In article ,
enigma wrote:

Billy wrote in

ct.net.au:

What if I get lucky and have a hickory nut to myself? Can I
eat it?

i did, it was delicious! i want to plant more hickory. it
*might* improve my chances of getting another one to eat
myself...
I just Googled-up hickory nuts and they are available commercially. Of
course, they are never as good as fresh picked. More to ponder.

We had a black walnut that never showed a harvest
but it up and died. How do squirrels do with chestnuts?

i have 2 black walnuts, one in my yard (as it were) & one in
the former peach orchard, now pasture. the first is around 35
years old & bears heavily every other year. the one in the
pasture is about 15 years & just started bearing about 3 years
ago (it had 3 walnuts). it also seems to bear alternate years.
oddly, it's heavy years are the bigger trees lean years... so i
end up with about the same amount of walnuts.
i think it depends on the type of chestnut, if the squirrels
will eat them. they will eat my American chestnuts (if they can
get them. i'm pretty zealous about grabbing any good ones). i
don't know if they can, or will, eat buckeyes (those are horse
chestnuts, right?). i'm trying to get seedlings from my
chestnut, as they are only slightly self-fertile. you get much
bigger yields if they can cross pollanate. i'm almost thinking
of getting some of the American/Chinese hybrids, just to help my
poor tree out. it had blight, but was drasticly pruned &
survived. i'm hoping it's offsping will be resistant.

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.

the buckeyes aren't native, i don't think.
Wikipedia says there are 20 -25 species of chestnuts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_californica
they're nice lumber
trees though. bays are hardwoods. even birch is a hardwood,
although it's softer than pine (softwoods are generally
conifers, & hardwoods are deciduous).
if you have some relatively open areas on your lots
Ay, there be the rub, north side of a hill and fairly steep in the back
of all three lots. Behind our garage, which is uphill because that is
where the street is, nothing grows, just leaf litter.
, look for
antique apples to put in.
We have one, a gravenstein, but it is sun starved with a small
production.
most of the antique varieties don't
need as much fussing as the modern ones... or small fruits, like
highbush cranberry, maybe. i'm all for edible landscaping.
that looks like a pretty nice area from the yahoo arial map
(which tend to be clearer than google, but not always). lots of
treed, hilly country to escape into if needed
Along the coast there are lots of wilderness areas, as attested to by
the numerous pot gardens, but I'm getting too old to play resistance
fighter. I do much better at a table (with friends for conversations), a
bottle of wine (as social lubricant), food (for satisfaction, amusement,
and conversational ploy), and a deck of cards for cheating (adds a
dimension to the conversation while we play canasta or hearts).
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).

well, unless you look at farming lifestyles pre-WW, when
families were extended (grandparents, parents, children &
frequently unmarried siblings of the parents) all living &
working together.
That is pretty much the case here. With houses in the $400K to $500K
range and apartments about $1200/month, it hard for the kids to leave
home. Granny would be staying with us, except the hillside is too
challenging.
i'm a bit younger than you (1954), but i was a child of
depression era parents. kids born mid-60s or later tend not to
understand the make, save, repair
Repair? Repair a house or a car maybe but everything seems to be
integrated circuit boards these days, even toasters! It's the military
mentality of don't fix it, replace it (TVs, stereos, stoves, washers,
ect.).
or do without mindset. i do
know that my child is the only one who attends school in patched
clothes...

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.

did you get a drop spindle?

No, I want to finish my first read through of the book first. Presently
I'm on a treadmill trying to get loaned books back to the library before
their due dates or wait at least a month to get them back. Lord, I just
looked at my library account, I'm up next on four books and I've moved
up from 96th to 38th on "In Defense of Food".

Drop spindles are good for stress reduction, right? I think I've
re-thought my position on the drop spindle. What do I need to look for
and what should I pay, or, simpler, which one should I buy (not that I
will)?

i really need to try that again.
way more portable than my wheel.
lee
I only lost one plant out of my damp-off scare. They are all out side
now, waiting for a little more growth before going into the garden.
Meanwhile I have three more germination trays loaded, one of which (the
warm weather plants is starting to sprout with basil, squash, melons,
peppers and all that good stuff. A 24-cell tray of shrub beans got put
under our water bed because it is always warm there. Each morning is
like a birthday, in my self-composting study, with new little green
presents popping up on the heat pad and under the grow lights.

Well I'd better get to it. Hoping to seed some parsnips to day and prep
a bed for carrots and some companion plants (!!?).

Ciao
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
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