The magic elixir... Acorn Tannin Water!

It's that time of year! Acorns!!  

 My sister has a day care and she has a lot of oak trees. You know, if you tell small people to gather umpteen billion acorns off the ground as some sort of game, they will do it! She ended up with the acorns cleared from her yard, and I ended up with a good crop of acorns this year.

Anyway!  One of the products of processing acorns, is tannin water. In order to use acorns for anything but throwing at each other, or decorations, or checker pieces you must leach the tannins out.  The tannins in acorns is what makes them bitter and inedible to humans in their raw form (you COULD eat them if you HAD to.. but they would be very very very bitter, and probably give you a belly ache).

  

I could go into a whole big thing here about how I process acorns, but this is going to be more about the tannin water and the benefits from it. 

This water is a tannic acid solution that has a variety of uses. This water is very antiviral and antiseptic and can be used as treatment for many, topical issues. It is great for poison ivy, cuts, rashes, burns, etc.  This is what my family has benefited from the most.  My mother even used it on the cat!  This is the best story. My cat had a hot spot at the base of her tail and she would bite it till the skin was bare and raw. The vets tried everything from topical creams to internal medicines and nothing helped.  I gave my mother some tannin water and suggested she try it, couldn't hurt right?  She did, and not only did it clear up quickly, it never returned!!  When I was on the Trail, I got a decent sunburn.  I gathered up some acorns and boiled them up for the water (let it cool), put that on my sunburn and I was good to go!  

  I have also used it as a detergent for washing clothes (not whites!). It leaves your clothes smelling so fresh! Don't use it on your whites, unless you want to dye them.. in which case it makes a GREAT dye.. but you need to fix it with salt to keep it from fading. 

  Things I have yet to try, but have read: it can be used as a gargle for sore throats, taken as a mild tea for diarrhea and dysentery (good to know when hiking!), it can also be used externally for hemorrhoids. 

  Of course, what tannic acid is best known for is tanning hides (how tannic acid got its name... or was it the other way around? ). I have yet to take advantage of this use, but perhaps some day?

    

Did I undo the no-poo?

So, after a LOT of consideration, and an overabundance of grey hair and vanity, I decided I needed to color my hair. 
  I thought a lot about this due to the fact that I have been no-poo since July, I took the plunge and colored.

Well, I did this yesterday, and today my hair needs to be washed already. I got very used to not having to wash for DAYS AND DAYS.  But it seems that it's very true about that your scalp will produce more oils to combat the loss of it's natural oils, and my hair is gross and greasy after only one day!  
  I wonder how long it will take to get back to my new normal. It took me a couple weeks at the beginning, so we shall see.....

Where are the bugs?

Very bad picture of south station from my sitting spot

I'm sitting in the grass on the "Greenway" outside of South Station in Boston. I'm doing what it seems most Americans are afraid of, which is I'm sitting directly on the ground. I'm not on a bench, or in a chair. I don't even have a blanket underneath me.
  I've been sitting here reading for about an hour now and just realized I have not seen one bug.  Not one ant has crawled on me, no spiders or crickets. I've seen a few bees buzzing around the flowers and a lot of birds are in the gardens, but no bugs.
  Now, to most people (especially city folk), I'm sure this is a benefit to their "sitting on the grass communing with nature" experience. To me though....it makes me wonder what I'm sitting on. I had treated myself to a coffee and muffin on my way out of the station and had decided to donate my muffin crumbs to the ecosystem. Well, nothing has shown up to claim them. If I were home in my yard, or out on the Trail, these little gifts would have been swarmed with ants by now. Or a chipmunk would have scurried away with them.
  So, now instead of feeling like I've found a nice patch of nature in among the concrete jungle, I'm wondering what form of bug spray has this grass my bare legs are on been coated with??
I seriously would love to have any of you try this experiment at home and let me know your results. Take some crumbs of some sort and put then on the ground, then time the amount of time it takes before you see some sort of  critter interested in it.

Crumbs that were deposited into the grass an hour ago.. 

Making Yucca Cordage

This is yucca the plant that grows in the desert (or ornamentally in other areas), not the potato like root. 

So, how do you get from this:

      To this?: 

With a lot of work actually. But it's very therapeutic as far as I am concerned!


Start with a nice long leaf. This particular type of yucca is called Yucca Filamentosa which of course is also edible.. and the wood is very useful too. 

But for now, lets focus on the usefulness of the fibers. So.. the best part of this project is that you get to take a rock and beat the leaves.  You don't want to beat too hard, or you will actually damage the fibers. Just kinda.. drop the rock.. more than smash with the rock. I found a nice rock that fits well in my hand and the bottom is nice and flat. Then I use a nice piece of wood as a base. Your mission at this point is to just separate the fibers a bit. 

 After you have accomplished a nice broken up leaf (above right), you want to get the "meat" of the leaf off. (Save this stuff as it can be used as a "soap")  For this I have a scraper rock. You don't want a real sharp edge, as that might damage the fibers. You could also use the back of a knife, that's the type of edge you want. You can rinse the fibers to get some of the pulpy parts off too. You will see that your hands might get very green, but when you rinse it just comes right off, no staining. 

 At this point you can easily pull the fibers apart and see that you have stringy fibers available to you. You could make this into a rough cord the way it is if you like, 

or you can work it more to get as much of the pulp off as you can. I (of course) chose to make it into nice fine threads. In order to get it to the fine clean threads on the right, I pretty much took each fiber individually and scraped it with my fingernails.

I realized I don't have any pictures of how I actually made the cordage. I will post that step separately later :) (perhaps I will mix it in with my milkweed fiber tutorial ... I didn't forget you Sarah)

Wait till you see what we did with Off! SCARY!!

And we spray this all over ourselves and our CHILDREN!!

What would you say is just about the toughest thing to clean in the kitchen? Range hood, stove knobs? In the past I have taken a lot of time, elbow grease, and a lot of different things to try to clean these things. I remember leaving stove knobs to soak in a basin for hours. Scrubbing, scraping, etc on the range hood. 

Well, leave it to a single guy doing a thorough cleaning for the first time in a long time to figure out the easiest way to do it.  He was cleaning the range hood and decided he needed a good solvent. He looked under his sink.. and happened to have a can of Off! with 15% DEET.  He remembered that DEET is a solvent.. so he gave it a try.. WOW! is all I can say! (sorry it's sideways, I hadn't realized it)

  

We ended up cleaning quite a bit with this can of Off! This was all done with just a t-shirt for a rag. No green scrubbies, no steel wool, not even a rough rag. 

The next day I was painting with some stain blocker type paint and hadn't realized that it needed paint thinner to clean it up off my hands. I really wish I had videotaped this one!  I tried scrubbing with dishsoap, HOT water, everything.. sprayed a little Off! on my hands, and it washed right off. I was no longer so concerned about getting paint on the trim!  

Yesterday I we found some permanent marker on the wall. Mark asked me what would work, and I suggested alcohol. In the past I have used alcohol swabs to clean off permanent marker. He took some alcohol and tried it and it didn't touch it. We both then looked at each other and said "Off!"  I sprayed it on.. and wiped it all off, in one wipe!  

We also were able to use it to clean duct tape adhesive that had been on a heating grate for who knows how many years.  I wish I had gotten before and after of the range hood!

This is just 15% DEET.... when I got paint splatters all over my face and arms, Mark said "Well, you just have to scrub that, you don't want to put Off! on your skin."  Then we realized that's what we DO!! 

Check out more of our video fun!

Half a Pie pan

The other day I made a Carrot Pie and an Autumn Olive Berry pie (I will be posting the recipe once I perfect it). And I thought to myself... "Self, I wish I could have just made half of each."  So , I got to thinking about if it doesn't exist already (which I was sure it would) then I needed to invent a half and half pie tin.

Well, of course necessity is the mother of invention (remember Mother Necessity!?), and it has already been invented. 

http://www.chefscatalog.com/product/27351-Chicago-Metallic-Split-Decision-Nonstick-Pie-Pan-9-inch.aspx?sourcecode=DW1GG1036&gclid=CL7s-oOx-7ICFUKd4AodhjUA0g

Generally I have a rule, that once we get into October, and DEFINITELY after Halloween, you are NOT allowed to buy yourself things you want. Instead you put them on your Christmas list (yes, I said it.. CHRISTMAS!) in order to give others the chance to get you something you want/need for a gift.  I'm not sure I can wait till Christmas for this!!  My birthday is before Christmas, but not that much before.. hmm.. perhaps it can be a Halloween present :)

Woods and Water Therapy Day

Very often I find myself just NEEDING to be out in the woods.  I call this "Woods Therapy".  I'm not sure I have ever encountered anyone who doesn't feel better after they have been out among the trees.  Even when I took my kids out as teenage boys, they started out "kicking and screaming", but on the way out, they always wanted to go back. 

This past weekend, I was able to get a great day of not only Woods Therapy, but Water Therapy also. 

Lucky for me, one of my best friends has a membership to Boating in Boston and I get to be her +1.  They have a number of different locations and on this day we chose to go to Hopkinton. We got there and the wind was CRAZY!!  But we got out and spent a few hours out on the water. 

This was the first time I tried a "sit-on" kayak as opposed to a "sit-in". I wasn't sure how I would like it, but I ended up liking it a lot. I had been prepared that I would get wet, and in a sit-on you DEFINITELY will get wet, where as in a sit in.. maybe not so much...

We got to see some wildlife. This Great Blue Heron allowed us to get within about 15 feet before it lifted off and moved to the other side of the cove. We also got to see a turtle basking in the warm sun of this October day. 

  After we had our fill of kayaking, we headed to Upton State Forest where I showed Dawn one of my favorite trails in the area. Whistling Cave Trail is the epitome of woods therapy all year long (well, except on a bad mosquito day).  This short loop (about 2 miles) brings you through a range of different hiking environments in a short time. To get to the trail you start on a nicely graded woods road. I love fall hiking and getting to crunch through the leaves as you go. 

Once you get to the trail, you have to traverse a fairly steep down in a deciduous forest. You get to practice your balance through a couple of water features. Outside of mosquito season, I would say this is one of my favorite parts. Sitting on a mossy root base with the water playing and trickling around, listening to the music of the water mingling in with the rest of the forest sounds is so serene. 

The trail then brings you through a section of HUGE boulders that are covered with an amazing array of different lichens. This is where you can find the "Whistling Cave". I've been here a lot, and.. yeah, never heard it whistle, but it is definitely my favorite section. 

After this you take a walk in the woods. An old pine forest with little undergrowth opens up around you and brings you to another woods road that is not quite so "finished" as the first. 

Back in August, after enduring the challenges of a rainy 50 mile section of northern Maine, I had said my hiking bug had been squashed. I think this weekend resurrected it.. I just want to be out crunching through the leaves and tucked into my sleeping bag at night!  I think I see the Midstate Trail in my near future!