Smoke 'em if you got 'em

The weather has turned pleasant enought to drag the smoker out of the garage and make something that is particularly good.

Smoked pheasant!

The process begins with the signature brine recipe:

2 quarts water

1c Kosher salt

1/2 c brown sugar

2t seasoned salt

2t pickling spice

Stir everything until dissolved


Add skinned pheasants (these are still frozen)

Six pheasants calls for six quarts of brine in a food-grade plastic bucket.

Cover with a heavy plate to submerge the birds.

Snap the lid on the bucket and store in a cool place (basement, garage, fridge) for 24 hours.








Remove birds, rinse and place in the smoker.

I use a propane-fired smoker so I'll smoke the birds for about two and a half hours at 250 to 275 degrees over apple wood and a water-filled pan.

The wood chips have been soaking in water and are recharged after an hour.










This is the finished product.

Refrigerate until used otherwise vacuum seal with a FoodSaver and freeze for future use.

This stuff is terrific when served with cheeses, fruit and wine to kick-off a party. It is fantastic when incorporated in pasta or risotto recipes.

For a fast meal - top a Boboli crust with baby mozzarella, smoked pheasant, sliced artichoke, fresh basil and drizzle with olive oil.

Bake.

Enjoy!


The brine can also be used with Great Lakes salmon or trout (either filleted or steaked) substitute shrimp spice if you care.

It's also fun to experiment with different woods like hickory or mesquite.

Since different smokers yield different results - or if you are doing this for the first time - do not experiment with your valuable game birds. Work-out the bugs on some cheaper stuff like chickens.

Note - the small drumstick on a smoked pheasant is particularly tough to bother-with - too many tendons. I debone them and chop the meat into pieces for dog treats - after all - Girlfriend earned it.

Bug Hunt

The gypsy moth was brought to Massachusetts from Europe in 1869 in an experimental attempt to breed a hardier silkworm. Not only did the experiment fail but the critter escaped from the lab and has been on a destructive march ever since.

It is one of America’s most destructive invasive species. In its larval stage it munches on the foliage of more than 300 species of trees and shrubs.

With all of our forest canopy and without any natural predators the moth is right at home and has been advancing westward ever since.

Female gypsy moths are flightless. Thus they have to deposit their eggs on something close to the trees they were feeding-upon as caterpillars. That could include camping gear, vehicles, firewood, lawn furniture, grills and the like. Since the larvae can only move a few miles on the wind the gypsy moth eggs can hitchhike on your stuff. That is how they got their name – gypsy moth.

A quarantine kept the critter isolated in New England for a considerable length of time; nonetheless, it has steadily advanced westward arriving in Wisconsin’s eastern counties in the 1990s.

Oaks are among the caterpillar’s favorite foods. A good infestation can defoliate a full grown tree in a week.

The tree can refoliate and grow a set of replacement leaves but that will stress the plant leaving it vulnerable to other insect pests or tree diseases.

A weakened tree will stop producing nuts – sometimes for years – and other forest creatures lose a food source.

The nests of song birds are exposed by defoliation and their young are predated.

It is an all-around crappy deal for both the plant and everything else that lives in the woods.

I am not ordinarily a hateful person. Although I readily admit to being disdainful of knuckleheads and the people that are followers of knuckleheads.

But I hate gypsy moth.

This brings me to the bug hunt.

Now that all of the snow has melted and nothing has leafed-out yet this is the perfect time of year to take a slow walk through the woods and look for gypsy moth egg masses.

Like this-


Once located I give the egg mass a thorough soaking of ordinary cooking oil laced with Ortho Volck oil spray concentrate.

Over the last couple of days I dispensed more than 40 ounces of oil through my spray bottle - smothering countless egg masses.

Death to the moth! Bwah ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!

Unfortunately I didn’t locate all of them nor would it be reasonable to assume anyone could.

So battling gypsy moth is nothing more than a war of attrition – an unwinnable war at that. You cannot eradicate them – only suppress their numbers.


My constant companion – Girlfriend – accompanied me and found another shed antler this afternoon.










Speaking of deer – check out these cool deer rubs – big ones too.
























And then there is this scat.

A big pile of it.

Shaped like oblong capsules and much bigger than a kidney bean.

Any idea who left this deposit?

The One-Third Rule

See that tool in the vise.

That is my lopper.

And I am about to put a very sharp edge to its cutting blade.

You see, it has been in almost continuous use for the past month so it needs a sharpening every couple of days or so.

It is a wonderful tool as far as tools go. Forged carbon steel cutting head, aluminum handles and shock-absorbing dampers. Ergonomically designed to lop-off a branch up to two inches in diameter. All in one continuous motion of the lever.

It comes from a European tool manufacturer - Bahco Pradines.

In keeping with my generally politically incorrect nature I have committed the ultimate sin.

I have purchased a horticultural tool that was made in France.

Gasp!

If the keepers of the culture wars find out about this they will (at a minimum) call me names like tool snob.

Worse yet, they may call me un-American and demand that I purchase only a freedom lopper.

Then I will have no choice but to sit them down and patiently explain the intricacies of global commerce, foreign trade, and high quality arborist tools. Then their eyes will glaze-over and they will look at me with an empty and vacuous stare.

It is all quite predictable you know.

You know what I mean.

This is the same look you get if you ask a Governor from Alaska if she reads the Wall Street Journal.

That is their nature.

But I digress.


The tree that you see here is a Swamp White Oak.

Quercus bicolor

Aside from the Tamarack (Larix laricina) this happens to be one of my favorite species of trees.

Both are found in swamp land.

I live on what was an ancestral Wisconsin swamp.

Of course that would date back to pre-settlement days and before modern agricultural practices altered the landscape.

Nonetheless, both of these species co-exist rather nicely.

This tree you see here was planted in 1998 from two-year-old bare-root stock. When it was planted the stem of this tree (disregarding the root system) was about a foot in length and slightly thicker than a pencil. Today, it towers about 20 feet in height and has a trunk diameter of about 4 inches. It has superior genetics compared to other oaks plants planted at the same time.

Anyway, it's destiny is probably veneer so it is in need of a trim. Just a bit off of the sides and none off the top so to speak.

Lop

Lop

Lop

Off with the lower branches and the oak is neatly limbed-up.

Here's the rule.

Never take more than a third. Never. More than that and you'll hurt the tree.

Now it can direct its resources into the remaining branches and continue a tall and straight reach for the sky.

This tree was easy.

Sometimes you come across a specimen with an errant branch or a bad fork. Remediation with the lopper or a sharp pruning saw usually sets it straight. The best time to prune-out defects in a tree is when it is very young. Early intervention allows the plant to develop the proper scaffolding so to speak - a good solid infrastructure.

As the twig is bent you know.

It will be years before this tree finds its way to the mill. Until then, this specimen and its brethren will provide a leafy canopy to serve as a place for cedar wax wings and gold finches to nest. Acorns will feed the deer, squirrels and turkeys.

Ultimately I hope to have cultivated an acorn factory and hunting opportunities will grow exponentially.

Some trees may not make it at all. Lightening may take one or two. Porcupines might girdle a handful. Gypsy moth will try to defoliate them and when successful the weakened tree may succumb to an ordinary disease.

Yet most will persist.

So why are you doing all this work in the late winter and early spring? Wouldn't it be better to do this when the weather is nicer? Are you nuts?

I may be nuts but Swamp is not stupid.

First-off the weather is fantastic. Sunny, temperatures in the mid-forties to low-fifties. The snow pack is shrinking and it is only partly muddy.

Oaks should only be pruned when they are dormant. After the hard frosts have penetrated the ground and before the sap begins to run. And never dress the wounds. That would delay the self-healing process.

When I was out today with my dog and my thoughts I got to thinking.

Wouldn't it be terrific if there was a One-Third Rule for modern politics.

Just think of the possibilities if you could prune-off a third of your representatives every couple of years or so. I wouldn't want to run the risk of killing the system so I would only suggest removing a third at a time. If the errant and defective could be lopped-off so as to improve the over-all health of the system we might actually cultivate some original thinking.

Wishful thinking, eh?

Deer Management 101

I you don’t appreciate seeing, hunting or caring about the future of white tail deer you can skip this post.

I attended the DNR listening session for our deer management units (DMUs) last night in Algoma. These would be Units 80A, 80B, 80C and 81.

There was a rather large turn-out of hunters.

There was also the obligatory collection of three or four souls who naturally wish to dominate the discussion. Maybe they like the cat-calls and applause for brilliant ideas like letting the landowners do whatever they want with the deer.

They must think that people that hunt public land or people that just like watching wildlife don’t matter or have a say-so. Maybe they think the deer belong to them. Everyone else is not a stakeholder. Maybe they want American hunting to morph into a European form of hunting. You know, where only the landed aristocracy can hunt.

Teddy Roosevelt must be turning in his grave.

But I digress.

Anyway, the deer management units covering Door and Kewaunee Counties total 568 square miles of landmass. Of that, 194 square miles is considered deer range. This would include woodlots, swamps and other natural cover. It would not include agricultural fields, population centers, roads, water bodies and the like. Deer cannot live year-round in a field cultivated for annual crops so that acreage does not count.

If you were to talk to the old time deer hunters in our neck of the woods they will tell you that they can recall a time when there were no deer - or at least hardly any at all. They can also tell you about the forests dominated by elm that gave way to ash which will eventually succumb to an exotic borer from Asia. But that would be another story.

Back in the 1960s the State was hopeful to get the deer population around here up to 15 animals per square mile of range (not to be confused with total square miles). That was the goal. Remember there were not many deer. The goal was eventually reached by means of all sorts of arcane rules like you couldn't shoot does and they had the Party Permit system. Remember any of that?

By the time the 1980s rolled-around it was thought that it might be a good idea to get the deer population up to somewhere around 20 animals per square mile of range. That way there would be more hunting opportunities without having too many deer on the landscape.

There would be a balance. Regeneration of trees, shrubs, flowers and other wildlife would all be in a cooperative balance with the deer population. That goal was attained.

Following that, somehow things got away from everyone and the deer population ballooned.

About that noble goal of 20 deer per square mile of cover? The DNR estimates that we’re upwards of 38.

As you might guess, for the last decade and a half deer hunting around here has been fat and sassy. You could practically trip over the deer. I can remember one opening day that we had eight deer on our meat pole before sunset. The old Dutchman in our deer camp likened it to a stringer of deer.

But don’t take my word for it.

No other lakeshore DMU in northeast Wisconsin has harvests as high as we do in 80B. Our unit has an incredible ability to reproduce following repeated aggressive harvests.

Just last year the total harvest for the Door and Kewaunee units was 5,123 deer – and the kill was down significantly. Nonetheless, for the last decade 2008 represented the 10th highest gun buck harvest, 5th highest antlerless harvest, 8th highest bow buck harvest and 4th highest bow antlerless harvest.

What’s not to like about that?

Have we all become spoiled?

Now I know that plenty of people disbelieve the State’s ability to count all the deer accurately. But unless you were to hire an army of deer enumerators ever year to conduct a winter census of deer willing to complete and return their paperwork I’ll take the DNR’s estimates as basically being in the ball park.

I know that deer hunters (including me) tend to judge deer numbers based-upon what they see afield. We have excellent deer cover all around us and anecdotally I see large numbers of deer year-round.

I can also tell you that there isn't any natural regeneration of white cedar any longer and you cannot grow a soft maple if your life depended upon it. Visualize thousands of ten-year-old maple bushes.

I also know that deer are not distributed evenly across the landscape. As a result there are likely significant numbers of hunters frustrated by the reality that they are now hunting an area that is already at goal – yet they still have to hunt by the same rules as those with beaucoup deer.

That’s brutal.

So for about a decade we’ve all been grumbling and laboring under more arcane rules like Herd Control (T-Zone) or Earn-a-Buck. All with a notion to getting the deer numbers closer to goal.

Are we there yet? Nope.

Are we closer? Maybe. But it’s hard to say. Remember, we have a remarkable capacity to regenerate deer after repeated aggressive harvests.

Even though we struggle with managing to a real or perceived goal a curious phenomenon has manifested itself. Over the past decade the average age of the average buck killed has risen from 1.5 to 2.5 to 3.5 years. Under these arcane rules more bucks walk to live another year than ever before so the age structure is improving. That is not such a bad thing.

I don’t have any easy answers.

What I know is deer are remarkably resilient and I would rather their numbers be brought closer to goal and the quality of the hunt to continue to improve.

After all – it was easy – everyone could do it.

Shed Hunting

This new-found talent that Girlfriend has manifested is pretty cool.

We were out working on oak trees today and she returned with four additional shed antlers.

Including these two (which I suspect are a matching pair) found in two separate locations.

Atta girl!

Good dog!

I also spied the first pair of goldfinches for 2009. Well, they weren't really gold yet. They were still sporting their winter olive drab.

A pheasant rooster too by the side of the road.

How awesome is that?

Spring is definitely here.

Girlfriend

My dog is really talented.

Not only is she capable of predicting the outcome of Council committee meetings...

she is also a good shed hunter.

Here she is bringing me another shed deer antler.

Did you know that there is an entire vast organization dedicated to shed hunting?

Check them out at NASHC.

So I've been spending all kinds of time out-of-doors working on the tree farm and Girlfriend has been my constant companion.

She wears a cow bell on her e-collar so that I can keep a general idea of her whereabouts.

Just today I noticed that things got particularly quiet.

Wo ist mein Hund?

I get a ding-a-ling as an answer.

I follow the sound of the bell which is actually quite close and unlike the typical wide-ranging movements of a Labrador retriever this time the sounds are emanating from one location.

That location would be where a very dead turkey was located.

On my dog's list of fun stuff to do you will find a listing for fine dining.

The deader the better.

Blech.

Speaking of fine dining my lovely wife asked if we could go to the Edge of Town Bar tonight for broasted chicken.

Ja, mein liebchen.

Half a chicken - broasted. Slaw with choice of potato accompanied by (get a load of this) a deep-fried breadstick.

$7 USD.

Leftovers for lunch too.

The New York Connection

New York City is one of my favorite places to visit. Something worth doing when in the Big Apple is taking the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island and back. You know, that big orange ferry (official municipal orange so it can be seen in a dense fog).


Approximately 20 million people take 33,000 ferry trips each year. On a typical day somewheres around 70,000 people are shuttled across the harbor in about a hundred or so trips. It only takes a half-hour.

Regularly-scheduled passage was established back in the mid-1700s. By 1817 steam-powered service replaced sailing ships and eventually ferry operations were taken-over by one guy - Cornelius Vanderbilt. Shipping and rail made Vanderbilt possibly the wealthiest guy of his time. He eventually sold the operation to the B&O Railroad.

Anyway, around the the turn of the century, the good people of Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island organized to become part of the City of New York. That event, coupled with a collision and sinking of one of the early ferrys, prompted the NYC Department of Docks and Ferry's to assume ferry operations.

Diesel boats were introduced in 1965 although steam-powered ferrys continued in use until the late 1980s.

The Staten Island Ferry fleet today is composed of four classes of ten boats.

By now you're probably thinking - You're being long-winded again, what's your point?

It wasn't too many years ago that I was out fishing on Green Bay and along comes the Staten Island Ferry.

There was no mistaking it. A big orange ferry - with the name Staten Island stenciled on the side - very much out of place as this is not New York.

It was cruising in Green Bay.

The last three boats - known as the Spirit of America Class - were made in Marinette, Wisconsin. The keel of the Spirit of America was built from World Trade Center steel.

They entered service in 2005. Each vessel is 310 feet long, 70 feet wide, with a draft of 13 feet and six inches, a weight of 3200 tons and a service speed of 16 knots. Each carries 4,440 passengers and 30 cars.

Pizza Man

Somebody’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

-Warren Buffet

It’s a tree.

You plant it in the earth, and a wonderful force of nature causes it to take root, and to grow. You don’t have to do much with it: the air and the water and the nutrients it needs are all around the tree and it knows how to use them.

You don’t dig it up every ninety days to check on its progress. (Nothing much will have changed in that brief time and you might harm the tree.) You don’t uproot the tree and store it in your garage over the winter, to protect it from what you regard as “bad weather.” (Though its leaves fall and it stops growing for a season, the tree itself does not die. And even leafless, the tree is still producing oxygen, without which you and I could not live.)

Give the tree enough room, enough light, and enough time. Then leave it pretty much alone. It will give you back air and shade and beauty as it grows – and will go on doing so for your children, after you are gone.

-Nick Murray

Recommended reading would be Murray’s book - Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth.

Oh, about the picture.

You cannot get a decent pizza delivered out here in the sticks; although the Edge of Town bar does a reasonably decent pizza. Dine-in or carryout only.

To make this pizza thaw and drain a package of frozen, chopped spinach. Squeeze every last molecule of water from it.

Add to the spinach a small sweet onion and a clove of garlic – both chopped fine. Mix well with a fork.

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.

Take a store-bought crust and top with a layer of grated mozzarella. Top that with the spinach/onion/garlic mix.

Add some additional mozzarella. I found a chunk of queso fresco cheese in the fridge. I grated it and added it to the topping.

Drizzle all over with extra-virgin olive oil.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve with red wine by the fire and a good book.

Sliced baby mozzarella and goat cheese also work really well.

It is snowing something fiercely now. So much for spring...

It Is Official - Spring Has Arrived

I finally made a trip to the dump today.

The ever-reliable Chevy Silverado has been sitting in the machine shed for a couple of months now and started at the first turn of the key. It’s twelve years old, has a bazillion miles on it but runs like a champ. And it doesn’t leave a single spot on the concrete floor. No leaks.

Anyway, I dropped my load of recyclables and returned the pick-up to its place in the shed and as I walked back to the house I heard it.

There was no mistaking this bird song.

The first real harbinger of spring.




They are back!

Mud Season

So I’m busy doing my day-job this morning from the farm. A steaming cup of joe at my elbow and the sun streaming through the windows.

I’m alternately on the phone or tapping happily at my wireless keyboard.

And I am comfortably attired in my long johns.

This is one of the marvels of modern technology – the advancement of the remote worksite. You see, I could never get away with the long johns in my office as there is a dress code. The code does not make allowances for lounging about in your winter underwear. Although from time to time I have brazenly flaunted the dress code by showing-up in blue jeans. This insubordination generally results in the Director of Operations giving me the hairy eyeball at which point I lock myself in my office to remain hidden from view. Then I sneak out the secret back passage to make my escape.

I have mixed feelings about all of this technology. On one hand if it is snowing furiously I simply stay at home and get my work accomplished. My business partner lives in the boonies so she routinely works from home one day a week and saves a pile of money on gas.

I can work remotely and break-up the routine by gardening or fetching a shotgun and the dog and going for a walk. Just this last fall I did that and returned to work (so to speak) with a freshly killed pheasant.

These are all productivity gains on so many levels.

On the other hand there is the temptation to take your work with you everywhere - all the time. Last night I received an email from a business associate so I called her. I knew where I would find her – at her computer.

What are you doing calling about my email at 8:30 in the evening?

I’m working, I said.

My business partner reminds me that I am incurably incapable of disconnecting.

Sigh.

Anyway, just about the time I have finished the last cup of coffee, the last email and the last call my dog walks over, rests her head on my knee and gives me her hang-dog look with the sad brown eyes.

What is it Girlfriend?

Now I get the insistent nudge.

I briefly ignore her but the nudging continues alternated with a few good head bumps.

Labrador body language is never subtle. This is her polite way of telling me to disconnect. Isn’t it funny how women intuitively know these things?

So I locate my Carhartt work pants. These would be the ones with the big red suspenders. Now the dog is frantically panting and scurrying-about. The pants with the red suspenders usually mean that we’re going to fire-up the four wheeler. In my dog's world the ATV ranks right up there on the list along with hunting, swimming and eating scat.

I throw my tools, a spray bottle of gypsy moth oil, a couple of bottles of water, my Blackberry and a camera in a box on the Polaris and off we go.

47 degrees today and there’s water everywhere.

Mud season has arrived!

After about a mile of walking I’ve completed the pruning of my half of a tree plantation. Oaks and walnuts - and I am pissed. Countless eight-year-old walnuts thrashed to death by deer that rubbed their antlers on them.

Of course, all of this is lost on Girlfriend. She’s been tearing about digging, snuffing, splashing and probably dining upon deer M&Ms when I’m not looking. She’s having a blast. And she is filthy dirty.

Later she doesn’t resist the ritual of hosing-off the mud and a brisk toweling. But she gets a couple of good shakes in spattering me in the process.

I’m glad that mud season only lasts only a couple of months.

Back to work.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

As a kid growing-up on Milwaukee's north side I had my hands full with daily life.

My buddies and I used to ride our bikes up to the refuge bordering Good Hope Road. The refuge was a large wooded stretch of acreage with a couple of ponds. We spent countless hours there exploring, building forts and leaning how to spear, cook and eat a frog.

There was an abandoned farm house on the north side of the old two lane black top road - and it had a two-hole outhouse.

Ooooh-baby. What's not to like about that.

Just think. Our moms used to send us off for a day in the woods with our bicycles, a bag lunch and a reminder not to kill ourselves or poke-out an eyeball.

We survived.

Barely.

Anyway, along that time the cold war was really heating-up. Dad had stocked fresh water in the basement pantry along with all sorts of canned food. B-58 Hustlers were hurtling over our house with contrails and sonic booms to follow. At school it was duck and cover.

Tonight I read about a concert scheduled in Green Bay this month.

Barry McGuire and John York - Trippin the 60's.

I had almost forgotten about Timmy and Joey and I sitting around the turn table listing to the 45 recording of this song....