When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the first thing I did was get into the woods near my parents' house. I was bushwhacking off trail eating the plants my dad had taught me when I was little, tracking deer and raccoons, sitting under trees with my journal and a book. I also came back to an old hobby - harvesting and eating acorns!
Some of my earliest memories are of harvesting acorns with my dad. For many, the smell of fall is apples and pumpkin spice. For me, it is the smell of acorn bread. We would pick them off of the sidewalk in our neighborhood and lay them out on window screens to dry. I remember the soft, hollow clack of their shells and the roasty flavor they take on when boiled. I remember hot acorn blueberry muffins in the morning, filling the house with nutty warmth.
Acorns are abundant, even during lighter years. Every bite of warm, nutty, delicious acorn bread fills me with wonder at how much food the natural world around provides each year. Samuel Thayer writes:
There is no food that means more to me than the acorn, for the acorn fulfills both a promise and a fantasy: that the forest will provide for me. When I gaze across an Ozark valley from a limestone precipice, I see more than scenery. I see thousands of acres of bounty, millions of pounds of delicious food dropped from the crown of countless trees, waiting to be gathered up by eager hands. I see more food than I could ever eat–more than I can even fathom. A wilderness and an orchard in one. The world looks different when you eat acorns. (Thayer, Samuel, Nature's Garden, p. 146)
In 2020, I filmed and posted the process. Take a look below!
Inspired by the joy I got from revisiting my passion for outdoor skills, I decided to take up a second, more in-depth project that same fall - tanning deer hides into buckskin. Brain-tanned buckskin leather is an incredible material. Supple and soft, it feels like a cross between sturdy felt, flannel, and suede. I had tanned smaller hides before - a rabbit and a goat - at outdoor skills workshops I had been to with my father, but never something as large as a deer hide, so it was an exciting project to take on.
I reached out to a hunter friend of my parents, who graciously donated two doe skins and heads, which I tanned over the course of a week an a half in October 2020. The process of tanning buckskin involves many steps, including treating the hides with lye, scraping them, soaking them in a brain solution, and twisting and stretching them until they get soft and dry. The process was rewarding and a wonderful way to use my hands. I am glad to have gained a skill that helps me understand what it takes to use every part of an animal.
Take a look at the process below!
Every now and again, I'll post more outdoor skills videos on my TikTok page. Here are some highlights!