Homestead mailing list

[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

I come from corn/hog country, and remember making big trays of hominy 
out under the big maple.  Ours got 2 'washes', but I don't remember why, 
nor if they were the same solution or not.  The resultant hominy was 
dried or canned, I do remember that. 

The corn/hickory mix you speak of sounds really good.  I never heard of 
using hickories that way, but if I ever get some that sounds like a 
dee-lish supper. I just planted some shagbark nuts here last year and 
have 2 sprouted this year; they are about a foot high now and pretty 
spindly little guys and I just marked them the other day with high 
stakes so the idjit neighbor with the snowmobile doesn't run over them 
this winter.  Since I plan to be leaving this area in the next few years 
I'll never see the nuts, but hopefully someone will.

Do you parch corn?  One of the best snacks, IMHO; I like way better than 
popcorn.  A handful of parched corn in the pocket, good for the day.  
Better than gum or any other mushing-around-in-your-mouth item, methinks. 

But I have a question:  how do you protect your binned human-food corn 
from rodents?  The price of hardware cloth is out of sight around here, 
and worse yet, seems now to be available locally only in many-rod-long 
rolls.  I need to replace one side of my bin (guy backed into it with 
the skidloader) and I'm thinking that for here, I'm going to let it go, 
but always gathering ideas....can't imagine not raising corn.  Maybe in 
the future, since my intended was so rude as to die and leave me by 
myself, I won't need so much and maybe I'll just store it inside in the 
future, although I've never tried that.  But if you have a successful 
method/rig, I'm all ears.  Hmm, why do we always store it outdoors 
anyway?  Now that I think of it, I don't ever remember being told why or 
questioning it, even.....maybe you do store it inside?  At home we had a 
shed open on one side with wire bins for wheat, oats, and corn for the 
kitchen.  Steamer was in there, and the sheller and rollers were in 
there, too, in the aisleway.  Wheat we'd sometimes bring in in the 
winter, to a tipout bin on the porch, where we used to grind for the 
kitchen.   But corn stayed outside, was always shelled outside.  Maybe 
just the my granddad did it, now that I think of it, and it just never 
got changed.

Anyway.  Corn is my favorite veg/starch.  Could give up potatoes, or 
even wheat if I had to, but corn?  Hope I'm never called to that dismal end.

Susan Jane, in Maine