On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:19:27 -0700, Bill Wilcox <[log in to unmask]>  
wrote:

>  I have never seen an apple forest.
You don't live in Kazakhstan.

I don't think we're that far from agreement, actually.  But there are  
natural foods available in our area (Colorado) from June through November,  
not just for a couple of weeks.
May mushrooms; June strawberries; July raspberries; August chokecherries;  
September wild grapes; October pinon nuts.

If I was living in a hunter-gatherer group (at a VERY low population  
density) in my area, I would know exactly where every chokecherry bush was  
and when they would be ripe.  I would be on them, filling up, and pounding  
chokecherry cakes to dry for winter.  That's exactly what the Indians in  
this area did. I would try to beat the packrats and the squirrels and the  
jays.  As a modern person, I'm not as fully attuned to the seasons as a  
hunter-gatherer would have been.  With 250,000 people in our county, we  
couldn't begin to make a living from foraging, or from hunting for that  
matter.  This was a way of life for 3-5,000 people.

My band would not stop hunting, of course.  That's year-round.  But you  
don't get a kill every time you go out.  It's not like going to the  
supermarket for meat.

In the spring I'd collect cattail shoots; in the summer cattail pollen; in  
the
fall cattail fluff for diaper liner, and the edible roots.  In summer I'd  
collect bird eggs, which would be unavailable after early summer until the  
next year.  Green leaves would be collected from early spring until fall;  
though they do not add much in the way of calories, they add vitamins,  
minerals, and flavor to the diet.

------------

For Adrienne, I don't have a book, exactly, but you can read the book of  
nature.  What edible native plants grow in your area?  When are the fruits  
or nuts ripe? When can tasty leaves be collected? When are roots available  
to be dug?

If you go beyond wild foods to modern fruits and vegetables: when is the  
harvest in  your area?  When are carrots ripe, when do the apples ripen?   
Obviously tropical fruits would not be available unless you live in the  
tropics.  How long would your collected or purchased items keep without  
refrigeration or heat in your climate?  (We're still eating November  
apples and it's almost March; stored in a cool garage.)

Start keeping track of your bioregion and what it offers.  Learn how to  
put up foods at harvest for later eating; that's what the earlier  
inhabitants of your area did.

	Lynnet