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Thread: BASIC LIST / SUGGESTED ITEMS FOR LONG TERM SURVIVAL

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  1. #81
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    *Survival Trapping* Making Do With What You Have On Hand

    By: Buckshot
    5-1-03


    Trapping or snaring is a simple process. Your goal is to hold, contain, or kill the intended target species. Without real traps or snares, you have to use your head. The better your understanding of wildlife, the better trapper you will be.

    I have a friend who just started trapping and she told me she used to think you just put traps anywhere in the woods and the animals would be caught! This is a very important statement if you are a beginner. To understand trapping, you have to understand what real estate agents say all the time - "Location, location, location."
    To become an expert trapper, you must study every piece of written material on the target animals. I am not just talking about trapping books and videos, but wildlife studies. We have 50 states and all 50 states have done some form of wildlife study every few years. These studies will teach you a lot. For example, an Iowa raccoon study found that the average raccoon family of two adults and four pups live their entire life in a 160-acre area. The Canadian beaver study found that you can trap two beavers per den every year, and not hurt the population. The Texas coyote study found out that you have to trap 70% plus of all the coyotes in a given area to hurt the population. These same studies also found out that if the population was really trapped down, the surviving families will have more pups in their litters. This is a natural rule called "Nature will always fill a void."

    Have you seen the movie with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins called "The Edge"? I think that is what it was called, anyway. This is the movie where they are stranded up in Alaska. They make that little cage trap out of sticks and twine to catch the squirrel. Then they catch a squirrel. The funny part was the squirrel the movie shows getting caught in the trap doesn't even live in Alaska! I have seen animals in traps, and I laughed my head off when I saw that part! A trapped squirrel would have jumped and pushed at the cage. That cage, having no weight on it would have fallen open, and the squirrel would have escaped. Don't rely on Hollywood to teach you any survival skills!

    Pine Sap and Birch Bark Trap. We will now discuss some different emergency trapping techniques. One of my favorites from my "10 Homemade Traps" video is a century old way of trapping birds. For centuries, the Indians knew that trapping fed them better than hunting, and they developed this trap.

    You use a smooth, easy-to-form type of bark, like Birch or any pliable, soft, inner bark. Form a cone like an ice cream cone, and tie strips of inner bark around the cone to keep it together. Score a pine tree by cutting off a 4 x 4 inch square in the bark, until you can see the inner bark. The sticky sap will flow out. Take a stick and get a good glob of sap, then smear it onto the inside of your cone. Using whatever the birds - like grouse or pheasants - are feeding on (berries, corn, etc…), make a small trail leading into the cone, and fill the inner cone with the bait. The bird will eat the bait and follow the trail right into the cone! Once they stick their head in, the pinesap will stick to their feathers. The bird is now blind. But, just like a bird in a cage that you place a cover over, these trapped birds will lay down, thinking it is night time, and go to sleep. It is very important to make sure no light can be seen inside the cone.

    Approach the trapped bird slowly and quietly. Once you grab the bird, hold on tight, because it is going to freak out! Quickly grab it and wring it's neck.

    Stovepipe Bird Trap. The stovepipe game bird trap is so simple, it makes me laugh every time I think about it. The principle behind it is that birds can't back up. Have you ever seen a bird walk backwards? Neither have I!

    A friend told me about it when I was in high school. There was a farm inside the village limits loaded with pheasants! I used to train my dogs there. The pheasants were just too tempting for me, so I had to try it. So, I made a trap, baited it with corn, and the next day, sure enough, there were fresh pheasant tracks going right into the pipe!

    Man! This is great, I thought! I lifted the pipe, expecting the weight of a bird, only to be disappointed upon finding it empty. Mice must have stolen the bait, I thought. After two more days of tracks going into the pipe and no pheasants, I figured it out. I was using an 8-inch pipe, and the birds could turn around. I went back to the junkyard, found some 6-inch pipe, and the next day, the pheasant was waiting!

    Of course, I had to try it on the grouse, and found that a 4-inch pipe works for them. My guess for quail would be the 2- or 3-inch pipe. Just don't do what a friend of mind did. He made one out of a real short pipe, about 10 inches long, and the big rooster pheasants tail was sticking out the end! He was in some park, and as he was walking out to his car, the police saw the pheasant tail, and he got busted. Some people have no sense of humor! The bad thing was, now the cops knew what the trap was, so the rest of us had to quit for a while.

    Materials needed:
    1. (1) 6-inch diameter, 24-inch long stove pipe
    2. piece of chicken wire, about 12-inches square
    3. some duct tape
    That's it. You take the chicken wire, form it around one end of the pipe, and duct tape the overlay nice and tight around the pipe. Place a trail of corn going into the pipe, and a pile or cob in the back. This has to be the easiest trap to make, and man does it work! Be careful when you pull the pheasants out. They are a feisty bird, and you had better have a good hold on them. Otherwise, they will fly off.


    A friend of mine did this in the garage, lost the bird, got the dog, and he said that after 15 minutes of him trying to knock the bird down so the dog could grab it, the garage was a wreck! The dog ripped the bird up, and his wife was a little mad. Women!!!

    A Cruel Raccoon Trap. First off, I have never used this type of trap, ever! But, I had a friend in high school that used it. I saw the caught animal in it. However, if it comes down to your survival or the raccoon, then it's your choice.

    Drill a 1-inch diameter hole, 4 inches deep, into the root of a big, thick, main tree. If you don't have a drill, you can burn a hole down with hot coals. Hammer four nails into the hole, angled downwards, on all four sides, so that they stick about ¾ of the way into the hole. Bait, like a piece of fish, is shoved down the hole. The raccoon will stick his paw down, and when he pulls up, his leg will be pulled into the nails. This will hold him until you check your traps. This is a very ugly, inhumane trap.

    A Pit Trap. This is a neat trap. A friend in England told this me about this one, on catching pheasants. You take a coke bottle, or a small shovel, and dig a hole 6 inches in diameter, 10- to 12 inches deep. Make a trail of corn leading to the hole, and cover the bottom with corn. The pheasant, or grouse, will come up and reach down to get the corn. Then, they fall into the hole. Their wings are stuck at their sides, and their feet are hanging up in the air! You just pull them up by the feet, and wring the neck.

    A Barrel Trap. This one is so simple to make, it is funny. Any type of barrel or smooth garbage can will work. Possums and raccoons climb all over the place to get food. So, to take advantage of this trait, all you need is a barrel.

    Place the barrel next to a picnic table. Fill 1/3 with water. Place an 18-inch board over the edge of the picnic table so that it hangs about in the middle (or slightly less) of the barrel/garbage can. Place the bait just before dark so that the birds don't eat it. The animals walk out on the board, and their weight causes them to drop into the barrel/garbage can. The water weights down the fur so that the animal can't jump out. You can modify this concept to any size animal. I have used it with a 3-pound coffee can to trap mice, and with a 5-gallon bucket to trap squirrels. You can dig a pit and place them level with the ground. Just use your head, and it works great!

    Fish Trapping. One of the oldest methods of catching fish is used in small creeks and streams. You find a shallow spot next to a deep hole. At night, the fish come out to feed, and will swim in the shallows. To take advantage of this, you can narrow down the opening into a "V". Behind the "V" is a solid wall of rocks. The fish will swim in and get caught or confused, and lay in the trap until daylight. When you go to check the trap, approach quietly from the front. Place a large rock, or rocks, blocking the hole in the "V". This is to keep any from escaping.

    Netting is the best way to catch the fish in the containment area. If you don't have a net, make a spear. Clubbing fish is a waste of time in the water. All that happens is you get very wet, and the fish could get so scared they will jump over the back wall to escape. Yes, I found that one out first-hand.

    Remove the oxygen from the water. This can be done with black walnuts. During the summer, when the black walnuts are green in color and starting to ripen, you can strip off the green part from the nut. Grind or pound this into a fine powder. Sprinkle a couple of pounds of this mixture in a hole, and walk downstream. The powder removes the oxygen from the water, and the fish float up to the top. Collect in a net, or by hand.

    If you are serious about trapping, get real equipment, and real snares. Real traps and snares will always catch more critters than these homemade traps. Deer and hog snares will feed you a long time per catch.

    Trapping is a skill that takes practice. You have to learn to walk into the woods and recognize what type of animal lives there. Then you need to learn where they travel for food, water, and shelter. I recommend reading "Buckshot's Modern Trapping Guide", or watching the videos "Beginner's Trapping" and "Survival Snaring". These will give you the basics of modern trapping. A complete, all-around trapping kit, carrying enough traps and snares for most animals in America, can be found from "Buckshot" at http://www.snare-trap-survive.com/.

    ~ Author Of ~ "Buckshot's Modern Trapper's Guide"
    Buckshot

    http://www.alpharubicon.com/primitiv...apbuckshot.htm
    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-19-2012 at 04:57 AM.
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    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-20-2012 at 06:05 PM.
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    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-20-2012 at 06:06 PM.
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    a little trick in (survival situations ONLY of course)

    for all of you fisherman that fish for school fish (sunfish or bluegills as an example)



    School fish travel as it imply's in schools of up to a hundred or so... but the school moves constantly looking for food

    so to keep track of one is to keep track of the school

    a hook with a 5 -7 foot fishing string with a bobber attached fixes that problem of tracking the school wether it is an ocean school fish or fresh water although ocean school fish run deeper

    fish hook into the dorsal fin, attached to the string that is attached to the bobber ... follow the bobber and you follow the school

    again... know your state laws and this is survival situations only
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    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-20-2012 at 06:06 PM.
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    WILD ONIONS AND EGGS

    4-5 bunches wild onions (about 4-5 onions each)
    Or very thin domestic ones
    1/4 c. water
    6 eggs
    2 tbsp. butter
    2 tbsp. milk
    Spices of choice

    In Cherokee country, Oklahoma, onions and eggs are considered a good springtime brunch treat. Wild onions, small and tender, are used. However, very thin domestic onions can be substituted.

    1. Chop 16-18 thin onions. Put in the frying pan and add water. Boil the onions; do not let them cook dry. After 5 minutes, drain the onions.

    2. Melt the butter in the pan. Scramble the eggs and milk in the butter and onions. Spices of choice from oregano to chile can be added.

    This dish can be served with sectioned grapefruit with a tablespoon of creme de menthe poured over the top.

    http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1926,13 ... 01,00.html
    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-19-2012 at 04:58 AM.
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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Wild onion survival food

    We have all read the wilderness survival manuals that put forth the illusion of the bountiful harvest of wild plants that await anyone who can identify these delicacy's of the forest.

    I've tried most of the wild foods suggested in the survival manuals, or at least those that grow in my area and most have no taste and the texture of a piece of wood. Trying to survive exclusively on wild plants for any length of time would be a sobering for some of these authors I'm sure.

    Only a few variety's are worth the effort of gathering and even then should only be used only as a supplement to other better tasting and more nutritious foods, don't even think of trying to subsist on wild foods alone. It's extremely difficult to gather enough calories to stay healthy, and plants being seasonal my not be available when needed.

    That being said; one of my favorite wild foods is the wild onion, it is easy to identify having that familiar onion smell. They can be used in the same ways as onions from the store or those from the garden and taste nearly identical, yet most people regard them as weeds.

    Early spring is the best time to gather because later in the summer the green bits get stringier becoming more difficult to digest. In summer, after the tops of the plants die back, you can still find the bulbs in the ground - these can be pickled to make mini pickled onions.

    Harvesting Tips
    Pulling the plants by hand is not difficult but a lot of the bulbs will be lost because of the tops being broken leaving the bulbs in the ground. I dig most of mine with a small garden trowel, shove it into the soil about two inches back from the base of the plants and pry out with an upward motion.

    Storage
    Keeps in refrigerator for several days, and for several months in the freezer. They are also easy to dry using a large sewing needle and fishing line to connect a number of plants together, and hanging in a dry place away from direct sunlight. Plant cured this way will keep for months if kept dry.

    Serving Suggestions
    Use in the same ways you would regular onions. I like to fry mine on the stove top and mix with a chopped baked potato. A meal of wild onions and fried squirrel is a delight. They can also be eaten raw.

    Nutritional properties
    Onions are said to be high in Vitamin C, phosphorus and iron, and chlorophyl.

    Medicinal properties
    Onion and garlic are both well known anti-microbial, immune system boosters and are reported to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

    WILD ONIONS AND EGGS

    16-20 wild onions
    1/4 c. water
    6 eggs
    2 tbsp. butter
    2 tbsp. milk
    Spices of choice

    1. Chop 16-18 thin onions. Put in the frying pan and add water. Boil the onions; do not let them cook dry. After 5 minutes, drain the onions.
    2. Melt the butter in the pan. Scramble the eggs and milk in the butter and onions.

    Keep Surviving

    http://thesurvivalistblog.blogspot.com/ ... -gods.html
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    Tame Wild Apples and Berries

    Move some of nature's most delicious edibles into your yard and garden, including adaptable and hardy, succulent strawberries, elderberries, zesty wild apples, brambles, black and red beauties.

    March/April 1981



    ""Tamed"" black-berries make for easy backyard pickings. STAFF PHOTOS

    By Lew Nichols and E.A. Proulx

    With rural land being gobbled up at a rapid rate, it's increasingly difficult to forage many once-common wild delicacies. However, we've found that grafting a few scions from an old roadside apple tree to commercial rootstocks can insure our household against the awful possibility, some autumn, that our nearby wild apple source will be bulldozed to make way for a new shopping mall. And our transplanted backyard brambles eliminate long expeditions to a favorite berry patch, many of which used to end with the discovery that the local bears had beaten us to the crop!

    ADAPTABLE AND HARDY

    Most wild fruits and berries will thrive in home gardens, since such varieties are typically very hardy. In fact, in our section of Vermont—where winter temperatures often reach 30 below—many domestic species can't survive ... but transplanted native berries and fruits, born and bred to withstand the rigorous weather, are strong and productive.
    However, before you dash off and invite wild edibles into your yard, heed a word of warning. We've been lucky, so far, to find healthy stock in our remote area, but wild plants sometimes do harbor diseases . . . many of which can attack and devastate tender, virus-free, commercial breeds.
    So if you're already raising fancy hybrid raspberries or blackberries, it would be wise to plant their wild cousins as far from the "commercials" as your space allows ... to prevent possible infection by leaf curl, orange rust, or verticillium wilt (the most common ailments of wild brambles). Also, keep all your foraged bushes away from tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and apple and maple trees . . . and don't place wild stock in soil where those plants or trees have grown within the previous two years, in case the former "residents" might have harbored diseases that could damage your transplants.
    There are three seasonal stages in taming wild fruits and berries. First, as the fruit ripens (in its original habitat), we mark the most productive and healthy plants or trees with a stake or some bright ribbon tied to a branch or cane. Then, later in the fall, we prepare the beds to which the wild natives will be transplanted, working organic matter into the soil, and correcting its pH balance if necessary. And finally, the following spring, we go forth with a shovel, burlap sacks, and anticipation... dig up our prizes... and quickly place them in their new homes.

    SUCCULENT STRAWBERRIES

    The perennial wild strawberry (genus Fragaria ) is among the most delicious of all fruits ( sample the berries a season before transplanting, however, because some wood strawberries— Fragaria vescaare all but tasteless). The large, commercially grown hybrids developed from native North American wildings have never matched the delectable, aromatic, "strawberry" flavor of most of their uncivilized ancestors.

    Such plants are so vigorous, and transplant so well, that it's difficult to make a mistake with them! Simply flll your strawberry bed with well-tilled, slightly sandy, compostenriched loam and adjust the pH range—if necessary—to between 5.8 and 6.5. Remember, though, that good air circulation and water drainage (the plants can't tolerate standing water) are more important than either pH levels or soil composition.
    In the early spring, before the plants have flowered, scoop up the previously selected, shallow-rooted strawberry crowns with a trowel—keeping plenty of soil around the roots to lessen the shock of transplanting—and set them out, leaving 12 inches between plants and three feet between rows. (Be careful not to cover the crowns with earth.) Then, when the flowers appear, pick them off for heavier fruit production the following year. (Any runners that sprout after August should also be snipped away.)
    In order to meet their early ripening schedule, the plants almost always put out blossoms before the last of spring's treacherous weather is over. Therefore, here in the North, they must be planted on a slope above low-ground frost pockets if they're to give the highest possible yields. Even so, if the thermometer takes a quixotic plunge, you should cover the plants to protect their tender blossoms.
    By late August, we have several rows of flourishing dark-green plants, which promise us a good yield during the summer to come. After the first few fall frosts, we mulch the plants with straw or dry calamus or cattail leaves. Then, come spring, the covering is removed and spread between the rows, and—as we keep a careful ear tuned to late frost reports—we start counting our strawberryshortcakes.

    VERSATILE ELDERBERRIES

    One of the most useful woodland plants is the elderberry ... the flowers and fruits of which can be used to make superb wine, jelly, fritters, pies, muffins, pancakes, chutney, and a deliciously refreshing non alcoholic drink. In the Northeast, several kinds of elderberries grow wild, but the common elderberry ( Sambucus canadensis ) is the most familiar.

    Each spring we dig up plants of a size we can handle and pack the roots in moist mulch before we take them home. If a bush is tall and rangy, we prune it back by half in the field, and then plant it as we would a bare-rooted tree... an inch deeper than it grew in the woods.

    Fast-growing common elderberries enjoy damp habitats, and tend to spread vigorously if not cut back. The best place to transplant one is in a moist area near a compost heap, for they're reported to help speed the fermentation of compost and produce a fine humus soil around their roots.
    The easy-to-care-for wildings are prey to very few insects and diseases, but over 43 species of birds place elderberries high on their list of delicacies, so be prepared to share—or to use protective nets—as the clustered treats ripen.

    ZESTY WILD APPLES

    Wild apples might be either neglected old cultivars found in abandoned "tame" orchards, or seedling crabapples long since descended from domestic trees. Since apple seeds don't propagate true to type (it's been computed that only one of 10,000 kernels will produce an outstanding eating apple), the majority of wild trees revert to the characteristics of their ancient crab-stock ancestors ... producing small, tart fruits that make excellent pies, jellies, and sauce ... and superior sweet ( or hard) cider.
    Naturally seeded trees growing in the wild can be dug up and transplanted to develop into mature specimens, or can be used as rootstock after a year of adjustment to their new locale. For either purpose, the transplanting must be done while the trees are dormant.
    It's best to prepare roomy holes to receive the wild seedlings, and replace any hardpan or poor earth with rich topsoil. As soon as we dig up a wild tree, we immediately wrap its roots in burlap or plastic and rush the sapling to the already prepared planting site.
    Once there, we snip off any shovel-frayed roots and spread the rest out on the bottom layer of rich, well-worked soil... positioning the tree about an inch deeper than it grew in the wild. The earth is next built up around the roots . . . then patted firm ... and the final layer of dirt is tamped down, by foot, to make a two-inch-deep water-holding depression all around the tree. After that, each new transplant gets a bucket of water, which soaks the earth and helps collapse any hidden air pockets.
    Top-pruning is important, both to balance root loss and to conserve the tree's vigor during its period of adjustment, so slice off—flush with the trunk—any crossed, dead, and obviously weak or badly angled branches ... prune the remaining limbs ... and cut the top halfway back. Finally, paint the pruning wounds with a special tree sealer or nonleaded paint.

    If the weather is dry, water the trees every few days, but don't add any fertilizer during the first season: Strong substances could injure trimmed and weak roots.

    Don't try a graft on a freshly planted seedling, either ... it would probably fail, so it's best to wait a year, until the tree has recovered from transplantation shock. Once established, however, wild apple seedlings—because they're suited to your climate— can provide especially hardy rootstock for your grafting experiments. (All apples are related through the genus Malus , so all are graft-compatible.) Be sure, though—when grafting—that the trees from which you choose scions can also tolerate your region's weather. It's useless, for example, to expect a warmth-loving Granny Smith scion to survive a Vermont winter simply because it's been grafted onto a northern New England rootstock.

    DEALING WITH BRAMBLES

    The fruiting canes of both raspberries and blackberries are fast-growing biennial croppers, while their roots are perennial. You'll notice, however, that the two "relatives" are seldom found together in the same bramble thicket. Raspberries can be a host of anthracnose , you see, a blight which isn't fatal to the carrier, but which might destroy nearby blackberries.
    Both of these wild berry species should be dug up in the spring, while still dormant. You ought to know, before you set out, that sorting the primocanes (canes produced during the previous season, which will bear fruit during the coming summer) from the floricanes (those that bore last season and will soon be either dead or unproductive) takes a little time. At first glance, they'll all look much the same, but—on closer inspection—you'll discover that the primocanes are smaller, and of a brighter color, than are the floricanes. (It's best to simply tag the primocanes during the late summer berry season, prior to your planned spring digging.)

    BLACK AND RED BEAUTIES

    Blackberries are the most complex of the Rubus genus, and some 122 species have been recorded. A few of these have small protective "prickles" ... but the most widely spread wild blackberry species in the Northeast defends itself with fierce, stout thorns that can make foraging something of a martyr's task. In the orderly rows of a transplanted wild blackberry patch, however, the harvest is much less hazardous.
    Cut your planted blackberry canes back to the roots . . . and allow about 30 inches between plants, and six to ten feet between rows, to lessen the chance of fungus contagion. Cultivate or use mulch to keep weeds down and help the plants give higher yields.

    Wild red raspberries can be substituted for blackberries in almost any recipe and—when served fresh—can turn an ordinary meal into a royal feast. It's tempting to take the entire raspberry cane in the hope of a greater fruit reward, but the roots—which will be injured and smaller after transplanting—can't support the whole cane (which would either become barren or die back). For that reason, you should prune the canes to the first bud-or to any bud that's no more than six inches above ground level—and plant them an inch deeper than they grew in the wild.

    Raspberries need frequent waterings in dry weather, and a hay or grass-clipping mulch to keep the soil moist and weeds in check.
    Of course, adventurous gardeners who are interested in experimenting with wild fruit can choose from many other undomesticated edibles: Wild cherries, serviceberries, blueberries, and more will gladly leave their woodland homes for your farmstead fields . . . all they'll ask in return is a little care.
    EDITOR'S NOTE: Needless to say, to-be-transplanted wild fruits and berries should be dug only from your own acre age or from the property of a landowner who has granted you permission. Furthermore, certain wild plants may be in danger of extinction in your area: Consult your state chapter of the American. Federation of Garden Clubs for information on local endangered species. Always be careful not to disturb surrounding habitat while gathering your transplants . . . and leave enough trees or bushes in the wild to make cure that the grove or patch you have "borrowed " from will survive.

    http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organ...d-Berries.aspx
    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-19-2012 at 05:12 AM.
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    A handbook for those who, to paraphrase the late Euell Gibbons, love to reap what they have not sown.

    FOR CENTURIES WE HUMANS HAVE joined the squirrels and the raccoons, the turkeys and the boars, the deer and the chipmunks in the harvest of fall nuts. Nutting was once serious business, a matter of survival, of storing sustenance for the coming winter. So it was with Native Americans and colonists, and with European peasants-and so it remains today among people still living a hand-to-mouth existence with the earth. Few foods offer nutrition as completely and as compactly as the nut. Botanically, it is a seed, the embryonic life of a tree. But in effect, it is a hermetically sealed energy capsule, packed with protein and fat; a nourishment concentrate.

    Most people today go nutting for pleasure. The nuts remain the quarry, but nuts aplenty (though perhaps of less noble bearing) can be had in any grocery store. Nutting, on the other hand, puts you inside the fall forest kaleidoscope, every step acrunch in leaves, the air crisp and laden with the musky scent of autumn. There is no better time to be in the woods, and no better excuse (whether or not you need one) than to be gathering tasty nuts.

    Ah, there's the crux of the matter: Not all nuts are tasty. Some are astonishingly bitter. Others, though toothsome, require extreme determination, if not demolition, if one is to crack them apart-and then they may yield little more than a smidgen of edible kernel. Most folks know a nut when they see one, but what kind of nut is it, and is it worth picking up?

    Acorns

    No matter how many mothers have told their children otherwise, acorns are not poisonous; they are one of the oldest foods known to man. Evidence of their consumption has been found amid the debris in Paleolithic cave dwellings. They were the staff of life for many Native American groups, who ground the nuts into meal for bread and mush. The Pilgrims found baskets of roasted acorns hidden in underground chambers and, noting the nuts' similarity in taste to that of chestnuts, welcomed oak mast into their diet. A wise move: Acorn kernels provide a complete vegetable protein, up to 707o by weight in some species. More than half their bulk consists of energy-rich carbohydrates.

    Amazingly, the annual nut crop from oak trees in North America surpasses the combined yearly yield of all other nut trees, both wild and cultivated. (So if you're wondering whether gathering up a bushel or two of acorns will deprive some creature of sustenance, worry not.) There are more than 60 species of oak trees in North America, and every one of them produces edible acorns.

    Some, however, are more edible than others. Oaks are broadly divided into two groups: red (or black) oaks, and white. Generally, nuts from trees in the red-oak group have a bitter taste, thanks to their high content of tannin, an astringent substance. White oaks, however, contain less tannin and produce acorns that are considerably sweeter.

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    To distinguish between the two groups, look at the leaves of the tree in question. If the leaf lobes (the projections around the outer edge) are distinctly pointed, the tree is most likely a bitter-acorn, red-oak variety: pin, black, red, scarlet and willow oaks are members of the family. White-oak leaves, on the other hand, have rounded lobes. Chestnut, bur, live, white, gambel (also known as Rocky Mountain white) and post oaks are examples of sweet-acorn types. Another distinguishing feature is the inner surface of an acorn's cap: If it's smooth, the nut probably is from a white oak; if it's fuzzy, chances are the nut was produced by a red.

    Regardless of the type of acorn you find, taste a few before you gather quantities. Acorns vary in bitterness not only from species to species, but from tree to tree. Sample some nuts from several different trees, then forage from the best among them. Pick only fresh nuts, and discard any specimens that appear moldy or that have worm or insect holes (this is good practice, of course, when gathering any variety of wild nuts).

    Once you've removed their caps and shelled them, exceptionally sweet acorns can be eaten as they are, either raw or roasted (bake them in a slow, 250° to 300°F, oven for about an hour). But even "sweet" varieties can be too bitter for some tastes, and in some places only red-oak acorns are easily available. Fortunately, tannin is soluble in water and can be extracted, leaving behind palatable nuts. Boil the kernels whole for 15 minutes, pour the water off (it will be brown with tannin), add fresh water, boil for another 15 minutes, pour the water off, and add fresh and so on, until the water is only barely tinted. White-oak acorns may require only one or two changes of water, while red-oak nuts may need many. (Incidentally, you may want to save that first batch of tanninrich water; it is a wonderfully soothing topical wash for bee stings, insect bites, sunburn and rashes.)

    Once the tannin has been removed, roast the nuts and use them as you will. They're good finely chopped and added to bread or muffin dough. Most acorn fans, though, like to grind the nuts into meal—just put them through a blender or grain mill, or pulverize the kernels with a mortar and pestle. Acorn meal, light brown and pleasant tasting, can be substituted for up to half the flour in any recipe.

    Beechnuts

    There is no mistaking the handsome American beech (Fagus grandifolia). Its strikingly smooth, duskygray bark has served as a scratch pad for generations of lovers and others with something, anything, to say. The earliest Sanskrit characters were inscribed on strips of beech bark. And it was a beech tree in Washington County, Tennessee, on which Daniel Boone carved the famous missive, "D Boone cilled a bar on tree in year 1760." (That tree lived until 1916; it was estimated to be 365 years old.)

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    In autumn, the beech's toothed, spear-shaped leaves turn a rich copper color or a near-luminous pale yellow and begin to fall, revealing reddish twigs and small, prickly burs. As they mature, the burs split open, exposing two (sometimes three) small, triangular nuts that ripen-usually by first frost-and drop to the ground. Competition for beechnuts is fierce among four-legged creatures, and the kernels can be hard to see once they're scattered among leaves, so your best bet is to try to gather them from lower branches just before they're ready to fall. If you're lucky, you'll get a few before the squirrels and raccoons do.

    Beechnuts have a thin shell that you can peel off with a fingernail. The flesh is sweet and nutritious: nearly 20°70 protein! Fresh nuts spoil quickly, though, so dry them in full sun for a day or two (you or the family dog will have to stand guard over them), or roast them in a slow oven.

    Though still abundant, American beeches once covered vast stretches of the Midwest from Kentucky to central Michigan. Unfortunately, settlers recognized the beech as a sign of good soil, and countless trees fell to the ax and plow. Eventually, their demise also contributed to the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which relied on beech mast for much of its diet.

    Though the American beech is strictly an eastern tree, its similar-looking Old World cousin, the European beech ( F. sylvatica ) also produces edible nuts and has become naturalized both in the Northeast and in western coastal states.

    Chestnuts and Chinquapins

    Your chances of coming across a nut-bearing American chestnut (Castanea d entata) are almost nil, but no article on edible wild nuts is complete without mention of this once-great tree. Less than 100 years ago, stands of majestic chestnuts, some specimens measuring in excess of 120 feet tall and six feet around, covered a range of more than 200 million acres east of the Mississippi, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Gathering bushels of sweet, fresh chestnuts—which were reportedly far superior in taste to the Italian and Chinese chestnuts we eat now—was a traditional autumn activity. Today, except for a few isolated specimens, all the great trees are gone, the victims of chestnut blight, a fungus carried to this country at the turn of the century on planting stock imported from the Orient.

    As the disease spread from New York westward, infected trees were cut down in a futile attempt to halt the blight. The stumps remain, demonstrating the chestnut's superior rot-resistance, and many continue to send up sprouts, some of which survive a dozen or more years. On occasion, one of these seedlings produces a small nut crop for one or two seasons before succumbing to the blight. Sadly, then, most living chestnut trees are identifiable by their sapling size and by the old, weathered stumps from which they grow. Their leaves resemble a beech's, but are longer and more deeply toothed.

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    The chinquapins are close cousins of the American chestnut, and though they are also susceptible to blight, they are a bit more resistant and bear much earlier, at only two or three years old. The Ozark chinquapin (C. ozarkensis) is a small tree with long, deeply toothed leaves; it grows in a limited range encompassing western Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri. The Allegheny chinquapin (C. pumila), really more a tall, thicket like shrub than a tree, sports similarly shaped but less deeply toothed leaves than its cousins. Its range extends from southern Pennsylvania through most of the Southeast to Texas. Both kinds of chinquapins yield sweet, small chestnut-like nuts (they look like flattened acorns), with each kernel encased in a hard shell within a prickly, round bur. Both the bur and the shell are difficult to remove, but they yield-in miniature-the taste of a bygone era. Chinquapins can be eaten raw, roasted or boiled.

    Black Walnuts

    Prized even more for its rich, dark wood than for its tasty nuts, America's black walnut (Fuglans nigra) is one of the great unknown victims of the two world wars. Just before and during both conflicts, black walnuts were felled en masse to meet the demand for gunstocks. Still, the tree survives throughout its original range: nearly all the eastern half of the U.S. except the far north. In the West, there are four other native walnut species with extremely limited ranges. Of them, only the northern California walnut (F. hindsii) produces nuts approaching the size and quality of its eastern cousin's.

    The black walnut is easy to identify, particularly in the fall when, beginning early in the season, its leaves turn yellow and drop off, revealing clusters of one-and-one-half-to two-inch-diameter green globes-the nuts, enclosed in smooth, fleshy husks. In a few weeks the green fruit falls, too, and slowly turns black as the husk decomposes.

    There are three formidable challenges to be met in harvesting black walnuts. First, you must get to the nuts before the squirrels; this is a matter of picking them up as soon after they fall as possible (sometimes a minute or two is none too early). Second, you must remove the nut from the husk before the flesh decomposes and saturates the inner shell and kernel with bitter brown juice. (That juice, incidentally, is an indelible dye that simply does not wash off clothing or skin.) And third, you'll have to extract the nutmeat from the shell.

    All manner of methods have been devised for dehusking walnuts. Euell Gibbons suggested wearing heavy boots and simply toeing the husks off against the ground. Too often, though, much of the husk remains anyway. Others dump the nuts in their driveways and let a couple of days of traffic squash the husks off. This makes for a messy driveway, however, and the nuts tend to shoot out in all directions from under rubber tires. It's best to face facts, don old clothes, slip on a pair of rubber gloves and cut and scrape the husks away with a knife. Put the freshly hulled nuts on an old window screen, give them a good hard hosing to wash away bits of husk, and let them dry in the thin October sun.

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    Walnuts, like most other nuts, keep best in the shell. This is as good an excuse as any to put off the difficult job of cracking them open and removing the kernels. Commercial English or Persian walnuts open easily and yield whole or half kernels. Not so the black walnut. You have to smash your way in, and then pick out the pieces of edible nut from the fragments of hard shell. You can buy special nutcrackers, or tackle the job the old-fashioned way: Put a flat rock in a cardboard box, place a nut on the rock, and smack it with a hammer. Once you've tried black walnut pieces in homemade ice cream, bread or muffins, you'll know the reward is worth the effort.

    Butternuts

    A close relative of the black walnut and otherwise known as the white walnut, the butternut (Fuglans cinerea) ranges farther north, extending into New England and parts of Canada, but not as far south. The butternut ranks among the highest in food energy of edible nuts, with a whopping 27.907o protein, 61.207o fat and about 3,000 calories to the pound. Wild nut aficionados rank cinerea kernels near the top in taste, too.

    Though its leaves resemble those of the black walnut and its crown is similarly rounded and open, the butternut wears fewer leaflets on longer stems, so its foliage overall appears sparse. Its bark is distinctly lighter than the black walnut's dark gray or brown bark, and is generally smoother.

    Butternut trees bear early-at just two or three years of age. The fruit is elliptical, like a long, narrow egg, and has a thin, green outer husk covered with fine, bristly hairs that give off a near-permanent brown dye. The inner surface of the husk produces an equally powerful orange dye. (Time to get out the old clothes and rubber gloves again.) The nut inside is oval, with a deeply ridged and pitted shell that's almost but not quite as difficult as 1. nigra to crack.

    The thin, fragrant, oily kernel inside each shell can go rancid quickly, so it's important to shell and use butternuts soon after you've husked and dried them. No problem; butternuts are sweet and delicious straight from the shell, raw or roasted, or baked in cake or pastry.

    Hickory Nuts

    Hickories-in all, some 20 species and subspecies—are widespread throughout the eastern and central United States. The hickory is the consummate "pioneer tree," not only because of its importance to early settlers as a food source but also because of the hard, durable wood it provided (and still provides) for tools and tool handles.

    When you're a nut gatherer, hickories are both a joy and a frustration. Though several kinds yield delicious, sweet nutmeats, others produce fruit that is bitter or almost all shell. It's not always easy to tell one kind from the other.

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    Fortunately, the two most desirable nut hickories display a distinctive trait belied by their names: The shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa) has rough, loose bark that separates in narrow strips; the shagbark hickory (C. ovata) has an even more distinctly fringed trunk, with long, loose strips of bark that often shed and accumulate at the foot of the tree. Both types bear a nut encased in a thick, green husk that, when ripe, separates to the base in four parts. The shagbark hickory usually has five leaflets per leaf and produces relatively thin-shelled nuts; the shellbark generally sports seven leaflets per leaf and yields thick-shelled (but nonetheless meaty and tasty) nuts. Another common thick-husked variety, the mockernut hickory (C. tomentosa), yields sweet but small (some would say minuscule) nutmeats within a thick shell; the mockernut's seven or nine leaflets per leaf give off a characteristically pungent odor when crushed.

    The pignut hickory (C. glabra), like the shagbark, has five leaflets per leaf, but each nut is encased in a thin husk that seldom separates all the way to the base. Depending on the individual tree, the nuts may taste sweet or bitter. One of the most widely distributed hickories, and the least desirable for nuts, is the bitternut (C. cordiformis). Luckily, it's easy to identify. The bitternut hickory has the smallest leaves in the family-seven to nine leaflets on a relatively short stem-and the buds at the ends of its twigs are bright yellow. The nut husks are thin and flecked with yellow.

    Like walnuts, hickories keep well in the shell once husked and dried. They're easier to crack than walnuts or butternuts, but the job still calls for a hammer or some other tool of brute force.

    Pecans

    Actually a hickory, the pecan (Carya illinoensis) is our most important native nut tree and has earned a special niche in our culture and cuisine. The pecan is the ideal nut: easy to harvest, thin-shelled, meaty and delicious. Little wonder that many Indian tribes prized the pecan above all others. Native Americans are believed to have extended the range of the pecan by planting the nut as they traveled the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Spaniards exploring the New World, and, later, settlers venturing west of the Appalachians, encountered the huge spreading trees, some more than 120 feet tall and four feet in diameter, along the entire Mississippi River Valley and through much of eastern Texas and Oklahoma.

    The trees were so numerous that it was common practice among our forebears to harvest pecans each year by selecting the largest, heaviest-bearing trees and cutting them down. This waste is particularly puzzling because the pecan, which bears its oval, green-husked fruit in clusters of three to 10, readily drops its nuts. Usually by mid-autumn, the husks split into four crescent-shaped pieces and the ripe, pale brown nuts fall to the ground.

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    Dozens of new pecan varieties have been developed since the turn of the century, and the nut is grown commercially in orchards from Georgia to California. Still, fully half the market crop is produced from native species. Wild pecans may be a bit smaller than their commercial counterparts, but their shells crack easily and yield whole, sweet, rich-tasting kernels. There are no bitter or inedible pecan types. Gather all you can find.

    Pine Nuts

    What the West lacks in deciduous nut-bearing trees it more than makes up for with nut-bearing pines. Among the different species native to the West that produce delicious edible nuts are ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Coulter pine (P. coulteri), sugar pine (P. lambertiana) and Digger pine (P. sabiniana). Some of these produce enormous quantities of edible kernels; the sugar pine, for example, produces huge cones up to 18 inches long and four inches across, packed with seeds.

    The largest and tastiest pine nuts, though, are produced by the scrubby little pinon pine, a familiar tree throughout the arid Southwest. Pinon nuts, a trendy gourmet item of late, have been a staple among Indians of the region for millenia. Evidence of their consumption has been found in fire pits at archaeological sites in Nevada dated 6,000 years old. At 3,000 calories to the pound, pinons are hardly diet food. Some tribes are said to have forbidden their consumption by pregnant women, for fear that the nuts would fatten the babies too much, making delivery difficult.

    There are several species of pinon (also commonly spelled pinyon): In extreme southern California, the Parry pinon (P. quadrifolia); in the deep Southwest, the Mexican pinon (P. cembroides); in southern California and Nevada, the single-leaf pinon (P. monophylla); and through much of the Southwest, the widespread common pinon (P. edulis). The last is the state tree of New Mexico and the major source of pinon nuts harvested for market in this country.

    Gathering pinon nuts can be sticky business, particularly if you do so in late summer, when the green cones are still closed and heavy with resin. The cones must be dried in hot sun for several days or charred in a fire to drive off the resin and open the cones sufficiently to free the nuts. An easier approach is to wait till late September or October, when the cones begin to open and take on a brownish color but before they're releasing the nuts. Moisture causes the cones to swell and hold the kernels tightly, so choose a hot, sunny day following several days of dry weather. Spread a tarp on the ground beneath the tree, shake the tree hard a few times, and pick out the nuts that fall to the cloth. Going from tree to tree, you can gather several pounds of nuts in just an hour or so using this technique-if it's a good year for the nuts. Pinons produce a large crop only every three or four years.

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    Two other methods, unfortunately, are commonly used to harvest pinons. One is to cut the entire tree down (sound familiar?). The other is to rob the nests of pack rats and squirrels, where considerable quantities of pinons may be stored. Wildlife officials in areas where this is common practice ask that the pinon plunderers replace the nuts with pinto beans, so the animals won't be without food for the winter.

    Pinons can be consumed one at a time, raw or roasted, like sunflower seeds; just crack the shell between your teeth and eat the inner meat. To process larger quantities, roast the nuts in a low (300° F) oven until the shells turn brittle. Then spread the nuts on a counter top or a table and use a rolling pin to crack the shells and free the kernels. Pinons are great in granola and trail mix, added to baked goods or sprinkled in soups and on salads.

    If You Go Out in the Woods Today...

    Next time you go for a walk in the autumn woods, take a sack with you, slow your pace to a careful scrutiny of the forest floor and leafy canopy, and gather up some of nature's best-tasting and most nutritious foods. You'll soon learn why we humans, even before we were humans, have always been nuts about nuts.


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    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-19-2012 at 05:12 AM.
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