Kay Swartz

Nicola Bludau wrote:
Has anyone done the nixtamal so far? How much work is it?

Yep, I grow rainbow corn and nixtamalize it. It is not at all difficult:

I just take whatever amount of my dried corn that I want to use (usually for making tortilla chips/corn tortillas) and bring it just to boil in enough water to cover it well then add 1% calcium hydroxide (e.g. if you have 300g corn, dry weight, you add 3g) to the water, turn it to simmer, and stir as you watch the pretty colour change. Then you can let it simmer while you do something else until you can bite easily through a kernel but still have a little chalkyness in the very centre. Then I make sure it still has enough water to cover it well and leave it with the fire off and lid on overnight.

In the morning you are ready to use it, I usually just whirr mine with the cooking water in the blender, maybe add a bit more water, to make a smooth batter which I can pour directly in a greased skillet to make tortillas.

I don't know if this will be helpful but just by way of encouragement, I have definitely had this EMF sensitivity. It took me a while to figure out what it was.

I would tell my husband that my head would "buzz" uncomfortably whenever we walked past power boxes or under big power lines and I felt like I was getting shocked whenever I touched our computer monitor and keyboard and could tell by the uncomfortable shocky feeling in my fingers whether the tablet was on or off (we did an experiment with my eyes closed to test it and I could tell every time whether it was on or off). But I finally realised that grounding was what helped one day at my sewing machine.

I was sewing mesh bags to cover the fruiting branches of our fig tree trying to save them from the birds and flying foxes (it works against birds, bats just suck through the bags!) and my bare foot that was pressing the pedal was getting a burning buzzing feeling. However, each time I finished a bag I would take it outside, still barefooted, to put it on the fruit tree and as soon as I stepped on the earth the feeling would start to diminish. If I just walked around the house for the same amount of time it wouldn't change much.

So I started to make sure that in all seasons I have some direct contact with the earth each day, the longer the better, and I no longer have the same heightened sensitivity. I have made many gradual diet and lifestyle changes since so there may be other factors but simply walking barefoot has helped heaps.

Also, I started doing my weekly long runs (about 15k) barefoot the last few years on a grass cross-country course and even though I do my other runs in grounding sandals (Earth Runners), after these actual barefoot runs are definitely when I feel the best and most "grounded"(...and yes, a good long run has a relaxing effect either way but I feel differently after doing it on a path versus barefoot on grass).

I do turn off powerpoints when I can, keep my phone on airplane mode mostly, try to use speakerphone and a stand for calls, use ethernet cables mostly and we built a Faraday cage for our government-imposed smart meter.

All to say, there is hope for improvement!

Thank you, Dr. Redhawk! I will look into and begin implementing those things.

Thank you, Dr. Redhawk, for all of your information, I am learning a lot and hope that I can transform my rocky, clay dust into nutritious soil for my family's veggies but I am new to some of these ideas and have some questions:

1. If the root systems of even weeds are valuable for building soil nutrition webs and I struggle to get enough mulch to keep the weeds at bay, should I cut weeds off at soil level and let their greens lie and repeat, repeat, repeat or pull them roots and all for mulch? What about grasses?

2. What do I do once a crop is finished? Unless it is a root crop, do I just cut it at soil level and use it as mulch with roots left to rot in the ground? What about corn (I only grow types that are harvested once dry), do I leave such thick roots in-ground and try to plant around them? Stalks take a long time to break down, do I try to use as mulch?


My Aussie climate is very dry so it takes a long time for things to break down but the ground also quickly bakes dry if uncovered yet I can grow something year round so I don't want to let a plot sit idle if I can help it. Still, I struggle to keep things from drying out.

I compost but struggle to get things to break down, heaps of kitchen scraps, leaves, browns, but rarely do I have anything like green grass clippings because we never have excess green here! I do vermicomposting also and rabbit litter and poo go directly as mulch.

Very glad that you are keen to go this route, much better in the long run for you and the environment.

Everybody is different so as you are finding what works best for you a few other things you can try would be:

Plain lemon juice (just about half a lemon in warm water),

Aloe vera gel (filleted from the leaf like you would prepare a fish then whirr it in a blender with water until a frothy, even, viscous liquid), or

Rye flour (made into a thin paste more like gruel with warm water).

All of these just massage well into wet scalp and rinse thoroughly with warm water. Lemon is the easiest to rinse out, aloe the most de-frizzing, and rye the "fluffiest" clean.

We freeze lemon juice in bulk from our lemon tree as well not only for cooking but also because it works terrifically as a shampoo but when you want to wash your hair in the morning you don't usually have time to juice a half a lemon first. Then, you put a couple of ice cubes in a glass, fill it with hot water, and then bring it into the shower. Then just massage the cup of lemon water well through your scalp and rinse with very warm water.

Love the practicality of this thread!

We have done cloth with all four of ours.

I find wool covers harder to keep clean, taking longer to dry and where the wool sometimes touches their skin it seems to irritate our babies so I prefer the "Thirsties" PUL covers. They can have the extra leg elastic which keeps them from leaking really well when you don't have sumo-babies and very adjustable sizing so they fit for a long time with the different snaps.

When we started we used "Snappies" to hold them together but then realised that the cover works just as well so haven't used them since baby #1.

My favourite are terry-towelling pre-folds which I have made from old towels. They take longer to dry than muslin but last much longer and dry much faster than all-in-ones.

I just cut the rectangles from old towels and an extra layer for the middle third then overlocked them before sewing the layer on the middle.

I also like the ease of cleaning these. We got a kitchen sink sprayer and hooked it up to the other valve on the toilet so that when we need to clean out a poo we just turn on the valve and spray them out before transferring them to the diaper pail. We wash every other day.

I have several sizes of diapers because although we train ours at 18 months and don't need them after that, I find that their increasing size and output mean that they have very different soaking needs from birth to 18 mo so I think I have 2 or 3 sizes  so that I am not washing more than needed either because most of it is clean or because it is not holding enough depending on age.

We haven't done EC with any of ours but find they are ready by 18 months and we don't let them sit in wet diapers so they are always good at telling us when they are wet from the start. We do intensive potty training and take several days where that is the focus, never going back to diapers even at night and they get it after that first week.

It depends on the personality of the child though how diligent they are at staying dry after the novelty wears off! Still, washing and drying a cute pair of undies is much easier than diapers.

Oh, and for wipes we just use smaller overlocked squares of towels which we wet and wring out just before using--they work far better than disposable wipes!

Faye Streiff wrote:Hull less  buckwheat is easy, grows in poorer soil, but have to harvest a few every day because it does not ripen evenly.  I use that to make lasagna noodles with no other flour.

Faye, would you be willing to share your recipe for buckwheat lasagna noodles?

Yes! I am experimenting with this right now. I made crackers with this recipe https://foragerchef.com/dock-seed-flour/ and we really liked them. They are quite tasty with butter and I am eager to try them with brie...

I did not winnow, though I wonder about the phytate content, just whirred the seeds in the blender after letting the hoards of little spiders crawl away.

Yes! I am experimenting with this right now. I have not winnowed it,  though I wonder about the phytates, but have made crackers with this recipe https://foragerchef.com/dock-seed-flour/ and we really liked them. Tasty with butter and I am eager to try them with brie...
I just whirred the seeds in the blender after letting the hoards of spiders crawl away.