Carved Kitchen Utensils

[Ms Bear]

This was a pretty orange color and has darkened with age.

After having to help replace fence posts as they rot I can see the advantage of using the trees that have been planted in a row.  Also after living in Arizona I can appreciate the use of wind breaks, a lot of oleanders were planted for that reason there.  Everytime I went back to visit I remembered after two days of moving sand (called dusting) why I left.  Dust storms that lasted for hours and sand was in and on everything.  Don't think you are going to eat during one.  Those are old memories, I left there over 25 years ago.

Ms Bear

[hhjacobs]

Richard Clark's son has made some of the utensils. I know my mom had one of his hanging up but never used. The wood really does make a good fire. We have an outside boiler that heats our house and our shop. It keeps us nice and toasty. The city came out twice to read our gas meter when we put the boiler in. They thought it had been read wrong. Our gas use is almost nothing.

[Janet Harrington]

I have a pen and pencil set that was made by Dick Hisle out of hedge.  It is really pretty and I have put it away.  Maybe someday it will be worth some money.

[Carl Harrod]

We seem to have gotten a little offtrack about the kitchen utensils, but when I saw that you were getting a little off track about the original purpose of bringing "Hedge" trees into Kansas, I had to jump in and put things straight.  I was always taught as a boy that Osage Orange"Hedge" trees were planted AS THE FENCE, only later with barbed wire becoming more available that they were used as posts. And, you wouldn't really want to use a live tree as a post because it would grow around your wire and you would have a very hard time removing the wire when it came time to repair or replace the fence. I had never heard of the person that supposedly introduced this wonderful tree.  But it may have seemed to be a good idea at the time that turned out to be a curse instead.

More information Quote from: http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm#Top
Before the invention of barbed wire in the 1880's, many thousands of miles of hedge were constructed by planting young Osage Orange trees closely together in a line.   The saplings were aggressively pruned to promote bushy growth.  "Horse high, bull strong and hog tight."   Those were the criteria for a good hedge made with Osage Orange.  Tall enough that a horse would not jump it, stout enough that a bull would not push through it and woven so tightly that even a hog could not find its way through!  After barbed wire made hedge fences obsolete, the trees still found use as a source of unbeatable fence posts.  The wood is strong and so dense that it will neither rot nor succumb to the attacks of termites or other insects for decades.  The trees also found use as an effective component of windbreaks and shelterbelts.

[Wilma]

You are right, Carl.   That is why the trees are still found very close together in a straight line.  I should have remembered how hard it is to get wire out of a tree.  Usually we would just cut the wire on each side and leave it in the tree much to the detriment of chain saws in the future.  We didn't nail to a live tree if we could help it, but sometimes it was easier than setting a post where it was needed.  I didn't know about the pruning to shape them.  Reminds me of the multiflora rose that became popular in the 50's, was it?  Turned out to be a nuisance, too.

[indygal]

Where I grew up in central Illinois, my mom would put "hedge apples" in the basement to keep spiders away. I don't know if it worked or not. I've tried it since, but all I ever end up with are shriveled, discolored blobs. Maybe the spiders are so grossed out by it, they leave!

[Wilma]

The hedge apples are supposed to drive the cock roaches away, too, but it never worked for me.

[Teresa]

I can't remember if I have said this before.. ( my mind is foggy cause I am freezing to death in this hateful cold weather)
Anyway.. back to the topic at hand..

DeEtta Beaumont once brought Mark and I a plate of fried hedge apples into the store so we could try them. She said that she had eaten them for years.

Hell, I thought that they were poison and..like a rambling idiot, I tried to tell her so.
..
Like a... she was standing there ..alive and kicking??... after just telling me that she had eaten them all her life?? ((duhhhh ..takes a bit to sink into the blond head)
Anyway.. we tasted them and by golly they were good.

You just wash them and scrub them real good and then slice them thin and dip in egg and flour and fry.. just like you do squash.  Mark always liked sugar sprinkled on his but I like my plain. I have cooked them several times..usually when we have company...just to hear them try to tell me that they are poison for humans to eat..

[Joanna]

HA! Yet, much like fried squash and bull fries, if I don't like it, I don't care if it's not poison... I'm not gonna eat it!  HA!

[Wilma]

I have to be with you on this one, Joanna.  At my age I don't have to eat anything I dont like.