Laurel Ridge Farm

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Cooking Wild Game

I've been a bit housebound since my wife had a knee replacement recently. You may have noticed that the posts have been mostly from internet browsing. Well, it was nice and sunny yesterday so we went out for a drive to Hueston Woods State Park. Nice.

Recently, I saw this article about millennials taking up hunting due to interest in controlling what they eat (an extension of farm to table). Thought it was interesting.

NYT Millennial Hunters

From it I got the link to their blog about cooking what you harvest.

Hunter-Chef Blog from NYT Article

I also saw this article along the same lines in the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ Hipster Hunters

These articles got me interested in the whole field to table thing and I started googling. I've read Steve Rinella books (enjoyable) so I found/recognized his blog. There are many other blogs. There's a whole Paleo Diet thing out there which is a rabbit hole I chose not to enter. But here's a few of the hunting/foraging/cooking blogs that I found. More recipes than I will get to anytime soon.

Hunter-Chef Hank Shaw

Steve Rinella Meat Eater Blog

Hunter-Chef Blogs

Wild Food Blog

Deerslayers Wife

Mountain Camp Girl

From Field to Plate

Field and Stream - Wild Chef

Nevada Foodies

The Sporting Chef

All that inspired me to make some elk chili - that's about as exotic as I get.

It's in the slow cooker now.

Here are some more wildlife news articles for your interest/enjoyment:

More Detail on Man vs Mountain Lion

Baby Elephant vs Old Lioness

Poacher Kingpin Gets Off

WSJ on Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Items of Interest

There were several items of news from the ODNR:

ODNR Huge Poacher Case

The ODNR also recently successfully prosecuted another poaching case.

$27,000 Buck Poaching Fine

Also from the ODNR, the final numbers are in for the 2018/19 deer season. Total harvest for all seasons was down by about 14,000 deer. We did our share to reduce the harvest this year.

Deer Season Total Harvest Press Release

On a different subject, I previously posted a NYT article about sheep hunting and one of the guys featured in it was Jason Hairston. He is the founder of the hunting clothing company KUIU. Anyway, the NYT wrote another story on him after he recently committed suicide. It appears that he had been affected by the brain disease CTE as a result of playing football - same disease as in the movie "Concussion" starring Will Smith. Here's the latest article.

NYT on Jason Hairston

I also recently got an advertising email from the company and it included this link to a video of his last hunt - it happened to be in the Yukon with Donald Trump Jr. It's a 23 minute video but it really captures the essence of what sheep hunting is about.

Jason Hairston Alaska Hunt Video

And this series of news articles must be the reason that I am not a jogger. These articles got me looking at fatal animal encounters in general. Check out the brown bear (grizzlies) in the Wikipedia list for this decade. There aren't very many of these critters but...

Colorado Runner Chokes Mountain Lion

Coyotes Attacks on Joggers

Black Bear Attacks Jogger

Moose Attacks Jogger

Killed by Wolf While Jogging

Repeat Elk Attacks

Bison Attack at Yellowstone

Alligator Attacks on Humans

List of Fatal Bear Attacks

Sunday, February 3, 2019

For the Nature Geeks

One of the blogs that I have stumbled across is about a Wisconsin farm where the owners have been working to restore native habitat (for 20 years). This is their website where they describe what they are up to Prairie Haven

Anyway, I found this video/slideshow of their photography thru the seasons Prairie Haven Slideshow 2018 It is 16 minutes long but, if you enjoy nature, it is enjoyable. The soundtrack is the birds and sounds that happen there. It's a beautiful piece of property.

This is my other favorite prairie blog The Prairie Ecologist

And, I'm not much for Facebook but this page Naturalist Notebook Facebook has weekly community submitted nature photos (heavy on the birds). Anyway, there are some great photos every week. I followed them in Facebook and those galleries just show up in my feed when posted.

Hopefully there is some relief from "Cabin Fever" above for those of us who have been experiencing the polar vortex.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

It Is Winter

We had single digits this week, then up to the 40's, then back to the teens. I wasn't expecting much activity on the cameras. The shot counts were way down.

I expected more movement on the warmer days. This is 46F.

A button buck at 39F.

A girl party at 38F.

37F

24F

23F

19F

15F

Now we're getting hearty - 10F.

Some moving at 5F.

5F.

I always see a lot of in and out traffic here.

So I followed the trail in.

Found a couple beds on this knob.

I suspect this pricker and honeysuckle tangle nearby is a buck bedding area.

Still turnips in the field but it would be like eating rocks at this temperature.

Surprising amount of rubbing activity still going on.

I thought that they'd be over it by now.

Oh the joys of trail maintenance.

Looking for a place to have a 300 yard range. Most places with 300 yard line of sight don't have any backstop. This is a possibility.

Had the power company out to fix the yard light. It's been fading on and off for a couple years. Looks like they gave me a new one. I'm not sure why I expected more than wire nuts for the installation.