Seed Hunt report: 2014

[blueadzuki]

Actually, my method is a lot like panning for gold. Take a round plastic container. Those resealable kinds you get takeout food in these days are great for this, provided you get one where the raised bump is in the middle (some models have a sort of "well" running around the rim which can make things a bit more difficult. Color doesn't matter, though it is usually best to pick one that is different from that of the seed you are going though (i.e. don't use a black container to sort black seed, you want contrast). Take a SMALL handful of the seed you are sorting. Ideally, it should be small enough that it covers about 1/2 of the bottom surface in a single layer. Put the handful in the container. shake and spin it until the handful is distributed in a layer only one seed deep. Place flat, and look for things that stick out. Remove them. When you stop finding things, pour the leftovers into another container and move onto the next handful.

The only really tricky thing in this, besides learning how to flick the pan the right way (hard enough to get the stuff distributed but not so hard you send it flying out of the container and across the room) is the light. Ideally, most seed is best sorted in full bright sunglight with the light actually hitting the pan surface. That tends to increase contrast. In a pich, an odinary lamp will work, but the yellowish tinge incandescent light often has or the bluish one from florescent can hide some colors. For example, under a lamp, a red rice bean with heavy black mottling (which I do save) can look like a solid dark red one (which I don't)and really dark red looks like black, as does blue.
Everything else is just training. You have to develop the "eye" for quickly seeing things that look "off"; that one seed that's a little odd in color, or shape, or sits in the pan at what looks like an odd angle (in the case of some mixes, like adzkui's and cowpeas mixed into rice beans [all of which can be the exact same color], the beans may lie in the pan at different angles because of the differing shapes of their hila. You need to be able to tell the odd effects of genetics from those of seed damage; to know a dark seed from a spoiled one. After a while, it becomes almost second nature.

That's the method for most of the sorting. Corn I tend to simply do in my hands, since the seeds are so big. when slimming down the pile at the end of the season, I also often put the kernels on a flashlight to check for damage and soft starch content.

Coriander is done the same way as above, with one modification; after I have done a dry sort I do a wet one. I take a big tub fill it with water, pour the coriander in, stir it around with a slotted metal spoon (so everthing gets hit by the water then spoon the coriander off the top empty the water out, then see what's sitting on the bottom (coriander seed floats, most of the weed seeds don't) The leftover coriander gets poured into pots, where a little sprouts and gets harvested for cilantro (though very little actually sprouts) and the rest rots down into a very lightweight topsoil.

[steev]

I agree the "eye" is powerful. Although mine isn't tuned to seed (yet), I have it tuned to artifacts, especially coins. I've found very many, including some very good ones and nice pieces of obsidian work, just because "they stick out", which is to say, they don't "belong".

[blueadzuki]

Yes it is a powerful tool when trained. On my side, I have found my own pile of stuff that way; lots of fossils (back in college, when I was actually in and area where the rock was sedimentary)two meteorites, an absoultely BEAUTIFUL chunk of hematitic jasper (see below)
Note since the color resolution in the pic is not good, the stone is not black. It's actually a sort of scaly pattern of bright red, dark red and silver (actually it's never occured to me before, but given the pattern, and the fact that that kind of three tone color is sometimes a sign of fossilized organic matter, the chunk may actually be fossil dino bone. I've seen polished pieces of agatized bone that looked sort of like that.)
And of course lost of odds and ends of artefacts. Most very recent, but there is that 1920's milk bottle, though techically I didn't spot that, it was exumed when our neighbors were doing some work on thier house (along with a soild stone fishpond). Never found an arrowhead myself, but my Grandpa did.

[12540dumont]

I unearthed a Chinese Chess Piece. Darn, I found another about 10 years ago, if I had kept that one, I would have a set! I wonder if the previous farmer knew that someone had snagged the chess pieces and were using them out in the soil.

I found a chain (a really really big chain, turned out to belong to the hay guy), a hinge, a dozen bolts, several nails and screws, a fox skull, and a headless Barbie.

I'm still waiting to turn up those cans of gold coins.

Yesterday I found a green plastic hand. Archeologically speaking, none of my finds have been significant. Doesn't look like I'll be able to quit my day job.

[blueadzuki]

My dad's prize find was a long piece ('bout 6-7 inches) of hollow bone (probably an umbrella handle) carved with Chinese figures (figures as in people, not letters)

[flowerweaver]

That's cool Holly. We live in a ghost town next door to the ruin of a turn-of-the-century schoolhouse. We've met some local folks in their 80's who attended there that remember using our creek as a dump. We find all kinds of interesting tidbits washing down there. We also find 8,000 year old scrapers and more recent atl atl blanks and points left behind by nomadic tribes who camped here. Then there's the very recent stuff used by former owners in target practice. As a metalsmith I am turning some of this 'junk' into farm jewelry.

[blackox]

Although not as exciting as some of your finds, I found this old white pot with light blue designs on it just sitting in the forest. It was pretty obvious just sitting there, shattered into pieces and sitting by a tree stump - it had moss growing on it. I'm thinking that's it's from the 18th-19th century.

No Native American artifacts yet. Although somebody in the nearby town of Killbuck found some kind of stone that was supposedly used by the local Indians to grind tree nuts.

Plenty of fossils here but it's mostly chunks of coral and similar, this area used to be part of an ocean. No exciting geological finds. There are these interesting chunks of gray-sh metallic stuff in the streambanks, probably a rock, they break apart easily. Graphite??

[steev]

My grandfather found a fired-clay club-head in the family vineyard and various pieces of superbly-crafted obsidian fish-points; the town cemetery was on land homesteaded by my 2nd-great grandfather (and ceded to the town), which had been a fishing camp where the local Indians had come to fish (with bows), trade with Sierra Indians for obsidian (often with abalone shell traded from Coastal Indians), and chip it into toothed fish-points up to 4" long (some of the finest stone-knapping in the world, a pinnnacle of Neolithic technology).

Back of the farm, I found a 12" piece of railroad rail stamped "1929", which I assume is when it was forged; I found it ~2108. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose; n'est pas? T've no idea why it was there; somebody's souvenir.

[blueadzuki]

Managed to get to Bhavik today. Store was pretty picked over, but I did manage to get my hands on 1 4lb bag of horse gram (Macrotyloma unifolium)one smaller bag of green chickpeas, a fair number of fresh pods of long lablab (the kind that looke more like cranberry bean pods than peapods.)and a few parval melons.

The sort through the HG was pretty boring. Mostly all I found was black seeds (which are only noticable in that they stand out from the gerneally light colored seed coats common to the grams). Of waht was left, most were "garbage" seeds; the kind even (I) am not all that interested in. A few bindweed seeds (though one appears to be that "keel and notch kind I actuall DO grow). A pinch of (Borreria latifolia). A smaller pinch of waht looks like lettuce seed, but probably isn't (as I doubt there is much lettuce grown in India). Three rice grains. One small dark mung. One love in a puff seed. One black sunflower seed. One of that kind of seed I've seen before with one polished side and one very ridged one. and so on.
I'm not sure if this is cleaner than they used to be, or not. Back when I fist did HG's they used to be filled with pods from a kind of indigo (Indigofera viciosa) but those don't show up anymore. Whether amounts of all the other weed seeds are also lower, of whether the Indigo made up SO MUCH of the weed bulk that, in it's absence, the amount chaged so much. I cann't tell.
The Green Chickpeas were similarly rather spare. In fact I thought the bag was TOTALLY pure until the last hadful, when one small marmortated green pea fell out.
Besides this the chickpeas were pretty uninteresting. Apart from the color they seem no different than standard brown desi type chickpeas. Same shapes, same textures. No mottled seeds, no "sticky" ones. In fact I'm not totally sure they AREN'T the same thing. I know that there ARE green when mature chickpeas, but it also occurs to me that, if you picked chickpeas JUST before they turned and freeze dried them, you'd wind up with something that looks a lot like waht I have. I suppose I could plant some and see but it seems that MOST of my chickpeas come back a little green regardless of what color they were, since they tend not to mature all the way (the heat comes a little too early).
BTW I was wondering, are there green when mature strains of the kabouli chickpeas (the larger softer strains found in the Middle East and Europe) or is is unique to the desi types?
The long lablab pods yielded some seed that looks reasonably mature, but not as much as I hoped (it's a lot harder to judge over mature pods of the long one than it is the peapod one) I'll have to see how much still looks OK after it has dried down.
The Parvals were a total washout; even the most mature ones I got weren't mature enough to have vialble seed, even using that "rice bag" trick.
And that was everything I think. Well there were three of those short triangular bananas they grow in India, but those wont have seeds; I bought them to eat.

[blueadzuki]

WED MAR.12

Took a while to get in to NYC today (for anyone who watches the news and saw about the building explosion in Harlem, I was on the train that would have arrived by there a few minutes later. They stopped us halfway along the line told eveyone to get off the train and we had to take a convoluted subway trip to get into Grand Central.
But in an odd way it was worth it. In order to kill some time while they tried to either get the line clear or work out some way to get everyone who needed to get OUT of Manhattan out before rush hour rolled around. I added a trip to Ctown Manhattan to my itenerary early to see if my new bean judging skills would lead me to more "good" suff. MY first results were not encouraging, all the stuff in the stores was the other kind. I bought three bags of those but they had mostly boring stuff (one spurred butterfly pea seed, but everything else was all bindweeds and off colored beans). The I popped into my favorite herb shop (where I found the off color adzuki's in the mungs a few months ago) And miracle of miracles, they had the "good stuff".......in a bin! (They must be one of the places that fills the bin by slitting open smaller bags, as I don't thing the "good" stuff is available in bulk bags. So I actually managed to add maybe another dozen off color adzuki's to the vial (with a bin, I can of course use a little careful ladling to "skew" my take to be highter in waht I want.) Guess I'm going back there next week (and probably many weeks thereafter, until the bin gets refilled again with the other type).

[blueadzuki]

MON MAR.17

Quick trip to H-mart. Got two bags of senna. Not a lot new in them (in fact, based on the contents of one of them, I think it possible the packer has reached a level of cleanliness where checking the bags no longer will be profitable. But I did find a few nice surpises, like what is either a wild or an incredibly small seeded urd bean and one of the third sort of senna (the one I haven't been able to indentify as to species yet)
Also found two semi-overripe bitter melons in the veggie section so I have a little extra seed, plus the usual treat (ever since I found out it is edible, I have also found I sort of like the red slimy sacs in ripened bitter melons. the sweetish taste is suprising. Apparantly they are actually used in some fruit salad preparations in India)

[flowerweaver]

Good that your train wasn't there when the explosion happened! What do they do with bags of senna? I only know of it growing wild here, in two forms (Lindheimer's and Two-leaved), and that it is used in laxatives.

[blueadzuki]

The Asians do the exact same thing with senna; they put the seeds in hot water and drink the resultant infusion as a laxative (or in some cases as a way to keep regular so they don't need laxatives). They just use a different species, Senna obtusifolia(Though most of the bags are mismarked Senna tora, and most have small amounts of Senna occidentalisin them. Also note that that NONE of these are the commercial senna, as far as I know that still is extracted from Cassia alexandria. There is also supposed to be a way to roast the seeds to use them as ersatz coffee.
I undestand there is also supposed to be a way to tell the future with them; by throwing handfuls of them on a special board, they can use it to read the I Ching . How I don't know but it is presumably different from the standard method with the yarrow stalks or the cash coins.

[flowerweaver]

Fascinating! The ones here are Senna lindheimeriana and Senna roemeriana.

[blueadzuki]

WED, MAR.19

Not a lot new to report from today, Though I did confirm the other medicine shops I know of that let you buy rice beans by the scoop are also getting thiers from the "good" source, at least for now.