Today’s foraging run will probably be the only one for this week, unless Ashley surprises me and decides to head out to an area we can walk to, on Canada Day, July 1st. We were both tired today, so only a couple photos, with one showing several of the plants we foraged for this morning.
We were out there primarily to get wild tarragon, but we also grabbed some pasture sagewort, St. John’s Wort, and grabbed more lupine bean pods as well. Ashley had found that a bug likes to insert it’s eggs into lupine bean pods back on our very first bean run, so we checked many of them before bringing them home, and found that most of the misshapen pods had the larvae present. Many lupines have gone to seed, and many others are in process. When the pod dries, it twists to crack open, firing the seeds out of the pod.
Here at home, I’ve had a tray of pods starting to dry for the past several days, and a couple nights ago, I thought I heard shattering glass somewhere. The next day, I was near the drying tray when a pod snapped and it’s seeds hit the side of the tray. Hopefully we don’t get seeds everywhere, but we’ll see how it goes. The wild bean is quite a bit smaller than anticipated, so I might not be squeezing it out of it’s skin like they do with the larger varieties once it’s ready. I might just flour the whole thing. But first is the drying time. They need to be fully dried out before the soaks, boils and more soaks happen.
I’ve been thinking about various preparatory phases in the foraging lifestyle, and in the self-sustainability lifestyle as well, realizing that if you want a given food or crafting material ready by a certain time on the calendar, you have to begin the process of preparing it at an earlier point in the calendar. Getting lupine beans ready for consumption takes up to a week or more, for example. First Nations peoples who lived near acorn trees and streams, would shell the acorns into bags or baskets, then lower them into the steam to leave them there for up to a week to leech out the tannins before crushing and drying them into a flour and thickener. These days, the time for acorn prep is shortened from up to a week, to a day or two by boiling the acorns in several changes of water on the stove, particularly if you only have black oak nearby. As I type this, more lupine beans just went flying somewhere near my stove! Acorn flour is useful, but you have to ask yourself it it’s worth the sore thumbs from prying open all those shells to get at the nuts inside. Size for size however, it’s probably more useful when it comes to bulk, than lupine beans, but beans have the ability to act as a binder, which is why I’m preparing them right now instead.
Farmers who grow cherry trees understand that for their trees to fruit, they need to overwinter below -5C for several weeks. In fact, probably more than any other occupation out there, farmers understand seasonal rhythms better than anyone. A saying even grew out of agriculture, “make hay while the sun shines”. Housewives who grew up preparing the household’s winter food stores know about yearly growing rhythms too, and just how much needs to grow the previous year to get it all canned and into the cellar or pantry before the harvest goes bad, and to provide for their households until the next harvest season begins.
I’m used to this on the discussion of having enough chokecherry juice concentrate in the freezer. We have learned that on average, we need roughly 20 jars of frozen concentrate by the time the first frosts arrive. Ashtree Wildcrafting is learning this, as we discover what is necessary to make tea sales at craft fairs from one harvest season to the next and have that in storage over the non-harvest months.
Farmers and large gardeners will sometimes refer to this as “delayed gratification”. Knowing that when they start planting in March, they will not see a harvest till summer or not even till fall. Understanding these rhythms as we continue to slowly but surely reduce our reliance on “the system”, is important. Modern ideas of “just run to the store”, and “why don’t you just go buy it instead?!” don’t exist when you return to the ways of your ancestors. The anticipation of harvest time and knowing how much to put by in between times became a necessity for ensuring my daughter’s horse is fed throughout the year. Hay prices and accessibility began to suffer heavily in recent years, prompting us to do the math and figure out how much would be necessary to stock the hay shed when the first hay harvest comes off the field. It’s labour-intensive to say the least, loading and unloading the truck that many times over such a short span of time, but it sure beats the scramble several times a year wondering where the next hay load will come from!
We are now figuring out such a rhythm for our own household. I was looking at our recent peppergrass and pennycress harvests thinking, “how much of this would I go through if I used it at the table instead of black pepper?!” I don’t know as of yet, but I intend to find out. I just need to get the pepper grinder I put some peppergrass into out on the table and start using it. We have lots of black pepper, both ground and in peppercorn, but it has so many awesome medicinal uses that leaving it to the household medicine cabinet means not having to buy it for good while.
Splitting my flatbread recipe with half curly dock seed will allow me to discover how much curly dock seed to harvest each year to get from one season to the next, although with this plant, the seeds are harvestable in the dead of winter too, so perhaps the rhythm here will be less stringent than it is for hay or chokecherry juice concentrate.
Even the idea of making pine needle baskets brings up a rhythm, that of different seasons bringing different tasks to the self-sufficient household. In the winter and early spring, waiting for things to grow is time for mending, sewing, replacing what broke, whether it’s clothing, footwear, bags and baskets, shelter, etc. You can’t be making baskets when you’re supposed to be filling them. Shelter needs shoring up or replacing to keep you dry and warm (or cool depending on time of year). The time it takes to make a laundry-sized basket out of bailing twine showed me that it isn’t something you can throw together in a weekend. The pine needle wide-brimmed hat went together in several days. But these tasks take time and that time isn’t for when you are harvesting and preparing that harvest for winter food.
I’ve seen blog articles and comments from people who figure if they just had more space, they might tackle a certain aspect of self-sufficiency. Except for the animal husbandry issue, most tasks these voices were talking about are things we’ve managed to do from a tiny home situation on a 20×40 ft lot. We can’t keep animals such as goats or chickens here, no room. But that’s what community is for. Maybe someone else we haven’t met yet in our local area is keeping goats or chickens and can trade for things we do, such as the medicines we crush and store, or the oils we infuse, or the teas we make and sell.
I recently ran across a parallel economy concept based on exchange that apparently began in 2008, and by 2011, had 3 servers, one in South Africa, one in Asia and one in Australia. When I found their Questions and Answers page (FAQ page in other words), I discovered that they welcome governments as members if they abide by the exchange concept rather than the money concept. I closed the site’s tab when I read that. The organizers’ reasoning for including governments as users, was to build enough rapport that they would waive the taxes they might otherwise charge on people’s exchanges. But knowing where governments are going, being a member of such a service puts every single person in government crosshairs when they decide to clamp down on anyone who doesn’t do things their way in the not-too-distant future (some in government circles are calling for this by 2035).
Foraging and natural health using wholefood as medicine that might be growing outside your front door is just one aspect of daily life away from “the system”.
What skill, talent, or craft do you do, that currently seems more like a novelty, hobby, past-time, or artistic outlet, that you could instead do to keep your household from shopping for certain things at the store? Do you make floor mats, placemats, or bedtime slippers? Do you make hats, aprons, oven mitts, or garden kneepads? Maybe you craft keychain holders, paper towel spindles, and handles to fix shop tools. I see some people selling stuff like this online at Etsy, Gab Marketplace, etc. But what if you used your skills to replace what breaks in your own home? Figure out the rhythm to keep those things useful, in working order, and at the ready when you need them. Crafters often get started on inventory for Christmas craft fairs, in the late spring/early summer. The fashion industry’s rhythm has them prepping Christmas catalogues in the spring for presentation by Fall. The back to school rythm has stores putting paper, pens, pencils and glue out on shelves in the summer so parents can buy them in time for September class start dates.
What do you frequently wear, use, eat, or drink, that you can replace with your own efforts, and how long does it take to make them available? When do you need them? Mark that date on the calendar, then back up the length of time it takes the creation process, and that’s your rhythm cycle for that item. But maybe when that cycle needs to begin, you are knee deep in another creation cycle, so back up the time frame again until you find a time frame on the calendar that works to have things created before you need them.
God gave us summer, winter, spring and fall. Between birth and death we have our toddler years, school years, career years, and retirement years. We go through phases or seasons of life when we are single, or in a relationship, or kids enter the picture, or parents age, or a major someone in our daily life dies. Jobs change and some of them relate to the four weather seasons. What can you do in the phase of life you are in right now? What will you need in the next phase that you can prepare for now? The most wellknown issue in this category is retirement income, and financial planners say to begin that preparation as a young adult. Not everyone can, but everyone should try in whatever way God has gifted them to prepare.
July 1st, we celebrate Canada Day. We look back over all that God has given us in this great land, the people we’ve met, the life we’ve led, and the governments we’ve had and have. Fortunately, Canada is bigger than it’s leaders, and the wilderness is not their servant in the slightest. Even the word “Canada”, in the first nations languages of eastern Canada, simply meant “village”. Who all is in your village that you can connect with and support with the skills God gave you? If you don’t think you have any skills or talents, reach out to me! Together we will uncover what God gave you, and then figure out ways you can put it to use for your own home and that of others. I’ve helped various people over the years discover skills and talents they didn’t know they had, just with questions no one ever asked them before, and thought patterns they never considered before. There is a red hat running around more and more these days: Make Canada Great Again! If you live in Canada too, the way to do this is in your little corner among those you call neighbours, coworkers, etc. While our prime minister considers cancelling Canada’s birthday, I’m going to rebel and celebrate anyway! I am not ashamed of my village or those who are in it! I’ve just hung a sizeable flag out front on our little fence! Who knows if the herbs we’ve brought home might be used to help someone in my village one day!
