Practically Seeking
March 2009 (Issue 20)
Talk about "In like a Lion"!!
I don't know about where you are, but here in Jersey the weather this
month has been a real roller coaster ride! From a foot of snow on the
1st, to t-shirts & sandals on the 7th, back to snow and parkas
and gloves on the day of the Spring Equinox, we're having a hard time
telling if spring has arrived or not! But, if the old saying holds
true the "out like a Lamb" should be back again this week,
so let's all keep our fingers crossed. :-)
We had beautiful and perfect weather for our first World
of the Hunter-Gatherer weekend, and what a weekend it was! Julie & I
are very excited about the drive and passion of this new tribe and
are looking forward to seeing just how far we can take them in developing
and perfecting their skills. It's going to be an incredible six months,
and you can watch the progress of Adam, Apor, Nick & Nick in the Hunter-Gatherer
2009 photo set on Flickr, where we'll be posting new pictures each
month. They're already working to give last year's group a run for
their money!
This great beginning has us looking forward even more to the brand new Hunter-Gatherer
Texas program beginning in September, so to those of you who live
down in that part of the world be sure to submit
your application soon.
You all have been so supportive of what we're doing, and so interested in what we have to teach and the manner in which we've chosen to teach it that we have begun looking at how we might be able to expand to a larger facility and begin moving toward our future vision. If any of you know of a property that might be for use, rent, lease, or sale that would help us to build the collaborative and cooperative vision we are working toward, please contact us -- we're looking forward to taking that next step!
e
| What's New | Upcoming Events | Skill of the Month | Eddie's Bookshelf | Practically Speaking | Final Note |
What's New
OSAGE, OSAGE, OSAGE!!
Premium Osage Staves Ready to Go
Some of you know (or have heard stories of) our good
friend Tom McDonald. We've been talking with him since last fall about
the beautiful, straight-grained, seasoned Hickory and Osage to which
he has access in Ohio, but no way of getting to market.
Well, a couple of weeks ago Tom showed up with a truck full of the nicest,
straightest, most beautiful Osage that Eddie has seen in a very long
time. You won't believe how straight-grained this wood is! He and Eddie
spent a morning splitting out the staves, and Eddie has been working
them down and categorizing them as to their quality.
They are very well-seasoned with great rings, and ready to turn into
some gorgeous bows. So if you or anyone you know is looking for some
seriously nice Osage, choose your staves and we'll get them shipped!
(If you're going to be in our area, or at one of our
upcoming Traditional Archery events, be sure to stop by and pick one
out.
There are some nice flex-bow-sized pieces as well!)
NEW "STUDENT COMMENTS" PAGE
What You've Had to Say About Us…
Since we started Practical Primitive almost two years
ago many of you have been kind enough to write and let us know how much
you enjoyed the workshops you attended.
For those of you who are still considering signing up but aren't sure
what you might find when you get here, we hope you'll check out our new Student
Comments page and read what some other folks have had to say.
And if you have attended a workshop in the past we would really appreciate
your feedback too; both in what you liked and think we're doing right,
and about where we could improve things for next time.
Braintanning with Two Wolves
Classes coming up in Maryland & New Jersey
Our friends at Two
Wolves have a couple of Braintan classes coming up in April and we
wanted to let you know where and when they're going to be. Kfir
Mendel has been braintanning full time for a couple of years now,
and produces beautiful hides. So if you've been wanting to learn how
to braintan we heartily recommend that you check out these classes!
April 10-12 — Wet-scrape
Braintan (Catonsville, MD)
April 18 — Hide
in a Day (Toms River, NJ)
Upcoming Events
TEXAS WORKSHOPS COMING IN JUNE
Special Guest Instructor for June 14!
We're looking
forward to our next Texas trip in June and
are thrilled that Eddie's good friend and retired US Navy Independent
Duty Corpsman, Mark "Doc" Wright is set to be the Guest Instructor
for our new Backwoods
Hygiene & Improvised First Aid workshop.
Mark's 20 years of submarine, ship-board and battlefield medical
experience will take the Improvised First Aid workshop to a whole different
level, and provide you with real-world, "anyone can do it" solutions
to those problems, from the mildly annoying to the majorly serious,
that can occur on any camping trip or backwoods outing. This one is
not to be missed!
June 12 — Medicinal
Plants
June 13 — Traps,
Simplified
June 14 — Backwoods
Hygiene & Improvised First Aid
Whittingham Traditional Archery Rendezvous
April 24-26 — Newton, NJ
Events Season is about to begin!
We had a great time at this weekend last time around and are looking
forward to "hanging
with the home town crowd" again this year. Hosted by the Appalachian
Bowmen of Sussex County, this shoot has 3-D Ranges, Archery Golf, Stump
shoots, a Flying Disc range and Eagle-eye Qualifier. We will also have
several of our gorgeous Osage staves along — straight, seasoned, and
ready to sell. It's going to be a fun weekend, so if you're in the area
we hope you'll come by and say hi!
(For more info check out the Events
page on our website.)
Free Open Skills Nights
April 15
May 20
June 24 (4th Wednesday, due to Texas trip)
Come on out and join us for our FREE Open Skills nights the third Wednesday of each month. Bring a project you're working on, a plant ID guide, an animal tracking book, or just come to meet us and spend an evening hanging out.
It's fun, it's free, and everyone is welcome. We never know who will be here,
or what folks will be working on, but we do know that it's always a great evening.
We look forward to having you here!
(Check out photos of some past Open Skills Nights on our new and growing Flickr page!)
INTENSIVE SKILLS APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS
World of the Hunter-Gatherer — Texas
Now Accepting Applications
We are now accepting applications for our brand new Hunter-Gatherer
Texas program!
The same information will be taught as in the New Jersey version, and
in the same small group, hands-on, integrated learning style, but participants
will meet for 3 days every other month (September, November, January,
March and May), probably over the 3rd weekend of the month, with the Survival
Outing taking place in June.
We're so excited to be able to offer this amazing program to a whole new
group of people in a whole new area of the country. We hope you're excited
too, and look forward to seeing your application!
Application Deadline: July 15, 2009
Secrets in the Stone
September – November 2009
We have already begun receiving applications for this Fall's Secrets
in the Stoneprogram, beginning in September.
No matter what your current knapping skill level, if you been wanting
to begin seriously learning to work with stone then this program will
take you far beyond your current goals and expectations.
Our last group of participants went from having little to no experience
when we began, to fluting points & artifact reproduction just 3
month later! (Check out a
sampling of their work on our Flickr page.) And with a better understanding
of just how much can be accomplished, Eddie plans to cover even more
ground this time around!.
Application Deadline: July 1, 2009
Remember, these programs are limited to only
4 participants, to ensure the highest quality of instruction.
Upcoming Workshops
Our Spring/Summer schedule has been Posted!
We've got some great workshops available on our Spring
and Summer schedule, and here's a look at what's coming up over the next
couple of months…
April
4–5 Traps,
Simplified
6 Making
& Using Natural Cordage
17 Fire
Making
18 NEW! Gathering Baskets
19 NEW! Spring
Foraging
May
2-3 Survival
Skills 101
4 Stone
Tools
22 NEW! Front-yard
Foraging: An Intro to Edibles
23-24 Medicinal
Plants
29 Immediate
Need & Emergency Shelters
30-31 Short-term & Small
Group Shelters
Skill of the Month
Hard Tack Trail Bread
Imagine a bread that is healthy and nutritious, easy to make, simple
to carry, requires no refrigeration and will last indefinitely on a shelf
or in a backpack. How handy!
Of course, it also happens to be as hard as rock.
A staple of cowboys, hikers and backwoodsmen alike, Hard
Tack Trail Bread is called hard for a reason! But when you're on the long trail, out in
the back country, or putting back emergency stores, this is exactly the
sort of food you'll want to have on hand.
Made from flour, cornmeal and honey, this quick and easy bread can be
made plain or jazzed up. In the bread we're making in the photos,
we've substituted some of the white flour for Amaranth flour to increase
the nutritional content and add a nice, nutty flavor. (You could also
use acorn, millet, cattail, or any number of other "wild" flours
to the same effect.) We are also using a blue cornmeal, just to see what
color the bread will turn out!
We've had some sample pieces sitting in our kitchen for almost six weeks
now, two open on a shelf and one sealed in a ziploc bag, and none have
shown any sign of mold or deterioration.
The key here seems to be the honey. The more honey you add the harder
the bread will get and, presumably, the longer it will last. It appears
to act as a natural preservative and stabilizing agent, the natural antibacterial
properties preventing any unwanted "growth" on the bread. When
you go to finally eat your Trail Bread, dipping it in a warm liquid like
coffee will soften it up and make it chewable once again.
(For photos to go along with these step-by-step instructions check out our website.)
How to make Hard Tack Trail Bread:
- Gather your ingredients of 1 cup white flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup cornmeal, and 2 cups of honey, and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. (Feel free to experiment with substituting different types of flours.)
- Grease a muffin⁄cupcake tin in preparation for the batter. This will keep it from sticking. (You could also use paper cupcake liners so long as you spray them well with a good no-stick cooking spray. Otherwise you'll never get the papers off!.)
- In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the white flour, whole wheat flour, and cornmeal.
- Take the 2 cups of honey and heat them carefully until the honey has become thin and runny. Do not allow it to come to a boil.
- Pour the honey into the flour mixture and combine until the honey has been completely mixed in with the flour.
- If the batter is too thick, add some hot water, a little at a a time, until the batter is of a thin enough consistency to drop off a spoon.
- Fill each greased cupcake holder about 1⁄2 full with batter. (Makes about 18 cakes.)
- Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Remove from the pan and allow to cool. This bread requires NO refrigeration and will last almost indefinitely — but once it hardens be sure to soak it in some milk or coffee or some sort of liquid first, or your teeth will regret it!
So take some Hard Tack along on your next hike for a
little trail-worthy sustenance,
and Have Fun!
(Many thanks to our friend Dan Atkinson for sharing both his Trail Bread and his recipe with us, so that we could pass it along to you!)
Eddie's Bookshelf
Weeds of the Northeast
—Richard Uva, Joseph Neal & Joseph DiTomaso
Love This Book.
Though not remotely why the authors would think I do! I originally discovered
this book quite by accident while searching on Amazon for a field guide
that was more specific to plants in New Jersey. While reading the mediocre
reviews for another book we had been considering, I came across a reviewer
who recommended purchasing this book instead, and when I checked it
out I was hooked. One of the most unique and helpful plant books I have
ever come across, Messrs. Uva, Neal & DiTomaso would probably be
mystified and horrified to find out why everyone we've shown it to loves
their book so much!
Written by Specialists of Weed Science, this is actually an invaluable
book for all foragers in the Northeast U.S., southern Canada, and beyond.
While it's true purpose is to assist horticulturists, agronomists, landscape
managers and pest specialists to identify and remove⁄destroy all those
pesky weeds that are out to ruin their crop⁄garden⁄lawn, it is, in fact,
a wild plant lover's dream.
So why am I giving such glowing praise to a "let's kill those blasted
weeds" book?
Two words: "Seedlings" and "Seeds".
For almost every plant listed in this book there is not only a photo of
the full grown plant and the flower, but a photo of the seedling stage,
and of the seed itself! And let me tell you, these are GREAT photos. Carefully
and beautifully taken, the photos make it easy to see and discern the
minute details required for proper plant identification.
Additionally, the identification key does NOT rely on any flower characteristics,
as is common to almost every other field guide. The authors have developed
a completely structural- and vegetative-based identification key that
will allow you to identify any of the multitude of edible, medicinal and
utilitarian plants and grasses (yes, grasses!) outlined in the book, at
any stage of their life cycle.
Meaning that you no longer have to wait until a flower appears in order
to discover what that mystery plant might be. Instead, you can take this
book and go out right now and identify any of the 299 common "weeds" in
this book. Among the "undesirables" listed are Wild Garlic,
Wild Oats, Foxtail grass, several varieties of Millet and Amaranth, Milkweed,
Yarrow, Chamomile, Burdock, Chicory, Jerusalem Artichoke, Chickweed, Lambs
Quarters, Velvetleaf, Woodsorrel, Pokeweed, Plantain, Purslane,
Mullein, Violets and many more.
We purchased this book back in December and have been impatiently waiting
until March to share it with you in the hope that you will be as excited
as we are by the opportunity to head out now, at the very beginning of
the spring green-up, and begin marking those tiny seedlings to remind
yourself where NOT to mow as the grass begins to grow.
Personally, I rather like the idea of taking a book designed to destroy
plants and increase the monocultural agri-industry, and instead using
it to find, nurture and fully enjoy those wonderful, healthy, helpful
and delicious "Weeds".
Ready to try your hand at discovering wild foods this year?
Come join us for our upcoming Spring
Foraging and Front-yard
Foraging: An Intro to Edibles
workshops in April and May.
To find more information on this and other recommended books, see our website.
Practically Speaking
Practically Phenologising — Awareness for the Good of Science!
Those of you who read this column each month will have noticed that
one of the recurring themes we stress is the idea of increasing your
awareness of the world around you in every possible way.
So imagine our surprise to discover that this sort of observational awareness
actually has a name: Phenology.
Phenology is "the study of recurring plant and animal life cycle
events...such as leafing and flowering of plants, maturation of agricultural
crops, emergence of insects, and migration of birds." Sound familiar?
It was just a few weeks ago, when I tuned my car radio to NPR's "Science
Friday", that I found myself searching for paper and pen to get
the unfamiliar word written down. The Executive Director of the USA
National Phenology Association was being interviewed about their new program that
is working to enlist as many "Citizen Scientists" from the
general public as they can find to record information about each individual's
observations of specific plants. This information will then be available
to scientists, students, educators, agencies and others the world over
that are working to discover the actual and practical effects that climate
change is having on our eco-system.
We've already signed up for the program and will be posting our observations on a few of the different species on their Plant List. Since we were already keeping a log of these things anyway, we are glad to be able to put our skills to a practical use that can be of real benefit to all. And with such specific information being requested, and the online form for inputting your observations, the USANPN has really made it simple to be a part of this new and worthwhile effort.
So take this opportunity to get out there and USE your skills! Check out the plant list for your state and choose a couple of plants to observe and report on over their life cycle.
Observation and Awareness for the good of the planet AND a chance to
put our skills to solid and practical use...
Now that's a cause we can all get behind!
(You can hear the full NPR interview with Jake Weltzin on the Talk of the Nation website.)
One Final Note
Over the past couple of months we have been talking with
several old friends and colleagues about ways in which we might bring
together our complimentary visions in the creation of a collaborative
and cooperative overall mission.
Since before Julie & I started Practical Primitive almost two year
ago, I have been dreaming of building up a facility that will be of benefit
to everyone who has the desire to pass on the skills they have worked
to perfect.
We are now coming to a point where we feel the time has arrived to begin
to move forward and take concrete steps toward the fulfilment of this
dream. To that end we will soon be adding a new page to our website about "Our
Future", that will begin to outline our plans for this facility,
and ways in which anyone who might have some interest in seeing this
vision fulfilled can help.
The first thing we need to find is the right location, so if you know
of an appropriate place or piece of property that is (or could be) available
for use, rent, lease or sale, we would love to hear about it! Especially
ones that are in our current general vicinity (NJ, NY, PA).
Thanks to all of you for your continued support, and we wish you a wonderful
spring!
Be Well,
Eddie & Julie
Practical Primitive