Another brief plant profile this post, as it’s our first experience of persimmons!
The first thing you learn is absolutely do not eat them when they look pretty enough to eat. With the persimmon, the uglier, the better! If you eat one when it looks like this, you might think you just stuffed your mouth full of dead rodent fur.
If you eat one that looks like these below, you might cringe a little at first thinking you’re about to taste something rotten, but you’d be quite wrong—it’s magically delicious!
Let this funny lady tell you all about it!
It is often claimed that American persimmons are only edible after a frost and that you cannot ripen them off the tree. Luckily, this is not the case. However, most persimmons you can purchase at the grocery store are of a Chinese variety. It seems American producers have decided our own varieties don’t ship well enough.
Preserving ’wild’ persimmons is also a bit peculiar as cooking it will bring the astringent taste back. Making fruit leather was the solution for Native Americans according to this article by Mother Earth News. “When desired, the persimmon leather can be cut into small pieces and eaten like candy. It is much relished by small children this way. Or, the dried pulp can be mixed like raisins with cornmeal and other cereals to make Native American puddings, various cakes and biscuits.”
Time for us to give persimmon leather a try! And persimmon cookies, clearly. I already made persimmon kombucha and it’s positively divine! 🙂
We’ve planted a bunch of persimmon trees in recent years, but only females produce fruit. The ratio of male to female trees is 10 to 1 and you can’t tell them apart until they start fruiting, in about 7 years. Nature’s way of teaching us patience and planning!
I remember the good ole days, from like, a decade ago. There was suddenly the mandate that everyone change their lightbulbs for some ‘common good’ reasons that escape me now.
What doesn’t escape me is at the time I thought, WTF?! I’ve longed considered ‘the government’ just a euphemism for ‘the mafia’, but surely, with this sort of escapade, now it will be obvious to everyone. Same tactics, only ‘legal’: Extortion, bribery, coercion, racketeering. Not to mention the ‘soft’ tactics.
Where will it end? Come on folks! I ventured forth on my social media quest. I was still on Fakebook back then. To the response of yawns and crickets and eye rolls and unfriending and the usual. Everyone clamored about to get their lightbulbs installed.
Now, here we are. As the old Virginia Slim ad boasted: You’ve come a long way, Baby!
No boobs, hmmm . …
It’s baffling, but I am far from surrendering to the mobsters and their minions. And in my own little way, I’ve come a long way, too. It’s very encouraging and refreshing for me to find like-minds in places I’d never have thought to look before. 🙂
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation, To call upon a neighbour and to say: “We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: “Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we’ve proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray, So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say:
“We never pay any one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost, For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Source – technocracy.news “…Technocracy views humans as a natural resource to be exploited, similar to oil or livestock. Controlling economic activity, therefore, requires controlling all the resources. Since energy is the gas pedal to all economic output, Technocrats create a “sustainable development” equation under their total control” Toward Global Technocracy And Slavery Image: Solariadvisors.com PDF […]
“Technocracy, on the other hand, views humans as a natural resource, no different from an oil deposit or livestock, and they are to be used as such. Humans may be more or less efficient than a robot, for example, depending on the job at hand, and efficiency trumps humanity.We’re talking about a world where most people are under 24/7 surveillance and then their financial incentives and their financial power are related to how well-behaved they are. ~ Catherine Austin Fitts
To minimize problems within this human resource management system, there needs to be maximum compliance with minimal effort, and this is where social engineering through media propaganda (brainwashing), censorship and artificial intelligence comes in. For the most part, once fully implemented, the control system will be fully automated.”
I would also have been speechless at the response to his question at that California conference!
I’d love to hear what y’all think, too. 🙂
Second Amendment for Food
A ballot initiative you may not have heard about in Maine late Tuesday created unprecedented freedom for voluntary food commerce. This first-of-its kind constitutional amendment does what the U.S. Bill of Rights failed to do: guarantee citizens the right to choose their food.
The measure added language to the state constitution providing that individuals have a “natural, inherent, and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce, and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health, and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching, or other abuses of private property rights, public lands, or natural resources in the harvesting, production, or acquisition of food.”
What this does is give the individual legal standing to sue any entity–including a government entity–that stands in their way of acquiring the food of their choice from the source of their choice. This language has been championed by the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund for years and it’s truly wonderful to see that a state has finally adopted it into its constitution.
Both the Farm Bureau Federation (you know, that outfit that says it’s a friend of farmers?) and the Maine Dairy lobby fought aggressively against it, charging that it would undermine food safety. That’s always the argument, that choice is too risky. Somebody might get bad milk, rotten chicken, or spoiled porridge. Yes, that’s possible, but it’s also possible they’ll be able to get better milk, better chicken, and better porridge than heretofore available due to burdensome government regulations.
I’m thrilled over this development and anticipate Maine now leading the nation in local food commerce. It’ll be interesting to see if the federal government attacks the state like it did with the Food Sovereignty Act several years ago. At that time, the federal government said that if the state didn’t rescind that freedom, it would pull all inspection from the state and nothing would be able to move outside state lines. Maine buckled.
Let’s hope Maine holds firm this time around because the same opposition is still very much in power, both at the industry level and the bureaucratic level. Lest you think this is all academic, let me relate a quick story. Several years ago I was speaking at a college in California and had about 300 people in a lecture hall. I asked them “how many of you think that a government food safety official should inspect carrots and beets harvested from your own garden before you can eat them?” One-third of the hands went up. I’ll never forget the moment. I literally was speechless (that’s a big deal for me) for a bit, trying to metabolize this reality.
Are you in agreement with what Maine just did, or do you think this will fill the hospitals with folks suffering from tainted food?
An early frost again this year means no pumpkins for us.
So close, and yet so far
Most folks think it’s climate change, others claim it’s the Grand Solar Minimum. I suggest it’s something else completely—chemical ice nucleation for weather modification. I don’t think mother nature swings quite like that without the hands of man involved. I suppose only time will tell.
I will today, however, stay focused on the nice and easy, if only to prove I can manage to do such a thing whenever I choose.
So, here’s a fun family walk.
And a huge harvest of sweet potatoes, along with some ginger and tumeric, too.
And a sweet little harvest of honey and wax.
Resourceful bees happily cleaning up my mess
Prepared for the next crops, garlic and onions, coming soon.
The final scent of summer—the last bloom of Macy’s Pride
And to end, a tender and thoughtful bow to a dear man we’ve lost today, sparing him, and our extended family, of potentially many painful years coping with a debilitating disease. A merciful passing for which we are grateful.
Papi, now completely blind and mostly deaf, is also not far from his final journey to the great beyond.
Texas Father Who Lost 16-Year-Old Son to the Pfizer Vaccine “My government lied to me” pic.twitter.com/g6LTowkZeW — Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) November 3, 2021 Please take 2 minutes to watch this heartbreaking video of Mr. Ernest Ramirez talking about the death of his son from the Pfizer vaccine. We owe it to him and all those […]
This post is just a quick plant profile because I’m so very pleased we’ve finely been successful growing this impressive and delicious squash. We’ve tried at least five times previously and they never lived through the summer and died long before producing fruit in early fall. I wish I knew how we got lucky this time!
A perennial with leaves, fruit and root all edible. One plant can easily produce 100 fruits a year. It’s a day-length sensitive plant grown in tropical and subtropical areas.
In Zone 8 it can come back from the roots if well-mulched. Fingers crossed here! It was first domesticated in southern Mexico and Central America. The fruits are used raw like a zucchini or cucumber, or cooked like potatoes.
It’s a very popular vegetable in Creole cooking. It’s used in fritters, stuffed, pickled and smothered.
We’ll be trying all of those!
Sources: Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier Louisiana Real & Rustic by Emeril Lagasse
Source – journal-neo.org “…The most damaging components of American agriculture since the 1990s has been the wholesale introduction of GMO crops—especially soybeans, corn and cotton and the highly carcinogenic Monsanto-Bayer Roundup with glyphosate. The Rockefeller report omits their direct role in fostering that devastation by their creating and promoting Monsanto and GMO for decades, knowing […]
No politics or unpleasant ponderings this post, I promise!
Just some homesteady happy snaps and a well wishing for a wonderful weekend. 🙂
A sea of sweet potatoes soon to be harvested.Mexican tarragon—an attractive replacement for French tarragon that does much better in the South.
So excited for the mirliton (chayote squash)! It’s growing like mad, covered in flowers and fruit and providing perfect habitat for bees, wasps, crickets, etc.
Volunteer cherry tomatoes thriving on the old duck coop! We’ve never had tomatoes last all summer before, but now I can see how nature would have it done. This is almost an entirely shaded space and the entire coop is filled with volunteers: malabar spinach, datura, and these delicious little morsels.
Time to wean the lambs. It was a loud couple of days as mamas and babies were separated, but with Summer as surrogate herd Queen everyone has mellowed down again. Phoebe, the goat pictured on the left, will have her first mating encounter next month. Her sister, Chestnut, jumped the gun, by jumping the fence to be near the rams, the little hussy! FYI—a goat crossed with a sheep is a Geep, very rare and not very desirable.
Drum roll, please, for this next rare shot . . . A Skittles sighting!
Our barn cat, Skittles, who we see about once a week and lives mostly in the trees.
Mystifying mushrooms! These are quite common, honies (armillaria tabescens) claimed to be good by a good many foragers, but we haven’t tried them yet, because my mushrooming buddy and her husband got wretchedly ill on them once. Oops, I promised no unpleasantries. 😉
Buttercup paying homage to the pack leader, Tori, she does this multiple times a day.
I suppose these next snaps might be unpleasant to some, sorry! I do get that, I felt that at first too, but I was gradually desensitized as I realized how much economic sense it makes, what an amazing skill it is, and especially how magically delicious it is.
Always an attentive audience at slaughter time.
Our favorite foraging expert who we forayed with nearby this past spring has a great new website all about medicinals. Here’s a short podcast about it, and reminding me that now is the time I should be collecting some goldenrod before winter! Medicine Man Plant Co
We’ve been at this about a decade now, learning by trial and error. Because of a major health crisis in the family, I’ve been introspecting even more than usual these days. That’s why I haven’t been posting much lately.
I thought it high time to deeply consider what our own health futures might hold, Hubby and I, while we are not under the immediate duress of old age and poor health. Health is one of the main reasons why we committed to this homesteading lifestyle. Other reasons are political, esthetic, quality of life and, for me at least, a sense of urgency to hold on to something precious for future generations—nature—before it slips completely from our lives.
Tumeric flowering, didn’t know they do that!
Watching the impact of the Scamdemic not only on the economy, but also on our ‘health care’ system has demonstrated unequivocally that, despite the challenges and hardships, we’ve made the right choice.
Our ‘health care’ system, which is actually a disease promoting system, is beyond hope, in my estimation. (This one’s surely gone viral by now, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, it’s brilliant!) The DEVOLUTION of covid vaccine efficacy
I truly believe the only way out of the mess this country has become is by reclaiming our natural rights back from the government.
However, that first means reclaiming our natural responsibilities—those ‘unpleasant’ aspects of life we’ve come to outsource to the government (and their corporate partners in crime) in the first place, which has made it ridiculously powerful, as all governments (and their co-conspirators) are wont to be.
We are trying to accomplish that by first demonstrating to ourselves, and then hopefully to others, that such a thing is possible, and also desirable.
But what if, due to our increasing age, we had to choose? Limited strength, mobility issues, cognitive decline, all are serious potential threats to our continued lifestyle here.
Considering this I’ve made a few lists, ranking our current activities against future realities based on: Required inputs, health impact, pleasure principle, and bang for the buck.
It isn’t pleasant. I don’t want to give up any of it, ever! Bees, chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, veggie garden, fruit orchard . . . . But, here goes.
Kombucha, no caveats, it stands alone. If you can make tea you can make kombucha. It’s healthy, it’s fun, it’s delicious. Hubby no longer drinks beer or soda thanks to this amazing beverage, better for health and finances for us, and far better for the environment too, with almost no waste.
Sourdough bread, and already we have caveats. I know loads of folks think they are gluten intolerant; I used to think I was too. Grains properly prepared are nothing like most store-bought breads, for health and taste. Around these parts you can’t even find good bread. In other locales you may be able to find it, but I’d guess the prices are scary. Making your own sourdough bread is time consuming, but it’s not difficult. Same goes for sourdough cookies, brownies, pizza crusts, etc. And, let’s face it, gluten-free products are not tasty, so there’s some extra incentive.
Raised garden beds, and more caveats. Starting to garden at an advanced age is probably not going to be too successful. Of all we do here it claims the prize of Most: most expensive, most labor intensive, most greatest learning curve, most unreliable results. Still, I love it! So, continuing to garden with some foresight and adjustments is perfectly doable. I insist!
That short list makes me sad. It’s the bare bones and I hope such sacrifices will never be required of us—no more chickens, goats, big dogs, great big garden?!
I don’t even want to consider it, but there it is.
Tori surveying the gopher damage. Bad rodents!
There are also many projects still on my list to successfully accomplish, which are in trial and error mode now. Like making all our own body care and household cleaning products and herbal medicines. Hubby has future hopes of making furniture, if his current to-do list will ever allow it. No time for poor health here!
So, another short list is in order. The three things, in addition to those above, that I hope and pray we never get too old for: 1. Bees — not even for the honey necessarily 2. Chickens — they are easy enough to manage, but they attract predators 3. Goats — mostly for the cheese making, but they’re pretty good company too
And the three things we would most likely not be able to continue into old age: 1. Slaughtering — tough work, no doubt about it 2. Orchard — even established ones are a lot of work 3. Pigs — high maintenance, yes, but so delicious
We have no intention of ever rejoining urban life. And as far as intentions go, avoiding nursing homes and hospitals is right at the top of that list as well.
