by dejure » 30 Nov 2008 16:24
An excellent thread too often ignored on other “survival sites.” If times go the way they look they might, I must wonder, how many will starve while living amidst abundance?
I have been trying to convince friends of the value of becoming familiar with foraging for some time, if only for the survival value. In the course of my attempts, I push the purchase of books covering the topic. We have a couple and they do a great job of identifying “good” and “bad” plants through both descriptions and quality photos. As well, they give both the nutritional values and the medicinal uses of various plants. A very good investment, which should be considered a tool.
Here in the Northwet (not a typo), we have a lot of green. The closer to the coastline, the more abundant it becomes. All that is for naught in times of hard if we cannot identify what will keep us alive, or kill us.
On foraging in your own back yard, my ex’s latest ex, Frank, cut a deal with me and my neighbor whereby he established a garden in the neighbors empty lot. I provided the water and the wood for peas and such. While the garden was maturing, we would drive Frank nuts when we would pass up the not-yet-ripe garden produce and wander off with the lambs quarter, young dandelion leaves and so forth.
Too, since wild raspberries are in great abundance here, we had to remove many to allow for the garden. We kept some. Not just for the berries, but also for the tea the leaves make. Many of those we dehydrated. At any rate, we were never wholly successful convincing him all these things had both taste and nutritional value.
We were lead to these moments by history. Approximately ten years ago I was helping a friend operate his Eastern Washington farm (200 acres under irrigation circles). While there I made the mistake of trying to clean up around the pump house. He caught me in the act of murdering a lambs quarter plant. That resulted in a [mental] cardiac arrest. Fortunately, he recuperated fully, in seconds, and went on to educate me on the value of “these are not weeds” if outside the fields.
Moving on to only six or eight years ago, this crazy lady I live with, and whom I call my wife, started eating parts of the forest adjacent to our home (I confess I may have let slipped the lambs quarter thing). Her “problem” progressed and she even began bringing it (the forest) home and tried to feed it to us. At the time, we lived a mile from the ocean, so this habit had the potential for growing at an alarming rate. Realizing it is dangerous to impede the progress of crazy people, I, wisely, pretended this eating of the forest a piece at a time was a good idea. I even went so far as to focus my keen skills of sawdust making to promote her endeavor. This resulted in a walking stick, which she dubbed her “foraging stick.” The foraging stick, shown below, has hooks at the end to allow her to coax branches to her. As well, it has hooks higher up, on which she hangs bags and things in the course of her safaris.
An excellent thread too often ignored on other “survival sites.” If times go the way they look they might, I must wonder, how many will starve while living amidst abundance?
I have been trying to convince friends of the value of becoming familiar with foraging for some time, if only for the survival value. In the course of my attempts, I push the purchase of books covering the topic. We have a couple and they do a great job of identifying “good” and “bad” plants through both descriptions and quality photos. As well, they give both the nutritional values and the medicinal uses of various plants. A very good investment, which should be considered a tool.
Here in the Northwet (not a typo), we have a lot of green. The closer to the coastline, the more abundant it becomes. All that is for naught in times of hard if we cannot identify what will keep us alive, or kill us.
On foraging in your own back yard, my ex’s latest ex, Frank, cut a deal with me and my neighbor whereby he established a garden in the neighbors empty lot. I provided the water and the wood for peas and such. While the garden was maturing, we would drive Frank nuts when we would pass up the not-yet-ripe garden produce and wander off with the lambs quarter, young dandelion leaves and so forth.
Too, since wild raspberries are in great abundance here, we had to remove many to allow for the garden. We kept some. Not just for the berries, but also for the tea the leaves make. Many of those we dehydrated. At any rate, we were never wholly successful convincing him all these things had both taste and nutritional value.
We were lead to these moments by history. Approximately ten years ago I was helping a friend operate his Eastern Washington farm (200 acres under irrigation circles). While there I made the mistake of trying to clean up around the pump house. He caught me in the act of murdering a lambs quarter plant. That resulted in a [mental] cardiac arrest. Fortunately, he recuperated fully, in seconds, and went on to educate me on the value of “these are not weeds” if outside the fields.
Moving on to only six or eight years ago, this crazy lady I live with, and whom I call my wife, started eating parts of the forest adjacent to our home (I confess I may have let slipped the lambs quarter thing). Her “problem” progressed and she even began bringing it (the forest) home and tried to feed it to us. At the time, we lived a mile from the ocean, so this habit had the potential for growing at an alarming rate. Realizing it is dangerous to impede the progress of crazy people, I, wisely, pretended this eating of the forest a piece at a time was a good idea. I even went so far as to focus my keen skills of sawdust making to promote her endeavor. This resulted in a walking stick, which she dubbed her “foraging stick.” The foraging stick, shown below, has hooks at the end to allow her to coax branches to her. As well, it has hooks higher up, on which she hangs bags and things in the course of her safaris.
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3076/2747549310_a466422798.jpg[/img]
