In article ,
enigma wrote:
Billy wrote in
ct.net.au:
I'll be lucky if I can grow enough garnish for my meals. I
can't support me, much less the other four that would count
on me. I think I need to cut me some firewood and plant
fruit trees, but this was nearly a climax forest, so that
feels weird. But still, if I can cover a couple of possums,
leave a little for the deer, and maybe plant a walnut tree
for the squirrels, what the hell.
squirrels prefer hickory, actually. they only go for my
walnuts if i leave the box outside after i take the hulls off.
however, in the 9 autumns i've been here & with a few dozen
hickories, i've only managed to score *one* nut for myself.
the squirrels eat them off the trees. almost all i ever see
are the hulls & a bit of shell 
What if I get lucky and have a hickory nut to myself? Can I eat it?
We had a black walnut that never showed a harvest but it up and died.
How do squirrels do with chestnuts?
where are you that you have almost climax forest? i have
pasture gone to pine to hardwood over the past 70 years (this
place was a grain mill in the 1800s, then a dairy until the
30s. then it became a Boston professor's summer home until the
mid-60s, when it was reformed into a small sheep & maple syrup
producing farm). i wouldn't call it climax, even though most
of the softwood is gone.
I'm out her in northern California on the edge of the redwood forest.
I'm twixt Santa Rosa and Guerneville. Guerneville was so heavily logged
that its' unofficial name is "Stumptown". Redwood and bay make up most
of the non-deciduous trees. I don't know if bay is considered hardwood
but it is harder than the redwood. We had one redwood, up the hill from
our house about 70 - 80 feet (we are on the south bank of the Russian
River, with a northern exposure), that hung like the sword of Damocles
over our house, so we took it down. I didn't like doing it but it was
necessary for my family. We still have twenty or so trees on our three
lots, mostly oak, some bays, and a couple of buckeyes.
Typically, we would get plucked slowly, like the frog
sitting in the boiling water, but I think Shrub and his
gang has really screwed up and the economy has gotten away
from them. I hope I'm wrong.
there is already a recession, no matter how much the gub'mint
is loathe to say the "r" word. i think it will get worse
before it gets better & i can see the next president in a
really bad position... i am hopeful there will not be a
depression, but i would not rule it out.
i'm trying to decide if i should pay off my mortgage, so i
will be clear in that event. i'm also trying to decide if i
should buy more adjacent land, to aid in self-sufficiency.
I'd get out of debt.
this house was built before modern 'conveniences' & it can
work without them if needed. i consider myself lucky in that
regard at least.
I think, at least for the for seeable future, people in the western
world will look back on the Twentieth Century as the "Golden Age" when
the old prophecies of milk and honey almost came true. I doubt the
developing world will see it like that though. Until we reach some sort
of equivalency in life style with the developing world, I think we can
expect our life style to diminish. I was born in the middle of WWII.
After the war, America was responsible for 50% of the worlds commerce
because the rest of the industrialized world had blow themselves to
pieces. Suddenly, families could survive on a single income and mom
could stay home with the kids. Never was like that before and probably
never will be again, with our current style of gub'mint (keptocracy).
lee
I got the book you recommended "Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning"
and I'm slowly picking up the vocabulary. Presently, I'm reading the
library's copy but in a few days mine will show up from Amazon.
Well, nice chat but I'm late for "Happy Hour". Gotta run;-)
--
Billy
Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/