editorial note from Catherine Haug
You may recall last year Fran tried to organize a shared garden at the Crestview Senior Center in Bigfork, but was unable to get the raised bed boxes until this year. She sends the following update on this year’s progress.
She hopes to get photos during the year, which I will include as she sends me updates. (more…)
Cherry Taffy
by Catherine Haug
(photo from Wikipedia)
Remember how much fun it was to pull taffy when you were a child? We’d like to bring back that old tradition and engage our greater Bigfork community with a Village Taffy Pull during the 2010 Holiday Season. However, none of us on the core team knows how to make the taffy mixture.
Are you an experienced taffy maker, or do you know of someone who qualifies? If so, please contact me: cat(at)essentialstuff.org (email disguised for security).
We need to know what ingredients, equipment and supplies are needed. And we’ll need volunteer helpers, too. (more…)
by Catherine Haug
Please refer to my earlier post: It’s a Small World – Hydroponic Sprouts (Apr 27, 2010)
Shelli sent the following May 5 update on her sprouting experience, as feed for her dairy goats:
“Round two of sprouting. I had to throw the first one out due to fermentation. [It tasted] a little like beer. It also was a bit foamy and just had a funky smell all together. I threw it into the compost pile. We have a few renegade chickens and they LOVED it.
I got a hold of [my Lakeside contact] to ask a few more questions just to clear things up.
I’m on day three and my sprouts have doubled in size. I rinse daily and move into another bucket putting the bottom sprouts on top and top on bottom.
I had a little spill on the floor during this process and collected them and offered them to the goats. Lola wasn’t impressed, but my Pork Chop gobbled them up.
[For the second batch] I used the same mixture, this time only with more barley and less oats and same amount of sunflower seeds.”
by Catherine Haug
Back in the 60s, when “hippies” claimed the streets of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood (and similar neighborhoods of cities across our nation), or went “back to the earth” to live on rural farming communes, the sociological idea of “counterculture” entered our lexicon.
Counterculture was distinguished from the “Beat or ‘Bohemian’ subculture that preceded it in the 40s & 50s (exemplified by writers like Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs). Reacting to the materialistic, conformist America they saw developing in the 1940’s, the Beats experienced a spiritual yearning that expressed itself in poetry, prose, and song. Their main goal was to push the boundaries of their contemporary mainstream society, as it emerged from the aftermath of the two World Wars.
In the 60s, youths in the Bohemian Movement wanted to do more than “push boundaries” of the older generation from within, they wanted to separate from the older generation entirely, forming new boundaries and a new culture. The Counterculture was born.
ESP was formed, at least in part, from this counterculture. Our interest in the “Essentials” of life and living comes from the counterculture’s awareness of our human link to our planet earth, its overall health and well-being.
However, this little bit of history is not entirely what I mean by “counter culture.”
Buffalo Cow Trail Adventure Map
by Catherine Haug
(Map image from The Globe and Mail (6))
The Buffalo Cow Trail near the British Columbia/Montana border is an ancient trail (at least 8000 years old) crossing the Rocky Mountains from the home territory of the Kootenai/Ktunaxa tribes near Eureka, to the eastern prairies that were home to the once-thriving buffalo herds. Of all the ancient trails traversing the continental divide, is was the most heavily used.(1) That is, until the great buffalo herds were decimated on the Great American Plains.
The path of the trail roughly follows what is now recognized as the border between Canada and the US, the 49th parallel. This path is also known as Boundary Pass, South Kootenay Pass, and the Grave Creek Trail.(2)
Tribal elders express interest in restoring this ancient trail when the North Fork of the Flathead is managed as a protected area, and included in the Crown of the Continent World Heritage Site.(3) (more…)
by Catherine Haug
Updated May 5: See also “Shelli’s Sprouts: Round Two.”
Sometimes we at ESP wonder if anyone can find our EssentiaList website via Google, even though we don’t allow advertising on our site. This funny little story provides the answer.
This post also includes a discussion of hydroponic sprouts as livestock feed. (more…)
