Folks:

I am not talking about the people who post here. :<)

I am talking about the things that come from trees. The crop this year is large. I have a lot of hickory [shag and shell], but I seldom get those. They are the best but the fuzzy tailed rats eat them before they mature. At the other end are black walnuts. I get bushels, but they are hard to harvest and the ft-rats also ignore them. Now the in between. I have chestnuts; american, chinese, manchurian and a lot of crosses. These are full. I can fight the ft-rats and get my share. I have butternut and butternut x walnut. I will get those. I have european walnut; mine also. How about heartnut; full this year. As an aside, paw paw and simmon are full.

I use these things. How about you? Got any better uses for nuts.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Answers

The best use for nuts it to eat them. :)

I prefer to eat them roasted as-is, pretty much any nut.

Never was real big on walnuts, though.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

A prize possession of mine is a walnut cracker that was a gift from someone many years ago. It is a carved naked woman whose legs swivel so that you crack your nuts betwixt her thighs.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Poole:

You are missing out on one of the great late fall treats. Comes after the first good frost.

Simmon bread with black walnuts. That is about as many as I choose to crack in one year. I must have 50 to a hundred trees. Then there is lemon bread with butternuts [disease has just about disappeared these, but I have some that are doing well]. I have lots of chestnut trees. The ft-rats and I fight over these. If it wasn't for the burrs, I would lose.

Just wondered if anyone else used this resource that we have or not anymore.

By-the-by [I have mentioned this before], I have tried using white oak acorns [using an old Osage recipe; preparing acorn flour and mixing it with winter squash to make something resembling bread]. Now that was the worst tasting stuff that I have ever had. :)

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Aren't there farmer's almanac-type predictions made based on how large the nut crop is and/or how thick the shells are?

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Buddy:

Aren't there farmer's almanac-type predictions made based on how large the nut crop is and/or how thick the shells are?

Yeah, that is true. It is a list that is longer than the "you can't do this list" that the priest gives you in grade school. :)

Based on my experience, these are mostly old wives tales [althought I know a number of old wives and none of them have tails :)]. One thing that the increased mast will do is increase the number of ft-rats. When I looked out on my deck this morning, there were 12 gray ones. They are all from the same line [they are chimeras since they have white ears]. By next year, I expect a seething mass of gray fur on the porch.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Talking to myself here. This brings up the point of the original question. How far are we removed from the rest of our world.

I just took the pup for a short walk. A "piss stop" we call it. There is an enormous thunderstorm developing overhead. You know the kind: the lightening flashes and then sizzles before the thunder sounds. It roared at the pup and he roared back. It stopped and he was happy. Pup to God. Thunder-barker, we call him.

The birch trees had turned their leaves upside down. You know like they do when they need water. They now have righted them like they know it is coming. Makes you wonder if trees aren't greedy like people. We are 15 in above normal at the moment.

Do you notice these things?

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Final entry for awhile and still talking to myself.

Now what am I getting at? I have dealt with a number of the leaders in the environmental movement. What is my opinion? Usually, but not always, they are city dwellers who wouldn't know the difference between Amanitus and a puff ball. Indeed the last one I talked to had never heard of either. There seems to be an inverse relationship between public exposure and knowledge. This is not always true; but it is enough of the time to mention it.

Now, my grandfather knew the forests and what they offered and I learned from him. It is a class that has continued with me. How about you? What is your relationship to the natural world?

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Z,

That's why I often state that I'm a conservationist, not an environmentalist. While we'd both be against the destruction of nature (and natural habitats in general), there are some important differences.

Nature is here for our benefit, not our worship. (Nuts included.[g])

For example, most of the sport fishermen that I know are members of one conservationist group or another. (My father's choice back in NC is the Atlantic Coast Conservation League.)

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Z, the white acorns need to be soaked in more than one water and pounded into a paste. The paste is bound up in a cloth and rinsed quite a bit in water. The oils in the acorns make them bitter. It's a lot of trouble.

We teach the kids all of our trees and the rocks and what the names of the geological layers are. We teach them where the water comes from and what the wildlife eats and the names of the birds.

Sometimes I wonder why we bother. I don't know how much longer we can hold out here. The area is impoverished in good times. I wonder what good it will do the kids to know something if we're going to take it away. The natural world can feed us only if we hold more land than we have. Farming can feed us if we have money for seed and equipment and time and energy to do it. And then what? I don't want the kids limited to this. They won't be limited to this.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Z--

I'm living on 200 acres in the middle of the world's largest hardwood forest. The longer I live here [11 years now] the more I believe human senses are soothed by trees and plants and grasses.

Recently we have gotten interested in native grasses and flowers as animal feed. Conventional widom has it that mono-culture crops [alfalfa, oats, etc] are what animals need. What we have found is that native plants [dandelions, queen ann's lace, etc.] are more nutritous and much lower impact.

Stephen--

Your words 'Nature is here for our benefit...' are very interesting. I've been sitting here listening to the birds' and the lambs' early morning talking trying to figure out why I disagree so strongly with you. Maybe I don't feel so arrogant in view [literally] of trees that will be alive long after I am gone. Are they really here for MY benefit?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Helen:

Yep, I went through the whole regime. Even more complicated that what you described.

My guess is that the Osage had either:

1. No sense of taste, or

2. Identified specific white oaks which had better tasting nuts.

Of course they didn't live in my area. There were actually no Indians here when it was settled by the Europeans. The people normally here had been exterminated by the Fox [or so their legend says]. We only know them, now, by the name that the Fox called them. Their name in their language is only remembered in the name of one river.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Z, What kind of work do you do?

I want to find a place in the country, lower mountains, forest with a big stream or better yet a river. I will go into the city during the week to work if I have to. Just keep a room with a toaster oven and microwave and computer, maybe a little TV for educational purposes. Can't stand basic TV, but there are a lot of educational broadcasts to listen to while reading or computing.

I need some suggestions on working, thinking about being a consultant, setting up preventitive and periodic maintenance programs for mainframes and perifials, or inmanufacturing robotic industries. I need to immerse myself into a difficult technological challange. I cannot continue living in the city, I NEED to watch nature function.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Howdy Cherri:

I think that I have given this information before.

My PhD is in Chemistry. Most of my classes were in Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics. Early on, I worked in natural products chemistry and biophysics. Spent a lot of time on the physics of phase transitions in membranes. Before it became a field, I started doing molecular genetics. I have been doing that for sometime.

I work at one of the 30 [as I remember] class I research universities in the country. I think that it is the only one that isn't in a major urban area. That was my choice. I live 20 miles away and it takes 25 min to get to work. I have 25 to 30 a [they aren't so specific on boundries here] with ponds and forests.

What do I do? I teach some; run a lab with technicans and students; in charge of regulation of rDNA research and biological safety for the university and 4 research hospitials; in charge of a graduate program with ~100 PhD students. I was a co-founder for a couple of Biotech companies [in Mass.].

I work with industry and government agencies in other countries. It forces me travel more than I would like. I have cut back on that. While I am in my 50's, my pension is fully funded. I may quit in the not too distant future and go back to doing photography [I did it for money many years ago].

The area, where I live, has the same economic problems as the rest of the country; just on a different scale. Our country unemployment rate just went above 1% for the first time since 1993. Unfortunately, the area is growing. About half of the people I know have moved here from California in the last 5 years. We hope that will stop; but I doubt it.

Most of my family lives in Western Washington. I have projects there and visit quite frequently. I remember Seattle from a long time ago. Beautiful area. I'm not sure that I could live there now, but will have to make that decision in the next few years. That is just a personal opinion. Some folks like the clutter.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2001

Z,

My wife is at a church meeting this evening; I'm lonely.

This thread has also made me hungry. :)

I'm headed for some good ol' Southern-style barbeque. :)

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2001