A Fulltiming Life

Saturday, January 9, 2010 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM

Hooking Up, Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM, January 8, 2010
Hooking Up, Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM, January 8, 2010

The weather seems to be colder than usual all over this winter and here is no exception at the moment. Below normal temps (in the 40s) and a breezy wind chill kept most folks inside today. Even the long-eared owls who usually spend the day in the evergreens here found shelter elsewhere. Brrrr....

Night camp

Site 29 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM

Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk

Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.

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