Acorns

[rmb...@istar.ca]

By golly it looks like we may actually get a crop of acorns this year
after 3 summers of absolutely no acorns. 2021 and 2022 we had the
horrible invasions of those horrible gyp.... er, "spongy" moths that
devoured everything in sight, resulting in no acorns. Last year we
had that nasty cold spell just as the oaks blossomed, the pollinators
were shivering and couldn't do their job, so no acorns. I just came
across a couple of small branches off our big red oak that were
knocked down by the wind, plenty of small acorns on them starting to
grow. Dare I hope for a crop this year?

My interest in the acorns is two-fold. One, I had been gathering up
cartons of them and shipping them off to Sandy Pines Wildlife Center
and keeping a supply to feed the squirrels that try to raid my bird
feeders in winter. Fun to watch them snatch up the acorns and nibble
at them. Two, I had read about acorns as food. Now, when we were
kids, we had heard that the Natives used them as a food crop. So we
peeled some ripe acorns and took a bite. YUCK!! They were horribly
bitter. Then I came across an article that you have to SOAK the
acorns for 2 or 3 days, changing the water daily, to remove the bitter
taste, and I was wanting to try this. For three years now I have been
kept in suspense as we have had NO acorns.

Another thing I'm wanting to try is cattail root. I have broadleaf
cattails creeping across the one end of my beach and need to dig those
out. Looks like some work to clean and peel but just for fun I'll
give it a try.

Rose-Marie

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 29-Jun-24 11:30 a.m., rmb...@istar.ca wrote:
> Another thing I'm wanting to try is cattail root.  I have  broadleaf
> cattails creeping across the one end of my beach and need to dig those
> out.  Looks like some work to clean and peel but just for fun I'll give
> it a try.

* back in 1972 my brother and I wandered out onto the shores of James
Bay from Moosonee, and found we hadn't brought much food other than a
pound of butter - so for some days we lived on Cattail rhizomes snipped
into 1 cm segments and fried in butter. They were pretty tasty, but when
we got back to town we went to a Chinese restaurant, and demolished the
"meal for seven persons."

fred.
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Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
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