Earth Day

Greetings to all on Earth Day! To celebrate the natural world around us, I've been thinking of ways we can appreciate and use what is already there. For example, when we prune trees, we can use the trimmings in variety of ways rather than just leaving them at the curb for the trash truck. Brushy parts can be chopped for mulch. Slender twigs can be used in basketry. Larger pieces can be used for bentwood projects. I have a book by Jim Long that offers designs and techniques for trellises, arbors, gates and fences. I am currently whacking away at hackberry and chinaberry** saplings that my resident birds have planted in inconvenient places, and am saving the supple whips to use in wattle-and-daub projects. Wattles are an ancient construction method in which saplings were interwoven between stakes to form fences. Other uses combined wattles with a mud or clay covering (daub) to build windbreak shelters for farm animals and even temporary housing. The wattle system can be used to edge flower beds. My plan is to build raised beds. To hold the soil, I plan to daub with papercrete.

And then there is foraging. Many of the treasures we gathered years ago are gone or very scarce. Poke and dock in spring. haws and persimmons in fall. Pecans of course. But we didn't use cattails, and I wish we had known more about the many uses - they were in ponds all around us (Oklahoma farm ponds were called "tanks" when I was a kid - wonder if that term still used?) Anyway, if you have access to cattails, you may find this article interesting:
http://snipurl.com/1hgw1

Yuska

**I saw an online nursery ad yesterday in which chinaberry trees were offered at $49.95. Sheesh! I should go into the nursery business. But now that I've learned the tree has similar properties to neem, I should be more respectful. After all, the blossom clusters are pretty and fragrant.