New Jack LaLanne Juicer in service at the Gail's

I had always poo-pooed the idea of a juicer. "It takes out all the fiber," I told my wife Wilma. "We need that fiber."

But one day a couple of weeks ago, we were channel-surfing and came across Jack LaLanne pushing his Power Juicer, and showing all kinds of fascinating juice drinks he makes with it. This guy has been around a long time-- even before I was a kid, and I'm 68 years old-- and has at various times (especially when I was going through my body-building phase as a teenager)had a degree of influence on me. So we paused to watch this 93-year-old guy hawk his juicer and his system for good health, and got caught up in it.

Now, Wilma has every so often expressed an interest it getting a juicer, so I asked her "Would you like me to get you one of these?" She was uncertain, so I didn't do anything more then, but asked her the same question the next evening. By that time, she had been to work, and had talked about juicing with one of her colleagues, who enthusiastically told her that she had TWO of those juicers, and used them every day.

So, considering that there was a 60 day return warrantee on the machine, when I asked the second time, she said "Go ahead and get it, and at least let's try it out."

I ordered, and within a week or so, it came. Since then, we have had fresh juice every day. It reminds me of an apple grinder and cider press we used to use to make hundreds of gallons of cider. Wilma complains about the cleanup required, but to me, there is no more cleanup than you do in the milk house after milking is finished. So, as far as I am concerned it is no big deal. The benefits of a nice cold glass of "beetcarrotceleryapplepearpineapplelemonandginger" juice is worth it all. When I think of all the vitamins and trace minerals that have been wrested from the cells of each of those vegetables and fruits as the cell walls were broken open, it makes me feel good---like drinking the "potlikker" resulting from cooking a mess of greens, especially dandelion, for 8 hours or so.

So I guess the Jack LaLane Power Juicer is a 'keeper". And I satisfy my craving for fiber by mixing some of that discarded pulp into meat loaves and casseroles.

Winter Edibles at Goosefoot Acres

Usually, I'm not thinking "let's look for wild greens" in the middle of winter. It is usually snowy, and greens, other than wintercress (Barbarea vulgaris) are hard to come by. But not on December 29th this year.

We've had a rather mild winter so far-- Christmas came and went without snow after an early December dusting-- and temperatures haven't been extremely cold. So we have a lot of green left on the ground, including a number of edibles.

Grandsons Connor and Daniel Gail, along with my son and their dad Kevin, went with me to our farm in Windsor, Ashtabula County, on December 29 for rifle and practice driving the farm's Geo Tracker, as well as some time to work on campsite improvements. While Connor and Kevin were occupied with shooting at cans, jugs and a target by the pond, Daniel and I went up to the campsite to gather firewood and get a fire started for lunch.

As I sat on a log, gathering tinder, I looked down. There, in front of me, was a beautiful stand of ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) and an even more lush stand of young garlic mustard ( Allaria petiolata). So I took the opportunity to teach Daniel, and later Connor, the importance of differences in the odor of crushed foliage in distinguishing between plants with similarly shaped leaves. Never, in my wildest dreams, had I thought that someday I would be giving this lesson on a hilltop in Ashtabula County in the middle of winter!

It was a wonderful supplement to the large stands of multiflora roses (Rosa multiflora) that, thankfully, didn't get mowed down in the fall, but which will this winter while the leaves are off.
The bushes were loaded with tiny, at least twice-frosted, rose hips that didn't have much flesh, but the flesh that was there was sweet and mealy. They will be gathered for syrup on our next trip out.

It was a delightful, surprising bonus to an otherwise already delightful time spent sharing the wonders of the Ashtabula County outdoors with my grandkids. Hopefully, there will be many more such adventures.

Challenges in Making Winter Fires

You never hear the phrase 'heat to burn" anymore. At least not in the Boy Scouting literature. And yet, when making fires, especially in winter, it is a really important concept to know.

It goes like this. Every species of plant-- most often trees, but not always-- has to be brought up to a certain temperature before the wood starts to burn. Some, especially those with flammable resins in them like black birch bark and pine, start at very low temperatures, and will continue to burn. Others, like oak, hickory, beech and maple, have very high "heat to burn", and won't catch fire till the temperature is over 300 degrees farenheit. To get them started, you have to toss them onto a fire that has already become very hot. Sometimes to keep them burning, you have to mix them with woods with a lower heat to burn-- either very dry pallet wood or softwoods-- to keep the temperature up high enough.

Knowing this is not as critical when the wood is starting out at room temperature (70 degrees of so) as it is when you are trying to start a fire outdoors in winter, or from firewood that has just been brought in from outside in the middle of winter. Then, the wood is possibly 50 degrees colder, and will take much longer to get to the "heat to burn" level.

On December 29, when Kevin, Connor, Daniel and I were at our farm (see post on Edible Wild Plants in Winter, same date), we ran afoul of this particular peculiarity. We had a bit of paper, some dry goldenrod stalks and inflorescences, some pine needles, and dry twigs broken off a spruce and a pine tree, in addition to some larger hardwoods. We cleaned out the fire pit and laid the fire with the paper at the bottom, some pine and fir needles next, then the goldenrod and pine twigs over that, and, using a little box of waterproof safety matches, tried to start the fire.

First, don't buy "waterproof safety matches" with the sandpaper striking surface on both ends of the box as the only way to start the matches. These matches, in the cold weather, were almost impossible to start, and when one started, it wouldn't stay lit long enough to get the tinder going.

We tried with paper started on a Coleman stove, but only got the pine needles to flare up, but not burn long enough to start the pine and goldenrod twigs. The tinder burn time wasn't long enough to raise the temperature to the heat to burn, and so the twigs didn't catch before the paper and needles went out.

it seems that the best way to make this work is to have as tinder fire starters that burn even when cold and burn long enough to raise the temperature of the kindling to the point where it will start burning. Today I am going to soak some drier lint and some cotton balls in hot vaseline, and store them away in my emergency kits in each of our vehicles, so I will have them when needed.

Then I will start experimenting with other materials

Whatever you do, make sure you keep "heat to burn" in the back of your mind when selecting tinder, kindling, and woods to use in making fires, and make sure you have fire starting materials that you are comfortable with, and know you can use to start fires along with you on all your trips.

More specifics and accounts of the results of our experiements will be added to this topic later, so watch for subsequent posts.