Love and Hate gum

I have come to strongly dislike the seed balls from the Sweetgum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). They get into the grass such that the mower won't lift them out. Then I step on them and they hurt!

I usually collect them after a rain because the normally reddish color they have darkens and they really stand out against the grass. This color darkens as the balls get older. Most of the time, I toss them to the side to decompose with the rest of the leaf litter.

This time, I decided to put aside my anger and collect them as a natural bead. For your collection, get the ones that fell this year. You can identify them because they will be reddish-brown, rather than dark brown, black or gray. It is a very pretty color. The newer ones also have lots of points because no one has had time to step on them yet (I promise I'm not bitter). I was able to collect a cloth grocery bag full of them in about a half hour.

I have lots of ideas for these things. I think they would look really cool on a strand with smaller wood and bone beads as a set of earrings. Painted white, they would look fun as the trim around the edge of a natural wooden Holly King.

I know it's too late for Yule, but after trimming off the stems, I painted a few of them gold and strung them on a hemp cord to make a garland. They look great when paired with other wooden beads. I think a garland of silver sweetgum balls will look great on a tree with all white lights. I will also play around with some unpainted of course.

When stringing these up, you will need an upholstery needle, preferably one with a bladed end. The center of these things were pretty woody, so I found it easier to first pierce one side and then push the ball down onto the needle by bracing the eye of the needle down against a cutting board. Use only the very tips of your fingers pushing in between the points so you don't squish flat all of the interesting points. Finally, use needle nose pliers to pull the needle through. The stem area  has the most wood so do your best to avoid it by piercing from side to side, perpendicular to the stem.

Awww, NUTS!

This month's crafty adventure centers on nuts, but I'll bet you've not had these nut before. Today we are going to figure out if we can roast and eat a wild food: beechnuts!

The American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) produces small nuts inside of a scaly covering. These scaly nut clusters drop off in Autumn and it just so happens that one of the trails I walk was full of them! Most of the time, the nuts drop out of the scales on impact with the ground, but sometimes the two remain intact. What you see here is the scale cluster surrounding the nut shell. Under the scales and then under the shell is the edible golden nut.

It took me about and hour to collect as many as you see here. I didn't weigh them before roasting because I didn't really care how much the shells weighed. Once I got them home, I used a little quality control to remove any nuts that had cracks or tiny holes in their shells. This was a sure sign of insects boring inside to the nut meat.

Since I couldn't find a recipe on roasting beechnuts, I used a peanut roasting recipe as my basis. Given that the beechnuts are much smaller than peanuts, I used the lowest temperature of all the recipes and shortened my roasting time by a little. My goal was to roast them long enough that the papery membrane between the nut shell and the nut meat would turn brittle and rub away like it does on a peanut. I also hoped that the shell itself would get a little more brittle because cracking a raw beechnut was like trying to crush granite pebbles. I ended up roasting the nuts at 325 degrees F for 20 minutes. A couple of them popped as they baked, but mostly all was quiet. The smell of them roasting was something similar to roasted hazelnuts or hickory.

When they had cooled, I tried cracking a few open. Most had nothing inside them at all! Only the very biggest nuts had any real nut inside the shell and those were very small -- about the size of a shelled sunflower seed. The 20 minutes of roasting turned them medium brown and brittle, rather than golden brown. The outer shell was so hard that I ended up using a pair of standard pliers to squeeze them open. No matter how careful I was, I could not prevent myself from pulverizing the tiny roasted nut inside.  Its possible that with a lighter roast and more care, I could produce enough nuts to make a mouthful, but overall, the yield was not worth the rather involved effort.

So, is this crafty adventure a total wash? Nope!

The nuts went back into the oven at 400 degrees F for an additional 15 minutes to really dry them out. After 5 minutes, they all started to pop! So I took them out, cooled them slightly, and started them drying again, but this time at 250 degrees F for 30 minutes. My goal wasn't to eat them but to make them decorative. They had just changed function. My first thought was that they would be great as a natural bead, because I have a prayer cord project on my slate, but they are too brittle to pierce with a needle; they break all apart. It's possible that they will work as beads if I drill tiny holes in them with my Dremel. I will test that and get back to you. But for now, pushing a needle through them makes them fall apart.

Another use could be inside a shaker; I have a gourd that is soon to be a shamanic rattle and it could use some noisy material inside. I will let you know how I use them, but rest assured that they will have a great finish.