Witchy Witchy

Sometimes areas get developed or trees get removed or circumstances change which is super disappointing, but please don’t hesitate the map to reflect that so other people know that it’s no longer a viable site! Additionally, if you know of sites that aren’t on the map, adding them is a great way help out other people in your region who come across it.

As well as foragable materials, there’s also the option to add other resources as well such a seed libraries, community gardens, bike pumps, free stores/pantries, food banks, compost sites, guerilla gardens, water fountains, and other community resources.

She will also no longer be allowed to do any favours—there are elderly people living in isolated farms around here, and she (and other postmen) often offer to bring some groceries to them (which they don’t buy during their shift) in winter when the roads are bad, or meds from the pharmacy, and starting next year there will be inspectors doing surprise inspections of postmen’s cars to check for anything that is not post, with penalties if they find groceries or other stuff. I couldn’t think of why so she explained gloomily that the post company started a (paid) service to provide this kind of assistance so it is now wrong to offer the same help for free. 

The braiding technique actually promotes increased air circulation, which will keep unused onions fresher than tossing them into a storage bin, and is also aesthetically pleasing.

Covering:

Which Onions Are Best For Storing?

How & When To Harvest Your Onion Crop

How To Cure Onions

How To Store Onions

How To Braid Onions

Make Onion Powder Out of Excess Onions

Videos About Storing Onions

Want To Learn More About Storing Onions?

More from:

Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:

Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.

“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.

“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.

“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.

Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.

People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.

No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.

Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.

Humans are actually more genetically homogeneous than most people suspect. This is possibly due to a population bottleneck at some point in our evolutionary past. Two chimpanzees from different sides of a jungle are likely more genetically different to each other than any two human beings in the world.

Our big brains may help us use tools, but what was really principal in their development was the need for empathy, communication, and cooperation.

Humans. Are. Social. So social it drove an incredibly energetically costly increase in our brain size.  Don’t believe anyone who says its our nature to fight “every man for themself.” We’re humans, not bears. We fight for each other.

And we always have. Fossil remains are found of ancient humans who bore signs of crucial mobility impairments that lived to notable ages. Some even have sticks or other mobility aids – community care and support is our way. We don’t cast off those with impairments, we stand by them.

Human sexual dimorphism is on a decreasing trend. Our ancestors had greater difference in canine size and overall size. Our dimorphism gap has gotten smaller.

Occam’s razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Don’t believe someone who says the reason we evolved bipedalism is so that males could carry gifts to females to woo them. Yes, this is a real ‘theory’ on how bipedalism evolved.

Skin tone is an adaptation of UV levels vs vitamin D levels. Both come from the sun. UV is harmful, so where sun is plentiful populations develop a darker skin tone for more protection. The skin needs sun to create vitamin D, so where sun is scarce, the skin tone lightens to allow more sun in. This is literally all it is.

Final thing: No one’s mind is really equipped to fully understand how long a billion years is, or a million, or even tens of thousands of years. Evolution takes place over a loooong time. Its very, very, slow, slower than we can really comprehend. We can’t “stand in the way” of natural selection by caring for our ill. We don’t need to “help” evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so don’t fall for anyone that tells you not to “stand in the way” of natural selection. That’s fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.

Things you’ll need:

Dead animal/part of a dead animal

Knife (paring or scalpel works best imo)

Water

Jar/bucket

Newpaper/paper towels (semi optional)

Toothpick/rod (semi optional)

Bags (semi optional)

Gloves (semi optional)

Alcohol/lysol wipes (semi optional)

Dish soap

Ammonia (optional)

Strainer (optional)

Prep with a dead animal or part of a dead animal:

Grab your dead animal (if it’s in a bag, grab the bag, if it’s not, put gloves on first), knife, container, paper, toothpick/rod, bags, and gloves (you’ll want a few).

Find a well ventilated area away from people or where people won’t be bothered by the smell. Put the paper down (if you’re in the woods you don’t have to do this) and put the dead animal on it. Make sure your bags and jars are open before you start. Put gloves on if you haven’t already.

If it has feathers, scales, etc that you want to keep, take them off now. Grab them at the base and give a gentle tug slightly in the opposite direction of how they grow. Don’t go too opposite or you may damage them. Put them in a bag.

Make the first cut. If it is a whole animal, or has an abdomen, cut from hip to upper chest, if it is say a leg just start going into a meaty part close to the bone and carving away. If it has an abdomen, peel the skin back, and gut it. Just go for it. Don’t puncture a hollow organ or the liver. Throw the meat and organs in a new bag or if you’re in the woods you can just chuck it.

Just keep cutting off skin and flesh, and throwing it in the bag as you go. You might want to change your gloves a couple times during this and put them in the bag too. You want to get as much off as possible. Be careful not to cut the bone. Cut through the ligaments and tendons too.

Once a bone is as clean as you can get it, seperate it from the other bones. Inbetween the bones there are little white strings. You want to be very careful. You will have to move the bone around and cut them as you go. Do not move it farther than it will go or you may damage the bone. You will keep having to move the bone around to find and cut all of them.

When working on the skull, gouge it’s eyes out. Once you are done with the outside of the skull (and you’re going to want to seperate the neck from the skull carefully), put the rod or toothpick in it’s skull and scramble it’s brains. If you use something disposable, put it in the bag.

Put the bones in the jar once they are as clean as you can get them and seperated out. Don’t worry about thoroughly cleaning smaller bones too much like squirrel paws or pigeons necks because damaging them is easy. You dont have to seperate every bone either. Just to get them to fit in the jars and to make the animal easier to handle.

Once you are done cleaning every bone to the best of your ability, put the paper in the bag and take your gloves off and put them in the bag. Close the bag and throw it away. Take the container of bones inside and fill it with very warm-hot water. The warmer the better. Put the lid on the jar.

Wipe the jar, where the jar was sitting, and anything you touched (remember the sink faucets and door handles!) with the wipes. Thoroughly scrub your hands, the knife, if you used a non disposable item for braining with dish soap and hot water. Scrub the sink afterwards. Change your clothes or maybe even take a shower.

Prep with a /mostly/ clean bone:

Do the same as above^ but it will take less flesh removal. If it has so little flesh you can’t remove anymore go to the next step.

Maceration:

Leave the container in a warm location (direct sunlight is best) for a few weeks or months.

Take your jar and find a location to dump the water. You can wear gloves but I find it harder to handle. If you have an open wound on your hand please cover it. You can dump it in a sink carefully. Outside is best though. Don’t dump where animals will drink it or kids will play in it. Do not water plants that will be eaten with it. Dump it where people will not be bothered by the smell.

Open the container. It will smell. Bad. Dump the water in your chosen location, being careful not to dump out the bones. You can use a strainer to help you if you’d like. Refill the container with water (any temperature) and redump it in your chosen location. Keep doing that until the water runs clean.

Refill the water with very warm-hot water again. Wipe the jar and everything you touched with the wipes. Scrub your hands and the sink or strainer if you used a sink or strainer with hot water and soap. You will probably want to change your clothes after this or maybe even shower. If you have an open wound on your hand or if the water got anywhere near an open wound (even if you covered it) clean it thoroughly with hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol. Maceration water in an open wound can cause a neurotic infection.

Repeat steps 1-4 until the bones are clean of all flesh

Degreasing:

Once the bones are flesh free, they can be degreased if they are greasy. Some bones do not have to be degreased. This is usually only for bones of more fatty animals.

This will follow the same steps as maceration but you will use hot water with a lot of dish soap. You can also use ammonia but you have to very careful with that. I don’t know the exact amount of ammonia you use, but I know you have to dilute it in water and you use a small amount. If you are a beginner, I would advise starting with soap. You will keep going until the water no longer is greasy and the bones are no longer greasy.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act affects both the USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Russia and makes it illegal to possess parts including bones, nests, and feathers of any native or protected species of bird, ranging from common songbirds to rare eagles. This law is in place to prevent the passenger pigeon extinction from happening to another species of bird.

Breaking this law can result in fines or possible jail time depending on the severity of the offense. Here is a list of bird species that are NOT protected by the MBTA. Please follow your state/province laws when collecting/purchasing anything even if it is unprotected by the MBTA, different states have different laws. For any specific questions please call or email your local DNR.

Note that I live in a heavily forested area of the PNW so not all of this may apply to you!

Considerations:

Please be mindful of animal parts laws. Not all bones are legal to possess.

Also know the laws and regulations in the area you’re searching. Who owns the land? Is it a protected area? Can you legally take anything from it?

Animals (such as rodents) use antlers and bones as a source of nutrients. How impactful will taking the bones you found be to them? I ask that you hold some awareness and do what feels best, even if it means leaving the bones behind.

Where to look (casual version):

Under bridges, you’ll often find owl pellets with rodent and bird bones in them.

If you see hairy scat (poop) get a stick and break it apart, sometimes there’ll be small animal bones/bone shards. Please be safe, predator scat can have icky things like parasites.

The sides of trails. I’ve found so many bones there!

Forest to meadow edges.

The sides of the road.

Driving pullouts that are a bit private, if you feel okay with using bones from roadkill/poached animals.

Where to look (dedicated version):

A few feet to 10+ feet into the bushes past a meadows edge.

Follow deer trails.

Go to the big trees, animals are drawn to them.

Get off the main trail.

Check out holes in the ground.

The sides of back roads/logging type roads.

Explore the parts of the forest you haven’t been to before. Make new trails. Walk along fallen logs.

In strangely clear spots in the forest. (As I’m editing this post, i see this and realize that’s exactly how I found a skull today)

Crawl. I’ve found so many bones by just crawling around (usually looking for other things/checking stuff out).

Go where you feel drawn to. What areas stand out to you?

DEER. TRAILS. They take you to less humanized areas easily.

Keep in mind:

Bones can often get spread out, but where you find one you can typically find more if you look far/ wide enough.

If you live in a foresty type place, bones are rarely bleached white. Look for browns, greens, mild whites that don’t quite look like sticks.

Skulls aren’t always in same area as the rest of the bones because it’s a good food source for animals so they’ll drag the head off for themselves!

Think about where animals would go to die.

Learn the killing/feeding behaviors of the predators in your area. Where do they hunt? Where do they like to eat? (And make good choices. If you put in the dirt time you will start finding killsites and not all of them will be old).

You won’t always find bones! Some places just don’t have any! Some have bones that are buried.

This certainly isn’t all-encompassing, and I’d welcome people in different regions to jump in with their methods :) I wrote this while living West of the Cascades in the PNW.

Other posts:

On cleaning bones

On using bones in witchcraft

Animal parts laws (external site)

dude.

These changes are all possible. We don't have to wait for a miracle technology to come along, we can get started today by conserving and rebuilding soil in our own backyards, and if we're feeling real frisky we could organize sustainable co-op farms to replace the corporate-controlled factory farms that are causing all this ecological devatstation.

Drawlloween 10: Hell Hound

Follow for recipes