Jennifer Noonan

I built a root cellar. It was so moldy and full of growth that it could be in a horror movie! I don't live there anymore but have since learned you can put a bucket of rock salts in there which pull moisture out of the air. Then you can take out the bucket, evaporate the water and re-use the salts many times.  I will be using that method on my root cellar that I am digging now. Hopefully it works because I still live in a very humid environment.

This video is a great find! I bet his didn't crack because he's using sandstone and he is in an arid looking environment. I would love to try this but I have rock that I think will break and I am in a humid temperate environment. It all comes down to moisture trapped in that rock, if it's not bone dry it's gonna crack and some types of rock crumble easier than others when exposed to heat.
What's your rock and environment like?

We gathered up used grain bags for our root cellar. Would those work for you. They were free.

I hope you dove right in and tried a harvest them.
 This was my experience:
I harvested a couple of buckets of them in the month of August with gloves on. The squirrel population here was very light this year so the beaked hazelnuts were abundant.  
I immediately husked them. Just find how works best for you.  I had a knife handy that I needed occasionally but most of them popped out after I broke the hull with my gloved fingertips.  (is the correct term hull or husk?)
I rinsed them off with water to get all the fine cactus like hairs off and cleaned out any debris all the while looking for the ones with holes to discard.
I dried them on a screen a few days.
After that I've been munching on them, cracking open one at a time.
They are timely to process but for the energy and nutrition I am pretty sure its worth it.  
If I manage to properly store them I'll let you know what I did.

As a side note, I tasted the green hulls.  They have a strong citrus flavor.  I'm trying to find out if the hold any toxins and need a proper type of processing or not.  It seems to me they would be lovely flavorings in jams, teas or maybe even pressed for juice.  If anyone knows if they are safe or not please let me know~ or how would I have something like that tested for toxic substances?

I restored an old 100+ year old spring that was lined with hemlock around the base to support the cover.  The hemlock beams that were exposed to the air were completely rotten, the hemlock submerged was solid. I don't doubt the old timer but I wonder if there was an additional step, a certain acidity to the water or if the fellow was just speaking of a certain species?  Hemlock will hold up submerged without oxygen but once you take it out I have no idea if it would retain that.  I would imagine once the oxygen gets to it the rot would set in but maybe not? I sure would like to test it now that you bring it up.  Just the other day I crossed a stream and what I thought was a rock about a meter under the sandy bank I noticed was an ancient hemlock a good 6 feet in diameter quite preserved. It must have fallen in a time when maybe the beavers flooded the land and now there is a small stream that passes over it.  Judging by the landscape that tree must have been resting there many hundreds of years or maybe more.  
If you test this please let us know of any success or failures.  

Jerusalem Artichoke maybe?  

This is a great thread.  I have been seeking others to talk with about this subject because I have had various experiences communicating with the plant and fungal 'channels'.  I use the word channel to mean an unspoken avenue to communicate to a specific plant or group of plants or their 'spirit'.  I've made attempts at communicating those experiences with friends and I have a very difficult time coming up with the right words that apparently are totally lacking in our language to talk about alternate forms of communication.  (That said, when I use the apostrophe around a word in this post it means I don't have a better word in English for the meaning I am attempting to communicate.)  There is a perceptive channel that can be opened up and I've noticed that it is most open for me when I express gratitude.  It's as if that gratitude opens up a channel of communication. It's not gratitude alone however it is also clear intention. The 'speaking' to the plant or fungus can be done verbally or non-verbally, in a chant or a thought.  I have a friend who is from an indigenous tribe in the amazon basin. (Their tribe has not been 'colonized' for long, only about 50 years.) He says that they still 'speak' without words to one another.  He says that form of communication has been necessary to their survival.  Some people in their communities also are able to 'ask' the plants for their medicine and are able to be taught how to use the medicine through 'dreaming'.  I know we have a word for this - telepathy, but I'm not even sure if that's the right word.  I have a theory that all people are capable of using this sensory channel if they can open up their gating channels.  I'm reading a pretty heavy book right now called Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of earth by Stephen Harrod Buhner.  He also theorizes that anyone can intentionally open their 'gating channels' or 'doors of perception'.  I know the plant world and fungal world is open to communication on that level because I've witnessed it.  For me it comes through in 'whispers' and it is very real. (I was totally straight, not tripping out on anything.)  I'll share a couple of my experiences with you: I have wandered in the forest searching for fruiting Chanterelles and I 'asked' where they were and I got little 'whispers' in a particular direction.  I kept on the trail and was lead to a huge mass of fruiting Chanterelles! On a different occasion I was in placed in charge of running a primitive skills camp for children one year and we needed more bow drill kits.  I walked out into the woods blindly searching for cedar. I stopped myself and I 'asked' where the cedar was and I received a 'whisper' and I followed it.  Sure enough I was lead to a cedar tree that had a huge piece blown down and spires of thick broken wood that I was able to prune from the tree.  Interestingly I attempted to find that exact tree again with another person and it was completely hidden from me.  I couldn't find it (and I'm usually good at navigation) for some reason that day those channels were cut off and so was my ability to navigate.  Has anyone else had a similar experience communicating with plant, animal, insect, human or other animals? I have an understanding of the one consciousness and I wonder if within this there is a channel of communication all life (maybe even also the elements) has the ability to access?  

Hi Yuri,  We are in a similar situation.  We are seeking land, ideally with intentional community. We are staying in a foreclosed house itching to find a forever home. We are in Maine but also willing to travel.  We have managed to save some money and are looking for cheap land if we don't find community to move in with long term. If we get a chunk of land we would like to invite others onto it as long as we don't exceed the resource availability of the site.  It's my partner, three children and myself.  We want to live off grid and teach our children to live with nature using land use practices and ethics of permaculture and neo-aboriginal ways.  My partner is a farm worker, writer, activist and geography expert.  I am a builder, tinkerer, ecologist and naturalist.  My children are 4, 9 and 12.  We are very self-sufficient folks and would love to learn and grow with others. Good luck in your search and if you ever venture to Maine give us a shout out, I'd be open to build a future with others.