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Foraging, fishing and hunting.


Caprifool

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I'm sorry, I meant no offence. I have seen so many people so proud at having taken something edible from the wild and realised they are paying themselves about 0.1p per hour in actual value gained. I can see that some people will take pleasure from the getting as an adjunct to a little ramble. All in all a fair enough little hobby which it would be unworthy to obstruct.

I just get a little fed up with "Canal boater" being synonymous with a low impact enviromentally sustainable lifestyle lived in harmony with nature, and sometimes with paganism thrown in for good measure. Nothing against any of those things of course so long as we keep "holier than thou" out of it, or "unholier than thou" when paganism is thrown in but I am a little over keen to refute the correlation with boating. I apologise if I have pissed all over something, I meant more of a sort of point and giggle.

 

 

Personally speaking, I wouldn't have thought money was very often the motive for dipping into mother nature's larder.

 

More likely, our primeval instincts, built on thousands of years of hunter gathering, have something to do with it and most people are probably just enjoying what comes natural.

 

 

 

I would very much like to hear what mother nature provided you with today? Within the law of course.

 

 

Having become a vegetarian over 35 years ago, I now have to satisfy my hunting thirst by trying to creep up and photograph the wild animals in my woodland but with a wealth of forest fruits to choose from, I can gather as much as I like.

 

I love to gather and feed from my land but often don't because I feel so guilty at stealing from the wildlife that relies on it for life.

 

When you 'live' in the country you see both sides of the equation. My woodland is predominantly Sweet chestnut, oak and hazel and in the Autumn the ground has a thick carpet of chestnuts and acorns, the hazelnuts get eaten by the squirrels long before they have a chance to fall to the ground!

 

Every day I watch the wild boar and deer feasting on this fruit as they prepare for the winter famine, even my sheep fatten up on chestnuts and acorns.

 

We also have walnuts and this year just before they were ready to gather, my girlfriend, who was away in Copenhagen, phoned me up and reminded me to get out and gather them before the sheep got them.

 

On the day I decided it was time to pick them I arrived to find the branches full of very excited red squirrels. These walnut 'thieves', normally very shy creatures, were brazenly and quiet fearlessly grabbing and scurrying off with the walnuts right under my nose. How could I possibly now take the walnuts? I told my girlfriend the crop had failed because of the drought!

 

Mushrooms are about the only thing I gather now without feeling guilty.

 

I lost my wolfhound this year but even she loved the forest fruits, she adored blackberries and would refuse to pass a bush full of berries (you can't forcefully move a 4 legged, 75Kg Queen) until my girlfriend and I patiently picked and hand fed her the berries. She used to get so impatient with our slow progress and howls as we got pricked by the bramble, that she learnt to pick them herself. It was hilarious to watch a towering wolfhound gently and carefully picking blackberries with her teeth, of course you could never laugh out loud, not unless you wanted to be ignored for the rest of the day!

 

Then there was the incident with my plumber and the snails but that's another storey!

 

 

Joshua

 

 

 

OMG, your Lidl's have booze? That does it. I'm moving!

 

 

 

In the 1970's I lived in Copenhagen, I worked in a restaurant in the Strøget and made a small fortune selling strong larger to 'prohibition' Swedes returning home after a night out in Copenhagen, with the prospect of new UK laws to price the poor off alchol, you might not be much better off.

 

Joshua

Edited by Joshua
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OMG, your Lidl's have booze? That does it. I'm moving!

Yep, most of it you can drink as well! :)

 

 

Edited because I left out a vital word!

Edited by wanted
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Personally, I believe separating ones self apart from "wildlife" is somewhat pre Darwin, in a way. We are all life. And surely foraging is better than buying food in stores. Roads, traffic, railways, air pollution, loss os forests, flight miles, energy, heating, carbon footprint, plastics, cartons, huge land fills........how much natural growth is stumped in the process of producing food for our stores? No, if I can find food by putting my shoes on and stomping out into the woods where I live. I'd rather do that than transport myself to the nearest shop 23 km's away to buy greens or something processed and put in a box that someone has to transport away from here by truck once a week. Soy for ex. has become a currency and a single bean can have been to seven to ten ports around the world before landing on our kitchen counter. There is today, no 100% GMO free soy on the market. I would also rather forage than grow my own veg. Because of the whole F1 hybrid, EU seed directive, Monsanto(ish) monoculture thing going on with seeds. We will be leaving far more food on natures table for all life forms, by foraging more, buying less and making less babies. But even just by thinking about it. And by going veg. you're certainly doing a far better job than most.

 

I wasn't thinking about the price of alcohol at lidl. I was thinking about your freedom to buy it in shops instead of state monopolized liquor stores financing a goverment you did not choose. Anyway, I don't drink...........much. And when I do, I drink my own :cheers:

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Personally, I believe separating ones self apart from "wildlife" is somewhat pre Darwin, in a way. We are all life. And surely foraging is better than buying food in stores. Roads, traffic, railways, air pollution, loss os forests, flight miles, energy, heating, carbon footprint, plastics, cartons, huge land fills........how much natural growth is stumped in the process of producing food for our stores? No, if I can find food by putting my shoes on and stomping out into the woods where I live. I'd rather do that than transport myself to the nearest shop 23 km's away to buy greens or something processed and put in a box that someone has to transport away from here by truck once a week. Soy for ex. has become a currency and a single bean can have been to seven to ten ports around the world before landing on our kitchen counter. There is today, no 100% GMO free soy on the market. I would also rather forage than grow my own veg. Because of the whole F1 hybrid, EU seed directive, Monsanto(ish) monoculture thing going on with seeds. We will be leaving far more food on natures table for all life forms, by foraging more, buying less and making less babies. But even just by thinking about it. And by going veg. you're certainly doing a far better job than most.

 

I wasn't thinking about the price of alcohol at lidl. I was thinking about your freedom to buy it in shops instead of state monopolized liquor stores financing a goverment you did not choose. Anyway, I don't drink...........much. And when I do, I drink my own :cheers:

 

Hi Caprifool, I heartily share your view of world consumer madness but a few people living off wild produce isn’t going to change anything. Nice for the individual but not a practical model for the current world population. Starvation is the earth’s way of maintaining a healthy balance between what it gives and what its inhabitants take. Through industrialisation we have cheated out all she has to give and yet the population still grows exponentially at a suicidal rate, there can surely be only one result.

 

 

To make any real difference we have to remodel the fundamentals of modern societies.

 

The driving force behind mans evolution has been a thirst or greed for bigger, better, faster and we are where we are because of it, decadence, wanton waste and overpopulation are products of it. Current wisdom suggests that education is the only route to salvation.

 

But bearing in mind that one is going to have to change what comes naturally to man, who is going to educate who, how and will anyone listen?

 

 

As individuals we are capable of such change, long ago my partner and I chose not to have children, we chose to be vegetarians, we chose to live without lap-tops, ipads, mobile phones and TV and we cycle when we don’t absolutely need to drive. But we are lucky, we had through education (in a very broad sense), the opportunities in life that gave us the ability, the space and the time to choose.

 

You can only ask people to change if you first give them the choice but it may now be academic, it seems to me, that the time is fast approaching when our exhausted planet will force us to change by taking away our choice!

 

Joshua

 

 

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Joshua. I am glad so say, we are agreeing on all points. Even "a few people living off wild produce isn’t going to change anything" about foraging, in a way. It's not the only thing we can do. It is one of the thousand choises we are capable of adding together to take the pressure of just a little bit. I don't buy the "a few doesn't make a difference" thing though. Because when people think that, they stop caring all together. Cause "everyone ells is doing it". No, every little change counts. But the squirrels will just find a nother tree that you are to clumpsy to get to. Pick the nuts you can get to and be glad you saved the trip to the shops. Everything counts.

 

I think, we could have some interesting talks IRL one day :cheers:

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  • 9 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Caprifool, I heartily share your view of world consumer madness but a few people living off wild produce isn’t going to change anything. Nice for the individual but not a practical model for the current world population. Starvation is the earth’s way of maintaining a healthy balance between what it gives and what its inhabitants take. Through industrialisation we have cheated out all she has to give and yet the population still grows exponentially at a suicidal rate, there can surely be only one result.

 

 

To make any real difference we have to remodel the fundamentals of modern societies.

 

The driving force behind mans evolution has been a thirst or greed for bigger, better, faster and we are where we are because of it, decadence, wanton waste and overpopulation are products of it. Current wisdom suggests that education is the only route to salvation.

 

But bearing in mind that one is going to have to change what comes naturally to man, who is going to educate who, how and will anyone listen?

 

 

As individuals we are capable of such change, long ago my partner and I chose not to have children, we chose to be vegetarians, we chose to live without lap-tops, ipads, mobile phones and TV and we cycle when we don’t absolutely need to drive. But we are lucky, we had through education (in a very broad sense), the opportunities in life that gave us the ability, the space and the time to choose.

 

You can only ask people to change if you first give them the choice but it may now be academic, it seems to me, that the time is fast approaching when our exhausted planet will force us to change by taking away our choice!

 

Joshua

 

 

If you choose to live without laptop, ipads, mobile phones etc, how did you participate in this debate?

 

Not disagreeing with you, at all, just wondering.

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If you choose to live without laptop, ipads, mobile phones etc, how did you participate in this debate?

 

You can write your contributions on a postcard and send it by snailmail to CWDF HQ where a moderator will type it up and post it on the forum for you.

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If you choose to live without laptop, ipads, mobile phones etc, how did you participate in this debate?

 

Not disagreeing with you, at all, just wondering.

 

The world changes, I have to change just to stand still.

 

I'm not anti technology, far from it, I participate in a number of sports and hobbies that are dependant on the very latest high tech developments.

 

My main beef is the way it is used or rather abused.

 

I get it that a lot of people enjoy, for example, fiddling with a 'smart' phone all day, its not my idea of life on earth but so what.

 

The problem is, it's not always easy to simply ignore it.

 

 

Example, my 80-year-old mother lives alone in France, my partners mother lives in Copenhagen and suffers from severe Alzheime's. Keeping in touch and being on hand to help is an important part of our life. By far and away the best way to achieve that, is by mobile phone.

 

The price we have to pay, is having to use an hilariously inappropriately named smart phone that tries to do so many different jobs that it does none of them well, least of all making a simple phone call. Many times I have come close to throwing it into the cut.

 

I can't have a simple phone that just receives and makes calls because the demand created by the manufacturers doesn't include one.

 

Technology is great, more often than not the way we use it is pants, I am ham strung because I also realise that if it wasn't for the mass market that feeds it, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the bits of it that I like and or can put to very good use.

 

Today I made an online booking with Ryanair for my mother, great, I can do it from home on a Saturday afternoon on a laptop, but the shit I have to put up with, navigating through page after page of selling techniques that make second hand car salesmen look like angels, takes far more out of my life than the convenience of the booking put in. But there is no alternative.

 

Technology is great, the bastards who control it are not.

 

Joshua

 

 

Edited by Joshua
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I can't have a simple phone that just receives and makes calls because the demand created by the manufacturers doesn't include one.

 

Of course you can, you're just not looking hard enough.

 

You can pick up a basic phone for a few quid in fact, if you like, I'll find one for you, buy it and swap it for your awful smart phone.

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Of course you can, you're just not looking hard enough.

 

You can pick up a basic phone for a few quid in fact, if you like, I'll find one for you, buy it and swap it for your awful smart phone.

 

Make and model? If it checks out with my 3 contract your on.

 

 

 

 

Joshua

 

 

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