Our Wray-ward Interests
The larger bridge was my last job as a Project Engineer (1978 - 1979) in northern California
The larger bridge was my last job as a Project Engineer (1978 - 1979) in northern California
This is one of my favorite times of year. I've helped cooked sorghum syrup since about 4th grade (maybe earlier).
Although this is commonly known as "molasses" cooking; molasses is made from sugar cane, not sorghum cane.
Photos by Tony Walls
It is now a yearly celebration with many friends from near and far visiting when we cook. This past fall I helped Eddie, and his brother Tony, with 6 batches, and cooked one for the Mt Rogers Volunteer Fire Department, with help. There's a reason I enjoy it so much......
.......ties me to my long gone relatives in North Carolina who started cooking in the late 1800s, not long after sorghum was first brought into the continental US. The first pan my family used (when I was a kid) was given to my Dad by his Great Uncle. In the 1980s my Dad and I used it for a pattern to make a replacement, and cooked together regularly while he was living. I'm glad to see these guys and others learning and doing the things that will ultimately bring all of us closer to the source of our food, of our being, and of our lives.
These are amongst the nicest folks on the internet. They have never failed to reply to an online inquiry. Besides attending several of Tradd Cotter's presentations in various venues, I own his book, "Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation Simple to Advanced and Experimental" and their "Mushroom Mountain Growing Manual"; they are my sole supplier of mushroom spawn and fruiting kits.
Besides the wild ones around we can grow several species. I have grown White Oyster mushrooms on poplar logs outside, and cardboard in my basement. Oyster mushrooms and King Stropharia can be grown in straw bales and wood chips in our garden. I impregnated several hemlock stumps with Reishi plugs. I cut them because they had died, and the lumber is quite good for construction.
Besides all the culinary and medicinal benefits of our fungal acquaintances, the value of fungi to the planet is beyond imagination. Literally thousands of species of plants and animals cannot survive without their presence. Fungi is capable of cleaning toxic waste, plastics, as well as purifying contaminated water. Symbiotic relationships with trees and other plants are just one way fungi literally feeds our vegetation, wild and cultivated.
Pesticides can destroy these fragile relationships. Just one more reason to pay attention to what we add to our environment, for whatever reason. Humans are the one species that can destroy the earth, and climate related influences are perhaps the least likely to do so. We'll probably destroy other life forms on which our survival depends before the climate really becomes catastrophic.
IT’S BLOOMING! Actually it’s fruiting!
photo adapted from Kimberly Wright
For the past couple years Kitty and I have been experimenting with our garden areas. Yes, that is plural.
Originally, we started by using the area over our septic field as a place to "hold" flowers, shrubs, and fruit trees until the house was mostly completed. We had fenced in a 40' X 100' area, and with the help of a neighbor (he used it mostly for himself for two years), and began to grow vegetables.
It wasn't the best place as there were a couple spots where the ground water kept it too wet to do anything until late in the spring.
So... we had another neighbor trench along the outside of our two long fences and created a wetland pond beside the garden.
We also had him trench along an adjoining driveway to drain a very wet area, clear the shrub growth, creating a one-half acre meadow,
and construct a new driveway.
Then, we had him clear another area approximately 1/2 acre in size with the intention of growing sorghum for making sorghum syrup (molasses).
Of course, things rarely go as planned, so now we're on option two, maybe three from the original plan.
The 40' X 100' garden area has gone through several transitions... now 1/2 is raised beds which has progressed from mounds to beds with frames.
We have raised vegetables, flowers and herbs (some wild, volunteer) on this half.
Two of the beds were covered by an experimental "greenhouse", which worked better than expected.
The other half of the garden area is in process of becoming a permanent herb, flower, shrub garden.
We used to grow row crops like corn and beans there. That shall cease as the larger cleared area becomes our main gardening area.
These are our very first harvested vegetables (Pak Choy and Michihili) on January 23, 2020 from our experimental greenhouse.
Stir fry and Kimchi coming up!
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Back in the day...... about 2018 or 2019