Early September I went camping and took the camera. The place was beautiful, but it was an abandoned campground with no toilets. There was a campground up the road with toilets, but it was too far too walk. We would drive up in the morning to use their bathrooms, but suffer through the rest of the day. As a girl, I had a worse time than my boyfriend.
 |
| Very vibrant tree mushrooms! |
 |
| Here I am being fat in a sweatshirt. They always make me look huge! |
 |
| The bumble bee that stung me... Stupid thing... |
 |
| Our tiny tent! |
 |
| This inchworm liked to pretend it was a giraffe. |
 |
| Traveling Gnome. |
 |
| Here's some of the River, it was low and very still. |
WHAT is this error thing that keeps popping up!? Seriously... It's getting annoying! I can type while it's up but I can't do stuff with the pictures...
Anyways, before I post pics of the failed Acorn Experiment, here's the one and only Halloween Cthulhu I've managed to make this month:
 |
| Halloween Cthulhu |
Ain't he cute? He isn't glazed yet. I planned on making an army of them this month but got caught up in party planning instead.
Okay. so about the acorns. It turns out you can eat acorns, they're just nuts, you know. So, I went out and gathered some from the park down the street. I had to fight the squirrels, by which I mean, when I got close they all ran up the trees and hid in the branches. While I was gathering, they kept dropping things, and I finally saw where one dropped. It was a half eaten acorn! Squirrels need to learn how to hold their nuts better! Unless they were deliberately trying to hit me.
Well, in order to eat the acorns, you need to leach the tannic acid out of them. You can boil them, but I read that boiling them makes them tough to chew. I also read that you can place them in running cold water. Well, I couldn't just leave the tap running for a few hours, so I tried just soaking them instead. Here's the results of soaking:
It actually got way darker, and I thought I got a picture of it but apparently not. Oh well. I didn't get any pictures while boiling, but the first time I dumped the water, it looked like hot chocolate it was so dark!
Well, in order to eat the acorns, you need to leach the tannic acid out of them. You can boil them, but I read that boiling them makes them tough to chew. I also read that you can place them in running cold water. Well, I couldn't just leave the tap running for a few hours, so I tried just soaking them instead. Here's the results of soaking:
 |
| Little bit of Tannic Acid |
It actually got way darker, and I thought I got a picture of it but apparently not. Oh well. I didn't get any pictures while boiling, but the first time I dumped the water, it looked like hot chocolate it was so dark!
I gave up on the acorns because it was taking so long, the acid was staining the pot and that bowl, and it't not my kitchen or appliances and tools that I was using. I had to boil clean water in the pot, and put a healthy coat of clorox in both the bowl and the pot and let them sit for a while before they were clean.
I was thinking maybe I can find some pine trees with big enough pinecones to try to gather up pine nuts, but it's getting cold and I'm not sure when to look for the nuts. They are probably picked up by animals by now. I'm really interested in learning about wild edible plants, for some reason. I'm also interested in learning about easy things to grow. I saw a post about green onion, you just leave a longish piece of green above the white part and put it in a small thing of water and keep it on the windowsill, and it'll grow. You just snip what you need off the top! So easy and useful!
Anyways, I'm getting really sick of this error popping up 1.5 seconds after I close it, so I'll wrap it up.
I love Fall Camping!
ReplyDelete