Crafts and Lost Skills You'd like to see back in the New System

[RaymondG]

Originally posted by Stormswift

Hi Nancee - put Feijoa on your list. They I think originated in South America but it's a popular fruit here in New Zealand. They are oval and green on the outside ... inside they have a pear like consistency in the outer flesh and a mashed banana like consistency in the middle. They are sweet, sour and have a fragrant taste. REALLY nice.

'Tangy' is the word I use...

The craftsmanship I've used in relation to these is to dig in an irrigation line about 120' long and fit it up to the main line to the crop irrigation tanks on the hill above my home. I've then fitted dribbler lines around the trees and soon I'll be putting a fence around them to keep the cattle from eating the foliage and fruit and also tearing the trees apart.

I also keep a mental list of where there are trees that people don't know what the fruit is (and therefore just let it fall and rot!) so I can keep up supplies when I'm travelling.

I wouldn't go to that trouble unless I really liked them, would I?

[RaymondG]

While on the subject of the tasty feijoa, the craft of grafting fruit trees would be a good one to know in the early years of the new system...

[Qapla]

Another "craft" that has seemed to go by the wayside around here is "canning" - I would like to see more of that - but, then again, if we have all we need and it is all always fresh, why would we need canning?

[Ahuvah]

canning? Is that the skill of preserving foodstuffs in cans?

[CHecker]

Oh dear, to answer here? 

[Qapla]

Actually, home canning is preserving foods but usually in jars, not cans.

[Ahuvah]

I see - we just call it preserving here in NZ and it's in jars too. Or homemade ginger beer in bottles that end up exploding all over the place - can teach you guys that skill too lol.

[Sheila]

Oh Sister Mandy, you just brought so many happy memories of my deceased mother-in-law who used to bottle her own ginger beer.  It probably wasn't as often as this, but I could swear that once a month a bottle would explode and there would be foaming 'stuff' all over her laundry ceiling, or the kitchen if she'd shaken the bottle carrying it in there.   She was five foot nothing and her children (all married and all over 6 feet tall) would have to turn up at her house and clean it up.   And, yes, she was a NZer, lived in Christchurch.   I'll catch up with her in the new world, and she'll be able to teach me how to do it too.  

[MizPeg]

I see - we just call it preserving here in NZ and it's in jars too. Or homemade ginger beer in bottles that end up exploding all over the place - can teach you guys that skill too lol.

Oh, you meant how to bottle up ginger beer to watch it explode? LOL