Desert Survival: Eating Cattails in Winter

I've heard it said that cattails are one of the most important plants for people in the wild to know. They signify that water is present, provide a great fire starter, make a good shelter, and even can be eaten. My husband knew where some were on the ranch, so he went out and collected some tubers and brought them back. They didn't exactly look like I thought they would:

I tried eating it and found it a little starchy without much taste. It wouldn't be great, but I guess if I were starving, I'd be willing to dig some up.

 Above is a view of the tuber spread out. It's kind of stringy, not so much like a potato, which is what I expected.

A few days later I decided I wanted to go see the cattails and try some other survival things with them, such as making cord and possibly making shelter. Desert Boy led us to them. Again, I was surprised by what I saw.

 
The cattails had been eaten by the cows and deer and were only knee high! I had to readjust my expectations.
 
Nevertheless, I was able to make a little cord. I need to practice more, and it would be fun to try to weave several strands together to make a stronger rope.

 We'll be back in the spring and summer and give the cattails another try. Still, I'm glad we went so that I know what they look like in winter!

Signs of Spring

While we might not have turkey vultures migrating through, we do have some signs of springs. First off, it's so much warmer than it has been, so that we are actually willing to venture out of the house and go look for those signs! Hurray! The house sparrow (above) had grass, a clear sign that it's building a nest. It won't be long till we have more of this non-native species in the area.

 The house sparrow isn't the only one taking to the air--it's time to get the spray plane out of the hangar and get it ready to go. Cheatgrass is already greening up, and it won't be long till the other plants follow.

 My favorite sign of spring I saw today:

 Mud puddles! Desert Girl was prepared, wearing her rain boots (aka irrigating boots, but hers are just too pretty for me to feel comfortable calling them irrigating boots!). She had accessorized herself with some red beads, and they sure did jiggle as she jumped and jumped and jumped in the mud puddles.

Life is good when you can jump in your own mud puddle.

Cracking a Coconut

For Valentine's Day I gave Desert Boy a coconut. He's been seeing them a lot on the survival shows he loves, and now he had his chance to hold one, drink from one, and taste one. He was beyond excited, but I gave it to him in the morning, so he had to wait till after school. Ah, the anticipation! He did get to shake it and hear the water sloshing around in it before he took off.

 The first step was to unwrap it and read the label and find out where it was from. I have to admit I didn't think of that part--Desert Boy did. Our coconut was from the Dominican Republic, and we had to do a little searching to find the island out in the Caribbean. I had fun imagining the sandy beaches, warm ocean waves lapping at those beaches, plentiful sunshine with coconut palms providing a little shade. Okay, the coconut may not come from an idyllic beach, but it sure does bring to mind such a place!

 We found the eyes of the coconut and tried to stick a straw through one. Nope--that didn't work! The eyes are a little toucher than that, so we pierced it with scissors and a knife.

 Desert Boy stuck a straw in and started drinking the coconut water. After a long sip, he made quite a face--it wasn't that good! I gave it a try and liked it. So then he had to try it again and decided it might be okay.

Then came opening the coconut. I should have looked it up on the Internet, as this WikiHow site has many ways to open a coconut. I didn't have much success, so when my husband came home he attacked it with a saw and got it open.

 Ah, success! We broke off little pieces of coconut--delicious!

Even after eating the flesh out of the coconut, Desert Boy wasn't done with it. Here's one of his art projects. I think we'll have a couple more in the next few days.

So our first coconut was quite a fun experience. We'll probably try it again sometime. 

Do you have experience with coconuts? What do you recommend doing with them?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! How are you celebrating?

My husband and I have had a really nice week of giving love notes to each other every day. We'll head out for a special dinner tonight.

I also always think of my brother Ed on Valentine's Day, as that's the day when he chose to arrive in this world. What a special Valentine!

Desert Boy's school is having a Valentine's Day Party, and as we are really trying to cut back on processed foods and eat more real foods, I cringe at the thought of all the sugar and chemicals he may be ingesting today. To help make me feel a little better about that, I'm sending some heart-shaped snacks with him (photo above). It might not make much difference, but hopefully the kids will enjoy eating something healthy.

Have a great day! And if you've been wondering why I'm not posting so regularly, I have several posts I'm working on. It's been quite a crazy week, so I'm looking forward to a long weekend to catch up. Maybe we'll manage to fit in an adventure or two (or three!).

Comparison of Ungulate Pellets

I took a hike last week in a place used by three different species of ungulates. I didn't see any of them. So how did I know three species had been there? By their pellets, or scat, that they left behind.
I'm going to show you the photos and give you some clues. You see if you can figure out which three species left the following scat.

The first scat I examined closely looked just slightly larger than rabbit scat, but instead of being brown and totally round, it was black and slightly pointed at one end. The pellets were in a group, but rather scattered within the group.

What's your guess? If you said bighorn sheep, you are correct!

Scat Number Two:
I came across a place where the gravel had been cleared away. Adjacent it to it were two big piles of scat, along with a smaller pile and a wet area from urine in the cleared area. I surmised that this was a favorite ungulate hangout.

A close-up look at one of the piles of scat:

A close-up of the pellets, brownish-black, slightly dimpled, one end (or sometimes two) narrowed.

And your guess? If you said deer, you are correct! We have mule deer out here, a LOT of them. Deer scat is about the size of a raisin, although not quite as wrinkly. I'm not sure if I should admit this, but I have a fun prank that deals with deer scat. (If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you read about it here.) I've given talks about scat to school kids. I like to have samples of various scat with me (in Ziploc bags--in reality, handling scat with your bare hands is not the best idea and can lead to nasty diseases, so don't do what I'm doing.) Anyway, I show the kids the deer scat and ask them how they can figure out how old it is. After I hear their more reasonable guesses, I tell them that the best way to do it is to do a taste test. I pretend to take a pellet out of the bag, while palming a Raisinet instead. I pop the Raisinet in my mouth, bite down on it slowly, and make an appropriately theatrical expression. While the kids look on, faces frozen in horror, I declare the age of the deer scat.

It's an awesome prank.

I may have scarred some kids for life. Probably not. But they may never look at scat the same way again.

Okay, last ungulate scat of the day:

This scat is also black and in pellet form like the other two, but is noticeably larger. Here's a close-up:

Your guess? Elk is the correct answer. They are bigger animals, so it only makes sense that they leave behind bigger poo.

Although all these three ungulate scats look similar, it doesn't take too much detective work to tell them apart. And the more practice, the easier it gets.

Thanks for joining me in this little soiree into the leftover matters of life.