There's An App For That

Do you forage for food?

I'd never exactly put that word to it until recently, but I do.  I always have.  I grew up with parents who were foragers.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are fruit picking trips cleverly disguised as weekend family camping trips.  Not far outside of Shelley, ID (my... how far I've wandered!) you can, or at least you could 30-40 years ago, drive up into the mountains through Wolverine Canyon.  We did that a lot when I was kid because, looking at it with today's insight, it was both nearby and filled with resources.

I remember 'harvesting' these things in Wolverine Canyon:

• Chokecherries
• Elderberries
• Currants (Yellow, Red and Black ones)
• Oregon Grapes
• Crawfish
• Trout
• Deer
• Sage Hen
• All kinds of fallen trees for firewood
• Watercress

We'd bring one or more of these things home on any given trip.  The next day or two would be devoted to preserving (except the crawfish and watercress which were always used fresh) the bounty for later use.  Chokecherries, Elderberries, Currants and the Grapes were quickly turned into jams and jellies.  The trout was filleted and sage hens cut up and either frozen or canned.  Deer was usually processed at a local butcher who would do game meat.  And wood was chopped down into smaller pieces to burn as supplemental heat all winter.

A few times my dad cut Chokecherry branches that had naturally formed into a good shape for a cane or walking stick and then peeled back the bark, shaved them smooth with his pocket knife and, when they were well dried, oiled them so they are a luscious natural wood finish.   Later they were cut to height as he sold or gifted them away.  I still have the one he made especially for my mom and if I shrink the way she did in her later years one day it will be the right height for me, too.

It was just a normal part of how we lived.

Just like picking asparagus growing along the roadsides in the spring...  Or picking the extra apples, with permission of course, from a neighbor's tree for juice, jelly, apple sauce, pie filling and dehydrated apple chips.

Some day make your own apple chips!  Try dipping the apple slices in cinnamon and sugar before drying.  Or... my favorite:  strawberry banana jello powder.

Everywhere I've been after that it's a normal thing to mentally tally the resources around me.  Now there's an app that will track a lot of that for me.  I signed up on Neighborhood Fruit and took a look around this morning.  It seems like a pretty new thing that doesn't have a lot of information entered in for many locales yet.  But it's an interesting idea.  One I really like and will continue to check back periodically.

On Neighborhood Fruit, you can both enter information about fruit you have available to others who will come glean it and search for those opportunities for yourself.  Some estimates say that as much as 80% of the fruit growing in backyards around the country is not used while the fruit we do eat is grown in water-intensive orchards far from our homes.  That just doesn't make sense to me.  It's not sustainable or responsible.

In the spring, I have every intention of adding fruit trees to my yard.  And I know they'll produce more than I could ever hope to use myself.  I will be entering them on Neighborhood Fruit.

Tree Sleuth

For awhile I've been, with varying degrees of effort, trying to find out what some of the trees in our yard are. I recognize the leaves of the oaks and maples and the needles of the pines and cypress but there are more that are a complete mystery to me.  It was made a bit more urgent today when I pried an immature fruit/nut from one of the unidentified trees out of Lightning's mouth.  Luckily I happened on a website called Native Plants for Georgia and found some quick answers!

They identify this as a Tulip Poplar, a member of the magnolia family, and is one of the leaves I've been curious about.  I've seen 3-4 of these in the edges of our woods.  All but one of ours are about 2 feet high, but the website says they can grow to 80-100 feet and have these orange-yellow tulip-like flowers in April and early May.

The green nut I took away from the dog appears to be from a Mockernut Hickory tree.  At least it's not something that will poison them!  Two of the three trees nearest the house have leaves like this (the other is an oak) and have been dropping green, though growing, nuts when the wind blows the last week or so.

I also learned we have one or more Sweetgums, most easily identified (to me, anyway) by these spiky seed husks that I think will make great additions to pine cone laden Christmas wreaths!

And our plentiful pines are Long Leaf Pines.  Their habit of only having needle bundles on high branches, an environmental adaptation from enduring fires on the coastal plains, makes them a good canopy tree in our woods.  Unlike the shallow root ball I'm accustomed to seeing on pine species, these have a deep tap root.  Learning that makes me feel better about a couple of them that are clinging to the edge of where a former inhabitant of this property graded for better drainage around the house.  Their large cones will also make welcome addition to the wreaths I'm dreaming about making for the coming holiday season.

This leaf was a contender when I was trying to identify the figs... which I'm beginning to doubt are in my yard.  It's a Sassafras tree.  Best collected in the fall, the dried and crushed leaves can be used to flavor gumbo.  I'll have to keep that in mind and gather some...

And it seems we have 2-3 different varieties of oak. Some produce acorns of a good size and others are so small that 3 will fit on the surface of a quarter... Another interesting addition to the holiday wreath building.

As you can see we have a pretty diverse woods.  And I'm excited to see that many of the trees have leaves that turn colors in the fall.  I bet the display of yellow, gold, amber, and red will be beautiful!

Adam's Skivvies

Adam might be right at home here. I got his favorite undies in the back yard... The first man wore the leaves to hide his nakedness once he realized his junk was out there but I don't recall that the Bible says he ate the figs.  He might have.  Lots of people do.

I don't.  At least I never have.  And I don't think I'd like them much.

Or maybe I'm judging them unfairly?

The only fig I've ever tasted, as far as I know, is one of those dried up brown chunks of yuckiness you find in the grocery store's produce section wrapped tightly in plastic on a little meat tray during the holidays.  I did not like it!  Not even a little bit.  I don't like raisins or dates, either, so not liking the figs could be anticipated.  But maybe there's still hope!  I'd venture a guess that it's all the extra sugar, but I don't mind a Fig Newton now and then.  Can't say those are ever my first choice in cookies, but they're not terrible by any means.

And I'm not really sure I've ever seen a fresh fig.  In pictures, yes, but not up close and personal. Figs were just not a fruit crop that grew in Idaho or Utah... but apparently they are in Georgia.

On several occasions, I've spent a little time talking to one of my neighbors.  He's quite the gardener and an awesome source of knowledge about the neighborhood, stuff that went on in this house before we bought it, what kinds of plants grow wild in the woods, Civil War history, and all sorts of other stuff.  A couple of days ago, he told me he was sure I'd find some wild fig trees somewhere out in the wooded section of our back yard because he has some.

Which, oddly, he keeps even though he says he doesn't care much for the fruit.

I say keeping them is odd because he told me he had more than 40 trees removed from his lot so you'd think a couple more that he doesn't really love would be no big thing.  He may keep them for his mom.  He did say that sometimes she comes and gets enough to make a batch of fig preserves.  She likes the stuff.  I'm sure (at least I hope) it's very much tastier than I'm imagining right now.

But I digress...

I've been wanting to go look for these fig trees so I can keep Derek from chopping them down before I get a chance to decide if I want one.  Or two.  Or maybe even three since more trees give more coverage from looking through to a neighboring house on the other side of the woods.

And them looking through at us... eek!!

Here are a couple of pictures I found to help me know what to look for:

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html
Lot's of good info on figs in that blog post!

Photo credit: http://allotmentheaven.
blogspot.com/2011/01/fig-ficus.html

There are a few trees with similar leaves out there.  Guess I'll just have to pay attention and keep looking for fruit.  I learned today that they don't flower first; the blossom is inside the fruit and never emerges into the daylight.

Adam might have found them to be his comfy clothes but I like a bit more coverage than these leaves would provide!  While the leaves of what I think might be fig trees out in our woods are somewhat bigger than on the surrounding trees, they're just not enough...  Guess I need to do my shopping at the plus-size fig tree!!

Any thoughts how I use figs? Favorite recipes?  Gotta decide if they earn a spot to stay!