It's The End of the World As We Know It . . .

. . . and I feel fine.

Does anyone know - was the world supposed to be kaput by the time we all woke up this morning or do we all have to awkwardly wait around for the end today ala Seeking A Friend for the End of the World? If the world happens to not ex/implode before midnight, does that mean we'll be living in a post-apocalyptic world for now on?

Since this is the third time (I think) in less than two years that the world was supposed to end, I'm developing a rather flippant attitude towards the impending doom. I'm sure you are too. Admit it. And honestly, I think anyone who survived the Y2K boondoggle is apt to apply a grain of salt to any forecast of doom and gloom. (I'm not sure how we'll be explaining the Y2K hysteria to our grandchildren. "Well kids, lots of people were really worried that the world would end because the computer chips in our coffee makers might not work. Oh humanity!)

I was talking about the apocalypse du jour with my dental hygienist last week (because that's the sort of thing you talk about with dental hygienist . . . am I right?) and she pointed out that she doubted the world would end today because she still had an unpaid credit card bill. Well played! I have a feeling that fate is not so kind that I'm going to escape my current holiday credit card bill. Ah well, better to pay up and face another day than to have both bill and myself obliterated. Besides, if I really thought the world was ending today, I wouldn't have gone to the dentist's! ;)

There is one thing that I know for sure about today: it's the winter solstice and the official start of winter. Hooray for days getting ever so gradually longer!

Not only was yesterday the last official day of autumn, it also marked the end of deer season at the cabin. At long last, all the venison from this year's deer has been processed and/or turned into sausage. Tonight we'll package up the last batch of sausage, squeeze it into the very full chest freezer and then we are done! *excitement!*

Usually we just make bulk sausage (Italian, wild rice, etc.) that can be used in lasagnas, egg bakes, etc. But because we had so much sausage meat this year, not to mention a snazzy new meat grinder, we actually tried our hands at stuffing sausage into casings. The process requires some patience, but really, we made a massive batch of potato sausage (tres Scandinavian, yah) in short order last night.

 

Here's an approximate breakdown of what our deer turned into this year:

20 pounds potato sausage
21 pounds wild rice sausage
16 pounds Italian sausage
6 pounds Chorizo
8 pounds breakfast sausage
Assorted cuts: roasts, round steak, ribs, sirloin

Hmmm, I wonder what everyone's getting for Christmas . . . .


 

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What December Will Bring

Oh hey there December and holiday season! While it's been pretty obvious for a while that the year has been wrapping itself up, I'm always surprised when we reach the sunset of another year. It's always like, "Christmas? Again?!"

For whatever reason, this year I've heard a bit about the concept of  passive income. You know, like when you own a rental house. Although I generally give passive income the side-eye since passive income is dependent on having the necessary capital to purchase something that would actually generate money, it's hard to dislike the idea.

Right now, we're in the best financial state we ever been in since reaching adulthood, but that is the result of a lot (a lot) of active income. November and April are normally tied for "blah-est" months in the North woods, but last month was a whirlwind of to-do lists and special projects. While the layout of my days are quite different now that I'm done with the full time, out of the house job for the season, last month I was surprised to find that I don't really have any more free time now that I'm working for home. So if  November was any indicator, this month will not be a gentle and quiet end to 2012.

Here's what's on the docket for December 2012:

• Write a bunch of freelance articles. Hmmm, may have said "yes" to a few too many assignments this months.  
• Interviews. So many interviews for my radio documentary project. Followed by transcribing. So much transcribing. 
• Other contracted work. Oh yeah, that. 
• Finish making this year's batch of venison sausage. We had a bit of meat grinder drama-drama last month that delayed this process -aka, the first meat grinder we bought was totally and absolutely defective. Now we're the proud owners of a 1/2 horsepower Cabela's meat grinder which runs like a champ. We've made 16 lbs of venison sausage this week and will be making some wild rice sausage and chorizo very soon.

• Let the Etsy shop simmer for the month and focus my crafty/knitty energy on finishing up some personal knitting projects, including piecing together this lovely Aran knit afghan. I only knit four of these squares (the dark green ones), the rest were made by the crafting group for a recently married crafter.

• Spend quality time with friends and family who I haven't seen for far too long. While the pounding pavement that accompanies the holiday season can make me weary, I really do look forward to the opportunity to re-connect with some of my favorite people. 
• Find the perfect Christmas tree. Last year's tree was pretty darn perfect, so we'll see how we do. 
• Christmas baking, Christmas cards, wrapping presents, White Elephant gifts, oh my! 

 What are your plans this December? What are you looking forward to this holiday season?

 

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A Post With Dead Animal Pictures

Not interested in a blog post which features dead animal pictures? Maybe don't read this post, mm-kay. Not that the pictures below are particularly horrifying or gory, but I'll understand if dead animal pictures aren't really your style. Heck, they're not exactly my style either, yet here they are, nonetheless.

This is the story of how Andy's six point buck turned into a rather hefty eight point buck yesterday afternoon. (No, not by magic.) A couple days back, Andy predicted that if Obama won the election that he would shot the biggest buck ever on Wednesday. This evoked a "Uh-huh, sure," from me, but after a pretty incredible election night which reaffirmed my faith in Minnesota, I started to wonder if he might be right.

It should be noted that both Andy and I are getting over mild colds. In fact, I did not step outside of the cabin once on Tuesday and instead spent most of the day on the couch watching Judd Apatow movies while suffering my way through the sneezing, constantly blowing your nose stage of a cold and waiting for election results to come in. After staying up to listen to Romney's concession speech, I fell into a Nyquil induced slumber and woke up with a start on Wednesday morning, anxious to hear how the two proposed amendments to the Minnesota constitution had fared.

After making some victory waffles, I decided I should probably get some fresh air, so I decided to go for a hike with Andy. We tromped around in the woods near the cabin for about an hour and a half, casually looking for deer. We were nearly back to the truck and I was starting to feel a little eleven o'clockish, so I was less than thrilled when Andy announced a "short little detour" down a swampy section of powerline.

We'd walked maybe 30 seconds down the powerline when I saw rather large buck ambling around about 100 yards from Andy.

"Andy," I hissed. "That has a huge rack."

Andy had to slosh about a bit to find a place where he could rest his rifle and I stood stock still in the swamp for about five minutes until Andy could shoot.

Here's a tip for you. If you have a head cold, dragging a 200+ pound deer several hundred yards through a swamp, may not be the best activity for you. I'd always heard Andy complain about dragging out deer, but knowing that dragging out a deer is hard and actually experiencing dragging a deer out of the woods are two very different things. By the time the picture below was taken, I was pretty sure I was dying.

Happily, when we got to the truck (an hour and a half later . . . .ooooo, so very hungry and thirsty by then), a guy from the local electric co-op stopped and helped us get the deer into the back of the pick-up. Still, my fine motor skills were pretty fried for the rest of the day. I was dropping all sorts of things in the kitchen yesterday night! 

Suddenly we have a much bigger butchering job on our hands. Luckily the new meat grinder shipped out today and I was able to pick up some pork shoulder locally because we have a lot (a lot!) of sausage making ahead of us. It's safe to say that deer season is officially over at Of Woods and Words and that we will not be going hungry this winter. (We are sharing all this venison.)

My friend Sarah and I were laughing yesterday night about how much my life has changed in the last four years or so. If you'd told me that one day I'd be helping hunt deer and be concerned about Boone and Crockett scores, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, and you know, here really isn't a bad place to be. 
 

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Hunting and Trapping in the 21st Century

Minnesota's firearms deer season opened on Saturday morning. The deer season at Of Woods and Words came to an unceremonious end on Sunday morning.

Andy was home with a six -oint buck in the back of his truck before noon on Sunday. Bada bing, bada boom. 

In the past, the deer season's been a bit more climatic. In other years, Andy hasn't shot a deer until the second weekend of the season, so there's been more time for tension and anticipation to build as we ponder  the questions: will he even see a deer this season? Will he get one? This year, the answers to those questions came in very quick succession.

Apparently those endless hours of scouting, sighting in rifles and figuring out just where to set up the deer stand paid off. It feels like each season Andy approaches the deer season with more seriousness; this year he actually took off the entire first week of the season from work so he could devote his all energies to hunting. Of course, luck has a fair amount to do with any hunter's success, but the fact there seem to be deer running all over the place this autumn certainly was a factor in the speedy close to this year's deer season.

I'm happy to know that we'll have a full freezer of venison this winter. Over the last couple winters, I've gotten accustomed to have a stockpile of this lean protein to stretch out the food budget. Of course, if you figure in the expense of Andy's new rifle, scope and various other deer hunting accessories purchased over the last month, this venison has a pretty expensive cost per pound! But since I do the vast majority of the grocery shopping, I'll just consider a freezer full of venison a major windfall. ;)

Anyone who eats meat really should consider that their meal came from an animal that at one time was living and breathing just like them. But in this world of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, it's easy to distance ourselves from what we're actually eating. One thing I've grown to appreciate about hunting is that it allows us to become very well-acquainted with our food. You don't take dinner for granted after you've spent countless hours butchering a deer, let me tell you. I'm glad that Andy's hunting hobby not only keeps him happy, but also keeps us eating local, nutritional meat most of the year.

Hunting's been a bit of a hot button issue in Minnesota this year since the Department of Natural Resources introduced the first ever Minnesota wolf hunting. The wolf firearm season runs in concert with this year's firearms deer season and there will also be wolf trapping season later on. I'm not apathetic to wolf hunting in Minnesota, but I do feel fairly neutral on the issue.

While I certainly think the Minnesota wolf population can sustain a hunt, I worry that a wolf hunt panders to the scare tactics we were taught from Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. I'm sure a wolf coat is mighty warm and would make a fantastically cozy fur ruff, but it seems so wasteful to end another life just for fur. To me, hunting only make sense if we're truly using it for subsistence and I have a hard time fitting wolf hunting into any idea of subsistence in the 21st century. 

Taking other animals' lives will always be a complicated business; one that we need to consider carefully and not do lightly. While I'm not morally opposed to hunting or trapping, I was pretty sad about the disappearance of my two beaver friends, who had been busily building a dam and lodge in a low spot that I passed every day on my way to work.

I'm pretty sure a local trapper got both beavers a couple weeks ago. The beavers hadn't exactly chosen a great place to winter and the water was so shallow in this spot, they likely would have had a very chilly winter. Perhaps the trapper ended up saving the beavers from a miserable winter and he certainly saved a lot of the young trees in the area, which the beavers had been harvesting like mad. But I'll miss watching those beavers busily working away in their little corner of the earth. They seemed like such friendly little beasts and there's something nice about passing some other critters who were hard at work while I was heading off to my own job. I know there are more than enough beavers in this corner of the world - it's just that I was particularly fond of these particular beavers. 

I'm not really sure where I'm going for this post. Maybe I'm just trying to point out that hunting and trapping brings out all sorts of feelings in me. I'm thrilled that hunting allows us to eat locally and I'm glad that hunting seasons help keep animal populations in check. I'm sad to think that some people may hunt an animal (*cough* wolves *cough*) because they fear and/or hate it. And it's hard when animals you grew fond of disappear because of hunting or trapping.

Perhaps all these conflicting thoughts and feelings boil down to this: hunting and trapping are okay by me, but please remember to take only what you truly need from this earth.

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The Truth About Deer Season

Life is full of surprises. If, just a few years back, you'd told me that deer season would be a pivotal moment in my life each autumn, I would have laughed you out of town.

But life with Andy means life with deer season and I think I've transitioned into my role as deer season widow rather seamlessly. I've learned to like venison. I've learned to make a mean sausage.

But I'm still learning. The take away lesson from Deer Season 2012 to date is that deer season doesn't really start on the date determined by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. (Which, for the record, the firearms deer season begins on November 3 this year and goes until sunset on November 18.) No, deer season actually starts on some arbitrary date in early October.

And that makes some of the cabin inhabitants very happy indeed. 

 

A couple weeks back, Andy proposed a spontaneous overnight trip down to "the big city" to "get away for a little while." Our night "out on the town" ended with us sitting in our hotel room, eating potato chips and ice cream purchased from a gas station because we were both too exhausted to actually go out. By early the next morning it was apparent that Andy's true motivation for the trip wasn't really fun and games. Nope, the trip was strictly business. He wanted to pick up a new rifle and scope in time for deer season. (See above).

  

I really had no idea what happens when your significant other buys a new deer rifle. 

Here's what happens:

Suddenly your significant other starts picking you up from work all the time. But instead of heading home, you end up in a gravel pit or a shooting range so he can sight in his rifle - aka shoot the gun a gazillion times, while making minor adjustments to his scope to make sure the rifle shoots accurately. Your job? Using your keen eyesight and the spotting scope (at left in picture above) to tell him where he hit the target after each shot. This continues until it's nearly dark and the smiles of the picture below are distant memories.

Once the rifle is sighted in, you'll breathe a sigh of relief. . . only to realize that it's time to start scouting for deer season. This means your significant other still picks you up at work, but this time you get to crash through the dense forest until twilight, following skinny little deer paths, watching for buck signs such as scrapes and rubs, all while you're still wearing your work shoes.

Each evening, about 9 p.m., your significant other will announce that it's time for a "deer drive." These exploits usually take .5 - 1 hours and involve driving slowly down the road, watching for wildlife along the shoulders. You'll see foxes, bunnies, even a raccoon, and plenty of deer, and every time you see a buck during one of these drives, your significant other will be so excited that he'll chatter incessantly until you've both stayed up way too late. 

Oh, does it sound like I'm complaining? 

While I'd be lying if I said deer hunting didn't try my patience at times, I'm not so selfish that I don't see the value of Andy wanting to share one of his favorite times of the year with me. There may be times when my eyes glaze over when he goes on (and on) about rifle and scope characteristics. There are most definitely times when I wish I had more appropriate footwear on. But the truth about deer season is that I don't mind that much. There's a gentle lulling quality to our deer drives together and I'm happy to support Andy in his excitement and ambition this time of year.

Life is full of lessons and surprises.And I'm still busy relearning October and November as the partner of a deer hunter.
 

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Foods I Don't Get

Andy grilled up some venison steak last night. They came off the grill beautiful: juicy with charred grill marks and smothered with homemade BBQ sauce (compliments of Mel's Kitchen Cafe.)  We served them up with a side of  roasted Yukon gold potatoes and steamed broccoli. What's not to love?

But halfway through this very American meal, Andy looked over to find me dutifully, but not very enthusiastically gnawing my way through my steak. "You don't have to eat it if you don't like it," he said. So I sawed off one more bite of steak and gave the rest to him. 

As much as I appreciate Andy's woodsmanly ways that filled our chest freezer with venison last fall, I really don't care for venison steak. I mean, I love it in stew, in pasties, in sausage, in stir fry, in just about anything. And I feel that way about about all meat. If it's part of recipe, great! But a piece of meat plunked down on my plate as the main dish? Meh.

I'm not a terribly picky eater (although Andy probably disagrees . . . I do get turned off by food's texture on occasion), but there are a handful of foods that make me feel like Sam I Am of Dr. Seuss fame:

"I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!"

 

1) Dark chocolate

I want my chocolate smooth and creamy. If I wanted bitter chocolate flavor, I'd just stick a spoon into my baking cocoa. And no, washing that spoonful of cocoa down with some milk is not an acceptable alternative to milk chocolate.

2) Cake balls/pops

I like cake just fine, but it doesn't seem to be my go-to dessert.(That would be ice cream and/or pie, apparently.) Still, while I do enjoy a nice cupcake or slice of homemade cake, I have a low tolerance for boxed cake mixes and I despise canned frosting. So who's brilliant idea was it to take a box cake, mix it with a can of frosting, then dip it in chocolate? Cake balls look so pretty and they taste so horrible. Holy preservatives!  

3) Beets

I have a deep appreciation for vegetables. But when it comes to the beet, well, I might as well just go get a clod of dirt and gnaw on that because the "earthy" goodness of beets is spoiled on me.

4) Macaroni and cheese

There was a time, a long, long time ago, when I used to eat macaroni and cheese . . . a lot. And then, I hit my tipping point and suddenly, I could not stomach it . . . at all. It's probably been 15 years since I had my last bite of mac and cheese and while I do think I could choke some down if it was the last food on Earth, I still avoid it like the plague. And no, I don't mean just Kraft Dinner. I mean all the Mac and Cheese.

5) Shrimp 

That smell! That texture! I have tried shrimp many times, prepared many different ways and it still kind of revolts me. The other day I was listening to NPR's The Splendid Table and heard the host, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, say that everyone likes shrimp. The result? I no longer trust anything Lynne Rossetto Kasper tells me.

What foods don't you get? 

 

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The Wild Rice Venison Sausage Recipe

Happy Monday y'all! It's another sunny morning in the Northwoods and it looks like it's going to be a warm one. Andy mentioned last night that if this warm weather keeps up, we're going to have four cords of firewood left at the end of the winter. I'm not going to complain about that, but this unseasonable weather does make me think I should be starting seeds any day now. Unfortunately, my friends, that day is still a long ways off.  *sigh*

This morning, I had an email waiting for me, asking if I ever found a recipe for wild rice venison sausage. I sure did!
In fact, we're just finishing up a batch of Northwoods pasties, made with a pound of the wild rice sausage we made back in November. I'm not sure how my Cornish ancestors would feel about "Northwoods pasties" which are definitely a departure for the traditional Cornish pastie, but wild rice venison sausage wrapped in pastry with potatoes, onions, rutabaga, and carrots = yummy in my book.

So I figured, no better time than now to share the recipe. Hopefully by sharing it, we'll give Google an actual useful search result for "wild rice venison sausage recipe" and spare others the frustratioof just finding a lot of web results about serving wild rice with venison sausage. (In the end, not what I was looking for.)  

Wild Rice Venison Sausage
1 lb ground venison
1 lb ground pork
2 cups cooked, cooled wild rice 
3/4 cup chopped onions
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning (I used McCormick's)
2 teaspoons dried chicken stock
Salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix until well combined. (I always just dive in with my hands, but be warned, the raw onion may react with your skin. Don't worry, the tingling will go away after a couple minutes - the sense of having an allergic reaction is only temporary. ;P ) Run the mixture through your meat grinder to further combine ingredients, then cover bowl and place in fridge overnight. The next day, after testing for seasoning by frying up a small bit, divided in pound portions. Package in freezer bags, then wrap in freezer paper, label, and freeze. Alternatively, you can package this in casings. I have never done this; for me, it's easier to just freeze the sausage in bulk and I've always found more than enough use for the bulk sausage. 

Please note: I quadrupled this recipe, so all measurements are approximate. Best practice is to measure out the amount of the spices that seem right to you (i.e. you might want to cut down on the pepper, but increase the salt, depending on your taste). You can always adjust seasonings the next day after they've had a bit of time to "marry" in the fridge.

We use the sausage in egg bakes, pasties, or just fried up in little patties. Use it anyway you like and let me know if you make improvements to the recipe.

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Meat. Lots of Meat

Greetings from the Of Woods and Words butcher shop.

Ever since Andy got his buck a week ago Saturday, we've been busy processing venison. I'll spare you the gory details, but there has been much chopping, grinding, freezer wrapping, labeling and dishwashing going on in these parts. The cabin has about 4 square feet of useable counter space, so it's been a juggling act, to say the least. We have some very happy jays and a rather smug looking red fox who are happily gobbling up the scraps we leaves outside.

Thank goodness Andy didn't try to get a second deer with his license this season. While I'd felt we'd gotten a decent amount of meat from last year's doe -- about 20-25 pounds of venison, including sausage-- this buck easily has provided us with twice as much. Between the garden produce we put away in early autumn and the recent venison additions, our chest freezer is nearly brimming at the top and we haven't even finished "SausageFest 2011" yet.  

Speaking of SausageFest 2011, on Saturday evening, Andy and I finished up a batch of Italian sausage. And when I say batch, I mean 21+ pounds of Italian sausage.  Pretty much any bit of useable venison that's not tenderloins, roasts, or round steak, gets ground up for sausage. The ground venison is then mixed 50:50 with ground pork. Because venison is an extremely lean meat, the pork is necessary to "bind" the sausage together. The fact that we ended up with about 20 pounds of ground venison this year means we'll ended up making approximately 40 pounds of sausage. Holy schmoly!

Last year we made a batch (about 8 pounds each) of Italian and breakfast sausage. The Italian sausage was by far the favorite, which is why Andy decided we need to make so very much of it this year. We don't bother putting the sausage in casings, just freeze it in bulk for use in lasanga, spaghetti, and pizza throughout the winter. But 21 lasangas is an awful lot of lasanga. I have a feeling we'll be giving some the sausage away.

And yet, we still have 10 pounds of ground venison that needs to be converted into sausage. I'm thinking a batch of chorizo, maybe a small batch of breakfast sausage, and some jerky. Also does anyone have a good recipe for wild rice venison sausage. Google has totally failed me in my search for a wild rice sausage recipe, yet I know wild rice venison sausage is a standby in many Minnesota households, so if you have a recipe, please do share!  

All this venison must be seeping into my subconscious. Just last night, I dreamed I saw a ginormous buck, only to realize I needn't bother telling Andy because deer season was already over. (The season ended on Sunday night.) I don't even want to explore the meaning behind this one!

You're welcome to dinner any time. Just be forewarned: chances are, we'll be having lasanga.

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Rambling, Man . . .

We've been a little scattered around Of Woods and Words lately.

I chalk this general discombobulation to two little words: deer season. Since the season opener eve last Friday, we've been hopping around between various locales: the cabin, Andy's mom place, and my parents'. In the last week, I've spent more nights in town than I have at the cabin. As much as I often claim to have an "urge for going," something about vacillating between home and your parents' place isn't quite as glamorous as heading to MSP and catching the next flight to say, Barcelona. Besides, being transient comes with a few pitfalls:

Full Disclosure: This is actually my childhood bedroom in Jan. 2005 while packing for a semester abroad

Since we live in an area still recovering from a recent wildfire, the deer population around the cabin isn't especially remarkable. As the undergrowth regenerates, there's been an obvious increase in the deer population, but Andy thought he'd have better luck if he hunted closer to town, where there are deer, literally, all over the place. Between dental appointments, freelance assignments, and various other commitments for me, it's just been easier for us to spend free time in town, especially since we're right on the cusp of "questionable driving conditions" season.

Andy'd had enough of town by this Friday morning ("Too many people" . .  . "What are these neighbor people you speak of?" Please, do remember that town has a population of less than 2000) so he took off for the cabin and I planned to stay with my parents until Monday.

But when I got back from an article interview yesterday morning, Dad mention that Andy'd called looking for my camera. Apparently, Andy'd gotten a large buck near the cabin. Guess that whole hypothesis about there being better hunting grounds closer to town was kind of flawed.

Not knowing if Andy needed some help, I hopped in the car and headed back up to the cabin. There was indeed a large buck hanging in the cabin when I arrived. I wasn't really needed to assist with anything, but Andy sure was happy to have me around to regale with stories of the hunt. To all my vegetarian readers, you'll be happy know that I arrived too late to take the mandatory "Andy with dead deer" photo.  I kind of think dead deer pictures are tacky anyway .. .

The deer was a 17.5" antler spread and a Boone and Crockett club number, at least the way we measured it,  of 112.5. We may have missed a couple of the spread measurements for the Boone and Crockett. (FYI, the record holding Boone and Crockett measurement for whitetail deer is 213.5/8"!!)

I have to admit I'm much more pleased about Andy's success now than I was last year. (Yes, he did shot the deer on the exact same date as last year. We figure he might as well wait until 7:45 on the morning November 12 to go deer hunting each year.) I've already been busily scouring cookbooks and the internet for new venison recipes. It's a good thing I got some practice with venison cooking last year, because Andy figures we'll probably get somewhere between 40-50 pounds of useable meat from this deer. That's about double the amount of meat we got from last year's doe and yep, that rounds out to a cost of  60 cents a pound when you figure in the cost of the license . . . heck yeah!

That's the news from Of Woods and Words. For now I'm off to town (and beyond!)  to catch up with some old friends. Tomorrow's filled with town appointments and errands and maybe, just maybe, on Tuesday we'll put an end to all this rambling.

Man.

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Knock Yourself Out Mark Zuckerberg

We watched The Social Network the other night and it got me thinking about a lot of things; namely, Mark Zuckerberg. Before watching the movie, I'd heard a statement that Zuckerberg's goal for the year is to eat only things he kills with his own hands. Huh?

Now we all know by now that I'm a little idealistic when it comes to trying to live locally and sustainably. I love the idea of cracking open a can of my own locally grown canned goods or pulling some local cut of meat out of the freezer. I feel that if we all ate a little closer to home, the world just might be a slightly better place.

But I also live in northern Minnesota, where eating locally means some wild rice, a lot of blueberries, and a bit of meat when you can get it. And there's just only so much venison with blueberry sauce that a 21st century palate can take. While we eat a fair amount of meat which Andy has shot, the majority of the meat we consume at the cabin isn't even organic.

Why? Well, it takes a lot of food to feed two people for an entire year.

The venison Andy got last Novemeber was all gone by April and we only used about a pound of the meat a week. During grouse season, Andy and I went out hunting nearly every night and while we managed to get enough poultry to provide one or two weekly dinners, we never even stockpiled enough grouse to have any in the freezer for "later." Believe it or not, all that's left of last year's blueberries is less than a cup of berries, rattling around in a gallon bag in the back of the freezer. Even what, at the time, can appear to be massive amounts of food can disappear quickly.

Then there's the price issue. In a world where time is money, we can't afford to spend every waking moment scrounging for food. And much as I'd like to eat only organic, that ideology is a little rough on my pocketbook.


Just yesterday I came back from the grocery store with a nominal amount of food in my (reusable) bags and one honking total on my receipt. "That's it," I declared. "No more fresh produce for us." Forget the yummy red strawberries at $3.65 a pound; next week I'm just going to pick up some cans of Flavorite fruit cocktail in lieu of all the (expensive) fresh fruit salad ingredients I picked up yesterday.

Now, I'm not sure what Zuckerberg means when he says he's only eating food he shot with his own hands. Is he counting produce too? Because let me tell you, as Andy and I ran around last night covering up the gardens to protect them from the latest frost advisory, I realized even a little garden can demand more of you than you ever expected.

With his unlimited funds, maybe Zuckerberg is in a better position to succeed at this "with your own hands" eating game. But while I may consistently cry "busy", I have a feeling Zuckerberg has a couple more obligations and commitments than I do.

Mark, if you figure out how to do this: 1) You're a better man than me and 2) Let me know how you did it.  

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The McRib (a post not for the faint of heart)

Here at the cabin, we live a good 2.5 hour drive to the nearest McDonald's. We're not so far removed from fast food culture that I haven't heard about a little sandwich called the McRib. Apparently this barbecue pork sandwich is fashioned to look like a faux rack of ribs (on a bun) and people go crazy for it during its brief, semi-annual stints on McDonald's menu.

At the cabin we have a slightly more intimate relationship with the food eat. When Andy shot a deer last month, we dutifully butchered the deer and stuffed the new chest freezer full of steaks and ground meat. Throughout the process, we put the meat and suet scraps out for the birds. When we'd gotten every bit of meat we would use, we were left with a carcass. More specifically, a rib cage.

What to do, what to do?

Andy had an idea.

Now we have a "McRib" sandwich screwed to the pine outside the kitchen window.

For the record, the birds love it. At any given moment throughout the day, you can find woodpeckers, jays, chickadees, and nuthatches taking a nibble of suet. Squirrels will chomp down on the bone to get their daily calcium quota. And I think we've had a nighttime pine marten visitor stopping by for a midnight snack as well.

I realize we might be a opening a can of worms and that this all kind of sounds like an entry for one of those "You Know You're a Red-Neck" daily calendar. You know, January 4: "You know you're a red-neck when you nail a deer carcass to the tree 'for the birds.'"

(Note: Paula, we missed every bit of the huge snow storm that hit more southern parts of Minnesota.We're not too sad about it. We have plenty of snow for the time being. It is a bit nippy though: temps below zero F)

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It Happened . . . .

This morning both Andy and I woke up ready to go. This is a pretty rare occurrence. While Andy I frequently evoke comparisons to the waking dead until about 2 in the afternoon. This harkens back to the whole early bird, night owl dilemma. Frankly, when I’m chipper at 6:30 in the morning, Andy knows it’s no normal day.  

 As Andy headed out the door, I wished him luck and yelled after him, “You better get a deer. We can’t afford to buy any meat from the grocery store.” While I don’t get a lot of things about hunting (and have issues with bear and moose seasons), I do get the whole “stocking the larder” concept that ties in with deer season.  And our larder could use some stocking. One cannot live through a winter on blueberries alone.

When Andy came home two hours earlier than I’d expected, I figured something had happened.

“Did you get a deer?” I asked.

In response Andy waggled his fingers at me. There was a little bit of blood on his fingertips. It seemed one of two things could have happened: either he’d gotten a deer or he needed a drive down to the emergency room.

“You got a deer?” I said, hopefully. I hoped this was the option we were going with mainly because it was 8:30 in the morning and I hadn’t managed to get dressed yet. (I might add that I had gotten an hour of work done.) And I really needed to shower.

Indeed he had.

I felt glad for him. And I felt worried.

I did not grow up in a hunting family. My grampa hunts. My uncle hunts. My family eats Sloppy Toes (sloppy joes made with crumbled tofu). I really like tofu. I have no clue if I like venison.  

Until this very day, I’ve been removed from the deep-rooted deer hunting traditions that so many of my peers share. One of my all-time favorite examples of deer hunting tradition comes from my friend Betsy. Betsy’s extended family always goes hunting up at their cabin in northern Wisconsin. The women stay at the cabin in the day while the men are out hunting and the first night of deer season they always served ham and cheese casserole.  That is, until the year Betsy’s mom made dinner the first night of deer season and served . . . . . tator tot casserole!!!  An uproar broke out. “But we always have ham and cheese casserole,” they said. You just don’t mess with the traditions that surround deer hunting. Except, I've never had any traditions to mess with.

Last year we gathered everything we needed in the advent of a deer. A meat grinder to attach to the stand mixer. A sausage stuffer. A jerky gun and a dehydrator. But there wasn’t a deer last year and I got to prolong becoming a true woodland housewife for another season.

Now, well, here’s hoping I like venison. I better. Andy’s out hunting again right now. There’ll be no going hungry this winter.

Watch this space for tasty venison recipes . . . coming soon!

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