Daylily

Daylily, yes, go for it ! That class really could make a difference in people's lives.

 

One word of advice, be sure to give current guidelines on making jerky. We don't want people to get ecoli or anything from jerky.

 

Yogurt drops are a fun thing to add to the class. Most kids really like them. Just 8 oz. vanilla yogurt and 3 oz. sugar free gelatin. Drop onto the sheets, spread a bit with a spoon, and let dry.

Thanks for the encouragement! We'll most likely do this. We would like to serve a meal of mostly dried food so folks could try them as part of the class. We are total vegetarian so we don't have to worry about the jerky

Violet, I was thinking about you teaching people to can, etc. That is such a good work. Some folks are asking me to do a dehydrating class at our church. DD and I probably will do it. It would be a great opportunity to.

When I read the blog post, I was moved by it. I couldn't help wondering of our politicians would do any better. I think they might but would like to find out!

This lady belongs to another forum that I'm a member of too. She's been posting updates on Greece for many months and just started the blog. Her husband is a music teacher and she had posted quite awhile back about some of his students fainting in class from hunger. It's sad. His income was cut way back, maybe by half, I can't remember for sure.

I can't believe there are 56 views and no comments!

http://homeingreece.wordpress.com/

Please read May 31's blog post called

supermarket politicians

I would like to see something like happen with our politicians!!

No! It's wet here. The gardens barely dried out enough for us to plow and till. We've only been able to plant the field corn, peas and a couple rows of potatoes. We have more potatoes to plant plus all the other vegetables and here it is May 22. 80% chance of rain today and it poured yesterday

Wow! Makes me tired just reading it! I hope everything turns out wonderful!

I have identified the "weeds". There is the catnip which I want to keep, some coltsfoot I'll keep too. Lots of thistles, I think Canada and bull thistle; another kid that I don't know the exact species.

I've tried to grow redbud here but it won't survive. It grows all over the woods down off the mountain but not up here. There is mullein. I'm not familiar with motherwort or milk thistle. Maybe I should check on the unknown thistle species!!

Thanks for the good ideas!

AH that is so cool! Thanks for letting us see it!

I appreciate all the good ideas here. Any other "wild" suggestions? I'm thinking wild because I need things to cover the bank and choke out the weeds!

It opened just fine! Thanks so much. Do you know if thornless blackberry leaves work the same and the thorny ones?

DD and I want to start an medicinal herb garden on a sunny, dryish bank. There is a nice stand of catnip there already. We're thinking of yarrow, echinacea, and Queen Ann's lace. What would you put there? Thanks!

I'm sorry about your grandmother.

Stepping in gingerly here...

 

"sweet water" is naturally (not by heat) dried (dessicated) stevia leaves, whole but crushed, put and brewed sun tea style, in a sun tea bottle. When brewed, transfer to another container, filtering through a coffee filter. Over steeping gives that 'yuck' taste. Not removing the leaves does that also. Leaves must be harvested pre or post bloom, not during. I do not have the tables handy on the days before or after, but it averages 14 days in this growth zone.

 

A light citrus taste, closer to mountain dew than sprite, very thirst quenching, but very mild. If you are used to sodas or southern sweet iced teas, you may not appreciate the mildness.

 

The trick is the dessication. You want to keep the oils, but they tend to 'cook off' first. I do mine in the dry sun tea bottles, sealed, letting the sun do the job. Some English friends do theirs in zip lock bag. Yuck.

 

A tidbit to the diabetics and EMTs here. Stevia contains natural glucocides, but in very small quantities. There is actually a sub species developed just for those glucocides. (Note: glucocies are not steviacides, steviacides are the false sweetnings.). There is a emergency use (very powerful) powdered form. They have yet to get the ratio of meter reading to quantity worked out consistently. It is NOT an insulin, but our EMTs will use it when a persons blood sugar is above 400 mg/dl, and they need to get that down in less than an hour. That is right, less than an hour. Normally 20 minutes. They have the syringes pre-prepped with 10 units (300 on the meter).

 

What I have yet to work out is long term storage of the dessicated leaves. I am experimenting with tinctures and the like.

 

Another tidbit for the poster who said their family has issues with stevia. In these parts we have a lot of folks genetically prone to sudden onset 'grand mal' type 1 diabetes. These people often (greater than 80%, but do not have a tested/approved figure) have a allergy like reaction to stevia. To this person I say to check out 'MSS', Mennonite Somatype Syndrome, (but not just for them, Native Americans are also documented) and at their next check, have the blood work done to see if they are having retention issues with potassium, phosphorus, and perhaps magnesium. That is MSS. It will cause a hard type 1 grand mal diabetes onset if not treated with supplements. Here the doctors will normally prescribe "PHOS-NaK' in a hospital environment, but not prescribe outside such a facility, as each packet is 10% rda of potassium, and 10% over can be fatal.

 

Sarah

Sarah, I'm trying to comprehend all this. When you say "grand mal" type 1 diabetes, are you saying that it is accompanied by seizures or just comparing a very sudden onset?

Well, of course Ihad to go to Amazon and look. I love the cover! I enjoyed the Grit article too. congratulations TMC!!

Last summer, Dd and I saved all our tomatoe skins when we canned tomatoes and dried them. It does make a good flavored powder. We added it to some Tofu cream cheese and it was really good. We also did that with too-large cucumbers and made powder. Makes a yummy sandwich. I want to try other veggie powders too.

Pansey, would you tell me how the berry screen works? Does it really screen out all the seeds?

My husband and I canned 19 half pints of seedless Blackberry Jam today. Yum! Love our Squeezo machine (and since DH is an engineer he likes to work it - yahoo!)

I guess you use the berry screen? I've been thinking about getting one and wondering if it really worked!

AH, that's funny about the cat wiping the steam off the window with her nose!

Butter Beans are not the tiny green limas that you find frozen in the store. Butter beans are large dried limas.

I actually ate beans twice in one week!

This is so funny! We eat beans and cornbread every single day and sometimes twice. That's the main dish and anything else just goes along with it.

The links don't seem to work anymore. I see lots of threads here I would like to read! Are they still available? How can I find them if they are?

Thanks Becca. It was as much fun to write as it was to read and like Michael said, sometimes even WE did not know what was going to come out of our writing. The humor, the drama, the love. It was all there, including the most outrageous blupers that we all loved. I reread it this winter and laughed and cried and wondered at how creative everyone had been.

 

Michael, I agree, it would be awful nice to have it in booklet form, or would it be more of a book. There is a lot of wonderful writing there as well as a lot of good info. I can close my eyes and picture your cabin and homestead.

 

I can't help but wonder if we had to write it over again would we do something different? Bring along different items? Choose a different valley or place in the valley? Would you believe that I actually wondered what we'd all write if we were going to take that same journey only to a different locale and setting.

 

The writers on this thread are very very talented individuals and I'd be proud to be stranded with any of them in a SHTF/TEOTWAWKI situation.

 

 

I've wondered that very same thing! I think it would be difficult to write a different "reality"

We dry lots of yellow summer squash and zucchini. I don't blanch it. I've dried slices and chunks. Both work great. I just reconstitute it as a vegetable all by itself. Very tasty.

That happens to me too.

We would have been playing our musical instruments and singing, eating beans and cornbread and enjoying each others company! The girls would probably have cooked up lots of goodies for us.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I don't remember but I must have.