Black Walnuts

Been spending most my life

livin' in a prepper paradise ...

So - today's cheap preps was day 1 of going out to collect black walnuts. Lesson already learned: smaller bucket or fill it less full. I DID remember to grab a bucket with a handle, but it was a 5 gallon bucket. And I filled it. And it was heavy. And I was on foot.

Of course - most of these have their green/black covering on over the shell of the nut. So this isn't going to produce that much actual usable black walnut meat. OTOH, it's free and they have SUCH rich flavor - and buying them, even in bulk, would be about $15 a pound plus shipping.

These are NOT your tame English walnuts. I'll have to drive the car over them to de-hull them, then dry them, then use a vise to crack them so I can get to the meat.

FWIW - this is sort of why Black Walnuts can be used to break from the past.  They also are useful for dyes and the roots are great for protection/warding.

Over the next week or two I plan to collect a lot more. But for today - it's on to water rotation (we are not on city water. If power goes out our well pump stops. When you live like this - you store water because storms can take out power.)

I might just take some Motrin (okay, the generic version) and have a cup of tea first.

Poke Berries and Mullein.

Blessings Darlings!

I've been blessed with the poke berries and the mullein that I was looking for.  Poke berries are drying for future use even as I type, I'll dry the mullein after they are done and I've washed everything clean of the toxins.

I'm still putting out to the Universe that I'm looking for a few good hawthorn trees, one or more for the haws and one (best by a well or stream or river) as a clootie tree.

Oh, I got a bonus today - wild hickory nuts, when I thought I was going to be getting more black walnuts!  I'm not sure these will be my favorites, tho.  While it is FAR easier to get the outer husk off the hickory nuts, the meat itself come in smaller/narrower twists and turns in the shell, which makes the meat harder to get out once you've freed and cracked the nut.

Frondly, Fern

A Bad Influence

Blessings Darlings!

H. Byron Ballard, a delicate flower of Appalachian womanhood and the author of "Staubs and Ditchwater", is A Very Bad Influence.  She sent me a copy of her book, which I am enjoying immensely and will write a review of when I am done reading it.  But I'm reading it slowly, because I am savoring every word of it.

What, you ask, makes a woman I just raved about a Very Bad Influence?  It's because she makes me even more shameless about what I do that draws strange looks.  Let's look at today.....

I needed the car, and the Spawn needed to work AND to get to the county health department before it closed at 4:30 to renew his food handler's certification.  Of course, instead of getting off work early as he had been promised, there was a rush at the restaurant and two of the three managers were in conference and the third was interviewing a potential new hire.  So I was in the car, reading and waiting.  Nothing new about that.  And, no, it wasn't that I did a little something something to free my son to get to where he had to get to on time.

No, I tried to head out to the wilderness across the street from the restaurant to see what wild herbs/weeds I could gather.  Discovering that I hadn't paid the cell phone, so the spawn could not call me back once he got off, I gave up that idea and paid the phone and then read some more.  Okay, an attempt at some root work prep that failed.

Spawn got off work, with a full 22 minutes to get his recertification done.  Got to the health dept. with plenty of time.  I grab the plastic bags, and see what there is to collect around THERE.  Pine cones, from some spruce - Great!  Oh, LOOK - HUGE gobs of sap have fallen off the trees!  Gather that .... a few nice feathers, one from a duck most of the rest probably from pigeons, sure.  Oh, my - BLACK WALNUTS!  gather gather gather gather ....

You have no idea just how thrilled I am at the black walnuts and the pine sap.  And, knowing me, I'd have collected all that even if I was NOT reading her book.  But reading her book certainly helped me feel absolutely NO shame in doing it.

Wish I had found some fallen black walnut branches....

Frondly, Fern