Challenege for March

Hey, I keep noticing time going by and I don’t pick up skills. A month back an idea of a monthly challenge came to mind. For Feb. Joe and I tried making bow drills (I totally failed : ) Anyway for March had a tasty idea: For one day, eat only food you have foraged.

You wouldn’t need to have foraged them recently, (unless you need more challenge) and wouldn’t need to use foraged water (unless you want that challenge)

If you have the interest in doing this challenge this month, post below for motivation - for yourself and anyone else. And report how it went, success or learning experience, either way.

Pictures most welcome!

And any ideas to make this better and for a future month also most welcome!

Oh yeah! last month: http://www.rewild.info/conversations/index.php?topic=1627.0

Great idea! Let me know what you are having trouble with in terms of the bow-drill and maybe I can help.

I was actually just talking to my partner about me doing yet another wild food challenge. Last time I did it I had a freezer full of deer meat and it was spring. This time I don’t have much wild food stored up, and it’s late winter. Should be interesting. I foresee eating a lot of minnows.

Wow. I’m glad we are only going for one day. A week might be pretty lean. It’s winter still here, so finding edibles will probably be difficult. Luckily I bought a fishing license, maybe I can get lucky and catch some fish. Fishing license = Mandatory Civ thing, :(, but it does keep the cops off my back as I try to fish. Fishing=Good skill to have :))

I’m going to go for it anyway. Better to aim big and fail then to not try at all.

Dan asked me what I used for cordage.

I used yucca leaves for my cordage. Seems here everyone uses those as decorative plants, and no one mid me taking a few leaves. I made a video of me harvesting and twisting it. I’ll try to get it edited this weekend and see if I can get it up. I also used the yucca stalk for the spindle and hearth board.

My problem was the cordage. I would get things rolling and then the cordage would break. A friend who knows more than I said that it’s because the cordage was rubbing together around the spindle, and that will cause your cord to break. With paracord (what I used in the past) that was not a big deal, but with primitive cordage… it’s a big deal.

I like the idea of weekly goals. I’m going to do some research and see what kind of wild edibles are available in my area. And I’m going to go fishing on some lunch breaks. (I have a job right next to the river) Hopefully I can catch something for the actual day of foraging. (Or DoF for short)

Awesome!

Urban Scout, I think I just bit off more than I could chew without planning ahead. I ran into an issue with winter tree identification first, so didn’t have the confidence the wood I picked up would work, then had an issue with not knowing a great place to work on a bow drill near where I live.
I think with better planning I could have, for example, focused on first week, making anything, even if it doesn’t work, even if the cordage comes from a factory. Week two, work on finding the raw materials that would work. Week three put it together and try it out. Week four if it didn’t work, try to correct why. Or something like that.
In my case, I probably need to think a little how I should approach a day of foraged food, breaking it into smaller steps as well.

Joe, looking forward to seeing the edited version!

Hey Dan,

For me, I know that when I work on anything at least I feel like I’ve done something regardless of how much I actually learn through the process. These days I adapt the “Fluency Hunting” model that Willem invented to give me a better idea of directing my learning. I think you’re right about doing things with the fluency hunting “Techniques: Bite Size Pieces” and “Limit” by picking smaller aspects of the process and limiting how far you go.

I’m not exactly participating the foraging week, but to put a fluency spin on it, I would say the first thing would be to find ONE plant that you can eat, and spend the week eating it with every meal. This would limit your process and build fluency in just the one plant. I would further suggest making at least one or two of the same meal each day, as a way of building the “technique: Same Conversation.” This way we could build fluency very efficiently with just one plant. The other plants/herbs etc. will follow in the same way. Next time, you could harvest the same plant as you did before, cooking the same meals with it as you did, but this time integrating a new plant… and so on.

As for the “Technique: Setup” to build the community of fluency here, I would say we should all just pick the same plant and try this out. Each day we could report here and discuss how the Fluency Techniques are working out and how we are applying them. If you’re unfamiliar with all the techniques, it’s cool. “We’ll all get there together”.

Just thought I’d drop in with a relevant but wee bit tangential comment:

One of the reasons my rewilding has become so much about “invisible skills” over “hard skills” is situations like this. There’s a limited array of tools we have as acculturated moderns for learning new things, due to schooling and so on.

Not only is it difficult to learn something new, but it can be difficult to even retain a skill we’ve learned at a “primitive skills” workshop. All too often these things can fade away. And what about passing them on to family and friends? Sometimes that can present yet another hump.

This is what Peter is talking about when he says “fluency hunting” - the ability to focus on the process of learning/teaching itself, and letting whatever rewilding skill you happen to be applying it to just be grist for the mill of learning to learn. Really, all learning is teaching - you either teach yourself, or others.

Right now I’ve been applying “fluency hunting” almost full time to helping endangered languages, but on the side I have managed to apply it to parkour, old time fiddling, software programming, and a few other things. There’s really no limit.

Honestly most mainstream folks are resistant to changing how they teach and learn - they’re too in love with school. My dream has always been to see rewilders be the first subculture to really pick this up and transform their communities with it. It’s a project Peter and I are working on at rewildportland.org.

It’s not as yet something I can communicate well over the internet - I’m always looking for help in making “fluency hunting” more accessible online, but ideally you learn it in person.

If this is inspiring to you and you’d like to help, message me.

OMG, this sounds awesome. And really helpful to anyone rewilding, since the knowledge we need to learn can be so difficult to find, and difficult to learn without anyone to help us. For example, it’s relatively easy to find information about identifying edible plants, but where can we find out how to cook that plant? Or even more challenging, how to cook that plant over an primitive hearth? How do we even set up a primitive hearth? Etc etc. I know that for me, the difficulties of learning such things (truly learning, as in “I can do it”, not just book learning) represents the biggest rewilding challenge. When one doesn’t even have the skills of HOW to learn, in general, then the fear of venturing into the unknown without a guide (as happens when attempting to learn something new with very little information or support) seems that much huger. Fluency hunting seems like it would greatly help with that. In fact it sounds just like what the rewilding “movement” needs!

If we’re going to select a particular plant for the challenge this month, I would suggest stinging nettle. I heard someone mention recently that it’s coming up now (at least on south-facing slopes), and last week I noticed some new plants emerging in the forest nearby. So as long as the plants have grown big enough, I think now’s the time to start harvesting it.

Here’s my weekly report. Things I actually accomplished. this week.
I got the first part of the video edited. This shows me actually harvesting a couple of yucca leaves. The second half cut off early so I will have to reshoot it. I don’t knwo why it cut off but it did. (Big learning curve about editing videos. Lots more work than I thought it would be.)

Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2AyXAfJChI

I had a nice chat with an expert in wild foods here and he gave me a list of of things other than fish to hunt down and see if I can find. I specifically told him what I was going for so these are things that should be available in the Boise area in March.
Pine Needles and the inner bark
Willow inner bark
Maple inner bark
Dogwood inner bark
Cottonwood inner bark
Rose Hips (If their shriveled up you can soak then in water thant hey’re fine.)
Juniper berries
Currant

He also talked about trapping deer mice, which in Idaho aren’t protected so I can do that any time I want. He showed me a pretty cool diagram on a simple paiute trap set up that should work.

Fishing was a dud. Didn’t even get a nibble. But a friend suggested different bait so I will give that a try.

So far the DoF is looking like a stick diet day.

I’m a bit dubious about trying to get everyone looking for the same plant, because we are in different bioregions that have different ecologies. What may be sprouting all over the place in Portland may not be available yet in Boise. I know Portland gets a lot more rain than Boise does. But if I hear a second on Stinging Nettles I will go on the prowl for them.

However, I am extremely excited about the fluency hunting. We may not be able to use the same setup but I like the idea of using the technique: same conversation. I am going to need a bit more time to digest and research this out a bit.

Yeah, I have no idea where stinging nettles grow outside of the Pacific NW. I didn’t even think of that. I’d love to harvest rose hips, although I didn’t see any on a wild rose plant I saw the other day, so I wonder if things are different in this area. Hmmm.

Doesn’t have to go a week, just one day. I guess I had in mind to get perspective on how much one knows, along with an excuse to practice the skills, and learn a bit more.

Well, this month I planted a box garden (actually, 3 of them) and I’ll be attending my first knap-in. That’s the best I’ve done as far as dirt-time is concerned.

Yeah, I consider a single foraged meal to be dirt-time, no matter how small!

Doesn’t meet the challenge though so I’m a butt.

On the flip side, I picked a young wild dandelion leaf at the renaissance festival and ate in front of a friend of mine. The look on his face was priceless, and the leaf tasted good. I felt empowered.

Here’s my weekly report.
This week was a failure. My wife was doing poorly and I spent a lot of time helping her out around the house and other things that when she it up to 100% she would normally do. However, I found a couple of plant books that I am going to do more research and huntng for. Ordered another one that is specifically geared for my bioregion, so I’m excited about that.

So my goal this next week to actually catch a fish, and while I’m by the river to see if I can find those plants I listed before.

On the idea of fluency hunting, I think this is somethign vital for us to do individually. The least of which is that we have a lot to learn and not always a lot of time. When we get settled with the doctor about my wife’s hip. I am going to have to get a hold of Willem and see what more there is to learn, and see if I can bring this system to Boise.

However, I’m not sure that is the purpose of this thread. I think this thread is about motivating us to get off our behinds and go do something. It’s easy to sit around and grip about civization and say how we need to start rewilding, but much harder to get up, learn some skills and begin rewilding. This is our place to go out and rejoice in our successes and bemoan our failures.

P.S. I have an idea for the April challenge. Should be really fun. Unless, of course, Dan has already cemented one. He started this so he gets first pick.

Hey Joe, Thanks for the Video. I have some curiosity also how thin you made the strands and whether they dried out first, and how thin the final cord came out. Perhaps with the lesson learned and mentor’s insight, and mentioning rewild.info, it could bring a few new people to this site :D. Sounds like it does take a lot of work, though, so might not make sense for the effort involved to do all that. I also have some curiosity about the wood choice, since I got stuck there.
For next month: yes! What do you have in mind? The 3-4 ideas I’ve had could work any time.

An update: I have a plan. This Saturday (or if work and weather allows, Friday) I’ll go to the Pennsylvania State Game Lands near my house. I did a preliminary scouting trip this weekend.

I knew about this small cattail swamp, I can take some rhizomes from

But I didn’t know about all these frogs nearby making a huge racket. I got a 2011 fishing/reptile/amphibian license, but need to identify the species and see how many I can take.

This land also has a good group of either Virginia or Scots Pines, I plan to make pine needle tea, and possibly harvest inner bark from (will try but don’t have a good method and concerned about attracting attention).

Apparently Staghorn Sumac roots have some nutrition, though sound like a lot of work.

I wish I could eat bramble stems themselves. Not too many multiflora rose hips left, though I could almost swear one could live on them all winter in this part of the bioregion.

Also a few beech trees, which have edible inner bark. Also in this picture, a large wild grape vine – again I wish I could eat the vine and not just its grapes, because they grow everywhere in this part of the Longhouse region.

Some skunk cabbage. Edible but online say not to bother.

After a rave review in The Forager’s Harvest, I hoped to find hopniss/ground nut, which I’ve not identified before, but didn’t. I’ll try again Saturday. My reason for that location and day also includes PA’s allowed day for hunting crows. I had one in my sights (shotgun) pulled the trigger but had left the safety on. I also know of some sparrows there, which the game commission lets Pennsylvanians hunt any day (except Sunday). If I can’t get those frogs, and don’t get enough bird meat, I’ll go fishing later. (Type O blood - I need meat, lol)

And most likely I’ll eat some of my acorns and black walnuts left from last fall

Ok my adventure:

Friday I had free, so I planned to do it then. Thursday night my favorite MMO game had a war (hey, have to get my tribalism from somewhere) so I stayed up really late and ate more than usual, so I woke up Friday 11am and not too hungry, which throws off the experiment a little but not too badly.

After checking how my faction was doing (sorry! lol) I headed to the state gamelands I had checked out last week. Last week I didn’t see too many sparrows coming from the West, so I parked on the East and planned to head towards where I’d seen crows, in the middle of the gamelands.

Putting on my hunting orange, slinging my shotgun, and leaving the car, right away I saw a sparrow, but too close to the road to shoot. I did see very quickly these multiflora rose hips, and picked a bunch to put in my pocket.

Going this new route turned out a mistake, as I got lost and began trudging through the underbrush to find last week’s nice mowed path, burning unnecessary calories. Luckily, I did stumble on this decent size Beech tree, off the path, and sat under it to take some inner bark.

I don’t know anything about harvesting inner bark, except don’t “ring” a tree, so I started using a sharp knife removing the outer bark from a section similar in size to two playing cards.

I then used my knife to dig out inner bark. Beech doesn’t go too deep before hitting wood, and I recalled also to stick with outer half of inner bark for best texture, but still took a good bit from its inner half. I got a blister from digging with the knife, so obviously a better method exists.

It came out to this much. Not too huge but decent and more than I’ve taken before. About 20 minutes of work, I figured.

I saw a lot of these. They look to me like violet leaves (edible) but I didn’t know for sure, so left them.

At a clearing, I finally got a shot off at a sparrow but probably missed. I say probably because I sometimes have had to look very carefully to find their brown bodies in fallen leaves, and since I didn’t see a lot of feathers flying, I didn’t look super carefully. But I did find tons of green onions. I ate a whole lot there, as hiking around I started to feel a bit hungry.

Almost to the Virginia Pines and crows, I found this spruce tree and took a lot of needles for spruce tea.

Also saw a lot of unopened cones, so took a bunch in case I could get at their seeds.

This field had 20-30 robins bravely eating and making noise. Unfortunately Pennsylvania only allows hunting sparrows and crows at this time, and robins never, so I had to just aim and tell them how lucky they were.

I kept eating multiflora rose hips and taking more as I found them, though didn’t focus on them. Don’t know of any great method to eat them. They kind of resemble tiny apples, with yellow same size seeds, just very little flesh. Here, I took a nibble, then will take three more nibbles then throw it out. They taste great – like strawberry fruit rollups.

Got to crow’s Virginia Pine grove, but no crows this time. I had a feeling not to take inner bark from them, and argued with myself if intuition talked, or laziness, but decided to go with not harvesting any and started heading back.

Back near the spruce tree, I saw these brassica looking leaves and thought perhaps wild turnip. I love turnips, and dug it up but just couldn’t know for sure, so had to leave it. It smelled a little like mild horseradish. Thinking now, I probably should have taken it and ID’d it back home.

Found these white oak acorns. I’d still eat them (I like acorns) but didn’t bother collecting any.

Of course mushrooms everywhere (brown ones on that piece of wood) but I don’t know mushrooms, and heard their nutritional value doesn’t justify their risk.

Got back to my car without seeing any more birds other than protected robins, chickadees and turkey vultures. Drove over to near where I’d seen cattails and frogs before. Roadside saw this, which I couldn’t remember if comfrey or muellin but took some. Later decided muellin and didn’t eat.

PA, only allows 1 frog per day, and only from a selection of 4 species (not a hunter-gatherer friendly zone), and some frogs I saw didn’t look like any of PA’s “ok” species, but they do allow 15 amphibian eggs per day. I did a bunch of research but couldn’t determine if humans can eat frog eggs (I determined I probably had chorus frogs), but it looked likely, so I took, oh, “roughly” 15. I had to mail something that day, so then left, so I could make it to a Post Office. Didn’t have time to harvest any cattail roots for my first time (civ calls, right).

I then went fishing at a spot near my house for an hour before dark, but no luck there – only other fisherman there said fish hadn’t bit anything that day.

End of first 1/2.

2nd 1/2

COOKING

Mmmmmmm. I read up some more, and saw some fake Youtube videos of people eating frog eggs, and decided to take a semi-educated guess and eat them. I basically fried them in water, which didn’t do much to their consistency.

They had a texture like tapioca, and a flavor a little reminiscent of pond water. Lol. Here I added some green onions for flavor. Not too bad. I could feel some energy from them, after having hiked for a few hours. I told my roommate what I’d done so he could send me to a hospital if I stopped breathing. I think it made a good impression on him.

I took a third of my Beech bark and tried baking it. I could get down a few bites, but after that, not too easily. I liked spruce tea, so tried mixing them. This helped me get down a few more bites but I had to struggle to eat it even with some hunger.

Cooked my unopened spruce cones and they opened but I couldn’t find any seeds. A disappointment. Hungry, I’d previously seen some dandelions near my house so went out and picked some leaves.

I then made a dandelion, green onion, and Beech bark salad, even though I’d grown kind of tired of two of this salad’s ingredients. I did manage to get it down, which used up my second third of inner bark. I never ate my last third. Even with some hunger. Started to get a sugar withdrawal headache so ate my remaining rose hips, which helped. I made a few more cups of spruce tea before going to bed.

LESSONS

I had fun and feel like I took away a ton of lessons.

What sticks out most in my mind: I need to develop my hunting skills. Sometimes I consider hunting on public hunting land, while following PA’s game commission regulations, as a simulation of game available during worst parts of a collapse. Basically, it sucks. I had intended to learn some indigenous mouse traps but forgotten. Now, I feel I need to learn them. I feel a successful hunt really would have made a difference. The “15” eggs clearly helped with my energy. (And I didn’t get sick from them, BTW)

Also: knowing where to find stuff comes easily. I knew I wanted to conserve calories, and wished I’d known where to find good sources of food. Now that I’ve seen this gameland’s Eastern section, I know where I can find some sources of food and won’t forget. This makes things easier and more encouraging than I’d thought.

Tree bark sucks. I’d originally seen tree bark as a great trump card to a famine. Now, I don’t know. My body wouldn’t let a lot of it go in my mouth, and what I did eat didn’t really leave me feeling full of power food. I haven’t tried more famous White Pine bark yet, though, so can’t throw it all out yet. Mixing it with greens did help.

Green onions, FTW. I have a prejudice wild food has no flavor. But I found onions frickin’ growing everywhere. I consider onions one of my two key spices; salt my other.

Foraging looks potentially possible. I spent total about 5-6 hours. Granted I could cook by flipping a switch rather than collecting firewood, but given hunting regulations and semi-unknown land, I feel like I got a decent amount of food for half a day’s work and exercise. I feel a hunting component really missed out in this experiment, but that with some skills I have generations of evolution behind learning easily, I really can possibly live at this latitude. Want to try this experiment again in the future after more education.

People. Definitely got to rewild with (and for) other people. But, already knew that.

Rewilding requires facing fears. I’ve fasted for a week before, but nevertheless felt hesitancy going into this, and my mind tried to generate excuses. Had I not posted I would do this, I might have backed out. When Friday ended, though, I felt glad I’d done it and learned the above and definitely some other less tangible lessons from my experience.

Bravo! Thanks for sharing, looks like a good experience.
Btw, were you looking for house sparrows (the invasive European bird)?

Sure thing!
Yeah, little brown invasive species. I know another section I’ve seen a lot of them before, but with time constraints didn’t get a chance to head over there.