Today's Foraging Haul
I'm on a steem break, posting very sparsely for a bit, but I wanted to stop in and show off the results of my trip to the woods today. I'm also not using discord or partiko, so I'll be slow to respond to anything. I'm powering down enough steem to plant a small fruit tree guild, probably around $75 worth. I want a peach tree, a blueberry bush, some strawberries, and some herbs in the guild. Not unfaithful or unsupportive of steem, I just want to put it to economic work in my life.
Today's haul, lessons, and thoughts
19 walnuts (after a small smapling)
27 pecans (also, small smapling applied)
I found two new (to me) walnut trees that have started lightly dropping a crop onto the creek bank. I processed them at the spa; discarding the hulls into the swimming hole, rinsing the nuts in the foot pool, and stashing them in another swirl pool as I went for other batches. The trees were about ten yards apart, by a draw, halfway down to the beaver dam. I've heard my hands will be stained for a while.
The pecans were picked right from the tree. I found a nail at the park and put it on my walking stick, then used it to hook clusters of mature nuts from higher branches.
From https://ilovepecans.org:
A one-ounce serving of pecans (approximately 20 halves) contains 196 calories, 20.4 grams total fat (1.8 saturated fat), 0 mg cholesterol, 0 grams sodium, 2.7 grams dietary fiber and over 19 vitamins and minerals including vitamin A, vitamin E, calcium, potassium and zinc.
So I harvested about 500 calories in pecans.
According to https://www.fitnessblender.com/articles/nut-nutrition-facts-nut-calories-and-health-benefits:
One ounce of walnuts (14 halves) serves up a significant and easily consumed 185 calories, and 18 grams of, albeit healthy, grams of fat.
So I harvested about 550 calories of walnuts.
These 1050 calories were a miniscule fraction of the ripe fruits on the trees, and took me about two hours to collect and process. It was hard work, but I doubt I burned that many calories on the search, or the processing. The pecans were easier to collect and process by far.
The nuts are drying under our A/C return vent in a bag made out of a recycled window screen.
A realization that kept returning was that the people that did this as a lifestyle would have tended these areas and kept them much more tidy than they currently are. Of course, that's my aim in this: to have a well maintained foraging space. I got a bit cut up by thorns, and later this week my legs will feel the hellfire of poison ivy. I doubt old time foragers would have tolerated that regularly. They would have done everything in their power to make that process easier and more efficient.
That's an early fall harvest. There will be significantly more in the coming months. The total here was gathered from two walnut trees and two pecan trees, and was probably less than a percent of the crop that was left on the trees. That's all plant foods, and nothing was hunted from the woods or fished from the creek. I will be working more to make these spaces more efficient foraging spaces. I look forward to the fast approaching day that I can harvest a complete day of food out there.
All action for the good of all.
Nate.
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Good score Nate! And to think this is only the beginning! Why were you putting the walnuts in the pond - do you not just let them dry and crack them open? We were given a bag of walnuts when I was in BC from a fellow who had an orchard - never knew he went throgh any special process to prepare them - h-m-m! I must Google it for now you have me intrigued!
Glad you popped in and thanks for sharing! I do miss your adventures!
I was washing the fruit off of them. Walnuts have a stalk when they're harvested. They're a stone fruit like peaches, but I'm pretty sure the fruit is inedible. It needs peeled and washed off so you can get the seeds.
When you discover how much hard work nuts are, you realize why they're always considered a luxury in most cultures. Even pumpkin seeds are like that! My subsistence-level Thai worker has 4 acres of cashews growing but the process of getting the nuts is more than she wants to put in, so she lets the birds have them. LOL.
Putting steem to economic use was always the point!! I'm squirelling (pardon the nut pun) mine to buy land. When steem shoots back up to $8 :)))) I already have enough to buy 2 acres here outright with no finance. Thoughts and prayers for the steem price!!
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That's awesome! Enough steem for two acres is unfathomable to me lol land is stupid high around here.
City land is expensive here too... very much so. Im looking at land along the Burmese border to set up my home, new biz production, a teaching centre & housing for my Karen refugee intern program. In a biz focused eco-community. I need steem to go back to $8 and Im there, finance free.
Yeahhhhh.... put it to work baby, but dont stop posting and interacting. Just do it twice a week not twice an hour ;P
Earn ya nuts!!
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Yup, I think that's what it'll be. Little updates once or twice a week. I got out this morning and gathered about a thousand calories in half an hour. Felt pretty good :)
Sounds like you did pretty well. Good to hear from you. :))
I am severely allergic to poison ivy and every time you tell about getting into it, gives me the heeby-jeebies!
It usually takes a couple days to ramp up. I'll start feeling it Wednesday, and by Thursday I'm ready to schedule amputation of anything it touched lol
I'm excited to start seeing pecans! My parents have some pecan trees in their yard that look like they're going to put on a good crop for the first time in quite a few years. I remember picking them up by the bucket load when I was a kid. (This was before the city ran sewage lines out to that part of town, so they were still on septic.) I always enjoyed sitting and shelling them.
I didn't realize they were so rich in good calories. I hope you harvest a ton! Nothing like a good pecan pie around Thanksgiving time.
Mmmmm pecan pie! I think they get on a cycle where they'll have a badass production year and a few years of low production.
@nateonsteemit It is fascinating to be able to gather with your hands the fruit of your effort, I congratulate you.
It is wonderful to sit down to the table to taste something of your culture.