M Ljin

Go Botany is a resource for identifying New England plants, but it can be good for just the plants and information even if the dichotomous keys might not work for other regions. https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/ The pictures are in color though.

Also look at Native American Ethnobotany https://naeb.brit.org/ and Plants for a Future https://pfaf.org/user/default.aspx. The last one may be much closer to what you are looking for.

All resources are going to be slightly different and the uses may not line up with your experience. (Some books say black nightshade, Solanum ptycanthum, is poisonous--I eat as many as I can get every year! More recently it has been more or less proven that this statement is generally speaking false.) Maybe it is a case of filling them in with your pen as you find them and learn about them? Similar to how some herbalists keep a "materia medica" notebook.

When you are in a deeper relationship with these plants, you will not need a book to remember their uses, identification, etc.; it will be like seeing a friend, recognizing their face, and remembering their name, personality, connections, home, etc. Deepening our relationship reveals which plants agree with our digestion best and make us feel healthy and well, it reveals how they might be harvested sustainably, and so on... and it takes time! Don't worry if you can't memorize all the plants right away. It will come with time.

I would agree with Jack's statement but put it in regular case... foraging is not scary if you do it with proper respect for your life. Most poisonings, I have heard, have to do with someone eating something unidentified on a random impulse, not people trying to pick an edible plant and mistaking it.

I wish you a good foraging journey!

Yesterday I went out and tapped a few trees. Today I tasted the first syrup. (No new sap today, it was all frozen!)

Maple season is here! The depths of winter are done!

I made some basic glue with well drained yogurt and washing soda--we shall see how it works by tomorrow morning.

Thank you, that is wonderful to know!

I have heard ordinary fiber cordage make lovely sounds too--mostly by itself, though, as it seems not to sustain itself or resonate nearly as well in contact with wood.

I suspect that the structure of the cordage might be the issue rather than the material, in this case... maybe it would work better in a 5 or more strand round cord? I'll have to try...

Another plant fiber that I have high hopes for is black ash wood. I saw someone splitting it very finely the other day and it suddenly dawned on me that maybe this was the answer, something dense and relatively homogeneous, but still flexible.

Nick Mick wrote:You can make a string for a bow and arrow out of stinging nettle fibers, or raw hide, or sinew. If it’s strong enough for that it will be strong enough for an instrument. I don’t know if it would sound good though.

I suspect that nettle or sinew might be too fuzzy. But rawhide might be one to try, as banjo membranes are made from rawhide so we know it resonates well (whereas a nettle bedsheet stretched out, is unlikely to do so). My impression is that in a string for a musical instrument, the individual fibers, typically, run the whole length of the instrument, hence why horsehair and silk are used but not wool. Or they interlock well enough that they appear as one, coherent fiber.

I don't have any rawhide but if I did I would try it!

https://www.tumblr.com/peekofhistory/779807589187895296/making-guqin-silk-strings

A blog post on making silk guqin strings the traditional way, with some videos...

I found a discussion elsewhere on the properties and preparation of casein glue and especially as it relates to lutherie: https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/363085-casein-glue-help/

Thank you! I was thinking of something from dairy, but didn't quite know about casein glue yet. And thank you for the advice on adding powdered charcoal rather than beeswax. I had done that before but was trying the wax mixture for some reason--I think it was because it would show up less on the light colored wood.

Milkweed is always an excellent (and often unwanted) source of latex. Every time I go out to pick it my hands come back very sticky. It dries clear too, so that is sounding quite promising.

Mine that I was thinking about earlier today before I saw this thread, have to do with preparing greens.

Our ancestors had abundant greens to harvest and eat, while we...still do, but in the United States more than any other have been taught that you have to open your wallet to eat green vegetables. (shake of the head)

They often boiled greens, which in some ways sounds ridiculous to modern people unaccustomed to cooking with them. But if you have a great big basketful of greens, then how can you stomach them all? They are a good source of protein and other nutrients but, for many greens, including spinach, are only edible in quantity if they are leached of whatever excess toxic or medicinal components exist in them. This can drastically increase the amount of green vegetables you can enjoy (unless they are nettles or similar, in which case nettles are so good that they need no leaching.) It turns an apparently excessive resource of greens into something that is more valuable as nourishment. And of course you are still getting the micronutrients, but you are eating a greater bulk of food along with them.

Another that needs no boiling to be edible in quantity (in my mind) is chard or beet greens. Different people might find different greens to be better or need more cooking for them to be able to eat them and that is entirely normal. I can eat milkweed, though not unprepared as some people can, and others can't tolerate it at all.

There's also a whole album in celebration of chickens, specifically the Rhode Island Red breed. I stumbled upon it last night and listened to it--full of old traditional fiddle tunes that each have something to do with chickens.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m2oxBL3UIcUUvxKYMwzFoIi_LvNYZm5oE