Sunday, November 11, 2007

Camping the Rattlesnake

Jared, Mariah, and I camped up in the Rattlesnake Wilderness last night. We brought some elk meat, sweet potatoes, dough, onions, and a few other food stuffs for dinner and breakfast. We found that the bears are indeed still moving around. When we arrived at the Rattlesnake creek and got out of the car, we saw a bear cub (probably Black Bear), on the other side of the road. It apparently didn't like us much, because it started to climb a nearby tree.
We used the handrill to make the fire, since my bow drill wasn't working well. I'll be collecting new parts for it soon.
Dinner was excellent, of course, and we all slept well.
The next morning we explored the surroundings a bit, and I gathered some Kinnikinik berries and leaves. I plan to dry the leaves, and use the berries to make pemmican. The berries are very starchy and tend to keep rather well, not unlike a potato. It's also a medicinal plant, used in many places to treat or cure a variety of illnesses. It grows as a groundcover in patches.

Here are the berries, which I gathered using my new elk ear pouch, as well as the branches with leaves.

There are also these green fungi type things? It grows on dead pondarosa pine branches in the rattlesnake and its bright green. If anyone knows what this is, send me an email.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those lichen like things Owen, are infactually Esperidanzic Lul-queens. Beautiful aren't?!?!?! Circa 2364 Verdannat Instuid. hehe =)

Anonymous said...

Lichen site to check it out.
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pljan98c.htm

Some lichen are actually edible mostly as a starvation food. I think i have read that indians in your region have eaten this type of lichen.

On the east coast, George Washington's troops during the revolutionary war survive a rough winter on rock ripe lichen.

Tree hair lichen (Bryoria fremontii) or black tree lichen, or edible horsehair usually found on larch (Laryx) in eastern Washington is the most widely used edible lichen in North America.

Ive eaten the lichen from a caribou's stomach when I lived in Alaska, but that is another story.

Anonymous said...

Got me researching...

http://www.zetatalk.com/food/tfood17h.htm

Note: some lichen are toxic so be sure of your species.

Anonymous said...

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