The Wild Boar Hunt..... Taking Some To Share

There have been a handful of people in my life that, with time and life, have slipped away from. Chris was one of those people that has and I regret this, but such is life..

Chris and I have done a lot of big things together, big game fishing, Elk, Boar, Deer hunting. Although he is a better salt water fishermen than me, I can slay 2-3 large mouth bass to his one. One year we made it to AAA fishing circuit and had two sponsors. 

We got up early in the morning, back then we had pagers, and he had paged me ready to go and head to our final destination.. South Carolina

We had taken some personal time off work, we worked at the same company, and we were known to hangout outside of work...

He had told me of a spot down there where his cousin had hunted a year before, and at the time it was a $800 Boar hunt and we paid for lodging and meals. We were promised each a hog to bring home... I packed the video camera and off we went...

I was so excited, and we were talking about the "what if's" as young men do... Adding a lot of dreams in it and it created some very interesting conversations... We got there and we needed to attend a short two hour class to understand about hunting Boar and working with dogs... Next day we go on the hunt....

Drawing straws, he got to hunt first and kill the first hog while I filmed it.... Within 15 minutes the dogs had a hog chased under a downed tree... The guide told Chris he could jump on top to scare the hog out, and made him aware of our locations and shoot only when he was sure.. So he climbs up does a couple of bounces on the trunk, and out came the hog..

To me, filming it, it was like I was watching it and not thinking about that thing headed my direction... But so it came, and it was so fast, by the time I realized what was going on, the Boar plowed right into me and knocked my on my arse... Camera went rolling and all.... I jumped up knowing that the day before Boars have been known to charge at people... I got up, scared, grabbed the camera to keep filming... Chris didn't kill that hog, but he spent years telling the story on how I got attacked by a Wild Boar....

We both did, in the end get hog meat to bring home.... 

Raw Milk Turns Into Many Homestead Products

As I sit here this evening, while the cool fall air swirls around the trees to pull off the dead leaves and floats them to the ground, today was a good productive day.

You might remember the other night I went to a secret location and got some raw, right from the cow, milk. Now before you start posting your thoughts of how bad raw milk is for you, I will not listen to your nonsense. Your wasting your time preaching to me about all the things bad with raw milk, and if I wanted to waste my time I would combat and debate the issue with you. But I am not going to do that.

As I used a method taught to me by my Mom, I had confirmed the technique of separating the cream from the top of the milk. So out of the milk I got I ended up with enough cream to make nearly three pounds of butter. You see I dodged that "how much cream did you get" bullet? I didn't measure my cream as I should have because I forgot to and just moved into butter production first thing this morning.

So, I know your ready to get into the whole butter production, but I wanted to let you know in my useful gadgets I have a Mixer Stand like the one I used to make my own butter. One of these days I am going to blog a list of stuff I make with my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

So I started out by allowing my cream sit overnight and then just chilled it a couple hours. I added some into the stand mixing bowl, and kept adding until the mixer was going on high and I always make a foil bonnet around it to keep it full.

 So as it starts to churn, it will thicken up and the milk and as you can see in the photo below, the level of milk has dropped compared to the one above. Generally I just keep adding cream until I get enough where I know my machine can handle the butter.

So by adding foil around the edge, tucking it in, I can fill my mixer up pretty full without spreading milk all over the kitchen.

Taking a peek in, can you see the noticeable change it texture and color?

Well it won't be long until my butter starts to clump and balls together. When it is at this point it is time to take it out and strain it.

Now it is time to start cutting the butter, if you don't cut it, it will become rancid very soon and you have wasted all your cream, time and effort. Cutting the butter with a pastry cutter and cold water will clean out all the residue milk that has been collected during butter making process. Ice cold water added, than cut it for a couple minutes, strain add new cold water, and repeat until your butter cuts clean in water. I use 1/2 cup cold water during my first cut and mix that with my buttermilk. The remainder several batches after the first one I toss out.

This is my last cut, clearly from the first photo you can see the water color get much clearer.

Now I will strain the butter one last time and begin to press it into containers for long term storage. Notice the water coming out?

Don't be afraid to poke your fingers down into the butter to remove the air pockets and the water will also continue to come out. Now it is time to smooth it out for long term storage...

Some advice, never share your source for raw milk by bragging about it, share with people you know if the farmer allows it. Make sure to visit your farmer and make sure they are a clean milker. If your lucky as I am, mine doesn't use hormones and mine grazers and produce organic milk for the market.

So tomorrow for breakfast I will have homemade buttermilk (made from my by product from butter production) pancakes with my homemade butter covered in my homemade maple syrup.... I feel pretty proud to say all those homemade words in one sentence....

Getting Ready For The Deer Hunt After The Holidays, More meat!

To my disappointment this year, I have been to busy to go hunting outside a couple hours the first day. I have hired seasonal help, but the hunting season escaped me. I have plenty of local beef, pork and chicken, but I have to get these $35 dollars worth of dog tags filled. I love black powder hunting, it fills my "Jeremiah Johnston" side and gives me that good ole feeling of living off the land.

There is a male squirrel who is going to be in my fry pan before to long. He has been clawing on my mushroom logs at the top. He will be deep fried and ate with some greens.

Sugar season is coming up soon, about 8-12 weeks from now. Working on my rain barrel system next month and looking forward to sap gathering this year all on my own. Joshua is looking forward to it as much as I am, a great time spending time together creating memories of living off the land. If there is one seed I am sure I planted with my son on living off the land, it is maple syrup making. 

Planting Some Good Eats On Your Property, Make A Statement.

Let say first, that I am not a total Non-GMO organic farmer. When it comes to some items, like blackberries, I find the GMO types to be just fine. They taste fine, and serve the needs that I use them for. Now I won't change my veggie seeds that are heirloom and non-gmo seeds that I have bought, traded or gathered. I don't remove folks post on my blog, because you have your opinion and I respect that, so be sure to honor me with the same respect.

Darker the berry, the sweeter the juice..... So I am going to start out by telling you about my personal A+ choice for a neat property line, or hedge row of your own. The most, best producing blackberries I have ever grown have been the Darrow Blackberries. yes they do cost a little more, but trust me when I say that the rewards are plenty and you will enjoy picking berries without the thorns. I like my Chicksaw blackberries as well, and they have some mean thorns....

The blossoms are nice to see, and the fruits are HUGE and living in zone 5 the Darrow proves to be a steady prducer of high quality fruit.

I also suggest this berry for my city dwellers and senior folks who just don't went to give blood every time the go berry picking. Even if you plant these in different areas of your property, 5 plants will produce enough berries for a family of four.

I like to saute them in a little stevia  and pour them over my buckwheat pan cakes, I will also add a little butter as well. I like maple syrup, but I also like fruit.

Maple Syrup Making: How To Video, Another Self Sufficient Skill Accomplished

This year, with the unseasonal warm temperatures, maple syrup making time is cut short. I am not complaining at all, and grateful to see brown/green ground and feel the warmer air around me. Even some of the 600 plus bulbs I planted last fall are coming up, at least the ones the moles haven't eaten. However I am quick to remind myself that flowers bloom at different times and kept the rule in my mind while planting to ensure a beautiful spring.

I had spent a few days over the last couple weeks with Tom Sr. while he was syrup making. He seems to be less stressful when he's not around certain people or has had some rest. Either way, I was so happy to spend some time with an elder learning the self sufficient skills by passing it down. I felt like I was spending time with my own Grandpa learning the skills. It brought me to a different place.

A place that I created in my mind, a place where I am learning the life skills of being self sufficient from the elders of my own family. Its a sad reminder of the loss of people in my life, but life is what it is, and it made me feel good inside to be there doing it with Tom. If I took other peoples lives for granted while they were alive, I am sure I would feel guilty. Karma taught me many years ago to live/love for today, not hoping for tomorrow. The feelings of spending time together brought me some really good, much needed kinship. I suppose we humans, the ones searching to live self sufficient, search/look to elders for knowledge. I can see this idea in many Indian tribes and history that I have read about them.

So gathering sap, boiling it, adding more sap while boiling it, until you run out of sap and end up with a syrup in your pan. Filtering is a small issue to consider when taking this on, but common sense goes a long ways. The more sap you can boil, or larger batch you can do, the less filtering you have to do. I did a quart jar of fines, what is fines? Fines is a term Tom uses to describe the final end product of syrup that contains all the really fine particles that he isn't willing to figure out how to remove, and they are super fine.

So, if you have ten minutes to spend with me and watch my video, it won't be ten minutes wasted. I hope that you learn something about syrup making and enjoy the video.

If you remember it was just a few years ago when I attended a how to class sponsored by the state on making maple syrup. Now I have 7 pints of of syrup to last me till next year.