Birds Up Inland Game Birds

After waking up this morning, off to hunt, worked the draw again to pick up 3, I said 3 sliders. Giving that him and his girlfriend were looking to harvest a few birds, I took the left side (high stomp ground) and moved on.

First one I kicked up, I shouted "bird in the air" , and nothing....

It flew right, and nothing, so I turned my left side shoot ask around and followed through, with respect to their air space. Waited..... Nothing ...... So I blasted a ask shoot as it was leaving my range.... He followed up a shoot some 5-10 seconds later, I was wondering what he was shooting at?

That was the first slider..... Two more would follow before we finished my suggestion of working the draw.

I like working draws when hunting inland game birds, they have shelter, food, and water.

So we chased a ghost bird that he thought he shot, well maybe not, critters not killed tend to scramble off and hide.

Rolling my eyes, thinking what? I headed to another finger looking for a lift off by myself.

I kicked it around, finished the drive, and sat at the top end drinking some water. I had to go number one, and so started to do so, when one lifted just behind me...

I had my gun in my hand while my rifle was beside me, I don't think pee could kill a game bird. At that moment, I beg to differ......

I was able to harvest another ring neck, while my gun was put away...

I didn't bag my limit today, but I learned hunting with city slickers that don't care isn't a good hunting practice.

Yes, I have since washed my hand, and it is clean..

Smoker Is Built!!

I finished the cold smoker today, and I think its safe to say... LET THE SMOKING BEGIN!!!

So what do people smoke that makes a cold smoker so important?

The first answer would be jerky.... It is what it is, tough cured meat to naw on.

The second answer would be bacon/sausage, pork (check) beef, deer, turkey, and veggies.

The third would be turkey and chicken.

The forth answer can be one of many of the following;

Beef sticks
Summer sausage
Brauts
Bologna
Sausage
Blind Robbins
Smelt
Hillbilly Treats
Salmon


It depends, but all are good for smoking....

SS Fund Doing Good, Scouting For Food

I found a hickory nut recipe for rolls and bread. Personally I think they taste better than walnuts. I know their harder to crack, and the reward is much less than big ole walnuts, but they taste way less bitter.

I set my turkey blind up, so I spent some time inside with my call last night. But I had no luck calling in a Jake or a Tom, I didn't even get a response back. I set it in a area where I have seen turkeys pass through. Perhaps it isn't the right time or none were around. I'll keep trying....

Oh.... I have some photos to share when I get some time to edit them today.

My ss fund is up $504.00 now, with people using my log splitter @ $25 a day and my egg sales doing good, I am hoping by spring it will be over 1k. I continue to feed the chickens from my ss fund as well as purchasing some other goods to eat. I am going to set my garlic in the ground this week to grow over winter.

I also have permission to small game hunt yet in another area I look forward to the walking as I have been some what lazy this year due to all the summertime rain.

The deer population is up very high this year, so I look forward to harvesting at least four w/ DS getting his hunting tags this year. I have trail cameras out and will share some pics of those as well.
Let me see.... Theres one, two, three and four.. Yup hes a taker.

I see roast, steak and sausage.....

Hunting And More Free Food From Foraging

What I failed to mention is hunting small game, that's the trade.

I can hunt small game, field fowl/rabbits if I leave the hens alone to retire, rather than let them lay for a year and harvest them.

Before I get on bragging about my big ole nuts, I do like DW thoughts of harvesting a free range turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. This hunting thing, it is what it is, has been a battle between DW and I for some years.

I'd be a sucker if I said she wasn't coming around. But I also have to give up some chicken/dumplings, that does seem fair.







Free hickory nuts I gathered

Free Food!!! Yippy!!!

Tommy, bless his heart loves fungi. I do share his interest, but my house smells like dirty socks. Why? Because I am putting a couple pounds away, which will mount to ounces once their dried.


Sheepshead found growing on oak

Getting Ready For Old Man Winter

I have one more weekend of canning to do and I will be done for the year as far as canning goes. I still have dry goods to put up, still trying to work out some new ideas as for what other goods I can dry and store for the winter this year.

I have plowed and tilled the garden last weekend and purchased a bushel of winter rye which I planted yeterday for a green compost for next year.

I am hoping for at least two straight weeks of below 32F to kill the blight that robbed me of some of my foodstores this year. I bleached all my mater stakes prior to storing them.

As for firewood, I have to still fall a cherry tree that is in a very dangerous location near my house. It was struck by lighting last year and didn't make it this year. But I have cut and split almost 9 cords, just about half way there.

Again I will mention that I am spltting two extra cords this year in fear of a cold winter coming with the summer weather being so strange this year. A friend of mine says he expects this to be a cold, wet, and lots of snow this year.

Natural gas prices are 50% less today than they were this time last year, but keeping with my ss journey I still plan to burn wood as primary source for heat. I still have some coal left that I use to bank the fire off at night. I am not sure if I will use it this year or pay the cost of heating with gas.

I get my coal a a local strip mine it cost $65 a ton if I haul it. A ton will last me 6 weeks if used every night.

Trying To Save My Crops

I did my best to treat my taters from the blight, the fungus spread quicker than any one expected. I have 100 pounds this year from all four baskets.

And it is what it is, a sad state for crops.

I am just about to give up on my pumpkins, but holding out to let the plants die.

My onions are smaller due to all the wet weather and lack of hot days this year, and I just finished canning blackberry jam.

One freezer is filled with green beans, corn, wax beans, carrots I didn't think would store well, squash, egg plant, peppers, and bell peppers. They bells I didn't stuff, I dried for soups and put into my cellar. I am pleased with the amount of berries I was able to freeze this year.

I have cleaned my generator and its ready to use if needed. I have 5 of 16 cords of wood split and stacked on pallets, I'll get hot and heavy on it when the weather is more cool.

The pool only got used a dozen or so times this year, due to the cool weather, I'll winterize it next week.

Putting Food Up

Its been a while since a true update on supplies I have been putting up.

Corns in, carrots in, peas in, green beans are done, Thanks to ladies stockings, the onions are good to go.

I made a fresh sandbox for the carrots to winter store them.

I have dry packed shrooms, bells, and onions, for winter soups and food. This year I also made some fruit leather, it was rather sticky when chewed.

I did harvest a small batch of cukes, so I only canned 7 pints of pickles this year.

Its time for me to harvest my taters, well what I was able to save after the blight hit.

I still have some more canning to get done, and it will be a few more weeks before I will be happy enough to share with you folks some photos.

The weather has been cool, its been a strange year. All my brambles are doing great, with such a cool/wet summer, I fear a very cold winter is coming. So I am going to cut and stack two extra cords of wood just in case.

Garden Worries

Hi folks... I hope you have been busy in your garden, as I have been to save my potato plants from the blight. Everyday I have been washing my plants, hoping to have a crop of my own. I planted my taters on the down wind side of the hill in order to control the flow. I planted one basket on the up sweep side, which was killed by the late frost in spring.

The rainy season has stumped my onions, their now drying, little buggers as they are. I harvested maybe 18 pounds of shallots But the summer squash/zucs are dead as soon as they grow.

My cuke plants went yellow, no hope of pickles. The Garlic rotted in the ground, tops were gone, couldn't even find them.

My berry crop was really good this year, I plan to barter some of my jam for other things I need. I have a total of 24 pints I can spare, outside of what my family consumes.

I can't trade with the Amish, I look to sell my pints at a show. I can use that money to buy pickles or cukes to pickle myself without digging to deep into my ss fund.

I also processed those tomatoes already to make sauce and now know I need even more to get through the winter.

So it has been a ss nightmare to say the least. But presented with these challenges it inspires me to deal with it and find a way to work through hard times. If I can sell my jam, that would be good. I still am selling my eggs for $2 a dozen, that is adding to my ss fund. Above feeding, its about $1 a dozen profit.

Caught In The Hail

Well after being pelted by hail this afternoon, I ran into the woods to find safe cover. Arms covered with red dots, one on my ear, and little sore spots on my head. I shaded my eyes for protection and headed for the largest near by tree around. As it became heavy I was looking for something to put over my head and saw a piece of bark that would at least help. So made a mad dash, fell on the now wet leaves, pick myself up while being pelted yet even more by falling pieces of ice, now the size of small marbles. I grabbed the bark, ran carefully back to my cover, only to have my fingers hit a few times while holding the bark over my head for protection.

The clouds moved rather quickly in, and I had went up to spray my taters with an anti fungus spray. I heard one crack of thunder, within a minute large rain started mixed with the hail. I was closer to the woods than any out building or structure, I heard the hail hit the pond before it hit me, thats when I looked and saw it was hailing, thats when I dropped the sprayer and just headed for the woods.

It continued to hail for what seemed like a long time, maybe five minutes. I dropped down at the base of the tree and covered as much of my body as I could. Looking out I could see green leaves falling from being struck by hail, and the pieces hitting me were being slowed down by the leaves/branches overhead. One that hit the top of my foot didn't hit anything before it hit me, wow did it hurt. Its now black and blue.

As the rain continued, very heavy, big drops, I made my way to the back porch for safety, still carrying the bark over my head, it might have been 10 inches wide maybe 16 inches long. The water was rushing down the mountain and I had to cross one storm made stream, than I fell again as the earth was just washed out from under my feet. My bark broke, I threw it, and looked up at the sky while the rain smacked me in the face. What else could I do? Muddy on the front, soaked clean through to my underwear, muddy on the back now, miffed, I just had to laugh at myself.

While sitting there in the muddy water, dirt was filling in my shorts (both pairs), I got up on the side I was trying to get to, and made the last 40 feet back to the porch without falling or being pelted again by hail. The hail covered the area and made it slippery to walk over, the road was covered in smashed hail.

I rinsed off with the garden hose, stripped down as much as I could, came in and took a shower. While taking my shower the sun came back out. Talk about wrong place at the wrong time...

The Blight 2009

When I returned home this morning, I went straight to the garden to check on my tomato plants. All my heirlooms are dead from the blight, the only ones living are the two GM tomato plants that were given to me. Not only does it kill the plant, but it works its way into the fruit and causes the fruit to rot vine on. I call my local extension office about canning the green fruit, they said not to because it will spoil anyway.

I have 12 huge organic raised plants, they are loaded more this year than I have ever grown tomatoes ever. I am going say they are 4-5 feet tall and 3 feet around. Nice big fruits, maybe 150 pounds give or take 20 pounds.

I made a call to my Uncle at work today, he said his are dead too. I called a local farmers market to find out who locally has tomatoes for sale in bulk. I called Tom down at the mill who gave me a local guys number who sprayed his plants prior and during this blight spreading. So I called him, his wife said they have bushels of ripe tomatoes that are still on the plant. When I asked how organic they were, she said the are treated with a organic anti-fungi spray, but no pesticides have been used on them. When I asked cost per bushel, she said as many as I could put in a bushel, heaping, but I'd have to pick my own, $20 a bushel.

So I looked up the spray they used, than I went in at checked the one I had on hand that was organic. Its the same product, I treated my plants with this when I first heard about this blight. Perhaps they were already infected, because my efforts seemed to be in vein. I treated them with the chemical stuff last week, hoping to have saved the remainder of my crop. But their dead now....

As you might understand how sad this makes me feel inside, I take great pride in providing food for my family as organic as I can. Living as SS as I can, theres another side of this.

If I were living in the 1800-1900's this blight came along, I would have no winter tomato food stores. We would be SOL back then. Giving that tomatoes make up I would guess over 40% of our canned food, sauces, ketchup, stewed, salsa, and a few other items. There would be less food for winter.

I will have to use some of my funds from my SS fund to pay for the purchase of tomatoes. Which now just pushes my fence project even further into the pipeline dream of getting it done.

Before everyone starts to understand the impact of this blight, I am going to get moving forward on getting those bushels ASAP..

We Have Eggs!!!

They have been up to good since three days ago. I found ten eggs today, checked their combs three days ago, felt like a couple were ready to go. But thought about age.... I missed this one.....

As with all young chickens, the eggs will get better, but another step towards being SS has been rewarded.