International Rewilding Discussion Forum

We aren't close to Spokane but we live in Western WA.  We have thought about trying to set up trades east side-west side.  Maybe skill shares too. 

We are going to be traveling from our home in WA state to the Bay are in California.  Anyone know of "land projects" that we should/could visit along the way?  We are always up for skillsharing or just chatting about living this way.  Hope to connect with some new folks. 

Also, if there is anyone working on hunting and trapping skills it would be nice to share experiences.

Thanks for sharing.

We have been using native herbs for lots of "ailments" for a few years now at the Porcupine Palace.  My favorite is Turkey Tail.  He have a couple of friends fighting cancer and HIV who have used it as well.  We also use Devil's Club (inner bark from stems) sparingly since it grows relatively slowly, Oregon Grape, and Western Red Cedar internally.  We've used the Reishi relative Oregon Ganoderma as well but not much since turkey tails are so common around us and delicious.  For topical infections (like the staph infections mentioned) we use a salve made with wormwood and concentrated western red cedar.

We have been canning lots of food since moving out to the porcupine palace.  For teh past few years we have canned hundreds of jars of wild fruits, greens, pickles, and meats.  We use the 15-20 boil method for high acid foods like fruits.  For greens and meats we use a pressure canner.

A few things we have found:

* We probably lose lots of nutrients by canning due to high heat.
* We can eat lots of different foods all year thanks to canning so our diet is much more diverse.
* It is fairly easy although time consuming.
* We enjoy canning rabbits, clams, and crab more than red meats like venison (just a taste preference)
* We don't can with sugar or other additives since we could add them later if we want them. 

I lived in a village years ago where they ate cans of fish and cans of fish oil that were around since the early 70s.  I think that shelf life with caning has more to do with nutrients than with safety as long as the cans are sealed and no anaerobic critters are living in them.

Good luck.

We get a fair bit of meat each year from hunting and roadkill.  We have pressure canned, frozen (at a friends house), and made jerky.  Canning destroys lots of nutrients, freezing requires electricity which we don't have, and jerky is wonderful but is often too salty and seems more like a snack sometimes. 

Does anyone know how to preserve meat without a refrigerator or too much salt?  We have smoked lots of meat and sun dried it but always in very thin strips.  We are hoping to learn how to cure large cuts. 

Thanks.

We have sun-dried lots of roadkill and some hunted meats.  Although in our bioregion sun-drying is a luxury (we live in one of the wettest parts of Western Washington).  We use some black cloth to cover the meat which helps the meat dry faster and keeps flies away.