As soon as a few warm days arrive early each spring we search our yard at Winding Pathways for two of our favorite plants – Stinging Nettles and Dandelions.
To most people they’re weeds. To us they’re delicious yard gifts.
STINGING NETTLES
Stinging nettles are one of the tastiest of all wild greens. They begin growing very early each spring and are usually ready to pick about the time when gardeners plant spinach and lettuce. In Iowa that’s sometime in April. Nettles love moist soil at the edge of woods where they receive partial shade. Often they’re common on yard edges. Nettles are well named, because they can sting! Another name for the plant is “three minute itch”, because the slight stinging sensation is just temporary. There’s a way to avoid the “itch.”
We pick nettles when they are only a couple of inches tall. To avoid the sting, we either wear light gloves or carefully pluck off the top few leaves between the thumb and forefinger. About 100 leaves are plenty for dinner for the two of us. We bring the plucked nettles into the kitchen, rinse them well, and boil them for just a few minute. It’s really more like steaming them as we only put about a half inch of water in the pan. Once steamed the sting disappears. Put a dollop of butter on them with a sprinkle of vinegar and enjoy as the year’s first green crop.
We continually pick from the same nettle patch and each plant constantly creates new leaves at the growing tip. This extends the picking season for over a month, and by then our spinach is ready to harvest from the garden. For the rest of the growing season, foraging insects enjoy the nectar of the nettles.
DANDELIONS
Almost everyone knows that dandelions are edible but most people who try them quickly toss the bitter plants out and never try again. Take heart and try again! Dandelions are revered in many eastern cities where Italians live. Festivals abound across the country “…from the Redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters….” (apologies to Woody Guthrie) and the Amana Colonies in Iowa are known for their dandelion wines. Google Dandelion Festivals to find one near you. One coming up for St. Patrick’s Day is Dandelion Days in California.
Dandelions are delicious but there’s a trick to enjoying them. The best ones are picked in very early spring when the leaves are brand new. Those poking out from under leaves are semi blanched, lack bitterness, and are delicious and packed with vitamins. As soon as dandelion leaves are full size they are too bitter to eat without special processing. Young blanched leaves can be eaten raw in salad or steamed.
A CAUTION
Before eating any wild plant for the first time make sure you correctly identify it, using at least two sources for identification……….an expert forager and a wild food book, or a wild food book and a credible website, for example. Our all-time favorite source for wild food information is Euell Gibbons’ classic book STALKING THE WILD ASPARAGUS. If you spot one at a used book sale snap it up as quickly as you do fresh nettles. Some helpful websites include Eat the Weeds , Eat the Weeds You Tube Videos, and Food52. Episode 134 of Eat the Weeds features neighborhood foraging. At about six minutes, Green Deane, the host, shows and talks about dandelions.
Thunderstorms carry the risk of wind, lightning and power outages.
The United States seems to have one storm season followed by another. The year starts with blizzard threats and then transitions into tornado season. That’s followed by hurricane season until blizzards again become possible in late fall.
Many people have prepared for loss of utilities caused by a huge storm. They have food, water, and emergency lights ready, but Hurricane Sandy revealed that many had forgotten one important modern survival need.
When Sandy shut down electrical service to millions of Americans cell phone companies turned on their back-up generators and the system continued to work. But, most cell phone owners had no way to recharge their phones and other electronic devices. Being unable to use their phone caused anxiety. After a few days many towns set up charging stations in public buildings powered by big generators, but to use one involved a drive and wait.
An outstanding item to add to an emergency pack is a back-up battery and emergency cell phone charger. Many solar powered chargers are on the market. Often they are marketed to backpackers and wilderness trekkers, but they work just as well in the city. Simply plug the charger into the phone and put it in sunshine and it will recharge the phone’s battery.
Another solution is to keep handy a back-up battery that will charge a phone. Many are on the market, and even cordless tool batteries often have a port that enables power to flow from the tool’s battery to the phone. A spare battery will often recharge a phone a couple of times. Solar chargers are limitless but the sun needs to shine.
Winding Pathways does independent, unpaid reviews of products.
FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO STOCK A PREPAREDNESS KIT SEE THE WINDING PATHWAYS BLOG.
Sunlight hits our solar panels at a different angle in the fall and winter.
To: Robert Dix, Brad Duggan, and Lisa Henderson (all helped us with photovolotaic)
What we’ve learned from our PV System
This week our photovoltaic system has given us a great learning opportunity. We’ve now had several crystal clear days and the envision monitoring system clearly shows the electric production hour per hour. It’s fascinating to me to learn that our peak power comes at 12:30 p.m. and when I go out and look at where the sun is this is when it is precisely pointing at the PV system.
The PV system and the monitor have encouraged me to observe how the sun moves throughout the day and over the seasons. This education is a strong positive side benefit of PV.
We keep an array of hand tools for small projects around the home and yard.
Our home at Winding Pathways shares needs familiar to every homeowner or renter. Things break, new items need to be assembled and pictures need to be hung. A basic set of household tools makes common tasks easy, even for people not particularly handy.
We have dozens of tools. Many are specialized, and only occasionally used but our list of frequently used tools are ones that will prove useful in every home. *Here are our favorites:
Pliers. Three types. One is a simple pair of gripping pliers used whenever something needs to be held tightly. A second is needle nosed (or long nosed) pliers used to grab and hold small items. They make fishing small items that fall into crevices easy. The third is a pair of locking pliers, often called “Vice Grips”. They make it easy to tightly grip something using only one hand, leaving the other free to do work.
Screwdrivers: A quality, old fashioned slotted screwdriver is invaluable around the house. We use ours for all sorts of things that have nothing to do with driving a screw. Prying and scraping are only two of dozens of uses. A few years ago we bought a much more useful screwdriver for inserting and removing screws. It’s actually a multi screwdriver all-in-one tool. If you have ever climbed up a ladder to remove a screw only to discover that the screw’s head is different from the screwdriver in hand, you will find this tool the best! Our new one has six different bits, all designed to fit different types of screw. Various bits are stored in the handle, making it almost certain the tool will work no matter what type screw is encountered.
Cordless Electric drill: The only power tool on our list is an amazingly versatile tool. Drilling holes is only one of many tasks it completes with ease. In addition to a case of drill bits of various diameters other bits are actually screwdriver tips or sockets. They make fast work installing or removing screws, nuts, and bolts. Many other attachments fit on a drill, including buffing and sanding wheels. We can’t imagine not having this tool. Corded drills need to be plugged in, making them much less convenient. Cordless models come with rechargeable batteries that provide much power before needing to be put back on the charger.
Ear Muffs: Loud noises lead to gradual hearing loss. We wear muffs whenever we are around loud machine noises – blenders, vacuum cleaner, lawn mower, power tools, and this time of year snow blowers!
Utility Knife: Useful for cutting cardboard boxes and most anything else. Most hold spare sharp blades in the handle.
Adjustable Wrench: These come in many sizes but we’ve found the eight inch models best for common household uses. The tool adjusts to fit nuts of various sizes.
Level: A small compact torpedo type level is amazingly useful for hanging pictures, or leveling a table or desk.
Hammer: Hammers aren’t really obsolete. We use ours to drive nails but also to tap the screwdriver when prying or scraping and for many other tasks around the house. Years ago, Marion’s mom standing at a towering 4’9” willed her tiny hammer to us that works amazing well for light projects.
Scissors: These aren’t office scissors but heavy duty shears that easily cut through heavy packaging materials, thin metal, and cardboard.
Black Tape: Sometimes called electricians tape, this isn’t strictly a tool but it’s amazingly useful in holding things together or temporarily patching a dripping pipe or exposed wire.
HOW TO ACQUIRE TOOLS
Quality hand tools are a joy to use and so durable they can last for generations. We are using wrenches, screwdrivers, and a hammer that are as functional today as they were to our grandfathers purchased them 80-some years ago. New quality hand tools can be purchased today – but beware! Many poorly made models are on the market and sold mostly in discount and big box stores. They are less expensive than good ones but aren’t as reliable and probably won’t be around to pass on to the next generation.
We buy our tools in two places – garage and estate sales that often include vintage hand tools. They may be a bit rusty, but we’ve bought quality tools for pennies. After refurbishing they are as good as new. When in the market for new tools we head for a specialty tool store. These are where professional carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and other craft people buy their tools and equipment.
Our favorite store in Cedar Rapids is Acme Tools. They only sell quality tools made by many manufacturers and we’ve never been unhappy with any tool purchased there. In recent years we’ve been purchasing Milwaukee brand tools at Acme and have found them top notch. “We only sell high quality tools, and our sales people are experts always happy to help customers select the right tool for their needs and show them how to safely use it,” said John Guidinger, General Manager.
Quality tools are more than just tools. They are well designed and crafted instruments that feel good in your hands and help making tasks a pleasant experience.
*Blogger Note: These are independent, unpaid reviews.
A Kansas Couple Creatively Walk The Path
by Emily and Zach Hemmerling, guest bloggers
Anyone who has ever spent hours picking green beans knows it’s a thankless job. Aching backs, mosquito bites, and soaked sweatbands, all for a few pounds of produce that is consumed almost embarrassingly fast. Last spring, I made a resolution. If I was going to toil under the summer sun in that special brand of syrupy humidity unique to south-central Kansas, then I was going to make it look good.
String Bean Labyrinth
I decided I wanted a green bean labyrinth. My indulgent husband got quite a kick out of the idea, and planted the seeds in the sketched-out shape I left for him on the kitchen counter one morning. It’s a simple labyrinth, just a few turns, and the lines are three plants thick. We planted three different varieties: Jade, Royalty Purple Pod, and Dragon’s Tongue.
Connecting
Two great flushes of beans gave us about twelve pounds before a sudden heat wave crumpled all but the inner circle. It was still a job to “go pickin’,” but the labyrinth made it easier. And, it was always nice to suddenly find myself in the middle, and even nicer to see I’d already filled my basket without realizing it. Sometimes when my husband got home from his landscaping work we would walk the labyrinth. We’d talk about our days or plan a camping trip, or dream about what the orchard will look like in a few years. Those few minutes to reconnect before moving on to our respective evening chores would keep us going. Then the pig-weed moved in, and by that time the grapes were turning, leaving the labyrinth to slowly dissolve back into the ground. The field where the green bean labyrinth was is already planted to red clover and will be fallowed next year. Since the next plot in rotation is a bit too narrow to hold a proper labyrinth, it might be a few years before the next vegetable labyrinth takes shape. It’s worth the wait.
Editor note: Below is a You Tube video about drawing three and five circuit labyrinths. Lars Howlett is a skilled builder and facilitator connected with The Labyrinth Society.
One late October afternoon Rich brought only three eggs into the kitchen. In spring and summer our 15 hens normally give us a dozen beautiful eggs every day. Like so many signs in nature our chickens are telling us it is transition time.
We have lucky chickens. They enjoy good food, safe living space, and daily fresh air, sunshine, exercise and natural food. Seasons shape their lives, but even their unfortunate counterparts living in cramped cages in factory farms are not completely immune to seasonal changes of nature.
When molting chickens lounge, take dust baths, and re-grow new feathers.
A hen starts laying when she’s four to five months old and stays laving for 12 to 14 months. Egg laying is tough on bodies and after a year chickens need a vacation. So hens call time out. They shed old worn out feathers and grow new ones, rest and eat as they build back strength. After a month or two they look great in their new feathers and begin laying again – if they are fortunate enough to live in a backyard flock.
Commercial egg operations kill hens as they begin to molt and replace them with young birds. Not us. We keep our birds for at least two years. In their second lay cycle our hens give us slightly fewer eggs but they are huge with bright yellow/orange yolks in shells of various hues.
Molting is caused, in part, by the age of the bird, but declining daylight is a major factor. Nature has programmed chickens to lay the most eggs in spring. As fall’s days shorten production drops. We let our chickens enjoy seasonality. Commercial eggeries don’t. Their unfortunate hens live in windowless buildings with lighting that simulates spring to stimulate peak production.
Declining day length triggers thousands of reactions in our world outside the living room windows. Here are just a few things we notice:
A still day of reflection on Turtle Stump.
Leaves of our sugar maples turn vibrant red/orange before drifting to the ground like snow. Our black, white, and red oak leaves wait a bit later until turning rust colored and shedding, although some oaks keep dead leaves all winter.
White footed mice, box elder bugs, and Asian beetles try their best to get into the house before cold weather settles in.
There are comings and goings in the yard. We’ve said “goodbye” to house wrens, orioles, grosbeaks, warblers and many other birds but are delighted to welcome back juncos from their nesting grounds up north. Hawks, geese, and even pelicans pass overhead on their way south.
The world sounds and looks different as humid summer air transitions into fall’s dryness. Colors are more vibrant in low humidity air, sound transmits more clearly, and late afternoon sunlight dances across tree trunks and drying prairie grasses.
Sunlight hits our solar panels at a different angle in the fall and winter.
We produce a bit less electricity from our photovoltaics because the sun isn’t shining as long each day, but peak production is earlier in the day than in midsummer
Sitting outside on a bright autumn day lets us soak in the sun’s delicious warmth but it cools quickly as the sun drops. Then, we go inside to enjoy the warmth our wood stove provides.
Clouds drift by and sunrises and sunsets are particularly colorful.
Autumn and winter constellations enchant viewers and linger into the darker mornings. Because the temperatures are mild, star gazing is pleasant.
Fall is a beauty filled season. We encourage you to “Go outside and play!”
