Walk in the woods

Today i gathered up my foraging books and headed off to the park. It was a cooler day , than what we have had. I have found that i don't like the heat, which is funny, because I had a job for eighteen years where I was out in the seasons. Now that I work inside I like the cooler summer days and love the shade of trees.

The flowers in the photo are Chicory, the whole plant is edible and the roots can be a coffee substitute. I found them along a road that leads into the park, a road i have travelled so much , it was a surprise when i saw the Chicory growing. My eyes have been opened and I can't begin to tell you what to eat or not to eat. I am just learning, I will share what i learn along the way, that may mean i don't post that often. I have seen plenty of people trying to do something, find a group for peer support, but never get to doing what they set out to do.

On the cordage side of things, I have been learning more and have played a bit with the process. I hope to have more in the coming weeks on cordage...maybe a braided cord of some kind.

I almost forgot, the clover I brought home from my hike. Clover was the first wild plant i ever ate, whick i think i learned about from a camp counselor. That seems right now that I think about it, because i came home and ate clover in a nieghbor kids yard. That didn't go over well, because they told their parents...I don't remember getting in trouble for it though.

This brings me to a book i found on Amazon, about harvesting the wild. The write makes a statement about how we could sustain ourselves on wild plants, like we did before we thought people made food. Then i also saw a deck of cards with wild edibles on them. The three books i have and took with me today, don't all have the same info in them. So today i would look at something, look in one book, then check another for more info or better pictures/description.
I would love a concise guide, instead of multiple books.

wild strawberry patch in my yard

My Sagitarian Horoscope for today(and beyond)

Lay the groundwork for something really huge. On days like today, which are relatively easygoing for you, it's a good idea for you to start thinking about your larger goals and hopes -- and how you can go about achieving them. Rome may not have been built in a day, but you have quite a few days ahead of you to build almost anything your heart can imagine!

Cordage

I have put this post off, must be the gloomy, un-Spring like Ohio weather. I had a week off of work, that we did have a bit of a warmish spell. I was driving through the park and decided to stop, nothing was planned. I chose a favorite spot that is like a field up on a hill. I just wanted to look around at the plants, I didn't have any books to tell me what was what and hadn't planned on tackling the making of cordage.

I ended up sitting in the grass, with the sun shining down on me, with pices of reed grass (not sure if that's the correct name, but it's the wider grass). At first, I was going to roll the pieces then twist them around each other. What i found, was that by rolling these strands it broke them lengthwise, which gave me several strands from each piece of grass. I set aside one of the pieces and worked with just one of them, tearing them along the seam that was made by rolling. I tried to remember exactly how the books said to twist it. You are supposed to twist the strand almost like a string likes. Once that is done, you alternately twist one piece around the other. SO there I sat, lost in this impromtu cordage experiment. I ended up tying knots in both ends of the piece i ended up with. One knot was tied at the beginning to help hold the strands together(there were actually three strands). to jump back a bit, i twisted two strands, once that was done I twisted that piece with the third strand then tied the final knot.

Once we get a bit better weather I would like to make more with different kind of plants or inner bark, read up on how to splice a new piece in to continue for a long piece of cord. If I can get that far, i have looked at my knot books and think it would be nice to braid the cord and use a loop and button knot to make a bracelet. i won't stop there, cordage can be used for lashing in the future.

On a nother note, i wish i had a ran collection system in place already with the amount of rain we are getting. Everything in time, I keep telling myself i will get there and to be patient.

I Figured out how to cut my own hair with clippers, while I was off of work too. It was scary, but very empowering and helped me thumb my nose at vanity.

Great Finds!

On cold blustery Spring days in Ohio, when i find myself out, it is usually in a bookstore. Today was no different, oh and what treasures I did find. I found two books on subjects I'm very interested, and could be applied to self-sufficiency. The first is homebrew Windpower, one i had seen in the ad of my magazines, such a great find. The other was a book on plank boat making, like the old vessels were made.

I think its obvious why the homebrew wind book is such a great find. The satisfaction of making something that will pay you back, its the whole argument some of us have for what we do or want to do.

The boat book, might be a bit odd, unless you are into boats, which I'm not. I can't say I'm much of a water person, I don't fear it. I respect water for everything it provides for us and for the power it wields agaisnt us--as much as the other elements. I guess it was the idea of bending wood to create these boats, that cuaght me by the toe some time ago. I can't remember where I saw it, but i had heard of some guy who built a small ark on his building in New York...not sure on where. Imagine building a old boat with your hands, set in a field of green. Life in a boat that never saw water...it just sets my mind racing, like the whimsy of a treehouse for adults.

There's another idea, of making a dome of shaped planks over a framework based on primitive huts. It would be like a wooden beehive for humans, that might connect to an earthbag dome. Then rope bridges up through the trees to a small treehouse and then to your very own ark.

Not I use ark, because we know what size of boat that might be, but i'm not referring to it in the biblical sense. The boy in me, wears his pagan heart on his sleeve with one foot still in the broomcloset for only a few to see.

Bought my fishing license online today...don't tell the boss, I did it on work time. I wanted to make sure I could print it out, my older inkjet can be a bit flakey when printing out certian things. It was slow and everyone was almost a sleep anyhow.

Our lunch room has a TV that most people turn on and watch for lunch. i was the first one in, the TV was off and I loved the silence. One coworker comes in,"is the TV broken again?" I replied,"No, just didn't turn it on" His next question, I don't quite remember. The TV stays off and he sits down, i continued eating. Another coworker comes in,"Is the TV broken again?" I replied,"No, just didn't turn it on." They were both shocked that I would want to sit there without the TV on, that no one could eat without the TV blaring back at them. TV doesn't make food taste or different, not that I know of.

Tonight, I water the veggie plants and have the computer on, no lights and no TV...it is heaven. Just knowing I have a license to fish is good enough for me. with good weather coming up too. I can get what I need done at the house, then run off to the woods. I will see if I can find a good fishing spot. I'll have to read over my cordage instructions and grab my edible wild plant book. I might even get a few good pictures, while I'm out learning and playing.

It's been a little while since I posted last. I do have a pictures of my seedlings, but haven't uploaded it yet. My blueberry plant is growing too, which is nice...not that it will produce fruit any time soon.

I found David Suelo's blog and have been reading his entries. That's quite a way of life he has chosen, living moneyless. I plan on following his blog.

Also, in the last week, I discovered Freeganism. I watched some Youtube videos on dumpster divers, it sickens me to think we throw so much edible food away.

I got a new electric bill and am happy to report it has gone down, yeah for me. I continue to use the water I wash with, to flush my toilet. I stopped using the water from the clothes washer, just until I have something to filter the lunt from the expelled water. I don't need lint build-up in my toilet tank.
I still have alot to learn. The question that I keep bouncing around in my head is,"How much can I not spend?" Dumpster diving might disgust people, but if they didn't know that it was there, they might eat it and think it delicious.

Just one more word on the produce we discard in dumpsters. It could be a very good source for quality seeds to plant, instead of seeds that have sat on a shelf for who knows how long and won't sprout.