Posted on 02/14/2009 10:03:07 AM PST by djf
After they melt, you could use them as salad dressing :O)
Ping
One only pulls stinging nettles out of the garden once. Then you go for the heavy gloves the next time you find it..
Those things will stain even kudzu!
Some folks actually don’t have much of a reaction to them. But if I even get near them, I turn into a cowering, whimpering pile of flesh!
Man, them things are nasty!
Yup! Your hands WILL be black.
Not sure, but I thought I read the colonists used them for ink.
Lady we bought our house in MI from had a great idea - she said, they used to lay them all out on the driveway, run them over with the car, and then let them dry.
I was wondering about the ink thing, too.
I had a contract on a cow for a bull calf to a stud. I went out to feed them before I went to the breed convention. I would be gone a week and I wanted to warn them that my husband, who hated them all, would be feeding them.
We had purchased some hay that had been interplanted with comfrey, supposedly a good plant. But when interplanted, the comfrey cured at a totally different rate than the alfalfa. The comfrey was still very wet when the alfalfa was ready to bale. So he baled it anyway and all the comfrey molded.
I saw that as I was feeding this very nice cow named Tippy. She dove into it as I was also under the impression that a cow would know a good thing from a bad one.
Well there is one bad one that they do not know. And here it was. She was cold and stiff when he went out to get them that night after he put me on the plane.
Entertoxemia C and D from mold.
They didn't tell me until I got home. I was glad for that.
You sure are right on that...the sting lasts for several hours......
I might also suggest some ‘guerrilla gardening’ If you have access to some vacant or unused property, plant it with some of the more vigorous wild food plants, such as sunflowers, jerusalem artichokes, echinacia, day lilies, horseradish, etc. Once established, they will continue on their own, and provide an emergency food source should you need it.
If you are at all interested in the history of plants in America you can scrounge up a cheap used copy of Green Immigrants by Claire Haughton.
Claire was a botanist who came to the book's subject by chance, while making a hs school film about Colonial America. She explores about 100 plants and how the came to be here, how they fared since, and how they changed our nation.
Another fun read, was one of my beach books last summer, is "Virgin Earth" by Philippa Gregory. It's definitely not a "guy" book ... a love story is woven in to a botanist's search for freedom and a new life in the New World [historical fiction.]
“There is also a lot of wild game, although hunting in an urban or suburban environment is not always appreciated!”
No, but trapping often is. If you use live traps you can even get paid for it, just “forget” to mention that the raccoon in your live trap is destined for dinner :p
If skinned right, the pelts are worth a lot as well.
Its been a couple years since I renewed my trapping license, but if I remember right it was only about $2 here in WI.
I mainly focused on squirrels, as the ones around my house were causing quite a bit of property damage. They even ate the distributor cap out from my dad’s truck!
I’ve studied wilderness survival since I was about 12, there’s a good online survival forum at http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/ if anybody’s interested.
Be very careful with coons.
Rabies in raccoons is almost epidemic. And you definitely don’t want to handle, skin, or cook an animal with rabies.
As someone pointed out, daylily — and not just the root, the entire plant.
HOWEVER — Lily of the Valley is 100 PER CENT POISONOUS. Fortunately, they don’t resemble each other at all. ;’)
“Grow Your Own Food” - http://www.motherearthnews.com/Food-Guide-Bookazine.aspx
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