Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,051
I really love autumn, especially the first half...maybe that's why it always seems to fly by and be so short lived. I spend the entirety of the other three seasons looking forward to it. The temps cool off, the bugs thin out, there is lots of tinder material for starting fires, and for a little while wild edibles abound.
The autumn colors are pretty awesome around here.
One of my favorite dry weather tinder materials is horse weed after the bright yellow flowers have turn to a beige fibrous fuzz. Between the dried fuzz of the flower heads and dried leaves on the stalk getting a fire started with a lighter, matches, or a ferro rod is a cinch.
My favorite wet weather tinder is the highly flammable resinous pitch-wood we have in such abundance here.
Plus there is always the tinder you make yourself. I was really impressed here. This is hard season hickory, and that's a factory edge...
The abundance of wild edibles here is one of the reasons I love this area so much. The wild grapes and muscadines are some of my favorites.
The passion fruit, or ocoee that the Ocoee River Valley is named after is pretty darned good too
As are the persimmons...once the frost has hit good and they become much less tannic, just watch the pits.
Autumn olives are good once good and ripe.
Onions are readily available this time of year and will get bigger as the cold season continues. Best to whittle a digging stick, pulling them will usually only break them, and digging with a knife will dull the edge.
Can you recognize this...
Without these being present?
Or this...
if all you can see is the seed heads of the plantain protruding above the leaves?
I prefer them cooked, seasoned with some wild garlic and some sort of fatty meat...but with the juices of the berries, and minced berries, you'd have a dressing of sorts for flavoring and you'd have the makings of a passable salad by this point.
Though they may look much like tomatoes, because they are in the same family, these are NOT the cherry tomatoes you'll want to put on your wilderness salad or in your survival stew. This member of the nightshade family tends to be more toxic than tomatoes. Some of this bright yellow fruit will still be right here when next spring comes. If the animals don't eat it...
.
The autumn colors are pretty awesome around here.
One of my favorite dry weather tinder materials is horse weed after the bright yellow flowers have turn to a beige fibrous fuzz. Between the dried fuzz of the flower heads and dried leaves on the stalk getting a fire started with a lighter, matches, or a ferro rod is a cinch.
My favorite wet weather tinder is the highly flammable resinous pitch-wood we have in such abundance here.
Plus there is always the tinder you make yourself. I was really impressed here. This is hard season hickory, and that's a factory edge...
The abundance of wild edibles here is one of the reasons I love this area so much. The wild grapes and muscadines are some of my favorites.
The passion fruit, or ocoee that the Ocoee River Valley is named after is pretty darned good too
As are the persimmons...once the frost has hit good and they become much less tannic, just watch the pits.
Autumn olives are good once good and ripe.
Onions are readily available this time of year and will get bigger as the cold season continues. Best to whittle a digging stick, pulling them will usually only break them, and digging with a knife will dull the edge.
Can you recognize this...
Without these being present?
Or this...
if all you can see is the seed heads of the plantain protruding above the leaves?
I prefer them cooked, seasoned with some wild garlic and some sort of fatty meat...but with the juices of the berries, and minced berries, you'd have a dressing of sorts for flavoring and you'd have the makings of a passable salad by this point.
Though they may look much like tomatoes, because they are in the same family, these are NOT the cherry tomatoes you'll want to put on your wilderness salad or in your survival stew. This member of the nightshade family tends to be more toxic than tomatoes. Some of this bright yellow fruit will still be right here when next spring comes. If the animals don't eat it...
.
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great pictures thanks!
