No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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mountainFrugal
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

I think there are parallels to grief as well. If not given space/time/thought, it will bubble up in unexpected ways. All hardass work in the end.

I have used a drytop while rafting and have tried a drysuit when learning to role a kayak. Very cold water is still completely shocking when your head is immersed. It adds to the disorientation in a moving river and is why most kayakers practice in the safety of a pool for a long time. Is there an equivalent for the canoe? Maybe when the water warms up?

Henry
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by Henry »

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

William Faulkner

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

It won't be long before the lakes are swimmable. We might get another snow but warm weather is on its way.

Because I am testing a new design, I am being extra careful.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I identified and tasted the following edible weeds in my yard: cleavers, dandelion, purple dead nettle, purslane, creeping charlie. As far as eating fresh picked from the hand, I like cleavers and purslane the best. It is quite surprising that the weeds I have ignored my whole life are actually vitamin rich food.

I have been out with my canoe and did some testing with the sail. I think it will work well when properly rigged. I am making steady progress setting it up to be a canoe camp cruiser, and I will have a small tent to cover the hatch, a bug net, and enough room in the boat to sleep inside, either on land or at anchor.

jacob
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by jacob »

Did you do anything with the creeping charlie? Everything? Leaves only? What about stems and flowers?

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I chewed a few leaves. They were slightly bitter. I only have small plants in my yard, so there is not a lot there.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I went back and tried a leaf of creeping charlie again. It is not too bitter, actually a pleasant flavor. I only have one small plant.

I also have garlic mustard, wood-sorrel and chickweed.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

Bug Protection Success
I did a few more forest walks of about 2 hours each. My goal is to find a way of bug protection that does not include any bug repellent, and still allows for comfortable walking in warm weather. I was able to walk comfortably in buggy areas by using long pants, long sleeve collar shirt, socks, shoes, brim hat and bug headnet. I will add light gloves to this clothing and I think it will allow for long periods in buggy wilderness conditions without problems. I tested it during walks where there were mosquitos, deer flies and horseflies. I did not test it against gnats or noseeums.

Tick Exposure Failure
In order to prevent against ticks, upon returning from a forest walk, I changed clothes in my workshop and showered, hopeful to bring no ticks into the house with me. Unfortunately, almost every time I came back from a forest walk, after a few hours, I found one or more ticks crawling on me. This is a serious problem due to diseases that ticks carry. Lyme disease can disable me and make it impossible to continue my attempts to be physically fit. I could treat my clothing with permethrin, although I would prefer not to, and I do not know how effective it is in my area. It would be nice to find a solution because I do not want to do dispersed forest camping if I will constantly be exposed to disease carrying ticks. This means that section hiking trails is probably not going to happen. Bikepacking also becomes a problem due to tick exposure while wild camping. To my knowledge ticks are a problem throughout forested areas in the Midwest, and it is a long drive for me to get to western hiking trails where there is less of a tick problem. I may still walk local forest trails despite the risk of tick-borne disease. My backpacking gear is packed and ready to go, but I am reluctant.

I have worked my way out of my winter slump and am regularly exercising again. Currently I have switched to cycling for exercise, working up to 2 hour rides. I have some nice trails in the area and am building up the length of time I can sit on the bike without pain. I will also do urban hiking, which has the advantage over forest hiking that I can hike doorstep to doorstep and do not need to drive to a forest trailhead. I have no problem walking for 2 hours, and after a short break, could probably walk much further. I can also row my canoe as exercise.

This time of year I have a lot of family get-togethers and have some community stuff going on outside the focus of this log, so I stay busy and am not able to do any long travels. Actually, I am quite happy where I am and do not have any desire to make any grand voyages at the moment. We spent a few years visiting many parts of the US after I retired, so I am less motivated to explore, I like the comforts of home. Summertime in Michigan is wonderful. The only down side of being busy is having to maintain a calendar of meetings and having to know what day it is today. I still live without an alarm clock and let the sun wake me up.

Diet is still good, mainly plant based batch cooking of vegetable bean soup. Still maintaining my weight. I do not get to eat as much as I would like and have had to go to one meal a day several times to get back to my weight target. This will likely be a never ending effort to manage diet to maintain my weight level. I am hoping that increasing exercise will allow me to eat more or even lose a few more pounds. One technique I found was to reduce the amount of nuts and increase the amount of salad in my diet. I was relying on a lot of trail mix, which I still eat but try to limit the amount now.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I did some research on permethrin, and have now treated my hiking clothes and shoes. I now believe that being protected by permethrin is the best practice for outdoor activities in the forest.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

Forager's Backpacking Meal

Gather a small handful of young dandelion greens and purple dead nettle tops.
Rip them into shreds.
Add the greens and one or more ants to a backpacking pot.
Add about 1-1/2 to 2 cups water.
Bring to a boil, simmer for a couple minutes.
Break up a ramen noodle block inside the package.
Add the ramen noodle bits to the pot.
Add the flavor packet to the pot.
Simmer about 4 minutes.
Remove from flame, let sit a minute or two to absorb the water.
Look at the amount of remaining broth and add enough dehydrated refried beans to absorb the broth.
Let it stand a minute or two.
Season with hot sauce and enjoy.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

A few weeks ago we had a garage sale and about half of the stuff I was hoping to dispose of was sold, so some progress was made. Now I feel the need to start decluttering again. I am having some misgivings about motivation and strategy of decluttering. I do not intend to go full on minimalist, although I find that goal attractive. The reality is that I live in a house and it is worthwhile to keep some things for future projects. But the current state is one of mildly organized chaos, so that I have to look through all my stuff in order to find things. This is in part due to moving things around make room for the garage sale. I suppose before I start decluttering, I need to go through and reorganize.

I have quite a bit of camping gear which is currently scattered among a number of storage bins and areas. I have an ultralight set of gear, a bikepacking set, canoeing set, car camping set and gear for international travel. I am motivated to combine most of this stuff into one bin, perhaps packaging certain types of gear in drybags. I need to reorganize my tools. I have a bunch of electronic parts and radios that I have scattered about, because every time I need one specific thing, I have to look through everything to find it. Things are actually not that bad, I am making progress, but unless you constantly try to organize, clutter tends to increase.

I am either walking or cycling for one to two hours a day, so this tends to be my main energy focus at the moment. I think I will try to avoid making or building new things for a few weeks, because that tends to cause an increase in clutter and stuff. If I can focus on eating healthy, exercise and organizing things, that reduces my need for stuff. But boredom can eventually result in starting new projects.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

Identified American Pokeweed, Wild Lettuce and Pawpaw today.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I have been bicycling as exercise, however due to wildfire smoke I am currently pausing outdoor exercise. I plan to buy several air filters for the home. The wildfires are far away from my location but the smoke travels and is still rated as hazardous, even though we are many miles away from the source of the fire. I have driven north to Hudson Bay and have seen the vast area of forests in northern Canada, there is enough fuel up there for a lot of forest fires. I had hoped that the northern midwest US would not have as many negative impacts from climate change, however, boreal forest wildfire smoke may become common for the northern midwest.

We did a 3 day van camping trip in northern Michigan, which was nice. I am not sure I am ready to do a long van trip again. Summer is not the time to go van camping anyway, it is too hot. Maybe this fall.

I tasted milkweed flowers and found them OK raw but the milk is sticky, so I will cook them in the future. I am looking forward to trying small milkweed pods as a vegetable. I am learning that foraging is as much about finding which food sources are available at the time, as it is about identifying edible plants. I often look for edible plants while bicycling, and there are fewer plants than one might think along the way. Sometimes there are groups of plants that could be harvested, but often there is nothing (that I know of) that is edible for miles. From a survival aspect, picking small leaves of dandelion and plantain, and cooking them in a soup or stew seems to be a way to get healthy food for free just about anywhere. I am looking forward to raspberries, which will be ripening soon.

I picked 4 pints of red currants from my garden and am drying them. They take about 48 hours to dry in a dehydrator. Next time I will freeze them first to try to break the skins and cell walls for faster drying. I may end up processing them into a jelly to dry as fruit leather, although I hope to avoid this additional work. My goal is to produce dried berries which can be taken in small amounts as a vitamin source.

My weight is going up. I may have to start fasting again. My weaknesses are ice cream and chocolate. June is a month of many social activities for me, and that usually means eating out with others and not eating food that I cook. I have gotten to the point where I enjoy the food I cook more than any other food, so that is a big positive, since the food I cook is designed to be as healthy as possible. I may continue trying to maintain my weight and not fast through August, then at the end of summer try to starve my way down to my target weight.

I now have a permethrin treated set of hiking clothes: long pants, long shirt, socks, shoes, gloves, hat and head net. I feel like I have a suit of armor that allows me to walk through bug and tick infested forest. I carry a walking stick to brush away spider webs along the trail and to defend myself from dogs, wild animals and sasquatch. I have a fanny pack with a half liter of water, raincoat, compass and knife. Together with my phone with mapping software tracking my route, I think I am well equipped to explore the forest.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

There is a section of bike trail that I ride frequently with raspberry bushes along the trail for about a quarter mile. Yesterday, I did not see any ripe berries, but today they are starting to ripen. When I rode past today, there were dozens of people stopped to pick berries. I was able to pick and eat a few handful that others had missed. So another aspect of foraging is competition.

Having one's own land and garden is important. You can't rely on foraging on public land due to competition.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

Milkweed pods are starting to come out in my area. I picked a dozen small pods, about 2“ in length. Boiled them for 10 minutes. The flavor is excellent, a cross between green beans and sweet corn. I will try to collect a bag full, cook and freeze for addition to my daily veg-bean soup recipe.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I harvested about 2 quarts of milkweed pods, boiled them 10 minutes and froze them for use in my veg-bean soup. It took about 4 hours, much of which was waiting for water to boil or pods to cool down. I drove my car to find milkweed spots that I had discovered earlier. I had hoped to do most of my foraging by bike but the distances are a little further out than I want to bike.

The pods are just starting to be ready, in a week I will look for more.

guitarplayer
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

I have never encountered milkweed pods, is there anything special in their prep that requires actually boiling them in water? I have been successfully cooking vast majority of my vegetables in a microwave, it takes about 13min for 800g of vegetables. I use a program for it but I suspect it is just 1000W for the whole time. The vegetable range from kale to potatoes and all cook okay. Probably uses less energy.

Have you thought about an e-bicycle or an e-scooter? There is a recent discussion on the forum about e-scooters.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I used to have an ebike, but I prefer pedal bikes. I bicycle for exercise.

I found this raspberry patch this afternoon:

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Last edited by sky on Thu Jul 27, 2023 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I am following instructions on how to forage milkweed, apparently they need to be boiled. I have only eaten them once. Here are pictures of milkweed pods and my collection of veg-bean soup in pint jars, that is my main meal about every other day.


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sky
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Re: No Time Like Right Now - sky's journal

Post by sky »

I launched my sailing canoe for the first time. There was almost no wind so I can't say much as to how it performs. It did seem to go upwind despite me not having the sheets and sail halyards organized correctly. It rowed OK, perhaps a bit slow, but I was mainly checking things out to see if anything would break.

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