Dian Hong

Kevin Olson wrote:
Maybe berries next year.  Unless hackberries aren't self fertile, and require a nearby "friend".  I am unacquainted with their habits.

On edit: maybe a "pounder" - a heavy length of wood, with another pestle-like chunk of wood?  Something with closed grain, dense and hard (ironwood? maple?), I'd think.  Anyone know what was used by plains Indians for chokecherry pounders when making pemmican?  Maybe osage orange?

It looks like they're self-fertile, but need a good breeze for wind pollination and don't produce fruit early in life.  

Excellent question about pemmican!  Going to start asking around.

William Bronson wrote: A ninja/ nurtabullet type food processor might work.
What do the berries taste like?

The berry flesh alone tastes sugary and a little like dates.  Hackberry milk (made from cooking the tiny amount of pestle-crushed berries & seeds) tasted like butternut squash sweetened with dates.

Hi All,

We're lucky enough to live near hackberry trees.  The berries are delicious, and I'd like to try grinding them alongside their edible seeds to make a paste, but the seeds are hard as rock. Grinding with a stone mortar and pestle did something funny that required a chiropractor to sort out.  Is there such a thing as an inexpensive grinder that can take on hackberry seeds without earning me another chiropractic bill?

Thanks!

Lynne Cim wrote:Hope these earn bragging rights!

This was my first DIY mattress made from sewing 2 untreated cotton drop cloths into a grid filled with buckwheat hulls (sorry old photo!)

Then I made this one -

Next we switched to making our family's buckwheat hull mattresses using stretchier tubular fabric which offered the most contouring from the hulls and was a much easier, no sew project -

We have evolved even more since these old photos, sleeping on so many different DIY mattresses over the last 2 decades.

The tubular one looks totally tubular (imagine Bill and Ted saying it, just before playing a guitar chord, to show appreciation).  Which approach is most comfortable...and how the heck do you make the tubular one?

r ranson wrote:

It's based on a fibonacci number sequence and here's my test run to see if the pattern would work out okay.

First, I'd be happy to be adopted by anyone in this thread.  I'm in my 50s, though, so maybe that ship has sailed.

R Ranson, the double Fibonacci sequence, with the spaces between each stripe forming their own Fibonacci sequence, is spectacular, as is all the excellent work in this thread.  Just in case anyone thought Permies was only about poop beasts....

Does anyone have experience managing the dreaded jumping worm?  If you're lucky enough never to have seen one, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke1fQ7Fyaw0.  Skip ahead to the part where they're in motion and then try hard to unsee it.

We've been lucky enough to avoid them, until now.  I just found one, and where there's one, there's about to be an infestation.  Has anyone found food plants that can survive jumping worms, if we manage to unearth and kill what we find on a regular basis?

Hugo Morvan wrote:
I believe sharing surplus is at the base of getting people involved with each other. Soemtimes people don't give back, but after a while they will want to share what they have. Maybe that's at the base of what community is and modern society has taken that away, because we can all have everything(buying), so there is no need for needing anybody. If people pride themselves in that ' i need none of you and i'm better than you' mentality then it's difficult to break through, but there are always little moments with some people where you can share some lovely produce or fruit and get people talking.

Agreed!  I think it's part of the reason why dinner parties work so well if the hosts put guests to work a bit - it gives us a pleasant feeling of interdependence, experiencing how we can help others out and receive something from them, with no one demanding it of one another.

Guess I'd also add that I find icebreakers uncomfortable because they try to force emotional connection faster than we're designed, as humans, to experience it.  Conversational questions that are introduced after people have experienced enough social floundering to take up the questions have worked well enough for me - stuff that people can take to a profound level if they want to, but where they aren't forced to (favourite place in the world, book or TV or movie character you most wanted to be as a kid, something you love about your community, etc.).  

Nikki Roche wrote:Any time I've hosted a party or get together, it seems like most people stick to talking with others that they already know. Or the conversation gets stuck after one or two basic comments.

What are your tips, suggestions, or anecdotes for encouraging conversation between neighbors who don't know each other?

I'd like to host a block party, but past experiences make me a little nervous that it'll be awkward with people just standing around quietly eating and staring at each other or talking only to the family members who came with them.

Priya Parker has lots of suggestions on getting people to talk, and on setting the stage in advance, in her book "The Art of Gathering."  It's a breezy read that makes lots of good points about how we bring people into community.

Greg Martin wrote:I came back from a nursery with a 5' tall by 5' wide giant for just $25.  The price made me do it, though I restrained myself from buying more than one, which was good as it filled up my car.  It was labeled 'Autumn Sun' Rudbeckia laciniata.  I looked it up when I got home and found that it's the same plant as 'Herbstsonne' and ran across that Missouri Botanical Garden site that made me not run back for a second lovely giant.  Has anyone eaten 'Autumn Sun'/'Herbstsonne' yet?  I have some young R. laciniata plants that I can harvest a few leaves from next year to do a direct comparison, but just wondering what others may have found.  I admit to wanting to go get a few more because they are so large and lovely and will give me such a jump start, but don't want to add the wrong plant.

I haven't found out if R. nitida is edible or not.  That would make me feel much more confident.  Anyone know?

I'm no expert, Greg, but the edible kind has a strong celery scent when you pick or crush the leaf.  A friend of mine has a lookalike - maybe a cultivar? - that doesn't have the celery scent.  

Anyway, we've moved on from eating just the leaves, to also including some young stems.  A friend of ours eats the leaves raw, but the raw leaves are too hairy to be palatable IMO.  Same friend says that Rudbeckia hirta is edible, but we haven't tried it.  

Anne Miller wrote:These are so pretty:

These are gorgeous!  Might have to rethink...