just needed to have a permit.  So the DNR wasn't trying to control over harvesting, they were just going to make money off of a food that had always been free for those of us who were willing to glide through the wild places and harvest from the water.  If that didn't tick me off... Anyway, needless to say I refused to buy a licence and have not bought one since.  This food was a gift from nature, from the water, from God if you are so inclined.  How dare the government charge money for something so freely given?  It almost seems a sin if I were to believe n such things.

My family still glide through the rice beds, we still tap and plant, we still harvest as we have done since before Wisconsin became a state.  Only now we do so as outlaws, harvesting the king's food.  I now know why the Seventh Fire has yet to come to pass and why the sacred knowledge remains hidden.  We are not quite ready for it.  Maybe everyone should get into a canoe and slide into the quiet places, disturbed only by the call of the heron and the chatter of the eagles flying overhead.  Maybe then the New People would rise and a new world be born.  One where we are grateful for our gifts, we care for them, and we give freely from ourselves instead of trying to take.  This is my wish, to live to see The Seventh Fire.

American Hazelnut Recipes

Boy did this weekend get out of hand.  Friends dropping by, canning needing to be done, both the solar and electric dehydrators going, and then I took some time to go kayaking to gather chanterelles!  I love the chaos that is late summer and autumn. 

Anyway I promised a few hazelnut recipes in my last blog post so I thought I better get to doing what I promised.

Hazelnuts, like any other nut tree, do not give the same amount of nuts every year.  Some years there are lean years where there isn't hardly a filbert to be found.  Other years, which are called mast years, the bushes are so loaded with nuts that the branches break off.  There really isn't a rhyme or reason to it, that's just the way it is.  This year was an average year, but because of the drought there really isn't a great deal of food for the wild animals to live off of and to get them into the winter.  Because of this I decided not to gather buckets and buckets.   But I do love this nut so I gathered up a good amount that will be my treat throughout the year. 

Some of the recipes I will share will be for those years that you have tons of filberts to spare, others are the special recipes for when you have a few precious nuts to remind you of nature's bounty.  Often the times that I only have a few are the times I learn to be grateful for what I do have.  This should be one of those years.

The first recipe is:

Lemon-Hazelnut Scones

I grow my own dwarf Meyer lemon trees and this is a nice brunch scone to serve either with guests or to hoard for yourself on those quiet days that seem so few and far between right now.

1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. brown sugar
 1 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
4 Tbsp butter
1 c. wheat germ
1/2 c. chopped toasted hazelnuts
1/2 c. dried sweetened cranberries
1 Tbsp
grated lemon rind
1 egg
1 c. lemon yogurt
sugar
lemon curd

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add butter, cut in with pastry blender.  Stir in wheat germ. Add hazelnuts and cranberries. In a separate bowl combine lemon rind, egg, and yogurt.  Add to flour mixture, blend until just moistened.

On a greased baking pan pat dough into large circles, about 3/4 inches thick.  Score with a knife into wedges.  Sprinkle top with sugar.  Bake at 400 degrees F for about 15 minutes.  Best eaten warm and wonderful with a good lemon curd

Banana Hazelnut Bread

3/3 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. softened butter
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
2/3 c. toasted wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
pinch of salt
1/2 c. sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 c. hazelnuts toasted

Combine sugars and butter, mix until fluffy.  Add mashed bananas, egg and vanilla.  In separate bowl combine the next 6 ingredients.  Add dry ingredients to banana mixture, blending well.  Stir in cranberries and hazelnuts.

Place in a greased loaf pan, 9"x5", and bake at 350 degrees F. for 35 to 45 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Turn bread out on rack and let cool.

Maple Crunches

an easy treat that uses up some lose wild edibles you may have around the house

6 c. popcorn (puffed wheat cereal from the store works fine here too)
1/2 c. dried sweetened cranberries
2 c. toasted and chopped hazelnuts
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. butter

Combine sugar, maple syrup and buttering a sauce pan over low heat.  cook, stirring occasionally until smooth.  Meanwhile combine popcorn, cranberries and hazelnuts in a shallow baking pan.  Pour maple syrup mixture over popcorn mixture and toss to coat well.  Bake at 375 degrees F. for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Cool, break into pieces if needed, and store in sealed container.  Good as a snack, sprinkled into yogurt or over ice cream.


Nut and Maple Pie

1 9 inch pie shell
3 eggs well beaten
1 c. maple syrup
2 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp almond flavor
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 c. hazelnuts, chopped and toasted

Combine all ingredients but pie shell.  Pour into pie crust and bake at 325 degrees F. for 30 to 40 minutes.   Cool before serving.

Hazelnut and Parsley Pasta

6 to 8 oz of uncooked fettuccine or linguine
2 tbsp butter
1/4 c. chopped hazelnuts
3 or 4 garlic cloves
1/2 c. chicken broth
A good handful of fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
grated Parmesan cheese

in large pot of lightly salted boiling water cook pasta according to package direction.  Meanwhile melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add hazelnuts and cook ,stirring frequently until lightly browned.  Add garlic and cook for a couple minute longer.  Add broth and cook until liquid has reduced to about 2 Tbsp. 

scoop out a bit of the pasta water, set aside then drain pasta when ready.  Return it to the cooking pot and pout the reduced hazelnut mixture over pasta.  Add parsley and toss everything well.  If too dry add a bit of the pasta water.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with Parmesan cheese.

The hazelnut is a rich nut that is wonderful in many dished that you would normally serve pecans, walnuts or hickory nuts with.  Since pecans aren't a northern nut, I will swap them for recipes that call for pecans.  Toasted over an open fire in the winter and munching on them with friends is one of my favorite ways of eating them.  It brings us together at that moment and through the years as the scent of them toasting bring back memories of past times, friends that have moved on, and other warm fires that we sat around on a cold winter's day. 

See, even though I enjoy my wild friends, I needed a few of these nuts for fires and friends.  It is part of winter here in Wisconsin and just another piece of my life I do not want to miss.  Still, I'll let the wild ones have the lion's share and maybe that will be what gets them through the winter as well.

American Hazelnut

When gathering wild hazelnuts, it is always a race to see who gets to them first.  Deer, wild turkeys, bear and squirrels can strip a grove in a day.  And with this year's lack of rain and therefor lack of food, I think it could go even faster.  I decided since there really wasn't a whole bunch of food for the wild animals this year, I wasn't going to harvest a whole bunch of hazelnuts.  Still, I love that rich nut so much that I had to have at least a few of them this winter when I need a bit of comfort food for those long cold nights.

Here in Wisconsin we have two different kinds of hazelnuts; the beaked hazelnut that is a more northern tree and we are just on the southern edge of.  And the American hazelnut that is actually quite common in our area.  Many of our hedgerows are made up of wild apple trees and American hazelnut bushes.  Which is fine for this witch because I love the hedges and I adore hazelnuts. 

Long before I ever knew these as hazelnuts we called them filberts.  My grandmother, the wife of a dairy farmer, preferred filbert nut milk to cow's milk.  I remember many a late summer day out with her in the hedgerow gathering filberts and learning about all the wild plants and animals that call the hedges home.  Usually we would come back with our arms loaded with all sorts of treasures that would end up in tinctures, or salves or even in the pot for dinner that night.  Living from the hedge was easy at that time of year and I often saw myself as one of Robin Hood's merry folk, the wild men and women who live amongst the trees and played pranks on the "civilized people".  I would be so stuffed with black berries and some sampled filberts that mom would pop open a homemade ginger ale to sooth my stomach when I got home.  Which was an added bonus for the day. :-)

 

Hazelnut leaves

 

Hazelnut bushes are leggy things, growing for the sun before leafing out.  They can be confused with young wild cherry trees until their fruit starts to come out.  And then there is no other tree that looks like this around.  The fruit begins by looking like some exotic flower that never quite opens.  It stays green for most of the time until it ripens and then the skins become a tan color and open up to reveal the nuts inside.  Yes, each fruit can have six or seven nuts in each of them.  Which makes it easy to gather. 

 

Still green hazelnut fruits earlier in the summer

Pinch the whole fruit into your bucket and go for the next one.  If you beat the squirrels, you can gather bucket loads in a very short time.  In fact I would have to say that I find it it be the easiest nut to bring in.  After that though things do get a bit tougher.  Nature seems to make getting the meat from any nut to be a hard task for us humans who don't have proper tooth to chew them open or proper claw to pop them open.  We have to rely on our brains to find the proper tool to help us get to that rich nut meat that is so tantalizingly close.  I have to admit, I have yet to find the "perfect" tool.  I usually make do with a hammer and gentle taps for storage nuts.  Filberts, like most nuts, store better the less processed they are.  I take off the outer husks to make sure there are no bugs, and then store the nut in a sealed container until I need to use them.

If you plan on using them right away though you can roast them, husk and all and then, while they are still warm, rub the husks in a rough towel and they usually come off quite easily.  Once roasted though the nut will only store for a month or so.

Hazelnuts are one of the richest nuts we have growing in our forests.  Mixed with maple syrup in a pie they are to die for, but only in small amounts.  My stomach simply will not let me eat too much of it.

To make my grandmother's favorite, filbert milk, first get the nut meat out of the nuts.  Roast the meat and then rub off the dark skins.  I actually like the dark skins but some people find them to be bitter and it does give an off color to the milk.  Then soak the nut meat in about 3 times the amount of water for eight hours or overnight.  Then dump the whole mass (water and nuts) into the blender and pulverize those nuts.  Basically make them part of the liquid.  Then pour the whole mass again either through a very fine sieve lined with a few layers of cheese cloth or, like we have always done, pour it through a jelly bag.  It takes awhile to get all the rich liquid out of the pulp so a jelly bag is easy to hang and allow to drip.  Also, a jelly bag is fine enough that you can press it to get the last drop of liquid from the pulp without worrying that the pulp will get into your nut milk.

That's it, you have just made filbert nut milk, free milk from the wild. You milked a nut tree!  I drink mine just straight but you can pour this over cereal to give a very rich milky flavor to ordinary grains or use it in your tea or coffee for an out of this world richness.  You can use it in pie fillings to make an even richer pie.  I mean look to see what you would use regular milk for and see if an touch of richness would be nice.  Then reach for the filberts.

This post is getting kinda long so I'll do another post on other recipes you can do with hazelnuts.  This free nut from the hedgerow is one of the best harvests from Nature's garden as long as you can beat the wildlife to it.  Make certain you keep an eye out for the wild men and women of the forest though.  I know they are there because I have been one a few times during my life.

Milking the Cow

 

 

“All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow”

                                                                                     Grant Woods

 

 

 

I am up at 4:00am every morning to milk the cow(s).  It's a fact of life if you have a dairy animal that you don't get vacation days unless you find someone else to do your milking for you, until that animal dried up.  Of course once that animal dries up you don't get milk, so it's 6 of one half a dozen of another. 

 

At night I take the calf away from his mamma and put him with his aunties. (I only milk once a day) Ten hours later I HAVE to milk that cow and put her back with her calf.  If I don't several things will happen.  The cow will kick down her stall, break down a few fences, and go to her calf.  She will probably get mastitis and will stop nursing the calf, and then I'll have to clear up the mastitis with drugs that cost too much and I hate using, and while that's going on I'll have to hand feed the calf, turning it into a demon that will run up to me when it is full grown and knock me over looking for that bottle.  Nope, no matter how tired I am at 4:00am, I'm getting up and milking the cow(s) because I will regret if for a long time if I don't.

 

 

I have often had people either feel sorry for me or tell me that there is NO WAY they would ever tie themselves down to that way of life.  Which is fine, if we all milked animals every morning other jobs wouldn't get done.  We each have a role to play and mine is getting up at 4:00am and milking the cow.  Thing is, I LIKE getting up at 4:00am and milking the cow.  Call me crazy, and I won't always disagree with you, but it is usually my time to prepare myself for the day.  I don't drink coffee so there's no jolt to start off my morning, instead I do it slow and easy with a routine that is so known to me, I could do it in my sleep.  There are days when I wonder if I did.

 

The cool thing about milking a cow, or any dairy animal for that matter,  is that they have a say in what is going on right at that moment.  If you are ticked off, she may decide to not let down her milk.  If you are feeling sorry for yourself and not paying attention, she may "accidentally" step in the milk pail.  If you grab her too hard...WATCH OUT!  If you grab her too soft, nothing happens.  No, you have to be calm and in the moment to milk a cow.  She isn't going to do what you want if you aren't.  If you don't get her clean enough, her milk will taste like whatever filth you left behind.  If you use too much cleaner on her your milk will taste like cleaner.  Milk picks up scents and flavors very easily.

 

 

This means every morning I get a wake up call...no, not the alarm.  Not that I need an alarm any more.  After doing this for 24 years I couldn't sleep past 4:00am if I wanted to.  But I am forced to not be so inside myself, worrying about trivial things or even big things.  If I want milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, kefir... I have to give my all to that moment.  It is a meditation of sorts, but instead of going to a make believe place in my mind, my milking meditation draws me out of myself into the world that I am a part of.   For me it makes me able to be a part and handle what ever the day has to offer.

 

When I first started milking on my own I decided to only milk once a day.  I was only milking for the homestead so I didn't need tons of milk, and with the heritage breeds of cattle, the calves can be taken away from the cows for a few hours without doing any damage.  This way I don't have to have replacement feed for the calves and I only have to milk once a day.  I started with 2 cows, a highlander and a dexter.  Both were great cows but I really liked the highlander and stuck with the breed.  They can be milked for about 9 to 10 months with each freshening (when you breed a cow to produce a calf and therefor milk it is called freshening after the first time) and I stagger their breeding so that I am never without a milking cow.  This means sometimes I am milking one cow in the morning, sometimes two and rarely three.

 

My milk house is attached to a spring house, which is how the Wisconsin farmers of old often did things.  This way the milk house stays cool in the summerr and warmer in the winter because the spring water flowing through the spring house is always between 45 and 55 degree F.  This makes milking a great way to cool off on sticky summer mornings and warm up on biting winter ones.  I tell you, there is nothing like running your ice cold finger into the hair of your milking cow to warm up (unless you are doing it in your horse's hair).  The spring house is nature's cooler, and where the milk cans go right after the milking is done.  Unless I want a warm chocolate milk on a cold winter's day.  Then I take the chocolate syrup that always sits on the shelf in the parlor and swirl some into my still warm raw milk.  I tell you, unless you are lactose intolerant, you will never have a better treat than drinking chocolate milk made from milk just minutes out of the animal.  Especially if there is a nip of cold in the air.

 

Yes, I do drink my milk raw.  Because I am in control of the milking settings, the cow, and utensils and the farm itself, I can trust my milk raw.  In fact I can trust it raw more than people who get their milk from dairies where hormones and antibiotics are given to the cows.  The first is given to make her produce more milk, the second is to keep the infections at bay from a cow that is producing too much milk!  And we wonder way we are creating so many super bacteria now.  My cows give the milk they give, I manage their pastures so they get good grazing without over grazing and the plants they eat won't do damage to their milk.  Milk, like everything else, starts with the ground which grows the plants, which the cows eat, which I milk.  Without caring for the earth, I don't get good, safe milk to drink.  Drinking my milk raw gives me all that energy and it starts with the earth.

 

So this morning, while I was cleaning off Mir's udders, I felt sorry for all those who weren't up at 4:00am, getting ready to receive the gift of the earth and the sun and the grass and the cows.  How could I be more blessed?  And all that before the sun comes up.

 

 

                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Last Night's Storms and Intuition

So yesterday started off as kinda a boring day.  I still have tons of data that has to be gone over and put into order from The Isaac Observations that I made in Louisiana last week.  I knew I was going to be inside and on the computer for a good part of the day.  It's the nature of the job of a forensic meteorologist. 

As the day wore on I got really bored.  I took most of yesterday's milk and made mozzarella cheese but I was still bored.  I made a whole bunch of honey sweetened pumpkin leather, but I was still bored.  I made a rather large pot of squash soup, but I was still bored.  I whipped up a couple apple pies (one I was going to send home with my brother this morning.)  *yawn*.  I straightened the house.  When I did chores I grabbed a mass of tomatoes intending to make some more salsa.  Basically my boredom led me to the kitchen to cook.  I made waaayyy more food than the three people who live here can eat and I was thinking today I would package it up,  make some rounds and give food away to the aunties around the neighborhood (aunties is a word we call the respected elder women).

About five o'clock yesterday afternoon I was looking at the data and switching back and forth from the radar and BOOM storms started popping up in Minnesota.  I had been expecting this, with the hot weather yesterday and a cold front moving through, it was bound it happen.  But the more I looked at those storms the more I knew we were probably in for a rough night.  I got the chores done early, moved the horses and the sheep into pastures where they could find shelter (highlander cows are fine in rough weather), put the chickens and pigs in early, and threw some tarps over the greenhouses JIC.  By the time I got in the phone calls had started.  Some friends wanted to come over to weather out the storms.  No problem.

They start showing up with sleeping bags, the nightly necessities, and FOOD.  They were laughing at how they had felt like cooking today and so they had all this extra food.  I decided to set up the food in the finished part of my basement, again JIC, and did we have a spread!  I had to bring in extra folding tables to hold it all.  Pretty soon we had a family orientated storm party going on. 

We could see the lightning approaching.  Amanda my cousin came home.  The air became very still.  Ryan made it home, saying that to the west it was raining so hard he could hardly see the road.  Tornado warnings went out for Grant county a ways to the south of us.  I moved the laptop into the basement so I could watch the radar if things got dicey then stood by the west windows and watched the storm coming.  The air was so still, it's hard to explain to those who have never felt that kind of power.  It's like for this moment in time you can hear for a hundred miles and smell scents from a thousand.  I felt the hair on the back of my neck go up.

"In the basement," I said to the only other person as stupid as I was to be upstairs, Ryan.

"You too," he laughed and grabbed my hand.

I really didn't want to go.  I wanted to watch it when it hit.  I got my wish.  The big sugar maple suddenly bent over, practically in half.  I thought for sure it would snap.  A huge branch snapped off the walnut by the gate.  I heard a squealing noise and knew something man made was being broken (It ended up being part of the roof of the wood shed).  We ran to the basement and listened to the old house creak and groan as the wind hit it.  By 7:15pm another friend was calling saying that power was out all over the neighborhood.  Not surprising. 

In the basement everyone was laughing and eating.  The kids were playing games or talking.  It was a happy place to be right at that moment.  I filled up a plate for myself and Ryan and we joined into the conversations.  A couple euchre decks came out and we started playing cards.  A few other people showed up around midnight because the power wasn't back on and joined in.  The kids fell asleep on some blow up mattresses scattered around the floor.  For having such raging weather outside, we were all fat and happy inside.

Thank goodness we did not have a tornado, though the straight line winds that hit us tore down a barn on the other side of town.  There will be a great deal of clean up today and the power has yet to be restored to the area, but for the most part we got by with a few bumps and bruises to the farm.  I went around to the family and the neighbors (and many stopped by here too) and there's damage, but nothing so much that we can't handle it.

This morning I was making a mozzarella and tomato salad and some sandwiches for people to munch on and I was thinking how lucky it was I was so bored yesterday to make all this food.  I started thinking about how my friends had said they had been drawn to the kitchen yesterday too.  We all started to do the one thing that made the storm easier to handle, we made comfort food.  But this was before we even knew there were going to be storms.  Then it hit me...

Intuition doesn't have to work like a light bulb going off over your head.  Magic isn't all fancy potions and alters.  Sometimes by just doing what it feels right to do is magical all in itself.  Without even thinking about it or wondering why (heck, I thought I was just bored), we made certain that the night did not have to be as bad as it could have been.  It was a subtle draw that didn't require a whole lot of thinking behind it.   Too many of us look for miracles of great magnitude, but often they comes as a dish to pass around or a smile or a hug.   Magic happens, we just have to be willing to feel it.

So here are a few pictures of the storm damage.  We got by lucky.  I'll be cleaning up for the day and we'll be spending a bit of time with the aunties making sure their yards and farms are cleaned up too.  But for this moment of peace while I wait for my guests to get up, I thought I would tell you how our night went.  LOL

 

Needless to say I'll have to move some branches off the drive before I can get out

 

I'll be replacing shingles on one of the chicken coups...

 

...as well as tin on the wood shed roof

 

Not my new handicap ramp!

It's not broken, but I'll need to get the chainsaw out to move that branch.

Oh well, more firewood. LOL

 

A lot more down in the woods and I have a few apple trees that will have to come down and new ones be replanted, but still not too bad.  Hopefully the power in the neighborhood will come back on soon.

Lactose Fermenting Milkweed Pods

Why is it that most restaurants serve pickles with their hamburgers or why is it that some people like sauerkraut on their hot dogs?   Believe it or not, we eat these things with our meat because at one time, this was the equivalent of taking medicine.  Have you even, after a big meal, been forced to take something for gas?  Well, that's what our ancestors did, but they did it with vegetables that had been lactose fermented.  When they ate heavy, hard to digest foods, such as dense meat or sausages, they just automatically "took their medicine" or ate something that had been slightly fermented. 

It is a pretty widely known fact that eating yogurt is almost a necessity while on antibiotics.  Jamie Lee Curtis talks about eating yogurt if you suffer from occasional irregularity.  This is because yogurt is a slightly fermented dairy product that puts healthful bacteria back into our digestive tract, our gut, so to speak.  See, for you to digest your food, it must first be broken down.  This is done a couple of ways.  First, your stomach has some of the strongest acid known to mankind inside of it. This not only begins to break down the food you eat into smaller pieces (easier to ferment) but it kills off many harmful bacteria that can't live in such an acidy environment. The other thing that happens is beneficial bacteria begin to ferment this broken down food to extract what you need to survive from it.  These beneficial bacteria not only can live in that acidy environment, it will create its own acid to form that environment if it can't find it ready made.  This is called lactic acid.

When we ferment foods, we begin the process our stomach does outside our own bodies.  We make the food more easily digestible before we even start digesting it.  Another plus side of this is that once a food is lactose fermented, other bacteria have a hard time getting into that food.  The lactic acid that forms in the food kills off "bad" bacteria or bacteria that can hurt us.   This is why it would be almost impossible to store cucumbers in their natural state, but ferment them or cover them in a ferment like vinegar, and they can last on the shelves for years as pickles.

Our bodies learned to eat (evolved) on fermented foods.  Long before humans invented refrigeration we were munching on half rotten foods.  Only our noses tell us the difference between a good rot (ferment) and a bad rot (methyl mercaptan).   We learned that by introducing good yeasts and good bacteria we could prevent our foods from spoiling in a bad way.  Our ancestor's bodies learned to eat this fermented food and they have passed that trait onto us. Most of us are actually healthier if we eat a little lactic acid every day and certainly after any heavy meal.

Most vegetable (in fact I can't think of a one that can't) can be "pickled" or lactose fermented.  The main ones in the U.S. we know are cucumbers and cabbage but I have a sister in Australia whole lives off of pickled beets.  We serve then at every family meal, if only so the kids can play with the bright red juice.  I pickle green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips...I'm sure there are more but I can't come up with any more.  I also make different cheeses (fermenting milk) wines and beers, sour dough for bread and...mmm...pancakes (I love sour dough pancakes).  Did you know that if you smoke tobacco this is fermented and chocolate, is fermented too.  Tea?  You guess it, fermented.  The list of fermented foods is too big to list and too big to know (unless you are on a MAOI and then you BETTER know what foods are fermented).

Here's the thing, people don't often think of wild foods when they think of fermenting, which is sad, because eating fermented wild foods is just as good for you and just as tasty as what comes out of your garden.  It is also FREE FOOD that stores for a long time.  I have probably about 40 jars of pickled purslane on the shelves in the cellar.  I have a Methodist minister that comes to my Wassail every year just to eat pickled purslane.  She once teased me that if I quit making it she would quit coming.  So I make sure I make it.  I certainly don't want to lose a Methodist blessing for my apple orchard.  LOL

We had to mow an area to get a well truck back to one of our new shepherd shacks.  In that mowed area the milkweeds have just gone to pods. While I have some of pickled milkweed pods from earlier this year, I couldn't pass up fermenting just one more small batch.  So here is how you can easily lactose ferment milkweed pods.

First, you want to pick your milkweed pods when they are small.  I try to get them when they are less than 2 inches but I have pickled slightly larger ones. 

Then you need to get the latex out of them.  That white sap that gives milkweed it's name?  It's latex and it is not good for you.  Luckily it dissolves really fast in boiling water.  Don't put your milkweed into cold water and then bring it to a boil, this "sets" the latex.  Instead boil up a couple pots of water and once they are fully boiling, drop the milkweed pods into the first pot.  Boil for a minute.  Then strain out the pods, discarding the water and drop the pods into the second pot of boiling water.  Again, boil for one minute.  Strain out the pods again, discarding the water.

There, now you can treat your milkweed pods like any other veggie.

I am a garlic fiend so I use only garlic with my milkweed pods, but you can use whatever herbs and spices you like.  If you like dill pickles, using the same flavorings in this will work fine.  So I alternate layers of milkweed pods and layers of garlic cloves into a scalded jar big enough to hold them all with room to spare at the top.

Over this I put salt water. My ratio of salt to water is for every pint of water is around a tablespoon of non-iodine salt. I usually boil it up to kill off anything not wanted in the water, let it cool and then poured it over my milkweed and garlic.  Though I don't boil it every time and I've never had a problem so that may be a step you can skip.  I just usually do it to make myself feel better.  Make sure there is enough salt water to COMPLETELY cover everything in the jar (flavoring and pods).

Then, because everything floats and I want to make certain everything stays BELOW the water surface I put a filled glass that just fits into the jar.  This is my weight to keep everything down.  Anything clean, heavy, food safe, and nonreactive should work.

Then I just set it on the back of the counter and wait. 

 

The salt keeps the "bad" bacteria from getting to the milkweed, meanwhile the "good" bacteria (which can live in salt-this stuff is tough) begins to ferment the pods, just like they ferment the cabbage in a kraut barrel.  In about 10 days taste your pods.  If they are sour enough for you, you can eat them, can them (same as canning any pickle) or put them in the fridge.  If not leave it set for a little longer, tasting from time to time.

Now, if you can them, you kill off the bacteria, stopping the fermenting process.  If you put the in the fridge, you slow down the bacteria but the pods will slowly get more sour.  Or you can put them in a cellar to keep souring.  The flavor will change every time you eat a new one.  This keeps the bacteria alive and ready to work in your stomach. 

Look around at the natural foods that you eat.  If you have extra of them or if there is a mast year (a year when a certain wild edible produces more food than in a normal year), try pickling it.  That's a way of keeping that food around for a little longer and lets you eat for FREE for awhile.  As a proud tightwad, I enjoy the "free" word.  lol

Growing Your Own Ginger

 

 

This is something I'm sure most people know about but since I met a young man who didn't know it, I thought I would pass this along. 

 

As a witch who lives through winter, ginger is a very important part of my medicine chest.  I use it for many things; flavoring,  ginger ale, upset stomach, fire cider, pickled ginger, ginger candy (and then ginger sugar) ginger snap cookies, etc...but a big thing I use it for in the winter it to warm the body up.  A big cup of ginger spice tea will get the circulation going after a long morning out shoveling snow (or sledding).  I always have ginger on hand, but I haven't bought any in years.

 

I grow my own.  It's really easy to do.  Just go out and buy fresh ginger root (actually a rhizome) that has at least a couple of nubbins on it.  These nubbins (some people call them eyes like potatoes) are a new plant just waiting to burst from the root.  Plant the root down about and inch, inch and a half in good composted soil and wait.  Here's the catch, it takes anywhere from a year and a half to two years for your ginger to reach maturity.  For most of us on North America this means we can't plant them outside.  Certainly not in Wisconsin. 

 

 Luckily they grow very well in pots. The pots don't need to be especially deep, the rhizome doesn't grow down that much, just out.  The bigger around the pot (or whatever kind of container you use) is, the more you will get from your harvest.  So you can use any container that is shallow but big around and drains.

 

After you have harvested your ginger, you can cut off a part of the root that has a couple of nubbins on it, put fresh compost into your pot, and replant that section of the root.  Then carefully clean off the remaining part of the root and there's your ginger.   

 



I actually have several pots going at all times (I think I have 21 right now), and I stagger my planting so that they come ready for harvest every month or so.  Then I just replant part of the rhizome in fresh compost and get the next one growing for harvest in the future. 

I started doing this because I usually buy from the Amish and they don't carry ginger.  When I looked in the big city (LaCrosse, WI) for fresh ginger all I could find came from China.  I don't know what kind of poisons they are allowed to spray on their fields.  So I found an organic source and started growing my own.  It's really easy to do except that it takes a long time for it to be ready to harvest.  It can't get too cold so during the winter so I have ginger pots (as well as many other herbs) scattered around the inside of my home.  It can't get too hot (I killed one by leaving it in one of my greenhouses on a hot, sunny day), and they are heavy feeders.  I often put at little compost tea on the pot throughout its growing period.

Anyway, by growing your own ginger, you will know exactly what goes into the plant (no chemicals) and once you get going, you may never have to buy it again.

Ginger bug living and growing on the window sill getting ready for another batch of ginger ale.  This hot summer we have been going through ginger ale like crazy.

 

Fire cider, a wonderful immune system booster, cold fighter, and cough medicine with ginger as an ingredient

We actually have wild ginger here in Wisconsin and I have a whole hillside of it.  It is a plant of the woodlands, quite small, not usually bigger than 4 or 5 inches tall.  It's heart shaped leaves usually come up in pairs in the spring with the "little brown jug" or small brown flower growing between them.

While not related to oriental ginger, it can be used food-wise and medicinally for all the same things.