Winter Count

Despite our first workshop being only a month away, Johnny, Calvin and I took 10 days and drove to Maricopa, AZ; (south of Phoenix) to join our friends Michael and Kayla at Winter Count:  https://wintercountcamp.com/about   Winter Count is a huge gathering of people interested in learning and practicing primitive skills with others who have similar interests.  The entire week was set up like a professional conference, with several simultaneous workshops to choose from. There was more to do than we had time for, but this just makes us want to go back for more! 

Can you spot Johnny?!

Progress on the Pavilion: site of future homesteading, nature connection & primative skills workshops

All the recent unseasonably warm weekends here in NE Oklahoma have been a boon to our progress on the pavilion.  The three of us have put our handsaw and drill to lots of use.  Here are a few pictures.  For info on upcoming workshops, check out our EVENTS page!

Primative skills weekends

After attending Bois D'Arc Primitive Skills and Knap in this September with our good friends from Missouri, we were inspired to hang out with our good friends we met at the now defunct Ozark Tracking School (OTS). 
At Bois D'Arc (http://www.boisdarc.info/) we learned about primitive cooking, making gourd canteens, cat-tail shoes, pine-pitch glue, flint knapping arrow-heads, taking edible and medicinal plant walks with Rix, cooking insects we found with Bo, and much, much more! 
We came back and cooked one of our hogs while Snoopy cooked a farm stew in a pumpkin with hot rocks and cooked up pumpkin seeds and corn-meal persimmon and black walnut cakes on a hot stone.  Calvin slept in a hammock in the top of our cedar tree (and lived!), and the kids all practiced throwing atlatl darts at Michael's target.  We hiked in the canyon and made friction fires in the afternoon.  We all pledged to do this more often, as we all had a blast! 

Can you find 4 hammocks?

Persimmon, walnut corn cakes

Fire!

Sumac Tea

From late summer to early fall is an ideal time to make a cold infusion of sumac berries for a refreshing lemonade-flavored tea.   Simply gather ripe red berry clusters from any sumac tree (poison sumac has white berries and overall looks very different, so it's difficult to make a mistake and accidentally gather these).  To ensure you aren't wasting your time, touch your tongue to a berry cluster.  If nice and sour, they are ripe.  They are best (prime sourness) when glistening with a whitish sap.  Try to harvest before a heavy rain.

Next, simply place berry clusters in a jar and cover with cold water.  Wait for anywhere between 1 hour and a day.  Strain and sweeten to your liking with your favorite sweetener.  We used a simple sugar syrup.  Cool in the fridge, and enjoy after chopping firewood or any tough, hot outdoor chore, or whenever you'd reach for a refreshing glass of lemonade. 

 

Passionflower

Passionflower is a locally available native vine that we're harvested for years to make a sleep aide.  Now (early September) is a great time to harvest it, while you can grab some of its ripe fruits to make may-pop jelly as well.  We use all above-ground parts of the plant except for the stem.  After de-stemming, I usually dry some leaves to use in a medicinal tea, as warm teas are soothing all by themselves.  I also make a tincture.  Tinctures are made by chopping up the fresh (or dry) herb and mixing with alcohol.  I try to use 100 proof, or 50% alcohol.  The medicinal components are dissolved in the alcohol, which is a solvent for both water-soluble and fat-soluble compounds.  The alcohol also acts as a preservative, allowing one to store the tincture for years.  After allowing the herb to soak in the alcohol for 6-8 weeks in a dark place, strain, and store.  A dropper-full is all that is needed for a good night sleep without any woozy hangover in the morning.  We find it is an effective remedy for a worrying, wandering mind that won't shut off.

 

Do herbal medicines really work?  I doubted the effectiveness for years, until my son, then a baby, got a chest cold.  We bought some over-the-counter pediatric cough medicine, which had a really adverse effect on him.  The reaction was so dramatic and negative, I sought out alternative treatments, and found an herbal cough medicine at a health food store that worked much better and without the awful side effect.  We've been dappling in herbal medicines ever since.  Of course, there are many ailments which cannot be treated effectively with herbs.  But I wonder if there is some synergistic relationship between the effective constituents and other things in the plant, thereby making medicines from plants a more holistic treatment, much like the idea of eating whole foods rather an relying on vitamin supplements.   Food for thought...

Free Bacon!

Thanks to the generosity of a local grocery store who shares culled produce, we haven't bought a stitch of feed for our pigs.  We believe they have breed, and are due to have piglets in June.  From then it's about 6 months to bacon-time!  We're about to till up their current grazing area for our garden expansion, and just in time, as the pasture is really greening up.  We have edible greens in the pasture nearly all year - the big die-off seems to coincide with winter solstice and the green-up is timed with the spring equinox.  Neat!  We've been letting the pigs graze in their new area a little each day, so they are familiar and comfortable with the area.  And as long as the grocery store cooperates, treats will continue each morning. 

Trimming Bird Wings

We came home from a wonderful week-long vacation in Florida to find (don, don, don, DON)... duck poop all over our front porch.  Yuck!  Like other birds, ducks aren't able to excrete urine and (ahem) poop separately, but rather leave moist nasty droppings that are a combination of the two.  Ducks seem both especially prolific excretors, and also prone to constant explosive diarrhea as well.  All these factors combined to make our porch exponentially disgusting.  It turns out that in our absence, they took advantage of the opportunity to gorge on dog food that was left out in bulk for our two dogs.  Prior to our departure, they dutifully stayed confined in their 1/2 acre fenced in area.  We should have known better, but as they say, hindsight is 20:20.  When I think back, I recall questioning my sanity on a few occasions when I thought I saw a streak of white fly by the window.  It didn't fully occur to me that (1) our ducks might be escaping their area, and (2) this means bird droppings in the yard.  On a farm full of many animals, poop-free zones are cherished and necessary for sanity.  And so, the very next morning, donning kitchen shears and a clear intent, we set out to trim duck wings.  Calvin, our resident chicken (and duck) whisperer, coaxed the birds into a small enclosure, and Johnny and I grabbed hold of duck shoulders and proceeded to give them a trim.
In all seriousness, trimming bird wings is both simple and painless - much like trimming your fingernails.  One needs to simply extend a wing, holding the meat (or muscle) so as not to cut it, and cut feathers off bunty clear across each wing.  We've read that a farmer can get away with trimming just one wing, or disrupting the pattern, and leaving some feathers long, but since it is truly painless and quick, we figure, why gamble and complicate things.  After the bird is caught (admittedly the hard part), we simply cut all long wing feathers. 

Before cutting the wings

mid-trim

One wing done

Finished!

All better

Enjoying local food - a coconut washed up on the beach. 

A word of thanks to our neighbor and friend, Stan, who made our vacation possible.  It occurs to us that just a couple hundred years ago, when we were all subsistence farmers, taking a vacation - even just one in a lifetime - was a rarity experienced by only a fortunate few.  We are so lucky to have a friend on hand who is willing and capable to farm-sit for us.  THANK YOU, Stan!