Thursday, November 15, 2012 - San Antonio Mechanic Shop, San Antonio NM
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Afternoon, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, November 9, 2012
Salvador got the radiator out
Best replace all the hoses while they are accessible. And that old water pump looks like it may be original and not surprisingly starting to weep. Best replace that too. And the thermostat. And the belts. And that old belt tensioner is starting to look a little weak. Best replace that too.
Night camp
Drycamped - San Antonio Mechanic Shop, San Antonio 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.