Rocket Stove Fun

Rocket Stove

  Yesterday I worked on skinning all the milkweed I collected the other day. I only got through maybe a third of it in six hours and ended up with an entire pound of material.

  Since it's blazing hot here at the moment during our first heat wave, I set up the rocket stove outside last night and boiled my first batch in lye and soap water. I was tending the fire for nearly three hours. The water never did get to boiling, just a very light simmer.

  So tonight, I plan on lowering the pot closer to the heat. I ran out of wood last night so I gathered quite the pile of it this morning. It's so dry, it might just go up in a poof of smoke! I'm hoping it will be enough for a couple hours at least.

Milkweed Skins

I ended up watching three movies yesterday while I relaxed inside with blessed AC. Doesn't take much to cool my place down, thankfully.

Scrapping what doesn't come off with the skin

One Pound of skins

 This is what one pound of Milkweed skins looks like. It's a lot. I won't try to boil it all at once next time. It just takes to much to boil that volume of water outside.

Drying in the Sun

This morning, after they soaked in vinigar water overnight to nuetralize any lingering Lye, I picked through the liberated plant fiber and set it outside in the sun to dry. After only ten minnutes it was mostly dry and had whitened up quite a bit! I had thought that maybe I tried to cook too much at once and that was the reason for the yellowing. NOPE!!

Milkweed Fiber

I acquired a selfie stick that was on half off, so maybe tonight I'll do a vlog while I tend the fire.  I've never tried to do a live vlog. That might be fun!! 

Night Visitor

And while I was out there, in the lingering light of the evening, I watched this wild friend climb up my beach towel that I had out drying (I had a mini flood in my kitchen, whoops)! I seem to have a surplus of toads and tree flogs in my little nook. Found a baby toad in my rocket stove, chilling in the still moist ashes from last nights adventure. I only saw him because he popped out as I was scrapping away the ashes for tonight adventure. I told the wee toad that the stove is not a safe place to linger as I would have never seen him if I hadn't decided to clean out the ashes!!! He would have been cooked!!!

Momma Toad

This is the Momma Toad that I accidently stepped on one evening. I was heartbroken! She's been around the porch all season and she was quite big. She was right in from of the door and didn't move when I stepped out. The poor gal. But, her babies will always have a safe haven to grow up in and I am thinking all these baby toads I am seeing around the porch are hers. I now check before exiting now so it never happens again. I love my Toads.



Adventure...AWAITS!


Until next time...
***All content is Copyright year and date of posting, and are the sole property of C4G/CCW unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this website (text, photo's, etc)is strictly prohibited (linking to the post is OK). I've had to revert to moderating all comments due to spammers.***

Milkweed fiber, AGAIN, after 8 years!

Yeap.

What? What, happened??

I'm at it again.

Click here for the original post about harvesting Milkweed for fiber. (opens in a new window)

I was on a bike ride and saw this HUGE swatch of swamp land that was mowed over for one reason or another and in the mess, where TONS of cut down milkweeds. Such a waste.


 So I went in after them and collected this mighty pile of cut down milkweeds. I checked the fresher ones for Monarch eggs and found three of them and one TINY 'piller.

Egg

Weeeeeeeeed, man.
MILKweed.

'Piller!

And I saw this fuzzy wuzzy on several of the mostly dead milkweeds and decided to bring it home. Apparently they are 'pillers of the tussock moth. They may get put back out in the wild, on a live milkweed that has no Monarch eggs or 'pillers. With four Monarchs, they are gonna be a handful to feed on top of the silk worms on the way. Yes, I got that itch to grow silk again. It's just so damn FUN!! Now that I feel better, I want to do everything I used to enjoy ALL AT THE SAME TIME! It may prove to be a big mistake, but it keeps me busy, and motivated.

Tussock Moth 'Piller 

And while I was exploring all the butchered bits of swaplands, I found all these crane feathers! I think the one on the right is an Owl feather.

It was a crazy, adventerous day in the hot sun, but the wind was blowing pretty well most of the day so it kept me cooler and I had plenty of water with me. I did get a bit of a burn on my arms, but it's not too bad.  

Until next time...
***All content is Copyright year and date of posting, and are the sole property of C4G/CCW unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this website (text, photo's, etc)is strictly prohibited (linking to the post is OK). I've had to revert to moderating all comments due to spammers.***

MIlkweed Fiber!

Sweet Mama! It worked!
What you are lookin at is glourious fiber from MILKWEED! It is shiney and soft after it is carded. I think this will be best used blended with another fiber. I didn't add quite enough lye to the water and some green material lingers, but otherwise this is cool shit!

I went hunting for more milkweed and found a huge, and I mean HUGE, lot of swamp milkweed! I harvest about 10 stalks (barely even a dent in the population I found) and I am "cooking" the skins.

Until next time...






***All content is Copyright year and date of posting to C4G/CCW unless otherwise noted. Reproduction without permission in any form is strictly forbidden. Violators will be shut-down.***

Milkweed!! The all-in-one wild miracle plant!!

I found the most amazing article in the 2003 Winter issue of Spin-Off...rendering fiber from MILKWEED!! How flippin cool!!

While we were at the park yesterday, I found four plants that were not flowering and harvested them. I don't want to harvest a bunch right now because most of them are flowering and I do not want to possibly jeapordize next years new generation of Milkweeds.

I set to work stripping the skins off the woody stalk and setting them aside. I found that a lot of the fiber likes to stick to the stem instead of the skin, so I scrapped of the stems as well with a sharp, two sided knife.

I only had about an ounce of material so I had to downculate (calculate down) the amount of lye and soap called for. What you do is boil the skins in a solution of water, lye, and dish soap. It doesn't say in the article, but I figure the lye eats away the plant material and the soap gets the tacky milk off the fiber. The article says for 3 ounces, sprinkle four heaping tablespoons of lye over the material in a glass, enamel, or stainless steel pan which is in enough COLD water to just cover the plant material. Then add 3 teapoons of soap. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. Afterwards, CAREFULLY drain the lye and soap water (rinse the drain afterwords), but leave the material in the pan covered. Let the material sit in the pan covered for anther hour. After the second hour, rinse the material in cold water until the water runs clear. Then, place the fiber in enough cold water to cover it all and add a cup of vinegar. This helps to brighten the fiber and to nutralize any lingering lye. Let the fibers sit in this for a couple more hours to overnight. Afterwards, rinse, seperate the material, and lay out to dry. Once dry you can run it through a drum carder, or if doing by hand cards-card just a little at a time.

If you try this, plan of having your place well ventalated so don't do it on a day you have the air running with no movement of fresh air because it smells kinda funny. I do plan on creating a photographic tutorial when I get some more milkweed.

I am so planning on harvesting a lot of milkweed stalks this fall and letting them sit outside to ret naturally throughout the winter. I am also gonna get a bunch of seeds and start a milkweed corner. Did you know that all Milkweed parts are usable? The leaves, flowers, and young pods are edable (some prep to get the milk out is needed) , do a Google search on "cooking milkweed" for even more resources and information, the skin has fiber that is spinnable, the floss found in the matured pods can be used for stuffing and insulateing AND paper making and I think you would be able to card mature fluff into batts on a drum carder. The dried pods can be broken down to make paper, the seeds can be ground up and used to kill nematodes and fall armyworms (seeds are not edable and can cause heart problems), the sap is medicinal, and the inner stalk is woody and can be used to make baskets! Sweet mama!! Now THAT is a valuable plant that I wanna grow! OMG, the more I search the more I find!

Until next time...






***All content is Copyright year and date of posting to C4G/CCW unless otherwise noted. Reproduction without permission in any form is strictly forbidden. Violators will be shut-down.***