The Potato Harvest in History

By this weekend the nightly temperatures are going to dip down into the mid 20s (that's Fahrenheit), so this morning I dug up the last of the potatoes and am hardening them off for storage in the root cellar.  Potatoes for me, like for many people who store their food, are a staple winter fare.  They store well with little to no processing just by putting them into a dark, cool root cellar.  Don't even wash them off, the dirt helps to trick the potato into thinking it is deep in the ground waiting for spring to come so it can sprout again.  As long as it is kept dark and cool it will last sometimes as long as into early May before it finally catches onto the ruse and starts sprouting anyway.

 Potatoes are part of the nightshade family, to which tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillo and several other domestic vegetables belong to.  In the wild most of our nightshades are actually toxic, with deadly nightshade being one of the worst.  The toxins tend to affect the muscles of the body, especially the heart, which is why some granny women still use it in teeny tiny doses for those who suffer from heart problems.  If one is extremely careful, deadly nightshade can be used in place of nitro during a heart attack.  The problem is that even a tiny mis-guess and we kill the heart instead of jump starting it.  This is an 'only for professionals' medicine. 

Another member of the wild nightshade family is well known to we witches, and that is belladonna.  Belladonna gets its name from when Greek women use to take small doses of this poisonous plant to make their eyes dilate.  Dilated eyes means a yearning and it was a fashion statement of the Greek women.  Too bad it was also doing damage to their heart muscle and often lead to death during childbirth because the woman's heart was just too weak to survive the stress.  Some witches still use belladonna as a sleep aid but with so many better and safer ones on the market it would be one most people steer clear of.

 

Back to the potato; while the tubers are not poisonous in themselves, they are still a member of this toxic family and must be stored with care.  If the potato skin turns green, they can begin to produce the same toxins that are in the belladonna plant.  Every year people, especially children, are taken to the hospital because of potato poisoning.  The green skins on the potato are a result of too much light getting to the tuber.  Always store your potatoes in the dark.  Not only will they last longer but you won't have to worry about that nasty green skin that taste like crap anyway.

Potatoes play a very interesting part in human history.  There are books and papers written on the subject, yet few people actually know more than a tiny bit about this plant that shaped the world as it is today.

See, potatoes are the only vegetable that gives back more calories in the consuming than it takes to grow, harvest and process them.  If one were to live before fossil fuel was used to produce our food sources, this would have been a very important bit of information.  We need to eat vegetables for the nutrients they provide, yet we waste calories in growing them.   With the discovery of the "New World", or the Americas, by the Europeans, whole new food sources were opened up to them...including the potato. 

Potatoes can be grown in a very small space (I grow some in garbage cans), and yet produce a lot of food in that very small space.  So in a very small space a large amount of food can be raised that gives more calories to the person eating it than it took to produce it.  It was an amazing wonder gift for the struggling masses back home in Europe.  Most farmers in Europe at that time were growing their food on rented land and would owe a portion of that food to the landlord.  If you wanted more food you needed more land, but the more land you rented, the more food you owed to the landlord.  It was a never ending circle that helped to control the masses. 

Enter the potato.  By planting potatoes in the same amount of space that was once used to raise barley, the renter could get 7 to 8 times as much food from the same space.  Not only did they have enough to pay off the landlord and to eat themselves, but now they had extra to sell and make money.  Money was something that most peasants of the time just didn't have.  That's why they grew food for rent, because they had no money to pay that rent.  Now these people could buy a few luxuries in life and the hungry people in the cities were able to buy food for less money, which gave them more of a disposable income.  All this led to the rise of a new "middle class" in Europe.  More and more people began doing more what they wanted to do instead of what they needed to do to survive.  New businesses opened up and new job opportunities opened up in those businesses.  Europeans went from being in an almost constant state of hunger to being able to live some of their dreams.  And all of this happened in a very short period of time.

Also, because people were healthier, they began having more and more children, and these children lived longer because they had enough to eat.  Cities, that once were simple gathering areas of agricultural markets, or fishing villages, or distant trading posts, suddenly began to grow and grow.  They took up more and more land that was once needed to grow the large amount of grain needed to feed the masses.  Now with the potato, food could be grown on much smaller plots of land and the remainder lands were often sold to expand the ever growing cities.

Some historians even go as far as to say that the potato was what fueled the rise of Western Civilization.  It certainly was the reason for the 100 fold expansion of the European population.

 

Now during this great agricultural revolution, Europeans did what they always had done.  They began breeding this new plant to get a bigger and better yield.  They were looking for larger and larger tubers so they could feed even more people with less space.  As these new breeds of potatoes came onto the market, many of the older, or what we now would call heirloom, varieties fell to the wayside.  People wanted to make money and that meant using only the biggest and fastest growing potato on the market.  Soon there were only three main varieties of potatoes being used in Europe, and these three potatoes were fueling what was at that time the biggest population growth in human history (we have since surpassed that with the use of fossil fuels to raise our foods).

If you can't see that history was setting the human race up for a huge fall, then history was probably not your favorite subject.  lol

The lives of so many people were dependant on such a small food source.  What happens if that food source were to fail?

This is exactly what happened.  Because there was so little genetic diversity in the potato crop, it was very susceptible to parasites and disease.  Enter The Blight onto this tragic stage.  The blight is a fungal infection that affects many members of the nightshade family.  I lost my entire seed crop of Cherokee Purple tomatoes to the blight in 2009.  I had to start all over again after raising those seeds for 21 years. 

How the blight usually works is late in a stressed season it begins in infect plants that are not strong enough to withstand it.  This year, with the drought, the Wisconsin potato crop was very stressed and the blight began to spread quickly in Central Wisconsin.  Now adays we have copper based fungicides that can help control the blight and keep it from spreading too far.  The infected plants are destroyed and the soil they grew in is disinfected to make way for next year's crop.  This late season blight is rightly called, 'The Late Blight'.  A person can still get a harvest in after being affected by the late blight but it will be smaller than what it would have been if there was no blight.

The problem isn't really with that harvest.  A smaller yield is something that farmers have to deal with from time to time.  The problem is that the blight actually gets into the seeds or, in the case of potatoes, the tubers.  It lays in wait and as soon as those seeds or tubers are planted the next year, it pops up and kills all the plants, then creates spores to move onto other plants.  This is when the blight becomes 'The Early Blight' because it hits so early in the season the plants have no time to produce any food before they are killed.  If a person has plants that suffer from the late blight it is best to destroy all the seed from the infected plants instead of spreading it the next year.

They did not know this in Europe all those years ago.  They moaned about getting the late blight and the low yields, but then they did what they always did.  They put aside the tubers from those plants to use for the next spring's crop.  The tubers were infected with the blight.  The minute they were planted in the soil the next spring, they infected the soil with the blight.  And because there was no genetic diversity the blight spread like wildfire across the European countryside.  Within just a few years, the crop that fed almost everyone was gone.

Mass starvation happened.  It is estimated that over a million people starved to death in just a few years and another million people migrated to the Americas to find a new life away from the suffering.  It is still to this day the largest mass migration of humans in history.  It was even given a name, "The Great Potato Famine."  Here in the U.S. we call it "The Irish Potato Famine" because it was the largest immigration of Irish to our shores in our history.  But it was also when our first large wave of Germans came as well.  The second and third waves of Germans would come during the great wars, but our first came because they were starving and burying the dead back home.  They needed a new start.

The Great Potato Famine should have taught us many lessons.  The first, and probably the main one would be "don't put all your eggs in one basket."  By cutting down on the genetic diversity of our potato crop, we left it open to disease.  Also because so many people relied on this one food, disaster was bound to happen.  Our diet should always be as diverse as possible.  As should our crops.  Another lesson should be, "what goes up must come down."  No growth, especially fast growth, can last forever.  We should always be ready for when the 'up' cycle ends and the 'down' cycle begins. 

And last but not least we should have learned that humans do not always control history.  We are at the mercies of our biology.  We need to eat, we need to have clean water, we need to have shelter in bad weather...the list is too long to write down all of our needs.  But we do need other things to survive.  We can do all the political posturing we want, we can kill anyone who doesn't believe in our gods, we can think of ourselves as this great being that can shape our destiny, we can see money as good or evil, and wanna be kings as controllers or saviors...but in the end something as insignificant as a potato and a fungus can change the course of history.  

We should never take ourselves too seriously.  We, like every other creature on this planet, sometimes are just along for the ride.  We should do what we can and and make peace with what we can't.  We never know when we will be thrown a loop that will lay us low as a society.  Smile while we still have time.

One of my favorite ways to eat potatoes--as an egg jacket

Sleep Aids From the Creek Edge; Wild Hops

With most of the wild edibles and medicinals running early for harvest this hot, dry year, it makes sense that it would be wild hops that runs contrary to the rest of the harvest.  The wild hops are actually running a bit late for picking but finally they took on their characteristic dryness with their lovely golden powder rubbing off on my hands as I harvested it.

 

Hops are actually not a "wild" plant of Wisconsin but a feral one.  They are escapees of our rampant German beer industry.  Yep, here in Wisconsin we love our beer.  We grow our own barley, use some of the purest spring water known to the world, and grow our own hops.  Some of those hops have "gone wild" or began to grow where they were not planted.  Often this happens because hops like to grow near water, it likes it feet wet, so farmers plant it near creeks.  If those creeks flood they will carry the roots of the hops plant down stream where they plant themselves and start to grow.  More than likely this is where my wild hops come from.  They grow right on the edge of Rocky Hollow Creek, downstream of where my grandfathers raised their supply of hops for their beers.

 

Hops grow on annual vines that start from the roots every spring and die back to the roots every fall.  They are fast growing vines that can actually tear down weak trees and bushes.  Their leaves look like a cartoon version of the hemp leaf, fat and curvy instead of spiky with fingers.  This is because hops and marijuana belong to the same family.  The flowers are what are really noticeable though when it comes to hops.  They take on the appearance of papery pine cones, staying green right up to the moment of harvest.  You can check on your patch often and the green seems to last and last, then one day you go out and look at them and boom, they are tan and dry, no longer green.  That tiny window of time, before they become nothing more than brown husks, is when they should be harvested.

Hops have a long history of healing and preserving.  The oil from hops is a great killer of bacteria. This is why it was first used in beer, not as a flavor but as a preservative in times where there was no refrigeration.  This anti-bacteria action can still be used if there is nothing else.  A wash of hops water can be used to clean out a wound and kill off any bacteria that may have gotten into it.

Because hops are a bitter, they can be used to aid in digestion by forcing the body to create more bile.  If you suffer from gall bladder problems this might be a very good medicinal for you to use at night.

This is not what hops as a medicinal is known for though.  First, hops contains a volatile oil that can be absorbed through the mucus membranes, through the skin, and through digestion.  This oil has a soporific effects, or it helps you fall asleep.  In fact, except for Valerian it is considered to be the best plant based sleep aid there is.  Often just by breathing in the scent of the flowers a person can drift off to sleep easily.  Hops pillows are made for children who suffer from nightmares as it helps them fall into a deep sleep.  Some people cannot drive after picking hops because the oil absorbed through their skin during the harvest makes them too drowsy to drive. 

The other healing aid that hops provide is it is VERY high in a plant based estrogen.  Harvesting it alone can bring on menstruation in women and men who harvest hops often cannot perform sexually until the oil has worn off.  This phenomenon actually has a name; "the brewer's droop".  Brewers who worked with hops often were not able to achieve an erection for days if not weeks after they had been handling their hops.  This makes it a good choice for women who are suffering through their menopause.  While estrogen must be used sparingly, sometimes hops are the best way to get through those days when our estrogen is so low we cannot function properly without it.

Hops should not be used by those who suffer from depression as too much estrogen can lead to sever depression.

 

Hops have an interesting part to play in human history.  In many countries, ale was the drink of choice for the masses.  Their grain harvest could be preserved in the fermented drink and with their water sources so polluted, fermented drinks helped purify it and make is safe to drink.  The only problem was that ale was a short term preservation technique.  Within a month the ale had gone bad.  So people began to use preserving plants in it to make it keep longer.  With these preserving plants, ale became beer.  Mugwort, yarrow, and hops were all used to make the beer last longer.  Rulers would not drink the bitter beer, however, and some even outlawed it to be brewed within their country's borders.

 

Other rulers found out though that people who drank beer preserved with hops tended to lose their will to fight.  Hops, being high in estrogen, calms people down, makes them less willing to cause trouble.  These rulers found that the masses that drank beer made from hops were less likely to rise up and fight against tyranny.  And so laws were created that beer could ONLY be made with hops.  It is considered to be the first and largest drugging of the masses in history.

 

Because of these laws we still use hops today as our flavoring in our beers instead of some of the other plants that were once used.  Most people are unaware that the hops they are drinking is actually a depressant that makes them less willing to fight (and even have sex--too much beer with hops makes a man unable to perform).  They only know that they like the bitter flavor hops impart to the beer they are use to drinking.  That flavor was given to us by laws meant to control our ancestors.

 

As crazy as this all is, hops are still a great medicinal for those occasional nights that we find it hard to get to sleep.  A tea of hops and wintergreen can help us relax after a hard day's work when our muscles are tight and in pain.  A pillow of hops and lavender is a great stress reliever if we've had a tough day at the office.  And for a woman who is suffering through the loss of the estrogen they have grown to live with since puberty, hops is THE medicinal to replace it and help us through those hard times.

 



Just remember to use it sparingly and always remember that whatever we take into ourselves can change who we are.  Kings learned this ages ago and used it against us.  We can now use to help ourselves through the rough patches of life.

This is linked through WildCrafting Wednesday.  If you want to learn some more amazing things to do, check out the other authors at:
http://mindbodyandsoleonline.com/herbal-information/57th-wildcrafting-wednesday/comment-page-1/#comment-14074

Appetite Fatigue: A Danger for Those Who Store Their Food

Appetite fatigue is a very real state that shows that people, especially the young, the old, and the sick may actually starve to death instead of eating foods that they don't want to.  The term first meant people who stopped eating because they were forced to eat the same foods over and over again until they were sick of those foods.  Then despite the fact that there was still plenty of those foods around, a person would literally starve to death instead of eating those same foods yet again.  Hence the word "fatigue" in the title.

It later has been used to describe ANY time that a person refuses to eat even though there is plenty of food to consume.

Appetite fatigue is actually a survival technique that humans have employed to keep their body healthy.  If a person eats the same food over and over they will miss out of vitamins and minerals that a varied diet gives us.  Our bodies start craving other foods so that we can get all the nutrients we need.  The problem comes when there actually is no other kinds of foods to eat.  Our body's cravings become stronger and stronger until it simply refuses to eat the same foods even to the point of starvation.

The other form of appetite fatigue is when our body craves comfort foods to the point of refusing to eat anything else.  This usually happens in stressful situations.  We want what mamma use to give us when we were scared or sick or just on happy days.  We can be so hungry that we are shaking but nothing in the cupboard even looks good enough to take the bother to make.  Believe it or not, this too is based on a survival technique.  Our parents teach us what foods are safe to eat.  By our body's refusing to eat any other foods, it protects us from eat potentially poisonous foods.  So even if your brain knows that food is safe to eat, your body demands that you eat only "comfort" foods or foods it finds to be safe.  This can also happen to the point of starvation.

Most studies on this are done in refugee camps where people have left their homes because of war or natural disasters.  People flee for their safety but then are at the mercy of others to feed and care for them.  If the foods that the others are feeding them are not what they are use to, or if these foods are served over and over and over again, the refugees may stop eating to the point of starvation even though there is still much food to go around. 

This brings us to the point of storing food. 

If you plan on living off your stored foods you must do two different things in the storing.  First, make sure you have plenty of foods that you find to be comfortable.  When you are stressed, you will need to have these foods to keep up your strength.  This means if you live for sugary foods, make sure that you put up plenty of sugary foods.  Yes, they may be bad for you and hopefully you will be able to wean yourself off of them, but not during times of stress.  Times of stress are not times to go on diets or try to teach your body new things.  Times of stress are when you make that big pot of comfort food and curl around it like a lover.  It will help you through that stress situation better than most anything else.

The other thing is to make certain that you have plenty different foods.  Yes, you may love chicken noodles soup, but don't can all your chicken into soup.  Go through all the different foods you like and in non-stress situation start learning new foods, then add those foods to your storage.  While 50 cans of your favorite salsa is great, 25 can of salsa and 10 of spaghetti sauce, 10 of pesto, and 5 of that yummy Alfredo sauce is even better.  200 lbs of corn meal is terrific, but 100 lbs of corn meal, 50 lbs of whole wheat flour, 25 lbs of potatoes, and 25 lbs of wild rice will get you through tough times even better.

Storage foods are only good if you will eat them and your body will only let you eat them if IT wants to.  Sometimes a large store of food is not enough, sometimes you will need to know WHAT to store.  Know your body, learn the sacred vessel you live in and what it wants.  Keep it as happy as you can in stress times and it will serve you well.  It is not trying to get you to starve, it is just part of the make up of being human.  Enjoy it, but don't take it for granted, it is a great gift to have.

Wild Medical from the Hedge: Haws

Pasture rose flower in summer

 

In 1987 I was in my last year of college, starting my first BIG job, building a career, in my new (and not long lasting) marriage, and my great aunt had passed away and left me her farm.  At the age of 22 my life was very much ahead of me and I was pretty overwhelmed at all the ways it was pulling me.  As my new husband and I was moving into our new and my permanent home, I was driving the long drive to Madison to finish my Masters and the long drive to LaCrosse for my new job.   The farm had no electricity, no running water and my husband, who at first thought it would be fun to play Grizzly Adams, was finding out that living without electricty was only fun for a short period of time.  As a way of life it takes a good deal of human power.  Money was beyond tight, we had to look up to see broke--we had so many college loans. lol  I have to admit, the year of 1987 was a crazy year. 

And right in the middle of it all, I got sick...not just your run of the mill sick, but really, really sick.  Now I don't get sick that often.  One of the joys of being raised on a farm is that farm kids are exposed to billions of germs on a daily basis.  Our immune system has to be strong.  I have always been the one to take care of sick people, I very seldom AM sick people. :-)

But in the early winter of 1987 I got sick and because I didn't want to do a half ass job of it, I got sick all the way.  lol  I had an upper respiratory infection that started with my ears and then spread to my sinuses and my lungs.  By the end of the illness I had pneumonia that put me flat on my back in bed, something that I felt I couldn't afford to do.  The main problem was that I didn't listen to my body the way I should have. 

See, when a person gets sick, their body will tell them what to do.  The big one is REST!!!  But in our modern day world 'rest' is a four letter word.  Only lazy bums rest, the rest of us need to keep busy, busy, busy.  The problem with that brainwashed way of thinking is that it often leads to stress and I find that stress is the number one reason most people's immune systems are not strong.   If a person gets sick, they should automatically stop what they are doing, make a nice cup of herb tea, crawl into a warm bath or put on warm cozy PJs and curl up with a good book.  No, don't watch TV, there might be a political ad on that will cause you more stress.  It is time to let your body, your mind, and your soul rest and heal.

I didn't listen, I had too much to do.  Then my body took over and forced me to rest.  It was rest or die and I guess I chose resting.

One of the things I did do was drive all the way into town (hey, why not infect as many other people as possible) and used our meager funds to buy frozen orange juice.  I at least listen to my body and started some vitamin C intake.  Dang and if that didn't taste good.  My body craved Vitamin C so badly I drank way too much of the stuff, but it was worth it.

Later, after I had recovered and mourned the loss of those few dollars I spent on orange juice my great aunts teachings came back to me.  I didn't need to go all the way into town to by my Vitamin C,  I was surrounded by one of the highest sources of it.  The field hedges are made up of pasture roses or briar roses.  In early winter all that was left of those roses were the haws or hips.  With a calming walk through the fields I could have had all the vitamin C I wanted for no cost.  Four haws have all the vitamin C of one orange.

Pasture rose haws or hips in early autumn

 



I think it was one of the first reminder lessons I received after college.  Some of the best cures for illness if it is done early enough in the illness are free.  It doesn't cost anything to rest, and a stress relieving walk to gather rose haws may do more to boost the immune system than all the pills in the world.

Roses come in many different varieties, some wild and some domestic.  They have been part of many a legend and many magical journeys into love start with the lovely scented flowers.  People spend big bucks raising prize winning roses and they are the number one flower entered into flower judging contests.  Humans have had a love affair with the rose since before history was recorded.

And with good reason.  Wild roses not only are easy to grow, but sometimes they are hard to get rid of if you decide you don't want them.  Multi-flora roses are listed as an invasive here in Wisconsin, and without grazing or mowing the pasture roses of my hedges would take over the fields.  The wild roses can also spread very quickly so that is a very short period of time, without much work from we humans, there can be a bumper crop of rose petals and haws to gather.  Wild roses also don't seem to suffer from the weather; cold wet, dry, hot, it doesn't matter to the roses, they keep producing.  Now, of course, I am talking about wild roses, some domesticated roses need more care than a newborn infant and don't produce much of any haws.

Both the flower and the haws have been eaten and used in medicines for generation.  As I stated the haws are high in vitamin C and a great immune system booster.  A tablespoon of rosehip syrup taken throughout the first signs of a cold can either stop that cold in its tracks or lessen the symptoms and shorten the illness.  The flowers can be eaten in salads and spread over bath water to help relieve stress. 

A wonderful and easy Rose Petal Jam is made like this:

Gather several quarts of rose petals.  Cut off the white tips and chop the rest of the petals to fine.  For every two parts of petals you have at one part of water and one part of honey.  Add one teaspoon of lemon juice to whatever you have unless you have gallons of it and then maybe add another teaspoon.  Simmer for around 30 minutes (don't go too far over this) and pour it into hot, sterilized jars.  Cap with tight covers and store in a dark place.  This makes a traditional gift for lovers and marriages.  the flavor is delicate and if I eat it in the winter it gives me a shiver, like summer is peeking out of the snowy nights, reminding me She will soon be back.

Rose petals are for summer but rose haws or hips are for winter.  They will stay on the bush long into the frozen months and can be a winter survival food for those who are lacking in the vitamins that summer usually gives.  I pick tons of them and put them up dried or in the following syrup that I I use in many of my medicines to help boost the immune system.

First, get your water bath canner boiling, you'll want it already to a boil so that you can process the filled jars as fast as possible.  Vitamin C is light and heat soluble so you don't want you syrup to be heated any longer than needed.  Also you'll probably want to be boiling some jars so they are sterile and ready when your pulp is.  I usually use 1/2 pint jelly jars because once these are open the syrup will only last two weeks at the most and then you will be making a tiny amount of rose haw mead.

New batch of cleaned haws ready for processing

The easiest way to process wild rose haws is with a food mill.  I know that I talk about these gadgets alot but I use mine so much I don't know how people live without them.  Rosehips are not super fleshy, so the best way to use them is to first clean off both the stems and the blossom ends.  Then mash up the haws.  This can be done with a mortar and pestle or by running them a couple times through the food mill grinder and then take them back out.  From there it's easiest to add some water.  Depending on how dry the crushed hips (haws) are, I can add up to equal parts water to crushed haws (hips).  I let this soak for around five ten minutes and then back into the food mill they go.  The softened flesh of the haws will now pass through the mill while the hard seeds stay in the strainer.  I may add a bit more water to the seeded pulp if it seems like there is still a good amount of it not going through the mill. 

Haw pulp with seeds

Milling the softened haw pulp

Then you have a wonderful smelling seedless pulp.  The seeds you can plant or share with others.  Sharing rose seeds is a sign of love.

Seedless haw pulp ready for honey to be added

From here mix about 1/3 to 1/2 of honey compared to the amount of rose pulp you have.   Quickly put into your sterile jars and drop these into your boiling water bath canner.  Now the honey is a sugar and will kill off all the bacteria that might be lurking on the hips.  But what you need to kill off is the yeast that will make your honey/water/haws syrup into a bubbling mass of rose haw mead.  Now rose haw mead is okay, but I would rather make gallons of it and not one cup of it at a time.  lol   So we are just going to heat it up enough to kill off the wild yeasts that lurk in the water, the honey, the haws and the air around us.  Boil the jars for 10 to 15 minutes, NO LONGER.  You don't want to kill off that wonderful Vitamin C.

Take the jars out of the boiling bath immediately and let cool in a dark place.  Make sure they have sealed, label and put them on a shelf in a dark place or cover the jars with a heavy towel to keep the light out.   

Haw syrup on its way to the cellar

 

Feel that first scratchy tickle of a cold hitting the back of your throat?  A nice cup of elder flower tea with a tablespoon of haw syrup to sip on throughout the day can keep it at bay.  Just make a new cup of tea when the last one is finished and keep sipping on it all day. 

Two things about haw syrup; first, once that jar is opened it MUST be stored in the fridge and still will only last for at the most two weeks before it starts to ferment.  If you do a lot of fermenting and so have a lot of wild yeasts in the air (like me), it won't even last that long.  That's why I only use 1/2 pint jars so that I know I can use it all up before it "goes bad". 

Also this has a HUGE amount of vitamin C, much more than the same amount of orange juice.  If you have diarrhea, this will make make your symptoms worse.  Your body can't truly overdose on vitamin C because it gets rid of it through your sweat, urine and stool.  You stool will get softer if you take a large amount of vitamin C and this can dehydrate your body.  That's not what you need if you are getting sick because a fever can dehydrate you body all on its own.

 So, I have been putting up haw syrup all morning and I think I am set for whatever the winter is ready to throw at us.  It feels good knowing that I have an ally for my immune system sparkling in jars down in the cellar.  No more needing to run into town while I'm sick, worrying if I have enough money.  I will take my medicine from nature and then crawl into bed for the rest that allows my body to heal itself.  Lessons learned. :-)

We Made It to Another Winter Findings...

So, the first day of fall has come and gone and we made it to another Winter Findings.  It's been a crazy couple weeks; what with work, finishing the last of our summer projects, harvesting the garden, and the first frost of the season hitting a couple weeks early.  I tell you, with the early spring, the hot summer, and the early frosts, 2012 has certainly been a year to push us hard.  For the last week we have been harvesting and preparing the last bit of our warm weather crops and after this coming weekend's 20 degree nights we will be bringing in most of the rest of the garden.  The Chaos of the autumn harvest is in full swing.

 

One of the holidays that my family celebrates is called The Winter Findings.  For a very long time in my life I thought that my family was an odd one who was the only family that celebrated this holiday.  Then a couple years ago I began to surf the internet and I did a video on The Findings and found others that also celebrate it.  How wonderful!  The neat things about that is because it is not well known, or part of a organized religion, or even sanctioned by the government the families that I heard from all celebrate it a little differently from east other, much like the old holidays would have been.  Holidays of old would have been celebrated when the village or family had the time to do these celebrations, not when the church or the government told us it was time.  Only now in our ultra-organized world do we allow others to dictate to us when a celebration should take place.

The Winter Findings is a holiday of late summer to early fall for most families.  Some celebrate it from the full moon in September to the full moon in October, or from the full moon of October to the full moon of November, or from the autumn equinox to the next full moon, or, like my family does, from the Autumn Equinox to a certain day.  Our ending day is November 2nd.  On or near November 2nd we have the Final Harvest, which is an agriculture time of reminder that all life ends and moves on. 

What The Winter Findings means to my family is that...well...winter is coming and it is time to get ready.  While yes, most of us have been getting ready for winter since the day of the last frost in spring, this is the time when all the goofing off changes from summer picnics to nights around the fire with friends and family.  It is the time we take down the screens and put up the storm windows, it is the time we make certain the shutters are still working, it is the time we make certain that there is enough wood for the fires needed for the long winter nights, and it is the time to make certain that all the family, friends, and neighbors are ready for winter too.

 

For me it is time of coming back together.  Often during the summer we have been "doing our own thing".  Being part of community does not mean that we twitter each other every five minutes or call each other every day or even see each other every week.  There must be a balance between being with others and doing what works well for ourselves.  During the summer I often do not see family for most of that time of year.  We each have our own projects that we do and we go our own separate ways.  But in the winter we all come back together again, hunker down, and enjoy the "rest" that comes from no longer having to all the summer chores to do.  Yes, there are still chores in the winter, but they are not the same as the summer chores.  Most of the winter chores involve warm fires and lots of hot toddies.  LOL

 

It take family and friends to get ready for the winter, so we must have a time when we put an end to the separate jobs of spring and summer and come together to do the communal jobs of fall and winter.  And, of course, often burden shared are fun burdens to have.  In day of old they held corn shucking parties, fire wood gathering parties, sorghum parties, hunting parties and all the like.  Here we still have many of those same parties but I do admit that we have machines to shuck our corn so that particular party is more a chance to get together and have a few drinks.  LOL 

On or near the Autumn Equinox we have a community party which is potluck so one person is not doing all the work and we come together to talk about what we have been up to and find out what everyone still needs doing before the first snow socks us in.  Then we make smaller parties, set dates and go around the neighborhood to help with getting everyone ready.  Especially the elderly who want to stay in their homes may need an extra hand changing out their screens for storm windows or getting those repairs done to make sure the snow doesn't blow into the chicken coop, or unloading feed or putting up enough firewood, or whatever needs doing. 

Basically The Winter Findings is the last push to get ready for what here in Wisconsin can be a season of survival.  Winter can be harsh here and while now we have groceries stores and feed stores and big box stores to buy whatever we need all year long, a few pockets of communities still exists that remember the time when this was the last bit of time to put up what was needed to make it through to the time when the spring planting can begin.  In this time when money is tight, sometimes having neighbors come together and get those repairs or chores done instead of having to hire them done may be what allows some of our more vulnerable neighbors to stay in their homes. 

 

Of course, what most people who know about my family's traditions with The Findings is the full moon fun of October.  During the October full moon my family split up between the men and women.  Don't ask me what the men do, being a woman I have no idea and have really never asked.  But us ladies, from the old grannies, to the new babies, get together, usually at Aunt Ellen's house, and have a little get together of our own.  We eat, talk, make certain that all the "women things" are getting done, and then, when the full moon has risen over the corn field, we go out and speak with the corn spirits.  Usually most of us ask them for advice or insight, or even predictions.  It's probably an throwback holiday to some old European tradition of the family's...all I know is that we have done it for my whole lifetime and my great grandmother did it her whole lifetime.  There seems to be no religious overtones.  It's just something we do that is fun and brings the ladies together to make certain their needs are being taken care of, with a bit of the whimsical thrown if for fun.

The Winter Findings ends with The Final Harvest.  This is when we go over how much feed we have stored and figure out how much livestock we can take safely through the winter.  Then it is time to butcher the ones that are left.  This is not my favorite job of being a homesteader but it is something that needs to be done.  If I am going to take over some of Nature's responsibilities, such as gardening or raising animals, I still have to play within Her rules.  One of those rules is that I can only have as many animals as I can feed.  If I keep even one extra, all the rest of the animals suffer for it.  This is where the meat that will feed my family and friends comes from.  This is The Final Harvest.

People gather together on the farms that raise the meat animals and help with the butchering.  It is cold and hard work to put that meat up and it is often best done with friends.  Everyone takes home a share of the meat after a long weekend and then what we have is what we have and winter is coming, ready or not. 


Because of the old agriculture holiday of The Winter Findings, I believe my family, friends, neighbors and my household will be ready for the coming season.  It is something that I have participated in for 47 autumn now.  It is a tradition of the old ways where people came together to celebrate life, to laugh, to eat and be merry, and to help each other.  It begins with warm early fall weather, it moves through the changing of the leaves, and it usually ends very close to the frozen ground and even the first snows of the coming season.  It is my favorite time of year. 

 

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.