Chestnuts for food, furniture, barn beams...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 9:06am.
...and climate change. The American chestnut was a dominant presence in forests from New England to Alabama, until about 50 years ago, when it was nearly wiped out by chestnut blight, a fungus that showed no mercy
Researchers have been working on hybridizing the the American Chestnut with the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut for decades. They now have a resistant variety that is 94% American chestnut, and researchers like Purdue's Douglas Jacobs hope reintroduce the tree into existing forests as well as reforesting farmlands throughout the tree's natural range.
The great thing about chestnuts, according to Jacobs, is that the chestnut grows faster than other species, and it gets bigger, sucking more carbon from the atmosphere. And because people use the wood for furniture and other products, the carbon stays sequestered for a longer time than wood from trees that are used for paper, fuel and things like pallets.
And, because I was around before the trees died, I remember the smell and the taste of roasted chestnuts. As a kid, I had to go along Christmas shopping in Reading, and there was a guy with a cart parked on Penn Street. He roasted chestnuts and sold them by the paper bag for a dime. Or maybe it was a nickel. Today it would be three bucks. You had to be careful peeling off the shells, because they were hot. They were rich and nutty and I remember the taste to this day. You can still buy other kinds of chestnuts, and they do taste good, but if memory serves, I think I like the American variety a little better. So if it takes carbon sequestration to revive the species, I say let's go for it.
To read more about Jacobs and his work, click here:
And if you'd like a recipe for roasting chestnuts, click here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Chestnuts-108718
If you'd like to buy some hybrid chestnuts, here's one source: http://www.delmarvelouschestnuts.com/
So you have this old railroad car and you want to connect your house and your garage. If you're Gib Yoder of Allensville, you'd naturally think of using the car to connect the two buildings (now wait...where do you even get a railroad car, much less move it to your property?). But just putting the car between the two buildings wasn't quite elegant enough for Gib Yoder. He wanted a secret passage. Underground. And he wanted it to go through the railroad car.
Yoder started to dig a trench, but hit a huge rock. So he hired a dynamite expert and invited all the neighbors to watch as the "expert" blew a hole big enough for Yoder's "secret." It's a fascinating story, but to read the rest of it you'll have to check out page 18 of the 2009 Auctioneer Guide, which is part of the current edition of Lancaster Farming. The story was written by retired LF staffer Lou Ann Good, and this year's Guide was put together by Anne Harnish, Lou Ann's replacement as Food and Family Features Editor.
In Belgium, apparently, everybody knows the same dance routines. (Thanks, Anne.)
