The worst place I ever got poison ivy was in my belly button. At that time, I had one of the worst cases of poison ivy that I had ever experienced. Angry, red rashes that resembled chemical burns were plastered all over my body, but the little rash inside my belly button was the worst. When I got hot or moved the wrong way, the folds of my belly button rubbed together exacerbating the awful burning itch exponentially.

The amazing thing was that I hadn’t come into contact with any poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac plants for the previous few days. My husband and I had been on a camping/canoeing trip, and I had been very careful not to expose myself to the plants.

Unlike me, my husband does not get poison ivy, oak, or sumac. He can roll in it and not get so much as a bump. So when we came to our riverside campsite and found that the tree under which we wanted to pitch our tent was covered with an old, dead, fuzzy-looking poison ivy vine, I told my husband we’d have to find another site. My husband liked the seclusion of the spot and so went to work ripping the old vine down with his bare hands and tossing it far into the woods beyond. I watched from a safe distance. Now that the threat of the plant was gone, neither of us thought anymore about it. As far as we were concerned, the matter was taken care of, I was safe, and we worked together setting up our campsite. The trip was wonderful, but two days later, I was in utter agony. So how did I end up with such a bad case of contact dermatitis from a plant I didn’t even touch?

My husband gave it to me.

In order to understand how, you need to understand the nature of the poisonous triplets: poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. These three plants all contain a resin known as urushiol [oo-roo-shee-awl]. This oil is the culprit that causes the angry, red rashes. Anytime this oil comes in contact with the skin, it will attach itself to the outer layer of skin cells and to the layer of live cells below. In approximately 85% of people, this will cause an allergic reaction. The degree of your rash will depend on your sensitivity.

Urushiol is just as potent outside of the plant as it is inside the poisonous triplets. So you do not have to come in direct contact with any plants. If you touch an object that has urushiol on it, it will still cause contact dermatitis. That is how my husband gave it to me. Once he touched the vine he had urushiol on his hands. Everything he touched from there became contaminated, until he washed his hands. The camp ax, our towels, our life vests, the camping gear, the cooking utensils were all compromised. If he touched something, handed it to me, and I grabbed the area that he touched, my hands were contaminated. Once my hands were contaminated, every time I touched a part of my body, I got urushiol on it.

The tricky thing about urushiol is that the same patch of oil can reinfect you time and time again. So if you were weed eating and urushiol got sprayed on your shoelaces from hitting a poison ivy plant, it can get on your hands every time you tie your shoes. Last year’s garden gloves, with which you pulled weeds, could still be contaminated. Pets that run through plants can get the oil on their coats. Contaminated clothing can transfer the oil to furniture. It is possible for urushiol to remain active on surfaces for years. Until contaminated items, or pets, are washed, they can infect a sensitive person.

Once the oil touches you it can take between 12 to 48 hours for a rash to develop. The length of time it takes for the rash to appear varies depending on the sensitivity of your skin. Rashes resulting from the same incident of contact may take different lengths of time to develop. For example, if your hand comes in contact with urushiol, and then you touch your face, the rash on your face may develop two days before the one on your hand will. This is because the skin on your hands tends to be thicker, and therefore less sensitive, than the skin on your face.

Poison Ivy Myths

The characteristics of urushiol have given rise to a few myths about poison ivy, oak, and sumac.

Myth # 1: Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac rashes are contagious from person to person or from one spot of your body to another. If you touch the rash in one part of your body it will transfer to another part of your body.

Myth #2: Poison ivy, oak, and sumac can travel through your bloodstream to produce new rashes.

Myth #3: Popping the blisters on a rash will release more urushiol that will spread the rash.

Poison ivy is spread through the dissemination of the urushiol resin. Wherever the resin has touched a sensitive person’s body, the rash will spring up. Because there can be a delay of 12 to 48 hours, it can seem as if a person is doing something to cause it to spread even after it has been washed off the skin. Blisters are the body’s reaction to the oil and do not contain urushiol.

Myth #4: Drinking poison ivy tea or eating it will make me immune.

Consuming any of the poisonous triplets will only give you some very nasty gastrointestinal problems and could cause death in some cases. These plants are not safe for human consumption.

Myth #5: I can’t touch the leaves of poison ivy, but I can touch the stem.

Myth #6: Poison ivy is safe to touch in the winter.

All parts of the poisonous triplets contain urushiol, so, if you are allergic, neither the leaves, the stems, or the roots are safe for you to touch with bare skin. The poisonous triplets contain their highest amounts of urushiol in the spring and summer. Wintertime may lessen the amount of urushiol in their surviving plant parts, but it is still there, capable of giving contact dermatitis even in the coldest temperatures. Not even dead plants are safe to touch.

Once you come in contact with the oil, most people usually have a window of opportunity to wash it off before they become affected. Opinions vary on the length of this window, but the shortest one is about ten minutes. If you know you have come in contact with one of the poisonous triplets, wash the area as soon as you can.

There are many suggested methods of washing urushiol off your skin. Using soap, dishwashing detergent, rubbing alcohol, vinegar, commercial cleansers, and mineral spirits are all possibilities that can aid in removing the offending resin. Washing with hot water will open skin pores and possibly allow the urushiol to penetrate deeper so use cool water instead. The most important thing is that you get the oil off your skin without spreading it to other parts of your body.

But what about those times when you are out in the woods, ten miles away from the nearest sink, and you don’t have any rubbing alcohol, mineral spirits, or even soap with you? If all you have is a water bottle, you can get some of the urushiol off with that. It may not be 100 % effective, but it will help. Recalling folk remedies of using mud to draw poisons from a body, I personally have used it and puddle or creek water to get the oil off when I had nothing else. It was effective. I just gently smoothed soft watery mud over the affected area and then rinsed it off. I would avoid hard rubbing or using sand as this might create scratches in your skin, therefore making it more welcoming for the urushiol to soak in.

Relief for Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac: The Poisonous Triplets

If you have a rash, despite your efforts to avoid the plants and the urushiol, many methods exist for you to choose from to alleviate your pain. There are many over-the-counter washes that can aid in treating and soothing your rash. In most pharmacies, they even have their own section. Just ask your pharmacist where they are. If you have any drug allergies, double check with your pharmacist to make sure it is ok for you to use the product.

When you live far away from a pharmacy, or when a rash springs up during an inconvenient time, a home remedy may help. If you prefer a home remedy you can see which of these suits you: salt, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, vodka, oil of oregano, osha-root tincture, a baking soda paste, aloe vera, soaking in oats, witch hazel, or tea tree oil. Methods of application for all of these are easily found on the Internet. As with most home remedies, trial and error will help you determine what is most effective for you.

All of those may be fairly well-known, but there are two Appalachian folk-remedies that may be of interest: coffee and jewelweed.

Washing the poison ivy rash with cold, plain, black coffee is one old remedy. The interesting thing to note is that an anti-inflammatory, chlorogenic acid, is contained in the coffee bean. Although not proven by scientific studies, some people have found relief from it.

Jewelweed is another remedy that is a personal favorite of mine. Jewelweed grows in abundance in our area. We find it around the moist, shady banks of creeks and streams. Also known as the “Touch Me Not”, this plant produces yellow to orange flowers with red spots that look like pendants, or slippers. If you do not know this plant, it is well worth getting acquainted with. According to Peterson’s Field Guide for Medicinal Plants and Herbs, a 1957 study found that out of 115 people treated, 108 found it effective. This plant contains a compound called lawsone in its leaves. Lawsone is an anti-inflammatory and an antihistamine.

Some people drink the leaf-tea as a preventative for poison ivy. Although I cannot attest to jewelweed tea’s efficacy in rash prevention, I can say my family and I have found jewelweed very effective in soothing that horrid, burning itch. Because the plant is not available year round, but poison-ivy rashes are, I have made herbal salve from jewelweed that has proven very useful. I made this particular batch at least two years ago, and according to my son, it was still effective this very morning.

Jewelweed Salve Recipe

• 1 to 2 stalks of jewelweed, chopped
• 1/4 cup of vegetable oil (any kind except olive, which burns when heated)
• beeswax
• 2 vitamin E caplets

Gently simmer the chopped stalks of jewelweed in the oil for approximately five to ten minutes.

Strain the mixture through a coffee filter or clean cloth.

Put mixture in clean, empty baby food jar or 1/2 cup mason jar.

Place mason jar in a pot or pan of water, making double-boiler or water bath.

Add contents of two capsules of vitamin E (poke the capsule with a sharp knife or needle and squeeze into the jar.) Stir to mix.

Grate beeswax and place in jar.

Heat and stir gently until beeswax is melted

Test consistency by taking a small amount out on a spoon and letting it cool. If the consistency is too runny for your tastes simply add more beeswax.

Store in the refrigerator.

I left my concoction a bit runny. When in the refrigerator, it is rather hard and I often use a fork to help me separate a chunk for use. Once in my hands, it begins to melt and I rub it straight onto the rash. Although the vitamin E helps to preserve the salve, like anything in your refrigerator, it can turn moldy over time, so inspect it before each use.

If you do not have the ingredients to make the entire salve, I have found sources that said some people found relief by making a tea and freezing it into ice cubes. Rub an ice cube over the rash to help soothe the rash.

Prevention offers the best protection to those of us who are sensitive urushiol. Getting rid of plants in areas of your yard where you or your pets can come in contact with it is important.

There are several commercial herbicides that will take care of offending plants. However, for those of us that do not want to use them, there are a few other options. One method is to find someone like my husband and have them rip out the whole plant, roots and all. If you have to try to do it yourself, wear thick disposable gloves. Put the ripped up plants in a trash bag; be very careful handling the trash bag after you put the plants in them. Remember that once you touch the plant, you’ve got urushiol on you. If you then touch the trash bag, it will have urushiol on it.

Even though it may be very tempting, do not burn the plants. Doing so can cause the urushiol to become airborne. Inhaling it can cause serious respiratory tract problems and even death.

Another method of getting rid of the poisonous triplets is to employ a goat. There are many animals that are not affected by eating poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac. That could be the one saving grace of these plants: they feed wildlife, such as deer that graze on the leaves and birds that eat the berries.

My misadventures with poison ivy have guided me to learn more about urushiol and how it works. The knowledge leaves me forearmed. Although I would like to live a life free from worry of the poisonous triplets, I know I can’t. I won’t always be able to control who touches what and when they touch it. However, now I feel confident that I can deal well with the wicked three (and their hell-spawned urushiol), and teach my family to do the same.

The post Relief for Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac: The Poisonous Triplets appeared first on Homestead.org.

So how do we do it?  How do we manage personal space and all the possessions necessary for a self-reliant, high-quality lifestyle?  We learned to follow three basic principles.

The first principle we learned to follow was to determine what we truly valued in a living situation and make sure our attitudes about how we lived matched them.

It seems to have become a cultural norm in our country that a home must have a room for every small use.  We are bombarded with media that tells us, “You need a living room, a family room, a home theater room, a kitchen, a dining room, a laundry room, a pantry, a mudroom, 4 bathrooms, a basement and an attic for storage, and a getaway room.  Every family member must have his or her own bedroom so they can have privacy.  You cannot do without less, and you will not be happy unless you have these things.  Your success is based on these things.  Bigger is better.”

I used to feel this way.  Living in a tiny cabin by myself was great, but when I got married, I’d need a bigger space.  After all, I only had one tiny closet for my clothes.

Then my boyfriend moved in.  It happened very gradually.  He moved in by bringing his stuff over a little at a time.  So we were able to make space for it without feeling overwhelmed.  We got a wardrobe and made adjustments for his other things.  Two people living in a tiny cabin was still great.  Eventually, we married and the cabin turned into a honeymoon haven.  We were close and enjoyed each other’s company.  We loved where we lived: on the foot of a mountain with hiking trails to waterfalls and beautiful views.  We could walk to a Wildlife Management Area or the Shenandoah National Park from our front door.  Our cabin had privacy, but we were near enough to excellent neighbors.

Then, unexpectedly, I got pregnant.  All of a sudden, everyone, including me, thought we had to move.  I was heartbroken.  Living where we did brought me joy.  Other people went home to television and exercise machines.  I went home and hiked to a waterfall.   Other people went out to fast food.  My husband and I cooked out, camp-style, at an old chimney in our yard, a relic left standing from the old Conservation Corps Camp on which the cabin was located.  Other people had friends over to sit in their living rooms.  We had friends over for excursions, leaving on foot from our front door and walking back to it.  It would all end because a baby was coming.  We could not add on to the cabin because we did not own it.  Everyone was telling us we’d have to move.  There just wasn’t enough room for all of us in this tiny little cabin.

My husband even got offered a house for low rent from a family member.  The house was at the end of their driveway right on top of a major road.  While my husband contemplated moving to a house with only its space to recommend it, I began to mourn the loss of a situation I found satisfying to my soul.  I did not want to raise my child in a place where I had to constantly worry about passing traffic.  I did not want to live where I could not hike or walk safely.  I did not want to live literally right under the nose of some of my in-laws.  There were no waterfalls or even creeks.  Our pets, used to going for hikes and the safety of being far from traffic, would be endangered.  To everyone else, it looked like the sensible, logical answer to our problems.  To me, it looked like jail.

I became depressed and turned to some of my favorite books in order to find solace in their pages.  I reached for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods.  As I read the book about the ultimate homesteaders, Laura and her two sisters, with Ma and Pa, living in a small cabin in the big woods, realization dawned.  Here was a family of five living in a one-room cabin and doing it very well.

The children were not suffering from a lack of their own bedroom.  The children were happy and healthy.  Ma and Pa didn’t seem to have problems with their love life.  They had four children in all.

Then it occurred to me that Abraham Lincoln grew up with his family in a one-room log cabin.  He became president.

If these families could live in tiny, one-room cabins, why couldn’t I?  That realization was the beginning of my personal attitude adjustment.  From that point on, I dug my heels in and began making plans to begin living in a tiny cabin.  My arguments and determination soon won over my husband and my family.  Other people thought we were insane, naïve, or just plain weird.  They didn’t see how we could even contemplate it.  It would not be possible for them to live in such close quarters.

Before long, our son arrived, and although he had his own separate crib, he barely used it.  We adopted a family bed.  This situation worked extremely well for us.  However, it was another eye-roller for many people.  They would ask us, “Well, what are you going to do when he gets older?”

That solution was easy.  As soon as our son got older and his sleeping positions included turning sideways in the bed and throwing his arms over his head into our faces, we created a type of trundle bed.  Historically, trundle beds were smaller beds that fit under larger ones.  They were pulled out at night so that children could sleep by their parents.  Laura Ingalls and her sister Mary shared one attached to Ma and Pa’s bed.  We simply acquired a smaller child-sized bed and placed it at the foot of our larger bed.  It created a perfect situation for sleeping in our tiny cabin.

What about our love life?  It’s still going strong.  We’ve just gotten creative.  Unless you prefer your love bedridden, your sleeping quarters are not the only appropriate place to enjoy romance.

Many people still look dubiously at us when we explain our living and sleeping arrangements.  They couldn’t do it.  At first, this attitude bothered me; to me, it implied that they were better than my family because they lived, “normally.”  Now, I realize that we have crafted a way of life that suits us.  It encompasses our values to live small without making a large carbon footprint.  As we have become more fearless in discussing how we live, other people have shared their stories of family beds, trundle beds, and living in tiny quarters.  Now when people tell me they couldn’t live as we do, I don’t take offense.  I just note to myself that we obviously don’t value the same things, and quite frankly, I would never choose to live as they do.

The second principle we had to learn was how to organize our living space and the things we need to pursue the lifestyle we value.

Homesteading, gardening, and processing food from the garden require tools and appliances.  We are scrappers and “do-it-yourself” people.  We like to find ways to do what we want with scraps.  Thus, we keep some materials on hand that other people have discarded.  We also homeschool, which requires its own set of materials.  These life choices require space.  Because our space is limited, we had to learn to organize it to provide for our life choices without crowding ourselves.

We have found that—whether a home is 800 square feet or 8,000—if the occupants do not organize and manage their possessions in the living space they have, on a regular basis, these things soon manage and direct the occupants.  In our small cabin, we are much more aware of this than most people because we don’t have extra closets, rooms, an attic, or a basement in which to store things.  When our space becomes cluttered, we become more stressed.

The solution is always to evaluate our space and our stuff.  If we have an object that we do not use or value, it goes.  If we find that we need to bring in something new to the house, it either needs to change places with something old, or we need to create a space for it.

Some of our favorite pieces of furniture were created by my family and friends.  These pieces of furniture serve many purposes or help to create storage space.  Our couch separates our living room from our kitchen.  Behind it we placed a piece of furniture that we made out of packing cases from a library and discarded boards from a local sawmill.  It serves as an organizing area for the mail, a laundry folding table, a place to put our drinks when we sit on the couch, a storage unit for our laptop, and portable DVD player, our family board games, and our homeschooling materials.

Because we do not have a coat closet, a shelf that was made from recycled boards from an old house, and antique nails turned into hooks, serves as a coat rack and storage area.  Baskets on the shelves hold various objects that we use.  Apple crates from my husband’s family farm fitted with curtains act as other storage units on which sit our TV and printer.

Another way that I find to save space is to use things that serve more than one purpose.  Our best example is our set of mason jars.  Not only do we store most of what we grow in our garden in these containers by canning or freezing, we also use them to store leftovers in our refrigerator and as drinking glasses.  Using mason jars to store leftovers gives us the advantage of actually seeing what food we have to use.  I notice that when I store things in opaque containers in the fridge, they go unused and spoil.

One method of space management that has helped us is monitoring our behaviors.  First, it’s important to put things away, right away.  Letting things sit out for more time than we use them, creates clutter.

Second, we needed to stop going to thrift stores unless we were looking for something specific.  In the last few years, thrift stores in our area have boomed.  They provide an endless stream of very useable, like-new things at bargain prices.  When my son was about two, I started going into thrift stores and buying toys for him.  I couldn’t resist the bargains.  We accumulated a lot of toys.  He’d play with them for two weeks and then forget them.  I managed to find some space by storing things outside in a stall of the stable on the property, but after a while the house and the stall became cluttered.  I had to re-evaluate every toy and soon found that there were very few that he played with on a regular basis.  Hence, the thrift stores got a lot of the toys back and I stopped going to them unless I had a specific item I was trying to find.

Third, we have to store the things we use most in the most accessible places, while things that we do not use often go out into the stall or far back in a cupboard.  This means we cannot acquire delicate things.  They need to be able to handle being stored outside.  These methods of organizing our possessions in our small space have worked well.

The third principle we find essential to living well in a small space is having respect for each other mixed with a great willingness to solve problems.

Living in such a small space means that we are constantly in each other’s company.  If there is a problem, there are no extra rooms in which to isolate ourselves.  It is simply not possible to avoid each other.  We have to be able to communicate respectfully and solve problems.  This takes great effort sometimes.  It also takes being mindful that, especially in a family, there must be give and take.

When someone needs personal space or privacy, they simply ask for it.  When the weather is good, this often means the private time is outside.  I may choose to go on a hike alone.  My son usually decides to go outside and play.  My husband often goes to sit outside by the fire to relax.  When the weather is not good, one of us may go upstairs in the loft for some private time.  Private time may also be in the form of asking not to be disturbed.  For example, when I am working on something that needs undivided attention, I will ask my son to only speak to me in an emergency.  I may not be totally alone but I have the privacy I need to get work done.

Sometimes when we all want to be inside doing separate things we need to compromise or problem solve.  For example, when someone wants to watch a DVD but the others don’t want to share the program, our portable DVD player with a set of earphones works well.  There have been times when my husband is watching something on the DVD player with earphones, while my son listens quietly to a recorded book upstairs, and I am reading a book in the living room.

Knowing what we value, keeping our space organized, and respecting each other help us face the great challenges of living in a tiny cabin.  Learning to live in our small home has given us great rewards.  Our family is not just close in space, we are close at heart.  We have built a life around the values we have chosen for ourselves, not what our culture has dictated to us.  As a result, even though we don’t live in a mansion, our lives are rich.

The post Two Parents, a Kid, and One Tiny Cabin appeared first on Homestead.org.

My husband looked at me blandly.  “Well, I guess the book was wrong.”

“Thanks, Einstein.  That doesn’t help.”  My husband sighs at my rudeness and sagely decides not to challenge it.  He knows I am stressed because I feel unable to fix a problem, one that involves harming a living thing.

“Just give her a little more time and let her get used to where she is,” he said simply.

We gave her the rest of the night and the whole next day and night.  By the second morning, we admitted defeat.  The guinea just wouldn’t sit on her eggs.  When we let her out, she ran to her old nest and didn’t look back at the eggs that she had already sat on for nearly three weeks.  We’d moved them because she chose to nest out in a field that had absolutely no protection whatsoever.  We were very surprised that she hadn’t become fox fodder already.  Our guinea reference book advised moving them when creating protection around her was not possible.  We followed the book, and it just didn’t work.  Because the eggs were so close to their due date, and she had been off them for such a long time, I thought they were dead.  My husband said to chuck them, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I put them back in the field in her original nest, thinking that at least some animal would get use from them.

About a week later, 18 guineas hatched out.  It was a homesteading miracle.  The story doesn’t end there, but in order to tell it right I have to go back to where it all began.  It began in our vegetable garden.

Problems Raising Guinea Hens

Our garden has always been a source of joy and sustenance to my husband and me.  It has never been a show garden, but one critical to our food supply.  The joy came in the great and delicious bounty that our efforts brought.  We also prided ourselves that we could have an excellent garden without the use of noxious chemical pesticides.

A particular source of gratification was our squash and zucchini patch; we managed to grow astoundingly large plants.  While our neighbors could only manage to grow plants that could reach up to my knees, at best, our plants grew to reach my waist.  The leaves of our plants were the size of dinner plates.  The few plants we grew produced in such vast quantities that we experienced squash and zucchini overload.  By midseason I could no longer find anyone that would take them willingly, and I had to compost them.

This state of squash and zucchini nirvana lasted two or three seasons; then, a great evil came to our garden: squash bugs.  At first I could hand pick them.  I’d spend time every morning dispatching squash bugs.  Soon I found that my quickest and easiest method was using duct tape.  Squash bugs lay eggs in clusters usually on the underside of the leaf.  By pushing the tape up against the leaf, I could get most of the eggs to come off easily.  If there had been a hatch of squash bugs, I could catch them all at one time just by slapping the leaf against the duct tape.  Adults would end up stuck onto my strip of tape as well.

Daily duct-tape raids worked well for a couple of years.  Then my husband and I had our first child, and time in the garden was greatly reduced.  As a result, my squash-bug-eradication program experienced drastic cutbacks.  I simply could not keep pace with the bugs’ reproductive prowess.  Our plants became infested and died without producing much at all.  It was a source of great dismay.

For several seasons we limped along trying to figure how to deal with the problem in the time we had without resorting to conventional chemical warfare.  We found no method that brought us back to the pre-squash bug success we had before.

Then light dawned in the form of a magazine article.  A popular magazine, to which we subscribed, suggested the use of guineas to control squash bug populations.  I became excited.  Not only would the guineas take care of the squash bugs, you could also get eggs from them too!  This was a perfect solution.  I did a little more internet research and found a couple more articles supporting the idea that guineas would help with squash bugs.  I asked my extension agent about the idea.  He agreed that guineas were one of the more carnivorous fowls you could raise but remained silent about their efficacy with squash bugs.  At that point I knew it would work out and I became determined to make it happen.

After much leg-work and searching I was finally able to pick up four baby guineas, also known as keets.  They were cute, and we were enamored.  My two year old son named the white one Lavender, because white guineas are known as lavender guineas.  He named two more Dixxon and Clickson, after Santa’s goldfish (I wasn’t aware that Santa had goldfish, but my son assured me Santa did, and that their names were Dixxon and Clickson).  The last one he dubbed Sarah.  These Guinea keets were not just livestock.  They were going to be an integral part of our self reliant existence, so they deserved distinct names.  Our journey with guineas had begun.

I obtained a guinea reference book.  It was the only resource on guineas I could find in book form.  I began reading and quickly came up with the plans that would suit us according to the book.  I was excited.  The author had nothing but praises for her guineas, and she provided information on all aspects of raising and caring for them.

As the babies matured in a cage in our cabin, my husband and I began work on their coop.  Rejected scrap lumber from a local saw mill, screws, some plywood, a neighbor’s discarded posts, scavenged wheels from old lawn mowers we’d recycled, and part of an old ladder that was falling apart produced a very decent, awkwardly mobile, guinea housing-unit.  Seeing the end product was satisfying, and making it together was fun.  It had all that the book said guineas would need.  I knew they would love it.

Then we had to make a guinea pen around our squash plants.  According to the original magazine article that I read, in order for this plan to work, the guineas were supposed to be sequestered around our squash plants and unable to go anywhere else to get bugs.  We designed and built a pen mostly from scrap material that met our needs according to the book and the magazine article.  It stretched around three raised beds that held our squash plants.  It also encompassed part of our grassy yard so that the guineas had more than enough room to be comfortable and healthy.

We transferred the guineas to the coop.  By this time they were old enough to be outside and treated as adults.  As suggested by the book, we let them have a few days shut inside so that they would come to view this coop as their home and go inside it every night to roost for safety.  Everything was going according to plan.

Then one day my husband found me staring at them in a worried state.

“What’s wrong, Sweetie,” he asked.

“They’re not going in their coop.  They’re huddling down and sleeping on the ground.  The book said they’re supposed to sleep in their coop.  I tried luring them in with food, and also leaving them in for a couple of days to remind them that’s where they belong, just like the book said.  But they’re not getting it,” I replied.

“Well, they’re fenced in.  It should be ok,” he said.

I figured he was right.  Then I said, “They’re not eating the squash bugs like the magazine said they would.”

“They’re young.  Give them some time.”

By the end of the gardening season they still hadn’t started eating the squash bugs or sleeping in the coop even though I followed instructions from both the book and magazine articles concerning these issues.  We decided that it would be better next season when they were older.  When autumn came and bugs became scarce, we began letting them out of the pen so that they would be able to forage better.  They did come back to the pen to hide around the raised beds most nights.  Sometimes, however, they would set up camp on the ground in the yard outside of their pen, and a nighttime guinea-catching party ensued.  Catching guineas in the dark was not fun.  It was frustrating, but the book warned about nighttime predation, and we knew it was right.  So we endeavored to catch them and put them inside the coop.

By spring, despite our efforts to protect them, we had lost Clickson and Lavender to predators.  I did not despair yet.  The growing season was soon to be upon us and we still had two guineas left.  We would begin the squash-bug-eradication program anew, and this time it would work.

I began preparing my garden for the growing season.  While working in the garden I often crouched down to work in a raised bed.  One time while in this position, I was suddenly attacked from behind.  Wheeling around in anger I found Dixxon strutting back and forth, charging at me and then backing away.  He had jumped on me.  I shooed him away and resumed working.  I didn’t think anything about it.

It happened a couple more times when no one was around to witness it.  I was becoming cautious about leaving my backside exposed to Dixxon.  I consulted the book, but it said nothing about this kind of behavior.  Then one day my husband saw an attack and started chuckling.

“Hey, it’s not funny,” I fumed.

My husband grinned.  “Yes, it is.”

“I don’t know why he’s doing it or how to get him to stop.  It’s not in the book.”

“Well,” said my husband, “I’ve got to hand it to Old Dixxon.  He’s got good taste.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he either thinks you are a pretty saucy dish or a potential rival.”

“No….”

“Yes.  At any rate, I don’t think it will last long,” he said.  My husband grew up on a farm.  Although this was his first experience with guineas, he was pretty confident about his assessment of the situation.

He was right.  Soon Dixxon stopped attacking me and began standing guard over Sarah who had begun to nest in the coop.  Our newly planted squash and zucchini plants lay nestled in their raised beds inside the guinea pen, too young to be of interest to the squash bugs.  Time passed as we awaited the coming of the new keets, confident that they would be the answer to the squash bug problem.

I began consulting the book again to prepare for the new keets, and on the day the first one hatched I found a problem, a serious one.  Sarah had been nesting in a recycled dresser drawer that was very deep.  There was no way her babies could get water and return to the nest.  Sarah could not get off her eggs to keep the babies outside the drawer warm.  I made the decision to remove the keets and raise them in the cabin as I had done before.  I waited a whole day for the guineas to hatch.  The book said her eggs would hatch within a day.  Sarah only had two of her almost twenty-five eggs hatch.  So much for Dixxon’s reproductive prowess, I thought; he could use some pointers from those darn squash bugs.  When I felt the babies could no longer go without water, I went in and got them.

The next morning there were two more.  I retrieved those.  Over the next five days Sarah continued to hatch 17 keets in all.  I worried that this wasn’t normal.  I went to the book.  It had nothing for me.  I asked a farmer friend.  She was unconcerned; the keets were healthy.

When the keets were large enough to live outside, we introduced them to the coop following the procedure laid out in the book.  When it was time, we let them into the guinea pen giddy with the anticipation that they would eat up the dreaded squash bugs.  After a few days, even though the pen had plenty of room for them, they began to trample the squash and zucchini plants.  I watched Dixxon actively attack some of the very plants he was supposed to protect.  He wasn’t going after bugs.  He was just pulling the leaves off the plants.  Our squash-bug-eradication program using guineas was at an end.  We would have to find another way.

Even though the guineas did not fulfill the function for which we got them, they did keep down bug populations around the cabin.  They also had the added benefit of not scratching up the garden.  We decided to keep them, but we let them co-exist with us on their own terms.

We decided to cut the flock in half, and gave a number of the young guineas to a friend that was ecstatic to get them.  She had once had a horrible flea problem in her yard, and guineas had taken care of them.  Her original flock died out.  She welcomed ours with open arms.

Life with guineas continued.  Then late in the summer, I noticed that, although Sarah was coming back to the pen every night, I didn’t notice her with the rest of the flock during the day.  One morning when I left the guineas in the pen later than usual, Sarah was frantically pacing back and forth in front of the door waiting to get out.  When I let her out she made a beeline into the field.  She was nesting.  I didn’t concern myself at first, she was coming home every night.  I decided that she knew best.

Then one night she didn’t come back.  The next morning I checked her new nest.  She was still alive.  We were unable to protect the nesting site because she laid it just inside the edge of a huge brush pile.  We fretted for a while, and then I consulted the book.  That was when we tried to move them.

After Sarah hatched those 18 guineas, I finally decided to put the book aside and let nature take its course.  We tried to protect Sarah and her babies the best we could.  She would not bring them to the pen, and predation was still a great concern as she nested in the field.  She resented our attentions, and one evening took her new keets to a new nesting spot that we could not locate.

The next morning I walked outside to hear a loud squawking from Dixxon and several loud peeps.  I went over to the pen.  Dixxon stood squawking in agitation, a keet huddling near him.  I listened intently.  I heard a number of peeps all around me and out in the field.  I honed in on one and found a keet by itself in the garden.  I put it in my shirt pocket, summoned my family and began rounding up the keets that we could find.  We only found six.  We also found Sarah’s feathers spread around the field.

From the time that I took his first set of keets out of Sarah’s nest my relationship with Dixxon had become adversarial.  He had come after me a number of times, when he thought I wasn’t looking.  In return, I chased and threatened him.  Our encounters were pretty epic.  So when I returned to the pen to retrieve the keet that Dixxon had found, I expected a battle.

I entered the pen and sized up the situation.  He had found another keet.  Both keets were in apparent distress huddling around his legs.  He looked at me head on.  I prepared myself for an attack.  Then I watched in utter amazement as Dixxon tried to do what no male guinea was ever programmed to do.  He fluffed his feathers and gingerly squatted down to warm his keets.  My disdain for Dixxon, borne out of our adversarial relationship, melted and was replaced with great respect.  I left the keets with him for the time being but retrieved them later when Dixxon could no longer maintain a behavior that was against his nature.

After a couple of seasons, our flock of guineas died out and I gave my guinea book to the local library.  I learned a lot from my experience.  It was a lesson in patience, problem-solving, and innovation.  I realized, that most reference guides are only suggestions, at best.  No book or magazine has all the answers for every situation.  I also learned that even though I like to try to solve problems in a proactive way, sometimes I have to accept that a resolution to a problem may mean simply letting go.  This is because learning when to let nature take its course and when to interfere is a great balancing act with no guarantees for success.  Most importantly, I learned to forgive myself when my plans and solutions don’t work out because every failure is truly an opportunity for learning and improvement.

The post Miracle Guineas: The Book Was Wrong appeared first on Homestead.org.

What are Merkels?

But wait…there is something that many people who are not from my neck of the woods may be confused about. What is a merkel? Merkel is the local name for the morel mushroom. The story behind this name is that a mountain family was saved from starvation by eating these miracles or “merkels”. Call it a merkel, a Molly moocher, a hickory chicken, a haystack, a conehead brain, or any other of a dozen different nicknames depending on your locality; it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that spring is upon us, and the season for the morel mushroom is about to open. This tasty delicacy is prized for its smokey earthy flavor. Hunting them is fantastically fun, but eating them is even better. Four-star chefs prize them for their flavor, so a gallon of these fungal fruits can fetch between fifty and sixty-five dollars. The best part is, they may be in your own backyard.

The habitat of the common morel stretches throughout the North American continent. The Peterson Field Guide, Edible Plants of Eastern and Central North America sites that they are found in moist woods, orchards, and burnt fields. However, I have read accounts and heard stories of morels in well-tended suburban and urban lawns. So unless you live totally surrounded by concrete, there could be morels in your neighborhood.

If you Google some images of morel mushrooms you will see they occur in a splendid variety of colors ranging anywhere from white to grey to yellow to tan to black. If you are totally unfamiliar with them and are interested in hunting them, make sure that you access the wide variety of images found on the Internet. Not only will it give you an idea of the extent of their variety, it will also help you learn exactly what you are looking for.

Should you decide to join the fabulously fun hunt remember that proper identification is extremely important because the common morel can be easily confused with the false morel, which is poisonous.

That said, when identifying a morel it is important to look for two general things: the cap shape and texture, and if the interior of the whole mushroom is hollow. First, when examining the cap it is important to note the texture. It should be ridged and pitted inwards. False morel mushrooms are usually described as more convoluted, like a brain, instead of pitted. Second, look at how the cap is on the stem. On most morels, the bottom of the cap is attached to the stem. If the cap hangs free, like an umbrella, from the stem stay away from it. If in doubt, toss it out.

The second step to making sure a mushroom is a true common morel is to cut it open lengthwise. The true common morel will be completely hollow from the tip of its cap to the bottom of its stem. The inside of the false morel will contain cotton-like fibers or chunks of fungal tissue.

So, now that you are armed with information, how do you go about hunting them?

If you have never seen a morel in its natural habitat, you may be surprised how beautifully camouflaged their unusual look makes them. On the leaf carpeted forest floor they are practically invisible to the inexperienced eye. Novice hunters can walk through a patch and never see them.

So, if you are a first-time hunter, the best course of action is to seek an experienced morel hunter who lives in your area and ask for guidance. Although many locals may dodge telling you about their prime spots, they usually love to share their knowledge and show off their skills at finding morels. They’ll have places they feel good about taking you, and their experience with identification, when to find them, the kind of terrain in which morels in your locality prefer, and techniques for actually seeing morels on the ground may be invaluable.

The actual season for morels can vary depending on your location. People have reported finding morels as early as February in different parts of the country. Generally, however, the season lasts about two to three weeks and can range from mid-March to May. If you can’t find a local to give you accurate information on when they are up, contact your local extension agent or your state’s nature and wildlife agency. In our area of Virginia, we begin to search using some good old fashioned folklore. When the leaves on the poplar are as big as a squirrel’s ear, when the trillium bloom, and the mayflowers spread their umbrellas, it’s time to go hunting.

First, however, you must prepare. In many instances, you will be going into the woods. In such cases, you will want to dress accordingly. The well-dressed morel hunter wears sturdy walking shoes or hiking boots, long pants, and layers appropriate for any sudden weather changes. In Virginia, there can be a difference of thirty degrees or more between morning and evening in the spring. If you are going on an extended hunt, you want to be prepared for that temperature change, especially if you intend to hike far from shelter. Also, be aware and dress for the possibility of ticks, poison ivy, and brambles. A first-aid kit would be a good idea; shorts and sandals would not.

Because we know that the areas where we hunt include prime snake habitat, my family dons snake gaiters. These are Kevlar leg-wraps that hook to our boots and fasten below our knees. They are designed to deflect snake fangs. We have never encountered a poisonous snake on our excursions; however, because copperheads and rattlesnakes are common in our area, and so magnificently camouflaged that they are just as invisible as the morels, we don’t take the chance. Most people do not have snake gaiters. If you want to fashion your own, I knew a man who would cut the bottoms out of plastic flower pots and secure the leftover pots around his legs. This resourceful man said they worked, “Right nice.”

To complete your outfit you will want to accessorize with the all-important morel-collection bag. When hunting morels, it is extremely important to collect them in a mesh bag, like a net onion or potato bag or a nylon mesh laundry bag. The reason this is so important, is that morels reproduce by dropping spores. One morel can contain a quarter to a half a million spores. These spores must become airborne and then find the right location to reproduce. Success of reproduction is slim. However, morel hunters will help if they use mesh instead of plastic bags. Morel populations have dwindled over the last thirty years. Although deforestation and pesticides play a part, the biggest culprits are hunters with plastic bags. When plastic bags are used to collect morels the spores are trapped inside the bag with no way out and no way to reproduce. So please use the right sort of bag.

Once you are dressed and have your mesh bag ready, it’s off to the happy hunting grounds. In my experience, it has been the woods. We have found morels in a variety of places, but most of what we have found has been in a deciduous forest. Although they grow under a variety of trees, around here they seem to like the tulip poplar.

Once we get to where we like to hunt, I go to the trunk of a tulip poplar and squat down. Then I concentrate on the area of the ground that the canopy of the tree covers. Because they are so well camouflaged, they are easy to miss when you are looking straight down at them, so it helps if I can look uphill. If there are morels, I will be more likely to see them popping up from the ground. Then I move through the woods from tree to tree. Many times if I find one, I will find a smattering of them. Usually, my husband finds the first one. When he does we will both spend some time putting it in different places on the forest floor and training our eyes to get used to the pattern and shape. This practice makes finding them easier.

We have discovered that, in our area, the black morels arrive early in the season. These tend to be higher on the mountain. Farther into the season we begin to find yellow, gray, white, and tan ones closer to the bottom of the mountain. We have also found that morels do not like areas that have been logged, but they love a mild forest fire. One spring, after an autumn fire burned thousands of acres in our area, we found a mother-load in the burned area. However, the next year there were not nearly as many. This corresponds with reports that, in the 19th century, the Russian government had to outlaw the setting of forest fires for the sole purpose of harvesting morels the next year. From year to year the yield in any one of our favorite spots varies greatly.

When your bag is full, or your feet are worn out, it’s time to go home. If you are a first-time hunter, it is a good idea to have your mushrooms checked by an experienced person who can tell you with certainty that what you have found is a common morel and not a false—therefore poisonous—morel. Although some false morels may not have a noticeable effect on a person, they do contain toxins that when taken in large amounts or over several days can produce gastrointestinal upset and loss of muscle coordination. The cardiac muscle can be affected by them and deaths have been reported. Be safe and have your mushrooms checked.

Once we get them home, it’s time to decide what to do with them. If our haul is small then we make something yummy with them right away. Because morels contain small amounts of a toxin known as hydrazine, they should never be eaten raw; cooking removes the toxin. Since the arrival of morels usually coincides with the arrival of our asparagus we love to make cream of asparagus and merkel soup.

Cream of Asparagus and Morel Soup

• 1 lb. of fresh asparagus
• 1 to 1 1/2 c. fresh morel cones (not stems) cut into “coins” (Wash morels and cut crosswise starting at the tip of the cone and working down the mushroom stop at the stem.) Coins will have hollow centers.
• 2 c. chicken broth
• 2 T. chopped onion
• 1 c. cream or milk
• salt and pepper to taste

Wash asparagus and cut off coarse ends.

Then cook asparagus and morels in 2 cups of boiling water until asparagus is tender.

Drain asparagus and morels but reserve 1 cup of water.

Set the morels aside. Cut the tips off the top of the asparagus, chop and add to the morels. Set aside to use as a garnish before serving.

Bring the chicken broth, 1 cup of reserved water, and onion to a boil in a pot. Add the asparagus stems and simmer for approximately 5 minutes.

Use a food processor, immersion blender, regular blender, or vegetable mill to puree.

Return the soup to the pot (if necessary) and add the cream or milk and reheat.

Add salt and pepper to taste and reheat if necessary.

Garnish with morels and asparagus tips and enjoy.

If we have a large haul of morels we will dry the rest and save them for other recipes. We use the drying racks from our food dehydrator, but do not attempt to dry your morels in a food dehydrator; the spores will clog it. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way. Cutting the morels in half lengthwise and putting the rack in the sun works very nicely. If it becomes rainy, we bring them inside and set them near the woodstove with a fan blowing on them. If we feel they are taking too long, we will finish the process in the oven. This method has worked very well for us. They can be reconstituted by soaking them in water or milk and then adding them to your favorite recipes. However, we discovered that we like to use our morels in a meat rub that we use before we grill our chicken, steak, and spare-ribs over all-natural wood-charcoal. The combination of merkel rub and grilling gives our meat unsurpassable flavor.

“Merkel” Rub (Morel Meat Rub)

• 1/8 c. granulated garlic
• 1/8 c. granulated onions
• 1/8 c. paprika
• 1/4 c. morel powder (Crush dried morels in mortar and pestle)
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in bowl

Rinse and dry meat.

Rub with Merkel Rub.

Coat with olive oil.

Rub meat again with Merkel Rub.

Grill.

Eat and enjoy!

Although morels can also be frozen, they can turn mushy when thawed. If you choose to freeze them, place them in a bucket of water. After they have soaked for a few minutes, put them on a cookie sheet and freeze them. Once frozen remove the morels from the cookie sheet and put them in an air tight container.

Whether you decide to eat them fresh or store them for later use, morels are marvelous!

**Special Note: Be careful of hunting morels in orchards. Toxins used in the pesticides may be in the soil and thus absorbed by the morel in levels unsafe to humans. Unless you know the orchard is a no-spray orchard, avoid hunting in it.

Morel Hunters: Foraging for Morel Mushrooms

The post Hunting Marvelous Merkels: Gathering Morel Mushrooms appeared first on Homestead.org.

We started out making the black gold for our own use, but since people have found out what we are manufacturing, they have come to us.  They have come for their grills, for their livestock, for their gardens, for their health, and for cosmetic ingredients.  They have done this because we have found how to take trees and turn them into the black gold known as charcoal.

Like most people, my previous experience with charcoal was buying a small bag at the store in order to produce hamburgers, hot dogs, or chicken that tasted slightly reminiscent of lighter fluid.  It was only after my family began making natural charcoal for our own use that I learned of its versatility and surprising historical significance.

We have always been outdoor cooking enthusiasts, burning hardwood for over an hour to get the hot coals necessary to prepare food in the colonial hearth-cooking tradition.  Nothing can beat the flavor of food cooked with wood.

Then, a couple of years, ago I saw a demonstration of how to make wood charcoal at our local farmer’s market.  The volunteers at the farmer’s market used their all-natural charcoal to grill some local beef.  It took fifteen minutes for the natural wood charcoal to produce the same amount of hot coals it would have taken us over an hour to make with the store-bought version.

Seeing the process gave me a brilliant idea to save both time and money.  I was certain my fire-loving, self-sufficient husband would enjoy both the process of making charcoal and the taste it gave food.  Plus, lighting natural charcoal instead of waiting for a fire to burn down would save us at least forty-five minutes to an hour of food preparation time.

I contacted the local extension agent in charge of the charcoal demonstration.  He let me borrow the fifty-five-gallon steel barrels they used in the demonstration.  I presented the barrels to my husband with my plan.  Much to my chagrin, he was cold to the idea.  The barrels sat for over a week while I tried to get him to try to make the charcoal.  He would not budge.  To him, there was nothing that could compare to the open-hearth cooking methods he used.

After two weeks, I realized that in order to get my plan to work, I was going to have to resort to drastic measures.  I stacked the two barrels, filled them with wood, and lit the load while my husband looked on, shaking his head.  “Woman,” he said, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

“I do so.  I watched them at the farmer’s market.”

After a while, I knocked the top barrel off and capped the bottom barrel.

“Woman, you’re doing it wrong.”

“I am not, now hush.”

After it cooled down, I uncapped the bottom barrel to find that I had burned the entire load to ashes.  That was when my husband, disgusted with my sorry methodology, took over and produced a respectable batch of charcoal that he then used to cook some of the best steaks we ever had.  He was hooked on both making the charcoal and using it to cook.

It didn’t take long for my husband to begin researching the making of charcoal to hone his skills.  The research revealed a plethora of information that included charcoal’s historical significance and uses, methods of making it, and its uses today.

The rise of charcoal production for a specific purpose is closely tied to the emergence of metallurgy.  Wood charcoal burns hot enough to provide a heat source that can smelt metals as well as work them.  Thus, charcoal ushered in the Bronze Age and later the Iron Age.

Charcoal was also used to produce glass.  It became an ingredient in gun powder and Chinese fireworks.  Charcoal by-products, such as tar, were used in caulking for ships; while pyroligneous acid was used by the Egyptians for embalming.

Charcoal was indispensable in colonial-American expansion and independence.  From the time the first colonist set foot in America till the early 1800s every single metal tool, weapon, or implement made on American soil was forged using wood charcoal.

Even after wood charcoal use in smelting and forging was replaced by bituminous coal, wood charcoal still had significant uses.  In World War I, wood charcoal, treated with chemicals to activate its absorption properties, was used in the first effective gas masks.

We had never realized how historically significant wood charcoal was.  Those little nuggets of charred wood were the literal fuel that powered many critical advances in technology, industry, and expansionism.  All that and they cooked the best steaks we ever had.

Once we had a better handle on the historical impact of charcoal, we became interested in the original methods used to produce it.

In the Iron Age, when the demand for iron became large scale, the production of charcoal became critical.  Highly-skilled charcoal makers, known as colliers, were among the highest-paid ironworkers.  Their expertise in producing large amounts of high-quality charcoal put them in great demand.

In the traditional method of making charcoal, wood is cut and split into four-foot lengths.  The collier then decided on the most suitable place for a “charcoal burn”.  A flat spot, that was dry and out of the wind, would be cleared down to the earth.  A chimney approximately eight feet high was constructed out of wood.  Then the four-foot pieces of wood were carefully stacked around the chimney.  The wood was placed upright on its end and packed very closely together to prevent pockets of air.  Additional layers were added to the height of the wood so that the resultant mound was about twenty-five feet in diameter and as high as the chimney would allow.

The mound was covered with layers of wood chips, sticks, and leaves followed by a finishing layer of soil.  The purpose of this covering was to make the mound airtight.  A few venting holes would be poked into the covering to allow an appropriate amount of air to prevent the burn from going out prematurely.  Once the mound was deemed acceptable, the chimney was filled with kindling and some hot coals from another fire were placed in the chimney to initiate the burn.

The burn lasted several days.  The collier had the mound supervised around the clock.  It was vital to control the airflow to make sure that the wood turned into charcoal instead of a pile of ashes.  The object was to get the wood to smolder or “cook” instead of flame.  A flaming burn would result in ashes and a great waste of time and money.  Ensuring that the mound was cooked properly might’ve included sending a lightweight man or young boy onto a mound to tamp it down, reducing any gas or air pockets.  Once it was determined that the wood inside had reached the correct stage, the chimney was capped making it airtight.  The wood continued to smolder for a time.  Then, after several days, it cooled.  When the outer covering was removed, the charcoal was raked into piles so that it might continue to cool.  Once completely cooled the charcoal would be hauled away to its next destination.

So great was the demand for charcoal that collier’s need for wood gave rise to coppicing in Europe. In this forest management technique, first practiced by the Romans, trees are cut at ground level. The root system then sends up several new, vigorously growing shoots. New trees could be harvested in seven to twenty years to provide more wood for charcoal and other uses. Some furnaces used the equivalent of an acre of wood (in the form of charcoal) in one day.

Today making charcoal for personal consumption is a lot easier.  The basic method of making charcoal has always been to light a fire, let it burn enough to produce a great amount of heat, then cut off the airflow and let the wood cook or smolder.  This procedure is still used today.

In my first attempt, I used two fifty-five-gallon steel barrels.  My downfall, and the subsequent pile of ashes, occurred because I failed to cut off the airflow sufficiently.

Done correctly, this basic method will produce a decent rendering of charcoal.  To do this you must acquire two fifty-five-gallon steel drums or barrels.  At least one of the barrels must have a cinching lid.

The barrel to be placed on the bottom has small air holes cut into it the bottom outside edge.  Wood is stacked all the way to the top of this barrel.  Once it is filled the fire may be started at the top of the barrel so that it burns down.  After the fire is started another barrel that has both its top and bottom removed, making it a hollow tube, is stacked on top of the bottom barrel.

This is the point at which charcoal-making becomes an art and you come to understand the skills of the collier.  Now is when you must watch the smoke.  White smoke indicates that water and impurities are burning off.  After the water is burned off the smoke will turn blue.  This indicates that the wood is burning off alcohol and other impurities.

The critical shift happens when the blue smoke is almost gone. Once this stage occurs, the barrel must have all its airflow stopped.  This requires the barrel to be capped on top by a cinching lid.  The holes at the bottom of the barrel may be plugged with dirt, sand, or ashes mounded against the bottom of the barrel.

After the barrel is cool enough to be touched by bare hands, the top may be opened and the charcoal inspected.  Now, it is time to sort and sift it.

Unburned pieces should be removed.  Then the charcoal can be sifted through chicken wire.  Sifting first through small chicken wire will help to remove the dust and pieces too small to use for your grill.  Set this aside, but do not throw it out.  Doing a second sift with larger chicken wire will help you separate medium pieces from big pieces.

How to use the different sizes is a matter of preference.  To our family, it doesn’t matter.  We have discovered you can rig your grill to accommodate any size of charcoal.  The other use for small charcoal is to use it in a hearth cooking style.  Lit charcoal can be placed on cleared ground.  Cast iron Dutch ovens and spider pans (pans with legs)  can be set directly on the smaller coals.  Dutch ovens with flat lids can have the charcoal piled on the lids creating a true oven. Bigger pieces of charcoal can be used the same way, but many people only like to grill with larger-sized coals.

This was the basic method of production that my family started with.  My husband, who has become a true collier, has now adapted his method to suit the charcoal-making tools available to him, and a collection of steel drums, trash cans, and plastic storage tubs now adorn our yard.

Another method my husband has tried is the retort method.  In this method, you are simply putting the wood that you want to turn into charcoal into a metal container and then sealing it.  That container is then put into a fire, or a fire is built around it.  The wood cooks inside of the container.  This method has the advantage of being cleaner.  However, it uses a lot more fuel.

My husband’s experience is that you need to understand the process, and then you must practice it. He has burned more than one load of wood to ashes in his attempts to find the most efficient way to produce a load of charcoal.  You also need to understand how the wood burns.  Different woods burn differently and produce different qualities and different sizes of charcoal.

When attempting to make your own charcoal, be very mindful of safety.  Wear protective clothing, shoes, and welder’s gloves.  There will be a lot of noxious smoke. Make your burn away from any dwellings, and try to stay clear of the smoke. When sifting the charcoal wear a mask and safety goggles.  Although trial and error will be a necessary part of your production effort, it should be avoided when it comes to safety.

We originally started making charcoal for our own grilling needs.  Then we discovered other ways to use it.  Taking a page from charcoal’s history, my husband cut up a steel saw blade and then heated it with our charcoal so that he could bend it.  This made a great garden tool.

A friend found out we were making it and became very excited.  She was looking for some for her make-up kit.  She had discovered, through research on the Internet how to use our crushed charcoal to turn it into eyeliner.  One recipe is to crush a small amount of charcoal into powder.  Mix about 1/4 of a teaspoon with 1 teaspoon of melted coconut oil.  Stir it with a toothpick and apply it with an angled eyeliner brush.

This same friend also shared with me that you can use charcoal for cleaning teeth.  Once again, using powdered charcoal, wet a toothbrush and dip it into the powder.  Then brush your teeth.  Rinse thoroughly.  It feels gross and doesn’t taste particularly minty.  However, holistic dentists sometimes recommend it.  Because of its absorptive qualities, charcoal can pull toxins from the teeth as it helps to remove stains.  Fair warning: it may whiten your teeth, but it will stain your sink.  Use baking soda to remove the stains from your sink.

Another neighbor came to us and requested a truck full of our culled charcoal to feed to his pigs.  The culled charcoal was powdery dust and pieces too small to use for grilling.  He was trying to produce quality, organic pork, and he and his daughter were searching for ways to deal with some digestive issues.  Their research indicated that they could use charcoal to help absorb some of the toxins in the animal’s digestive tract when they were assailed with parasites.  Using charcoal in livestock feed has been credited by some farmers with many positive effects including increased milk production in cattle, lower pig mortality,  less odor and fly occurrence for pigs, and increased laying rates for chickens.

Yet another friend from the farmer’s market came by for a supply of our culls.  He wanted them for his garden.  In this case, he was seeking biochar.  Biochar is now being added to gardens to help improve soil quality.  Although it does not add nutrients to the garden by itself, it does help hold nutrients in the soil so that less fertilizer needs to be added.  Before adding to the garden, it must be inoculated with compost, or it can absorb the nutrients already present in the soil.  Once inoculated, the biochar slowly releases the nutrients into the soil. Proponents credit biochar with enhanced plant growth, raising soil pH, increasing soil microbial biomass and respiration, and reducing aluminum toxicity, among other benefits.

Some people have suggested using this charcoal internally for medical reasons.  Usually, medicinal uses of charcoal require that the charcoal be activated with an acid.  This helps to eat away part of the surface area of the charcoal causing it to be even more absorptive.  This procedure can be very dangerous, and I would avoid attempting it at home.  Purchasing medical quality charcoal is the best idea when you try it for human consumption.

Our experience with making charcoal has been life-changing for us.  We have thoroughly enjoyed the many and varied benefits that this black gold has brought to us and our neighbors.  Now that we know how to make charcoal, I don’t think we’ll ever want to be without it.

The post Black Gold: Make Your Own Natural Charcoal appeared first on Homestead.org.

Placing your glass under the faucet you reach out and turn on the tap that will bring cold water from your well, holding your glass with expectation.

Now imagine that the water that comes out of your faucet is dingy, muddy brown.

This happened to my mother.  For more than a year, every time it rains, her well water turns a murky brown that is unsavory and worrisome.  Not only does it come out brown from her taps, she has brown water in her toilets, brown water in her washing machine, and brown water in her dishwasher.  The water does not turn brown for a few hours.  It turns brown for days or weeks at a time depending on how much rain she gets.

So imagine… What would you do if your shower water were muddy? How would you clean your dishes?  What about washing white clothes?  Fortunately, before the muddy water problem started, my mom had an osmotic water filter installed that keeps her drinking water purified.  Being the resourceful woman that she is, my mother has developed a series of systems using the purified water that allows her, and her house, to remain clean.  But maintaining these systems is time-consuming and tiring. Mom’s osmotic water system only holds two gallons of water.  When that is depleted, it needs time to fill back up.  Every task involving water takes planning and preparation.  Attempts to solve the problem have been unsuccessful, expensive, and overwhelming.

Fresh, clean water from Mom’s taps had become a memory.  If we knew at the beginning of the problem what we know now, I think we could have saved a lot of frustration and money.  Solving well problems can be daunting.  Wells are not like cars when it comes to fixing them.  With a car you can actually see what is wrong, like in the case of a flat tire; or you take it to the shop and hook it up to a computer, which will then tell you exactly what is wrong.  Sometimes mechanics will have differences of opinions, but generally the solutions are rather uniform, even if the prices are not.  Wells are not like that.

Many times you cannot see what is going on.  You will see a symptom, like brown water, but you may not see its cause very easily.  Talk to five different people about what you should do and you will get five different answers.  Asking help from agencies gets tricky, too.  When I tried to do that, several people were reluctant to talk about possible solutions because of liability issues.  When Mom spoke to the health department, they said the only thing that they could do was suggest that she get her water tested for bacteria.  To us, that didn’t make sense.  It was rather obvious that the issue was mud, not bacteria.  So we staggered on trying to find out what to do.

Another issue is that plumbing of any sort can get expensive quickly. This is a real problem for anyone on a limited income.  When there are so many different opinions on how to solve the problem things get tricky.  People with fixed incomes are likely to try options presented to them that are the least expensive.  This is especially true if the options seem simple and if other people had success with them.  For example, if a neighbor had success raising a pump or installing a whole-house filter, trying one of those options first seems to make sense.  The difficulty with this approach is that it deals with the issue without an understanding of what is causing the problem.  So someone might try a series of solutions, thinking that if one works, it would be an inexpensive, relatively easy fix.  However, if they don’t work, you soon realize that your money might have been better spent in another way.

The are several causes of brown water in a well.  These can range from a rusty pipe to a collapsing well.  With such a wide range of possible causes, what are the right steps to finding out what is causing the problem?  Here is one possible set of steps that you can take to pinpoint the source of the problem.

First, be aware that if the water to your house was shut off for some time, the brown water may be the result of rust being dislodged from the system when the water was turned back on.  Running your taps for twenty minutes might help this to clear up.  Brown water resulting from water being turned off to the house can happen with houses that are on public water supplies as well.

If the water to your house was not shut off, check to see if both your hot water and cold water are discolored.  If just the hot water is brown, then you may have rust in the hot water heater.

Usually, if this is the case it will only come out of one faucet.  However, rust may still be an issue if you have discolored water coming from both your hot and cold taps.  Rust may either be in the piping or plumbing fixtures.  Occasionally, rust may be in the main water pipe from the well.  This could cause all your taps to have brown water.

The other causes of brown water have to do with the well itself.  Water can become brown from surface infiltration, iron and/or manganese in the water, well collapse, water level drops, or an earthquake.  Getting a complete water test is the first step in figuring out what the problem is, the extent of the problem, and possible solutions or treatments.  The test should include assessments of pH, hardness, total coliform, fecal coliform, e-coli bacteria, dissolved solids, iron concentration, and iron bacteria.

Getting this test is where your health department can help; they can point you in the direction you need to go to get the tests.  However, make sure that you check that the lab will test for the factors listed above.  When your test comes back you may want help in understanding the results.  In Virginia, the Cooperative Extension Services directs the Virginia Master Well Owner Network (VAMWON).  This program of trained volunteers promotes the proper construction, management, and maintenance for private water systems in Virginia.  Checking with your state’s extension service may help you find a similar organization.  These volunteers can help you make an educated decision about what treatment or solution might be the most appropriate or the most advantageous for you.

Not getting this water test is where my family made its mistake.  A test for bacteria wasn’t going to help what we believed was a structural problem.  We weren’t worried about bacteria, we were worried about mud, and the test didn’t test for mud.  Besides we didn’t need to worry about bacteria with the osmotic filter, the company that installed it already tested it.  The drinking water was safe.  So we visually inspected the well and saw cracks in the concrete rings.  We filled the cracks with concrete and figured that would solve the problem.

But it didn’t.  Neither did the any of the tricks, like raising the pump or installing a filter, that the plumber tried.  We all began to figure that Mom’s well was collapsing.  The earthquake that cracked the Washington Monument originated about 60 miles from Mom’s house.  Her dirty water appeared shortly after the earthquake.  We concluded that the earthquake possibly caused her brown water problems.  The truth was that we didn’t know what was causing the problem.

In actuality, the test for bacteria would actually have been able to confirm something for us.  It could have pointed to two different causes.  One cause it would have been able to indicate was surface infiltration from a breached seal.  Total coliform bacteria or fecal coliform bacteria is not typically found in deep groundwater sources.  These bacteria are indicative of warm-blooded animals.  Thus, these bacteria are normally found on the surface and in shallow (less than 40 feet deep) groundwater.  If the seal of the well is breached, the bacteria will enter into the well with the rainwater.  Similarly, testing for iron bacteria, iron, and manganese would have also helped.  Certain kinds of bacteria occur with iron.  Iron and manganese can be dissolved as water seeps through soil and rock bearing these minerals and bacteria, tainting the water brown.  Thus, a second cause could have been identified or ruled out by finding these bacteria and minerals in the test.  So even though these are “structural” problems, the bacteria tests would have been able to help identify them.

Not finding any of these bacteria or minerals in the well would have possibly indicated another cause of the brown water.  Changes in the water level or supply could cause the pump to pull up mud, silt, or sand.  It could also indicate that the well structure is collapsing.  In order to know for certain if the well is collapsing, you can contact a well-driller that has experience in using a well camera.  These cameras stand on a tripod and can be lowered several hundred feet into the well.  They can help determine the exact structural problem that needs attention.  If you can find (and afford) this kind of diagnostic procedure, it could bring great peace of mind in coming to your final decision on how to deal with your brown water issue.

Earthquakes are another cause of brown water not indicated by bacteria.  It is uncertain why some wells are impacted and others are not.  However, some earthquake affected wells can return to normal after a time.

Because nobody fully explained how identifying bacteria could help us we thought the test was a waste of time and money.  In actuality it could have saved us a great deal of time, money, and trouble.

When the last fix, a very expensive (even used) water filter, didn’t work, Mom began to focus on finding someone that could give her definite answers.  After much calling around and talking to various people, she finally found a plumber that had a lot of experience with brown water problems and solutions.  He was even able to offer references of people that he had helped.

He sent a sample of the water off for testing and inspected Mom’s well.

It turns out that when Mom’s well was built in the 1970’s, it was not built correctly.  The concrete collar around the top of the well should have been much wider and deeper than it was.  Unfortunately, digging out around the well to install the collar now was a very risky process.  If one of the concrete rings were hit by machinery, the well would be lost and a new one would have to be drilled.  Mom’s well could not be easily fixed.

So the options ended up being to drill a new well or create a filtration system.   When I was told about the filtration system, I was skeptical.  The last filter she had didn’t work.  Why would this one work?

The answer was simple.  It had to do with testing again.  Different filters filter out different things.  To make sure you have the right filter for the job, will require more water testing.  The last plumber didn’t test the water, so the used filter he bought trying to save some money for Mom, didn’t do the trick.

Her new plumber sent the water off for testing and through careful analysis of the data, the company he works for was able to devise a filter system.  Now it was decision time: drill a new well or try a water-filtration system.

It boiled down to price.  Drillers in this part of Virginia are in high-demand right now.  Even though she called at least ten well drillers, Mom could only find one to come to the house to her to give her an estimate.  That estimate for the drilling alone was $12,000.  The additional electrical and plumbing work that would be needed to reconnect the new well, in its new location, could run another $8,000.  The other estimate was acquired by proxy of the plumber.  The well-drilling company that he assists sometimes told Mom they were too busy to give her an estimate.  The plumber interceded on her behalf, and they grudgingly gave her an estimate over the phone for $15,000.  People we talked to said that those estimates seemed very high.  However, because of the area of Virginia where she lives, the fact that they are in very high demand right now, in addition to the fact that she could not get anyone to come give her an estimate, left us with little choice.  These are the figures with which we had to work.

The filtration system would cost $8,000.  This seems high, too, until you consider this question, “What are you willing to pay for clean water?”

Mom decided to go with the filtration system.  It had other benefits besides price.  With the filtration system, Mom would not have to worry about hitting a sulfur pocket and getting sulfur tainted water, the filing and paying for all the new well permits, or refilling the old well.

In exploring options to pay for this this system, we discovered some resources that might be helpful to people on fixed incomes.  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has Rural Development Grants.  People who qualify may be eligible for $7,500 in grant money, that does not need to be repaid, plus an additional amount in the form of a very low-interest loan.  BUT you have to live in a qualifying area, AND areas served are determined by the last census so they can shift.  Be sure to check with the USDA representative and ask them to make certain that your specific physical address is within the eligible area.  Do not depend on a zip code to determine your eligibility, as the boundary for people served cuts across zip codes.

Please note that these grants require the recipient to fill out a very involved Fannie May form.  People in need of assistance may want to have someone they trust help them to fill out the form and understand the steps of the process in obtaining the grant.  It was disheartening to find out that some people, those who qualified for this loan and could badly use the assistance, got overwhelmed near the end of the process and gave it up because they had nobody to help them.  Sometimes our neighbors need champions.  If you are able to aid someone by helping them through the process, it could be the most generous and effective contribution you could make.

Another agency to check into is Rebuild America.  This national program has local chapters that help low- to moderate-income homeowners with home repairs.

In Virginia, we also found the Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc. (SERCAP).  This organization offers a grant plus a low interest loan to qualifying people who need assistance.  Similar organizations may exist in other states.

Even though this experience has been trying for us, it has also been valuable.  Access to clean water has become so prevalent in our country that many people take it for granted.   Being a canoeist and outdoor advocate, I never thought I took clean water for granted; helping to clean the rivers and promoting clean water sources has always been important to me.  However, Mom’s dilemma made me realize that I don’t think enough about the cleanliness of my water every time I use it.  I just use it and expect it to be there when I need it.

The post What to Do When Your Well Gets Sick appeared first on Homestead.org.