Take a baby Mushrooming! Take a class on taking your bebeh mushrooming!

What have I been doing you ask? Well, getting out and mushrooming as often as I can. Since I'm home with the Bebeh 3 days a week, we just take her along.

Some very helpful, patient and kind friends and I have made two trips up into the Oregon Cascades for mushrooms in the last two weeks. The first trip was dry and sunny and provided us with those lovely, early-season tan chanterelles. Dry and clean and perfect for pasta.

The second trip was much colder (in the low 40's) and wet, and we really had to bushwhack to get in. The baby was an absolute trooper, got swaddled up and conked out for an hour once we got into good mushrooming territory. Thanks to Canukistani Kate not only for the pictures but for being on Nap Duty both trips.

As for the class, here is the info from Arctos School of Herbal and Botanical Studies:

Mama/Papa and Babe Mushroom Outing with Missy Rohs
Tuesday, October 6, 10am-4pm

By special request, this excursion is geared towards parents with little ones. The day is a little shorter, and we won't be away from the car for more than an hour and a half at a time. This parent- and baby-friendly hunt will focus on delicious edible mushrooms like Chanterelles and Matsutake. Our hope is that we'll not only find an array of beautiful fungi, but score a basketful to take home and savor! Bring sturdy hiking shoes, water, and lunch.

Carpool will meet in SE Portland. Register by Oct. 3rd by emailing missy@arctosschool.org.
Cost: $35 per adult (sliding scale available) -- kids under 10 are free!







Enjoy sharing your life with little ones,

Bp

[huge thanks to Canukistani Kate for not only the pictures, but all the baby holding]

A very good excuse why the blog slowed down a bit

I'll pick it back up, promise.



Bp

[picture via my very talented Sister]

Update on the Mushroom Tree

As I was out feeding the chickens this morning, I spotted something kinda gross looking, and potentially very exciting.

Last fall, some of you may remember, I got the idea to inoculate a stump in our chicken yard with wild edible mushrooms. Due to the species of the tree, I chose Chicken of the Woods mushrooms (Laetiporus sulphureus), and set about plugging the stump.

The beautiful bloom depicted on the right is not the stump in my back yard, but a bit of a dream picture of what it could look like as early as this fall.

Below is a picture of the state of the "dry" or "inactive-looking" plugs in the stump. If you click it to get a better view, you can see a number of the dowels sticking out from the bark, looking quite "dowelly", and not super biologically active.



And next are two picture of what look to me to be fully active, early-stage spots of growth at some of the "active" plugs. Unless this is newbish ignorance, like some kind of successful immune-response from the stump, I believe we have liftoff. They are even a creamy orange color, which fits the species of mushroom I chose to grow in this stump.





Enjoy turning waste wood into beautiful food,

Bp

[top picture courtesy of Wiki Commons]

Sorry for no post today -- but, IT'S A GIRL!!!

See my doctor's note on the right for why I missed my allotted post today: Her name is Vivian, and she was 9 lbs. 15 Oz. 21" long. She's quite a little peanut.

Bp

Bee Time + Eddie Izzard on Bees

Spring is not just Garden Time and Nettle Time -- it's Bee Time. I'm excited.

I went down to Ruhl Bee Supply with Estu to pick up his hives, equipment, and some packages of Carniolans. He, too, will be mixing a Langstroth hive into his home bee keeping, while continuing to work with his Top Bar hive.

I still need to assemble my Langstroth for the garden, and paint it, before I get a nuc to ensure a nice solid take with the new bees. I'm very excited, only a couple weeks and I'll be in business.

Looks like I'll be lending out two of my top bar hives to friends, and will keep one to gather a swarm into this season. The idea is to see if there is any way they'll stay in a top bar up in its current location -- it would be fantastic if they'd stay, because I could get a few hives up there without much trouble at all.

Anyway, plans and dreams aside, below is a great Eddie Izzard skit about bees to finish off this post.



Enjoy the care and feeding of small creatures,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 2, Drying

In Nettle Time -- Part 1, I mentioned that these wild edibles are coming up right now all over the Pacific Northwest (and elsewhere), and gave a few tips about gathering. Now I'll talk about storage and use.

The most common way for people to store nettles is to dry them.

The equipment needed to dry nettles is minimal -- you could do it by hanging them over a line in a shady but well-circulated area, for instance. But this time of year the ambient humidity is so high that I would be concerned about mildew if you did it outside. If you dry them inside, make sure to hang them in an area that folks won't brush up against them as their stinging quality is still up and kicking throughout most of the process.

I chose the quickie route -- The Dessicator [hear as Monster Truck Rally announcer for full effect]. The reason I call my cheapo grocery store dehydrator The Dessicator is because driers like these seem best at absolutely desiccating something, as opposed to drying to a particular moisture level as is required of most dried fruits, fruit leathers, and jerky. But for drying the living hell out of things, it works great. I use it for seaweed, mushrooms, and nettles. No moisture subtlety needed, just dry the dickens out of it, and store.

One note on storage of dried nettles. Even when fully dried, the stingers (especially on the stems) can still be moderately active. Consider wearing gloves when packing up your dried nettles. The second your dried stuff hits hot water or cooking food, those needles will be safely de-activated, so no worries. If you are worried despite this assurance, clean the nettles of all stems, and then powder them with a few pulses in a food processor.


What to do with dried nettles? Well the most common answer is tea. For use in tea, folks tend to leave the nettles in dried form and not powdered. Folks use nettle tea not only as a general health tonic (lots of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C and Iron), but to help with allergies. I even have a friend who is serving it to her dog for allergies, and it's working quite well. There are plenty of sources of information on the intartubes regarding nettles as medicine and I'll leave that conversation to those folks.

Another use is as a flavor and nutritional supplement in food. In this case, the powdered form is preferred. You can add the powder directly to food, or create a condiment out of it. I know of folks who use it in soups and stews, but also in smoothies, and sprinkled on top of just about anything that could use a fresh, "green" flavor.

You can make a Gomashio-type condiment by mixing the powder with salt, or even better add freshly-roasted sesame seeds to the salt and nettles and grind the mix up a bit in a mortar and pestle. Best done when the seeds are still warm, it blends the flavor nicely. In this manner the nettles are replacing the seaweed normally used.

Next episode will cover freezing, methods and uses.

Enjoy free wild spring produce,

Bp

Spring starts for the garden -- plants and animals

We lose our breakfast nook in certain seasons. Spring is a big one -- it's a nice south-facing 3-windowed space, practically a greenhouse. T. does his starts there and begins the hardening process, and this year we have chicks too.

The starts in the picture are too numerous to name -- but a good mix of veggies and flowers.

The wee ones are a mix of Australorps, a very pretty black chicken with green iridescence in the feathers, very steady laying breed; Silver-laced Wyandottes, a hearty laying hen with amazingly beautiful plumage; and the special rare-breed, Delawares. Looks like the new generational theme in the flock is black and white formal.

Whenever we raise chicks, we raise many more than we'll ever need because there are always folks looking for pullets later in the season. Plus, our friends up on the mountain have a ravening band of mutt chickens in a big forest enclosure, and any new breed to add to the mix just makes their flock hybrids stronger. There's always room for more up there.

And we have the roughest chore too -- to pick up and play with the chicks a lot as they're growing up. It's a tough one, but we suck it up and do it. We've found that the adult chickens are so much easier to deal with if the chicks get handled and talked to a lot. Jobs like catching them to clip wings and check feet are much less noisy and dramatic.





Enjoy bad photography of lovely spring garden tasks,

Bp

Tea Kettles, Plastic and Aluminum poisons, and the Precautionary Principle

Ever since The Wife's pregnancy, the fact that our electric tea kettle (which gets scads of use from the tonnage of tasty tasty Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants teas that get brewed here every day) has an aluminum heating tray and plastic water reservoir has been bugging me.

[Why yes, that was a blatant plug for our friends' tea business]

Are studies absolutely conclusive that aluminum causes Alzheimer's? Well, not conclusive no -- it's probably multi-vector, etc etc. Is it conclusive that heating food substances in plastics is dangerous? Well -- if they have Biphenol A it probably is, but I'm not sure our kettle does.

Regardless -- a father frets.

I decided to go with the Precautionary Principle on this one. I did some research looking for stainless steel electric kettles. I found out that many have stainless on the outside but not the inside. Many still have plastic water reservoirs. No go.

The Aroma Stainless Steel Electric Water Kettle has neither. The only contact water makes with plastic is a little bit goes into a side reservoir to display your water level in the kettle. Considering all the other options, I'll take it.

I'm sure there are sexier (and much, much more expensive -- this one is only $30) stainless kettles out there, but I just need functional, not fancy. Plus, the customer support lady from Aroma was very helpful, responsive, and friendly when answering my questions. That clinched the deal.

Time to go have some Bombay Breakfast with this new non-toxic water.

[Yep, another shameless plug]

Enjoy not poisoning your family,

Bp

Mail a brick to junk mailers on their dime

I've long amused myself with the practice of stuffing bulk mail "postage paid" envelopes with lots of folded up paper garbage, and even pennies taped to a piece of paper, and mailing them back. It's fun, it's vindictive, and it really does hurt their pocketbook.

This article takes the practice one step further -- mail 'em bricks. Apparently, taping the business envelope to the outside of a box, of nearly any size, still pays for the shipping.

Delicious.

Enjoy little tricks to make snail mail spamming unprofitable,

Bp

The strange and unexpected connections made on the intarweb

I recently received one of those "out of the blue" emails that I occasionally get related to this blog. A nice lady from the American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine contacted me regarding my statement of "recovering electrician" in my Bio. She has electrician types in her family and wondered if there were interesting or hair raising stories associated with this phrase that I would be willing to relate.

It turns out that part of this lady's job is searching out any reference to oriental medicine or acupuncture on the web and checking out the content. My blog popped up in her search, and one thing led to another.

It is a trip to think that my few mentions of acupuncture in this blog tagged it in a way that it could possibly now be part of the national (or international) conversation about this subject. I'm sure you'd have to dig to find the blog, but this lady did, and did find me. The mind spins at how the intartubes are changing our societal discourse. I couldn't possibly imagine trying to catalog or quantify the amount of change and novelty that is being produced this way.

Here is part of my long-winded response to her query, for those of you who are interested:

So, the "recovering electrician" comment is a tongue-in-cheek statement, because I'm changing careers due to really not liking that job much.

However, there is more to the story, and since it seems you (look to be) a health care practitioner, I'll relate it.

When I still had awesome Union insurance, I went to a naturopath/acupuncturist here in Portland named Bernie Bayard. He's phenomenal. He used to joke that he was using me as a guinea pig for checking out the effects of multiple electrical shocks on the human system. Since I was primarily a service electrician, I almost always worked in inhabited houses -- doing repair and trouble shooting. That kind of work is almost always done hot, because it's less disruptive to the client and for troubleshooting, it's just way more informative. I got shocked as often as once a month. [for those of you concerned about this statement, know that it was almost always "small" and in my hand only, not big electrocutions going through my torso or anything]

Back in the day, in the 30's, electricians used to test circuits with their fingers. Even the national electrical code had instructions for how to do this. Many of these men ended their life with a severe palsey, because their nerves were literally fried. Since nerves are our electrical conductors in the body, I believe that's where the resistance is least and so when we get shocked they take the brunt of the force. That's my non-scientific opinion of course.

As for funny stories, I have so many that my wife wants me to write a book of short stories (named "Electrical Shorts" of course) about the bizarre, scary, and humorous events that happened during my career as a service electrician.

Enjoy the novel connections that seemingly harmless online activity can produce,

Bp


[image courtesy of wiki commons]

Nuking a blog: The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers

I really loved the name of that blog. It was Doc Ock's kid who walked around our property when he was 8 years old, and afterward announced that he had counted 17 whole gardens in our yard. I started to correct him and say "those are beds, like parts of gardens" but then stopped myself. "Yep, you are exactly right, there are 17 gardens here!"

Anyway, in the Summer of 2007, I was a young and impetuous blogger and thought that I would need a separate blog as an occasional place to post the tons and tons of garden photos I was planning to take. As it turns out, I needed to finish school, and work, and take care of the house, as WELL AS blog. So that blog is no longer needed. I'll post all the garden related posts here instead.

Below, pictures of the front yard, the front gate, and one of T's amazing bouquets -- all from The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers blog, 2007.





Enjoy realizing that even more of your interests can be accommodated by a single, personal blog,

Bp

Baking Boots -- the art of Sno Seal application

My beloved hiking boots (Men's Vasque Sundowner Classics
for the curious in the crowd) were looking a little scuffed and dried up. On my last mushrooming trip my feet were *virtually* dry at the end, but they weren't bone dry. So I decided it was time to re-waterproof my boots.

The only kind of waterproofing I could find was Sno-Seal Original Beeswax. I'd heard about Sno Seal for years, but always blew it off because I heard Nikwax was a lot easier: rub it on, done.

But the appeal of beeswax and the old timey aspect got to me. It smelled (yes I smelled before I bought, don't YOU) of beeswax and kerosene -- which, again, set off my old-timey alarms, so I picked some up.


I set my oven on "warm" (approx. 120) and cleaned my boots while it got to temperature. I baked the boots for about 15 minutes, and then brought them out and gave them the first application of Sno Seal. It did melt right into the leather, as advertised.

I rubbed and buffed and carefully overloaded the seam areas, and when the boot looked all done, I stuck it back in the oven for about 15 more minutes. When I pulled it out, the toes and the backs were dry all over again. Like before I'd started. Much of the rest of the boot looked "finished" but these scuffed areas drank up a lot of sealer.

So I changed tactics, I slathered the stuff thickly on the dry areas -- enough that it left a film on the leather. I still buffed up the other areas lightly, and then baked the boots again. Sure enough the dry areas drank up most of the sealer yet again -- but much more of the boot now looked finished. I repeated the last step one more time and now I'm done.

I'm sure now that had I put a thick, goopy layer of the stuff on the first time, it would have melted in and I would have been done in less time than my 3-4 repetitions took.

I'm surprised how much sealer the boots sucked up.

I'm excited now to head out to The Palouse and chase birds with Estu in my spiffy dry boots.

Enjoy taking care of your equipment and reaping the benefits of said care,

Bp

[Note: See the comments below -- I will report back to see if I have over-proofed my boots or not]

Photo essay: creating a "Mushroom Tree"

As I mentioned last month, we are going to attempt to grow wild mushrooms in our back yard. I ordered 300 plugs of Chicken of the Woods spawn from Fungi Perfecti.

The first picture is of the bag of plug spawn.


The second is the back of the bag, showing a healthy bunch of plugs.


The third is looking into the bag, seeing a nice, healthy cottony network of mycelium around all the plugs. The instructions were to let the box and spawn sit for up to a month before using so the mycelium could recover from the shipping. When it looked this way, I decided it was ready to go.


The next picture shows a 5/16" drillbit and a few holes in the "diamond" pattern suggested in the 10-page booklet supplied by Fungi Perfecti. The bit was around 4 1/2" long, and I was shooting for a distance of 3-4" between holes -- so used it as a rough measure.


Next is 4 plugs set in the holes, and only the top one pounded in. I used a finish hammer for this, as I couldn't find our rubber mallet.

Next is a typical "field" of plugs. My impression is that you want fields like this, as opposed to thin runs in the wood. The plug spawn grows out from the spot where it was introduced until it reaches the next one growing out from another location. When the mycelium reach each other, they bind up and support each other's growth -- so wide fields of plugs are better than thin paths.


The last picture is the incipient Mushroom Tree itself. I did a nice wide collar of plugs about 4' off the ground all around the trunk (out of reach of chickens, who I think would go after the young mushrooms), then a nice wide stripe all the way up the front to a collar around the top. When it blooms (anywhere from 6-12 months from now), it's going to look totally cool.

Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) mushrooms are not only edible, but really bright and beautiful -- check out these links for good pictures: Wikipedia, American Mushrooms.com, and some doozies from the New Jersey Mycological Association.

Enjoy creating edible art in your garden,

Bp

Too Late

We like to call this photo "A little too little, a little too late." The Wife's 2nd trimester belly next to an ironic mailing we just received.

We crack ourselves up.



Enjoy being let into our house's bizarre sense of humor,

Bp

My sphincter is no longer cramped

... that is all.

Bp

Election Map Cake -- inspired by The Wife

The Wife has convinced her boss's daughter (a PhD in poli sci who lives in D.C.) to make an Election Map Cake. It will be frosted as the election results come in (except for the stalwarts that she already decided to call, as you can see), and then eaten when the results are final.

The Wife is very proud she convinced someone to make this, and demanded I post a picture. Here ya go hun.



Enjoy wifely demands,

Bp

Voodoo Chile by Stevie Ray Vaughn -- it's good for what ails ya

I was thinking, how the hell am I going to mellow out/calm down tomorrow during the elections. I'm nervous as hell this thing's going to go sideways (read: be stolen yet again), so my anxiety is starting to rev up. Music -- that's a good start, that will help. But what music.

Frankly, the first song that came to mind was Amandrai, by Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder, from the album Talking Timbuktu. But I couldn't find a video I liked (though this one ain't too bad). It's just soooo damned groovy, and mellow and strolling.

Then it struck me. Stevie Ray Vaughn. He will be able to help me.

So here he is, playing one of my favorite songs of all time, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). A song seared into my synapses prenatally, then again during high school. Stevie does it up right.



Enjoy music's palliative and cathartic release on election day,

Bp

R.I.P. Pootie

Out of the blue, we lost our cat Pootie this morning at 7:30. He seemed fine, jumped down from the bed, yowled a bit and was gone. At least it was quick. He was in the prime of life and had no symptoms whatsoever.

It's a shame our baby will never get a chance to play with him.

We'll miss you little scupper.




Bp

Back Home!!

We had a great visit, enjoyed the wedding, and I'm back at a working computer. Really makes me realize what an enormous information nipple this thing is for me to be without for a while. The feeling was made that much more poignant by having a computer in the house but totally crippled by spyware and bizarre mini applications (a peeling banana cursor animation, for example), so it's really just a tease and not actually usable.

I will be gratefully immersing myself back into cyberspace pronto.

Hope all is well,

Bp

Ever heard of Seckel Pears?

Ever heard of Seckel pears? Me either. It turns out, they're really freaking tasty.

I was at Whole Foods the other day, and saw these tiny little pears for sale. They were like play pears or something, really small. I have this thing that I sometimes do when I'm shopping -- I try to buy one item that's out of the ordinary for me. One thing that I've never heard of and want to try. This urge normally overcomes me in the cheese section, especially if the words "raw" and "cave aged" are used in the description.

Back to the toy pears. The Wife loves pears (especially with almond butter), so I got them for her. She took them to work and around 11:00 I get a couple texts: "What is the name of these tiny pears?" "Apparently they are the best pears Cyndi has ever had."

Wow.

I'm eating one right now, and I have to say, it's a dandy. Best in my life? It's been a long day and my senses are not totally reliable, but very possibly so.

The texture is nice and smooth (not that weird graininess you can get with pears), and it tastes not only sweet as all get out, but also -- fresh. Green, I guess you could say. And the skin lends a bit of tartness and astringency to the experience that I really appreciate.

Something else that I appreciate is that they ripen after being picked. So you can get rock hard ones at the store and know that in a few days they'll be dandy.

I have this theory that the more wild a food is, the better it is for you -- like, on a genetic level (I'll have to post an elaboration of this point sometime). So, when I see an unusual looking fruit or vegetable, I check it out to see if it's heirloom or not because I want to eat heirlooms whenever I can.

It turns out, the Seckel pear is old-timey. This page on the USA Pear website states that the Seckel pear is the only truly American pear, and originated probably from wild seedling near Philadelphia.

Bitchin.

Enjoy adventuresome eating producing a stellar new find,

Bp

[photo credit at the USA pear website]