A Weird Hillbilly's Garden

[Ninurta]

Thank you. I didn't know about this use for it, till now. It has just been an invasive nuisance. Now I will see it with a different set of eyes.

I'm glad it didn't grow here when I was growing up - it would have been hell on wheels for a switch!

The stems are already fairly straight, but they can all use straightening before making arrow shafts out of them, especially at the nodes of the stem. It has a hard outer tube like cane or bamboo, but instead of being hollow like those, the interior is filled with some sort of fibrous material. I straighten it by warming it where it needs to be straightened, then bending it straight and holding it there until it cools. It's a little time consuming, but anytime one makes arrow shafts out of natural materials instead of store bought dowel rods, it's going to take a little longer for the finished product.

Then I scrape the nodes down until they are fairly smooth and even. Nothing like having a rough node scrape a knuckle at 250 feet per second to spoil your day, so they have to be smoothed. The nock end is cut 1/4 to 1/2 inch from a node to give the nock increased strength and help prevent it from splitting upon firing. The sinew you use to tie the feathers on gives additional strengthening to the nock. Same for the point end, but that section is cut a little longer from the node to give the arrowhead more support.

The initial English settlers said that the arrows of the coastal and piedmont indians were "about an ell long", which is 45 inches, quite a bit longer than an English clothyard arrow, which in turn was longer than the current archery tackle, which is about 30 inches or so long in most cases. With an arrow that much longer, one has to use lighter, stronger materials, The pampas grass stems fit that bill among natural materials. It's even lighter than cane, but about the same strength.

For atlatl darts, the shafts are anywhere from 4 to 5 feet long, and also have to be light with the addition of springiness - it's that springiness in the shaft that actually propels the dart, because as you fling it forward, it bends and compresses the shaft storing energy, then the shaft "jumps" from the thrower at the end of the throw and propels forward using that stored energy. pampas grass again fill the bill.

I have a small amount of organic quinoa in my pantry. I am going to give it a go to see if it will grow anything. I too have sporadic luck when it comes to plants.

I just planted a Ponderosa lemon tree last week, it was a gift given to me in November. It was too cold to put it in the ground back then. It grew three giant sized lemons that tasted great! It was ready to go into the ground last week when I pulled off the last lemon. It is budding like crazy now, so I am hoping it will do well.

The lemons are huge. They are the size of Pomelos.

Good luck on your garden.

You might want to wait a few days until we see what this quinoa is going to do, and whether the surface sewing was the right move to make. I used "Great Value" organic white quinoa that came from Peru by way of Walmart. I'm going to wait to see what it does before I try the red quinoa, and use any information I gather from the white to improve the chances with the red.

I have noticed in the past couple of days that the quinoa seems to be standing itself on edge. I don't really know why - I don't think it is roots getting into the ground and standing it up on edge, but I could be wrong about that.

If we have any success with the quinoa, if any of it sprouts and grows, there should be a ton of seed from that to save for next year of known viability, and next year's crop would then be a lot bigger.

One thing to know about the quinoa is that when it grows and is harvested, the seeds are coated by the plant with saponins to discourage birds and bugs from eating it. The quinoa you get at the grocery store has already had the saponins removed, because they make it bitter and soapy. In order to use what you grow yourself, you have to rinse it 4 or five times in clear water, until the water pours off without any foam. You can eat it without rinsing, but it won't be a pleasant taste.

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