Foraging 2011

 

      2011 was a good year for us foraging wise. Our year started out with maple syrup season. We cooked syrup from March 15th  till April 15th. We ended up with 9 gallons of syrup so have plenty for ourselves plus some to trade. We have made sugar some years but didn't this year. In mid  May we gathered ostrich fern fiddle heads and Ann canned 56 pints of them. We use them as you would use asparagus. We also dug wild ginger the same day. We enjoy the taste of wild ginger in our Labrador tea. It adds that extra zing. By the end of May we were eating nettle greens which I like better than spinach. It is very good steamed with a little bacon grease and some rice vinegar.
  June  was productive also with our first mushroom find of the year when we got 5 pounds of oyster mushrooms on the 22nd. Wild strawberries were abundant this year but they take so long to pick that we quit after we had a pint and a half. Ramps are easy to find early in the year before a lot of under growth gets going and we picked a couple of quarts on the 20th.
   The foraging year kicked into high gear in July , I had 14 entries in my foraging journal for the month. More ramps and nettle greens start off the list followed by lambs quarter greens, cattail pollen, elder flowers, june berries, wild blueberries, and wild raspberries. I counted up 57 pounds of wild berries in July and the first week of August. We picked some hazelnuts the last weekend of July but sad to say that was jumping the gun and they were not mature yet.
   August started out with 11 quarts of black cherries found when we were scouting wild rice. There was very nice rice on one of the flowages we checked this year although it was tipped in every direction by strong winds early in the season. It made harvesting the rice a little tricky but we are happy with our harvest of170 pounds of dry rice. We still have to thresh much of that but that is another post.
   September turned out to be our best month for mushrooms. We found more oysters, hen of the woods, pig snouts, hedge hog and honey fungus.  All together we found about 12 pounds of mushrooms in September. We also picked about 20 pounds of nanny berries which yielded 25 pints of puree when Ann was done.
   42 pounds of bur oak acorns topped the list for October but the four gallons of hazel nuts , dehusked but in the shell, was a close second. We picked a cup of wild cranberries at our boat landing which got us enthused to go hunting for more the 5th. of November.
   We considered the hunt a success when we brought home 7 quarts of cranberries. We found some creeping snow berry so had to try a tea made with the vine and berries. It was not as good as we had heard it might be. The coup de gras of the season was Ann's. She brought home 8 bushels of black walnuts gleaned  from a neighbors lawn. I just finished a piece of chocolate fudge with black walnuts.

Trailing Arbutus

Epigaearepens L.,Trailing Arbutus is one of the first plants to bloom in our area in north central Wisconsin. This pic does not show it but the blossoms are often a pale pink and they have a beautiful scent. It is a trailing perenial with oval leathery leaves. The tubular five lobed flowers are in clusters. This member of the Heath family contains arbutin which is a urinary antiseptic but it hydrolyzes to hydroquinone which is toxic.

American Indians used leaf tea for kidney disorders as do some folk remedies. It is a plant I always look for as a sign of spring but I have never used it medicinaly and do not recommend it.

Living Simple

Living Simple
  This is a link to one of my former blogs. Same sort of topics. Got busy and didn't update . Started Forest House Farm blog to promote our CSA and I enjoy sharing a little info now and then.

Labrador Tea

We pick Labrador Tea year round if we are out but usually try to pick our years supply in the winter. It is easier since labrador tea,  Ledum groenlandicum, grows in bogs and swamps and it's easier when the swamp is froze over. The leaves stay on year round. It often grows on sphagnum moss humps in association with leather leaf and wild blueberry. The leathery leaves have edges that roll under and the bottom of the leaf is cover with much white to rusty or gold hairs. The shrub is up to 3 feet tall and has very fragrant flowers between May and July. It makes a nice tea with a citrusy, piney, sort of flavor. We like to add wild ginger and either chaga or turkey tail mushroom. Since we heat with wood a pot of it can sit on the stove all day to stay warm. Don't let it brew too long as it will get very bitter. This is a fairly common plant in our area.

Tom, Jerri, and Henrietta

Trio of bourbon red turkeys

 One more piece of the homestead puzzle is in place with the great find Ann made on Craig's List. We picked up this trio for only $50 which is very reasonable considering that day old chicks are almost $10 each.This is a heritage breed and one we have been considering getting. We are hoping that these can breed unassisted since they haven't been "improved" for industrial farming. They are supposed to be much more docile than some of the other breeds. We had a tom turkey once [ not sure what breed] that would chase my daughter when she went to get on the school bus! lol After a while  it was not so humorous and so we ate the turkey.  We have raised the broad breasted whites and had some success but we hope to pasture raise these if we get a hen to lay and set. We are going to get one of those little stryofoam incubators if the hens lay enough eggs to be worth doing it. These are about two and a half years old. Not sure if that is old for a turkey or not. Anyway they are certainly attractive birds so we'll just wait and see what happens this spring.

BACON!

Top picture is bacon hung to dry after coming out of the cure and getting rinsed off. If it is still wet when it goes in the smoke house it gets sort of streaky. Next pic is of bacons after about 4 hours in the smokehouse.
I will smoke these about 10 hours. A internal temp of at least128F. is required to insure that trichinosis will be destroyed.

 I like to use maple wood for smoking hams and bacon. I've tried different fruit woods like apple but they seem to give to heavy of a smoke flavor with my smokehouse setup. My set up uses the wood fire for both the heat and the smoke unlike "modern" smokers that heat with electricity or gas.

Here's a pic of my primitive smokehouse set up. The cylinder to the left is a old water heater jacket which is my fire box. The white box going off the right edge is the smoke house. There is about six feet of heat duct pipe between them. This helps keep from getting it too hot in the smokehouse which will shrink your bacon and cook some of the fat out if it's very high. When I first built this I had the fire box directly below the smokehouse. Bad, bad idea. To hot, fat melts,drips in fire box, smokehouse in flames!
  I will post recipe and instructions on Recipe/Remedy page tomorrow.

Coming to visit,bring your snowshoes.

 This is a pic of the trail into our cabin. It is about a half mile to the road and in the winter there are two options, snowshoes and ski. Well, three if you have a snowmobile, but we don't. If it stays cold enough the swamp will freeze up which will give us a route shortened to about a third of a mile. The swamp trail is much nicer since you are out of the wind most of the way.
  We use those big plastic sleds to haul in what ever we need. They are also handy for hauling firewood to the cabin. A lot of our property is black ash swamp so the only time we can cut wood there and get it out is after it freezes. The weather forecast for the coming week shows night time temps around 5-10 F. so it should start to freeze up. A lake drains through the swamp and running water is slow to freeze.
  I don't have enough fire wood cut yet so it would be good if it does freeze. I try to only cut dead trees or badly damaged trees and most years I get enough fire wood from them. I've spotted several dead elm trees and a couple dead pin cherry to cut. I also have several yellow birch blow outs but they may not be dead yet. I'll cut them but if they are still green they will be next years wood.