Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Oh geeze! For the last year I've been on a trail-mix kick - I just can't seem to get enough. Unfortunately it's the commercial stuff - when I get a chance I have to learn how to make my own - it'll probably be cheaper and healthier.
...and here I thought it was a meat and greet!
Greetings SifuPhil,
My favorite item is tapped out and dried service berries. I just need a good source of nuts but they are harder to come by. What I like about them is they still have a nice chewy seed with an almond extract flavor so it still hints of nuts. The park district plants them as ornamental. I get a kick out of people mentioning that it may be poison. That season is long past. The banana prune flavored wild raisins are here which is another "ornamental". Spring for a Nesco dehydrator and you can make a lot of good trail mix when the sun doesn't shine. I made a lot of wild apple and cultivated peach leather this year.
My favorite item is tapped out and dried service berries. I just need a good source of nuts but they are harder to come by. What I like about them is they still have a nice chewy seed with an almond extract flavor so it still hints of nuts. The park district plants them as ornamental. I get a kick out of people mentioning that it may be poison. That season is long past. The banana prune flavored wild raisins are here which is another "ornamental". Spring for a Nesco dehydrator and you can make a lot of good trail mix when the sun doesn't shine. I made a lot of wild apple and cultivated peach leather this year.
Ni hao, Gwynedd:
I've seen several of your posts where you mention the service berries. Problem is, I'm at heart a city boy - my few sojourns into country living have all ended disasterously. If it comes down to identifying a rat or roach, I'm good; otherwise, I wouldn't know a service berry from a dingle berry.
I'm also afraid I'd have no idea where to look around my location here for wild goodies - I'd probably come home with an armful of poison sumac and sit down for a big meal.
I've seen several of your posts where you mention the service berries. Problem is, I'm at heart a city boy - my few sojourns into country living have all ended disasterously. If it comes down to identifying a rat or roach, I'm good; otherwise, I wouldn't know a service berry from a dingle berry.
I'm also afraid I'd have no idea where to look around my location here for wild goodies - I'd probably come home with an armful of poison sumac and sit down for a big meal.
Uga oologa SifuPhil,
I probably just asked to have comfort with your wife in some upper palaeolithic hunter gatherer dialect...
Actually I gather these in the burbs. The park district plants them as natives and indeed they once were. I see them planting a lot of high bush cranberries and service berries. On its own, in the disturbed areas, shrub wise it tends to go honeysuckle and buckthorn aka hated invasives. In any kind of park or preserve you may have something. At least I can use the garlic mustard invasive.
The thing I worry about is the state of the general area. I can find purslane, milkweed, chicory, burdock, thistle, pineapple weed, staghorn sumac, wild grapes etc. in some pretty odd areas but near busy roads its the pollution that concerns me. Of course my own yard has lots of edible weeds like chickweed, dandelion, sonkus, lambs quarters and wood sorrel beside what I plant. You do need to watch what your doing though. Hemlock's will do you in.
Actually, it is wild carrot and parsnip season now where more or less you need to separate them from fools parsley and hemlock. Staying off the grid as I am able and giving big agra the bird just kind of suits me.
I probably just asked to have comfort with your wife in some upper palaeolithic hunter gatherer dialect...
No offense taken. She's a bit of a Neanderthal anyway.
Quote:
You do need to watch what your doing though. Hemlock's will do you in.
Yeah, some dude named Sockin' These or something like that told me about that.
Quote:
Actually, it is wild carrot and parsnip season now where more or less you need to separate them from fools parsley and hemlock. Staying off the grid as I am able and giving big agra the bird just kind of suits me.
Do you need a license for those wild carrots, as opposed to the domesticated ones?
Seriously, though - I bow to your wisdom in being off the grid. It was a dream of mine once; in fact, I had designed and installed a primitive solar-heating system, along with an old China Diesel generator for some power, on an out-of-the-way 5 acres surrounded by horse and chicken farms. (For anyone who's never been near one, let me assure you - chicken farm smell is FAR worse than that of pig farms)
But nature (and the fact of having a wife and 4-year-old son) soon proved the better of me. It was my Tao to remain a city-boy, or at most a 5-minutes-from-town boy.
I probably just asked to have comfort with your wife in some upper palaeolithic hunter gatherer dialect...
Actually I gather these in the burbs. The park district plants them as natives and indeed they once were. I see them planting a lot of high bush cranberries and service berries. On its own, in the disturbed areas, shrub wise it tends to go honeysuckle and buckthorn aka hated invasives. In any kind of park or preserve you may have something. At least I can use the garlic mustard invasive.
The thing I worry about is the state of the general area. I can find purslane, milkweed, chicory, burdock, thistle, pineapple weed, staghorn sumac, wild grapes etc. in some pretty odd areas but near busy roads its the pollution that concerns me. Of course my own yard has lots of edible weeds like chickweed, dandelion, sonkus, lambs quarters and wood sorrel beside what I plant. You do need to watch what your doing though. Hemlock's will do you in.
Actually, it is wild carrot and parsnip season now where more or less you need to separate them from fools parsley and hemlock. Staying off the grid as I am able and giving big agra the bird just kind of suits me.
About 3 weeks ago we had a company wide email telling us about one of our co-workers having "some" medical problems. It sounded really, really bad the first one. Then we had a follow up email saying things were not that bad. I found out today, that he died a couple of days ago. I wasn't that close to him but I did know him for about 10 yrs, just work related, not too serious.
This has kicked my in the nuts. I'm thinking about it a lot. More so that I should.
I'm a little pissed that the company played it down so much, but then Mrs. Chow said that his family might have wanted it that way, as his funeral was private.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
