Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Cave Men only "Oooga Booga" => Topic started by: jamie on October 03, 2009, 09:08:14 am
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so far this month. White oak acorns. Made flour and meal. Also have been roasting them and eating them whole. Hickory nuts. Crush em, shell and meat. Cover them with water and simmer. Fats will rise to top. Skim it off and drink. Pour off water and remove. Drink water, this is hickory milk. Its awesome. Before removing water i use a flattened stick to remove large shells . Rest of the muck can be eaten. Gritty but good. Black walnut. Remove husk by stepping on. Dry the nut ,crack and dig out meat. Use just like walnuts. Save husks ,they make an excellent dye. Also remove your shoes before getting in car or walking into house or youll find out the hard way how good of a dye it is . Wear gloves if you dont want dyed hands. My hands are always dirty so i dont care and the brown fingertips wear off after a while. Chestnuts. Get them off the ground quick. Worms get them quick. If they havent opened to expose the nut burn the husks a bit to remove the spines or wear work gloves and split the husk with a knife. Roast em and sing christmas songs. =) ill be gathering tubers next week.
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What about the fall mushrooms Jamie? You have any up there?
It's time here for the corals to be out, but I haven't seen any yet.Puffballs are everywhere but I don't really like them.
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i really only eat the tree fungi and puffballs. we had so much rain this year they came and went real fast. i had a really nice hen of the woods and two chicken of the woods earlier. not too many puffballs this year . last year was a bumper crop.
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Great haul you got! We have lots of Gambel's Oaks here that we harvested acorns from last year. But this year, we got no appreciable rain during our monsoons. So, what few acorns were produced were quickly snapped up by squirrels and acorn woodpeckers. Last year, we had a huge haul of King Bolete and Lobster mushrooms. This year, not a one because no rain. We did get a nice haul of blackberries and discovered an apple tree growing wild we got a nice haul from. I did notice the "Pinyon Lady" has been selling both the regular Arizona/New Mexico pinyon nuts and the bigger Nevada pinyon nuts almost all year here in town. So, she must have had quite a haul from last year. The purslane poked its head up, but without rain, decided to wait for a better year.
I think our first snows are on their way soon. I scored nicely on some firewood. The fire department dragged out the dead Ponderosa pines from the forest and cut them up only 100 feet from our front door. I asked about if I could take some and they said it was for the public. I went over with my axe and split my winter firewood. I needed it, too. Out of work and was worrying about the winter heating bill and knew I had no choice but to get firewood. I thought I'd have a long slog doing all the cutting by hand with axe. But then this boon appeared and I only had to split it and carry it back.
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Jamie
Any kind of Hickory nut or are some better than others?
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I didn't know acorns could be eaten without leaching them in some way
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White oak acorns can be eaten without leaching. Red oaks have to be leached.
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tsalagi aint it grand when gifts are dropped at your doorstep. i have two elms down on the other side of a swamp that i want to remove for firewood. gonna have to cut it to six footers and carry it out. gonna sleep good that night.. wish we had pinions in this area
rick any will do just some have more meat than others.
you can eat reds raw but the pucker factor is heavy as well as the stomache ache and not crapping for a week if you eat too many. =)
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i got a ton of white oak trees here. gotta get some acorns. i been finding places to get cattails, just aing harvested them yet. there are lots of different mushrooms growing around here, but after the berry experience i dont want to mess with them. :o
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Trey, don't get your cattails down stream from the waste water treatment plant. They are natures filter systems. My company designs artificial marshes for WWTP to flow through before they get to natural water. The roots might taste a little funny.
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many of the superfund sites have utilised cattails to purify the drainage areas at the contaminatated sites. one site has 4 1 acre cattail fields that the water passes through. the exiting water has been tested and all the impurities they find at the inlet to the fields have been removed.
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didnt know that. but no worries, all mine are back in a little slough in the woods. ;D
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Hyacinths will do it also. In fact quite a few years ago, the NASA guys were considering taking some to the space station, to purify the waste water, and ferment them, and use the gas for powering a generator. They did the same type of testing, in an acre sized pond. The water flowing in had heavy metals in in it, and the water flowing out had none. 8)
Wayne
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wayne do you mean the spring hyacinth. thats awesome
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Jamie, as far as I know it was just the plain ol water Hyacinth. The kind that has the pretty Blueish, flowers, on a stalk, when it blooms. There is no lack of them down here. In fact, if there is water, there more than likely are cattails, and hyacinths in it. If not, it won't be long, before there is. The Sea Cows, or manatees love em. :-* :P
Wayne
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just researched the plant. its considered a nasty invasive i guess. was wondering if it had any medicinal properties or if it was edible but couldnt find anything. most of the nastiest invasives can be put to use in some way. even kudzu is edible. anybody have more info on the hyacinth?
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It is probally edible. Some people use it for cattle feed. And it is a nasty invasive. Try paddling a canoe or a power boat through Hyacinth jams in a river sometime.
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Which is why they have put manatees, in some of the more navigable waterways, to eat them boogers. Not sure if they were brought here, for their pretty blooms, or if they could be native, but I think they were brought here long ago, as an ornamental plant. Anyway, they can clog a waterway real quick. They do provide good homes for fresh water shrimp, and minnows, and bream, and specks. We used to take a potato rake in the boat, and rake out a hole, in the hyacinths, along the banks, of the Kissimmee River, and jig for specks. The rake was handy for smacking cottonmouths too. ;D Some of which liked to hang from the limbs of trees along the banks, over hanging the water. :o
Wayne
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Yea, Wayne, used the rake too. They were brought here I believe back in the 20's, don't remember. If I remember right they came from the Amazon and it had something to do with a Worlds Fair.
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Yeah, Eddie, I think you are right. I remember something like that, being they were brought up from South America. But I wasn't sure.
Wayne
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Some of which liked to hang from the limbs of trees along the banks, over hanging the water. :o
Wayne
i had an ex girlfriend who's grandpa was in vietnam if im not mistakeing. he said that they were in a patroll boat one time when a python droped out of a limb into the boat. he was on the machine gun in the front and turned it around and shot several holes in the boat.
no clue if this is true or not, sounds kinda irresponsible, but thats what he said, and i believe id do the same.
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Very possible he told the truth. They were always, getting the Sh#@ shot out of them, so they were on pins and needles all the time. You had to react instantly, you didn't get a second chance to. The patrol boats were prime targets. The cotton mouths would sometimes drop in the boat, if you were quick enough, you just ease it over the side with the rake, or oar, then smack it as it swam across the water. I heard of a couple somewhat drunk guys, trying to smack one that had dropped in the boat, with a boat anchor, and sinking the boat. These were old wooden boats back then. I don't know if the it is true or not, but when I was a little kid, I remember hearing my Dad, talking with some people at the fish camp, where we rented the boat, and they were talking about it.
Wayne
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There was a group out of Woods Hole, MA, back in the 70s-80s, called the New Alchemy Institute. They did a lot of pioneering work in sustainable living practices, until the members moved on to bigger and better things. I believe they were the first to experiment with artificial marshes of cattail and water hyacinth for wastewater treatment. That combo removed all the heavy metals from the wastewater, leaving fresh water at the outflow. They were also among the first to mention farming tilapia, when there was still no american market for the fish. Nowadays, you can't get away from the stuff.
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Yeah, Jude, you're right about the Hyacinth removing heavy metals, they did a lot of research down here with it, and even were considering using it on the space station to recycle waste water, and then using the Hyacinth as fuel for producing electrical power, in addition to the solar power. Haven't heard anymore on it since. But is a big nuisance down here, and I am sure anywhere it grows.
Wayne
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I believe cat tail pollen can be used as a safron substitute.
Jim L.
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You sure?? I love Saffron Buns...but that stuff is so damned Expensive...I quit making them...Been eating them all my Life...My Gram was from Cornwall...and Saffron is big over there....people will save all Year for some Saffron...just to bake them.
Wayne...I tried to get Hyacinth to grow in My Pond for Shade...and it all died.... ;D...the Water is so hard and Saline down here...it hates it...
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Jim I, and El D. Yeah, the spike when it blooms, produces a yellow pollen that is edible, and high in protein, and also has antibacterial properties. Some people mix it with pan cake flour, and make pan cakes with it. I wan to try that sometime. I have cat tails in one of my ponds in Montana. We have plenty of them down here!!!! We used to make sleeping mats from the leaves when we were kids, and camping out. El D, sorry to hear you couldn't grow the hyacinths in your pond. The do have great blossoms, and like I said are great homes for shrimp, and minnows. Saffron Buns?
Wayne
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Yeah Wayne Saffron Buns...they are deliscious!
http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/cornish-saffron-buns