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.
Recent projects:
Sustainable Volunteering
The Holistic Church
Permaculture Chickens Fundition
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