Recipe of the Day

Actually two recipes.

On the left is zucchini pie and adjacent to it is a pile of grilled venison kebabs.

To make the pie you slice a big pile of green and yellow zucchini. Chop some onion and green peppers from the garden and saute the whole mess with olive oil and fresh cracked pepper. Do not cook until soft. Strive for al dente.

Edit - Season with fresh basil from the garden

Line a deep dish pie plate with Pillsbury crescent roll dough.

Pour-in the sauteed vegetables. Pour a couple of beaten eggs over all. Top with a big pile of cheese - we used baby Swiss. Bake at 350.

In the mean time fetch the skewers that have been soaking in water and spear each with chunks of venison. Cover with extra virgin olive oil and fresh cracked pepper.

When the pie is golden and cooked-through remove it and let it rest for a short spell.

Take your venison kebabs and sear them over exceedingly hot coals to medium rare.

Serve with a red and white wine.

Stay up late playing shopskopf with your friends afterwards...

Deer Camp Prep

Deer season is nigh upon us with the archery opener on September 12th.

That is less than two weeks away!

Been shooting weekly to keep the jitters in-check and stay loose.

After fourteen years I’ve rotated new arrows into the mix. The old Beman arrows have been pinching-off the string on the Bowtech so they’ll become back-up arrows for the back-up bow.

I splurged and purchased a dozen Carbon Express Maximas.


Remember that failure of a food plot?

It (and two others) has been replanted. I seeded this a couple of weeks ago and with some regular rain everything has germinated nicely


Click on images to enlarge






Last Monday I moved the trail camera to a new location and for kicks threw down a gallon of windfall apples.

By Friday there were 126 deer pictures on the memory card.

Does

Does with fawn

Does with twin fawns



And a couple of two-year-old velvet bucks

Sticking It To The Man

I’ve been trying-out a new way to walk the dog. I ride – she walks.

You’d think that riding a mountain bike would be easy. No so much though. You see the grass is just high enough to offer steady resistance that never allows you to conveniently shift out of that granny gear. It’s actually a pretty good workout.

For me and the dog.

Today was a shitty day – on a couple of different levels.

First-off, Girlfriend was naughty and ran-off into the woods and wouldn’t immediately return when summoned.

What was the attraction?

Some really slimy green critter shit that she just had to roll in. I haven’t a clue who left the deposit but the dog finally returned covered in the stuff.

Blech.

See this beer?

This is a refreshing bottle of Road Dog Porter from Flying Dog Brewery.

So what. Big deal.

The deal is if you read the label you might note that it has an awesome quote from Hunter S. Thompson.

Good people drink good beer.

Not too long before he died I had an opportunity to see the Gonzo Journalist at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee. It was both surreal and worth it. But that would be another story.

Anyway - the Flying Dog label goes on to explain that this is - Good Beer - No Shit.

That sure is plain spoken. Can you really print that on a beer label?

I guess you can.

If you read the label further it goes on to say the following-

We spent four long years in court fighting for our first amendment right to display the phrase "Good beer, No shit" on every bottle of Road Dog. In honor of sticking it to the man...

This shit is some dark, rich and malty shit. The best shit you'll ever try and that's no bullshit.

6% ALC/VOL

Well said!

Dusting-off the Old Bow

I have a Martin Jaguar bow that I purchased fourteen years ago. It has spent countless hours in the woods under all kinds of conditions. It has traveled to several states. And it has slain many deer.

Two seasons ago it was retired after I purchased a Bow Tech Diamond Liberty compact bow.

The old Martin sat in its case on top of a basement chest freezer waiting to be called off the bench in a pinch. Like if the Bow Tech suffered an equipment failure or I did something really stupid like head-up here to go hunting and leave the newer bow at the other house in Tosa.

Anyway - I got to thinking last weekend that I really should take that bow out and shoot it. If nothing more to make sure it still works and shoots straight.

So I brought it home with me.

Tonight was archery night and Braumeister and I spent time over a West Town archery doing our weekly shoot on the video range.

The old bow took a little getting used-to. The draw weight is a bit higher and the let-off is different - but that old bow shoots just as straight as ever. I'd take it with me hunting in a heartbeat.

I might just do that for old-times sake.

Funny Looking Tree Muncher

My guess?

A two year-old buck.

Sporting three points on one side and a couple on the other.
Not very symmetrical.

Going to keep moving the trail camera to multiple locations to see what's moving where.

Click on image to enlarge

Nuts

Planted Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) a member of the white oak family in 1998.

They are doing so well that for the last four years they have begun to bear fruit.

Like the acorns you see in the picture.

Over a couple of years we planted thousands of oaks - Bur, Swamp White Oak, Red, and White oaks.

I want to have an acorn factory some day in the future.

All the creatures of the forest love acorns.

Thursday Morning Music

Billy Currington played the Resch Center in Green Bay on July 8th.

This is one hard-working musician.

Pretty cool amateur video here from Hankinson, ND on July 10th...

Update on the Garden

Last year I planted a solitary Cascade Hop plant adjacent to the rock wall in the yard.

Now that it is in its second growing season it has taken-over the wall and is battling with the pumpkins in a monumental vine fight to the finish.

I think the hops are going to win.

Anyway - last weekend Braumeister was up for the Schuetzenfest and made a point of picking a big bag of these fragrant nuggets.

He's promised to brew a batch of Cascade Pale Ale.

He won the national home brewing championship a number of years ago so I'm looking forward to his final product. If we could find room to grow the barley he says he could become a fully-integrated brewer.

Schützenfest!

Yes. Schuetzenfest

You can read all about it over at the other blog.

In the off-chance you are wondering why these Fraulein are so cheerful.

They are partying at the biggest Marksmen‘s Fair in the world. The Schützenfest held in Hanover every July. Over 5.000 marksmen from clubs from all over Germany participate in this showpiece.

I digress. This is Door County – a far cry from the Fatherland.

Aside from the marksmanship extravaganza held this past weekend there was work to do - and this is part of the crew – Lawyer, Mennonite and Sid.

Mostly clearing brush, cutting shooting lanes and repairing deer stands for this fall’s deer hunting season. That’s me sizing-up a new board for fifteen year-old stand that has yielded a number of deer. Both gun and bow.














A word of advice.

Never underestimate the power of a chainsaw to cause you bodily harm. Seems Mennonite was doing his usual one-handed tree-limbing demonstration when a branch decided to fall his direction and part of it impaled itself on his forearm. Deep in the flesh.






I have a good vibe about deer hunting this year.

Plenty of scouting and plenty of deer.

Time will tell.

Be safe and shoot straight.

Biking the Stein

Out riding-about the countryside again.

The peninsula is probably the most perfect place to ride a bike.

Good scenery.

Plenty of small towns to stop for a bite to eat or a refreshing beverage.

Lots of cool-old cemeteries to browse.

If you stay off the beaten path there’s not a lot of traffic to contend with.

And you cannot get lost.

If you go too far west you hit the water. Same for north and east.

Head south and you might get lost. Then again – you might just be lucky enough to hit New Franken.

New Franken has a bar called the New Franken Stein.

I’m not making this-up.

Cold tap beers and some of the best charbroiled burgers you’ll find in these parts.

Burgers are a buck on Wednesdays.

Thursdays is nickel chicken wings.

If you visit - tell them Swamp sent you.

More Wisconsin Geography

I stumbled across this cool map at the County Fair last week.

It has all of the State’s important geographical provinces - Lake Superior Lowland, Northern Highland, Central Plains, Western Uplands, Eastern Ridges and Lowlands.

All meticulously defined and illustrated in cereal grains.

With a few raisins.

Click on image to enlarge details

More County Fair

Do these chickens and rabbits look nervous to you?

They don’t seem nervous to me. Not the least little bit.

As a matter of fact – they look quite content.

If they had any sense they would be fleeing for their lives.

These are champion roasters. Yum!

County Fair

One of the summer highlights around here is the County Fair.

And I love going to the fair.

Not the midway with all the crazed-looking carnies operating all of those rides held-together with rusted bolts and baling wire. Or even those rigged games. I'm talking about the exhibitors, demonstrations and entries.

I like checking-out the prize vegetables, baked goods and preserved foods.

Someone’s homemade tomato juice won a First Prize this year. I don’t mean to brag but I’d stack my garden salsa up against that juice any day of the week. And my green beans look better than some of the anemic entries I saw. And my cranberry bread is probably better than some of the breads entered this year.

Oh well. There is always next summer.

Anyway, the one thing that is better than the poultry competition is the cattle judging.


Everyone is scrubbing, primping, blow-drying and otherwise getting their bovine charges ready for a good-old-fashioned beauty contest.











The very best part is the kids and their cattle.

Like this little fella answering questions from the judge about his calf.

Or this young lady with her spring bull.

The other cool thing is that unlike the big and important Wisconsin State Fair – you get to be up-close and personal with all the action.

Deutscher Club

Swamp Gas says that everyone should join the club - even the children.

Bursting Your Bubble In Six Easy Steps

Ordinarily you won’t find excellent coverage of financial news in non-financial magazines – but Rolling Stone does a bang-up job with an excellent piece of investigative journalism covering Goldman Sachs’ behavior leading-up to the melt-down of the financial sector last year and the humongous government bailout that followed.

An equally excellent job of Goldman’s reach in government and a stab at the next play that may be in the pipeline.

The Great American Bubble Machine - by Matt Taibbi - Rolling Stone, issue 1082-83

Read it and see if it doesn’t make you just a wee bit angry…

Snakes! Yikes!

I found this freshly-shed snake skin on the edge of the shed near the garden.

All 40+ inches of it!

I think it belongs to a western fox snake.

These are really cool reptiles. They capture and hold their prey squeezing it to death by coiling around it. Then they swallow it whole. They also vibrate their tail when agitated.

They're often needlessly killed because people confuse them with Copperhead snakes.

There are no venomous snakes in Door County.

I hope this snake eats some of those thieving ground squirrels.

Back Yard Junk

Some people are natural pack rats.

They dump stuff in their yard and it seems they promptly forget about it.

I wonder sometimes if anything is ever going to happen to this beached and rusting boat. It has resided here for about two decades. Minimum.







Or these cool, old automobiles?

American Pie

Nothing is more American than apple pie.

You won't hear the Germans bragging about their apple pie would you? Strudel maybe - pie nein!

Get a load of that apple crop you see to the left.

The trees are literally laden with fruit. Branches drooping towards the ground.

It's been dry as popcorn fart around here lately with maybe an inch of rainfall in the past seven weeks.

Since the trees are going to attempt to put some size on these fruits in the coming month we've been forced to give them a deep soaking periodically.

I stopped at Fleet Farm a couple of weeks ago to stock-up on additional canning supplies.

(Go now. Quickly. It's all on sale.)

Looking forward to canning homemade applesauce and pie filling.

Ooooh - pie....

Thievery

Isn’t that a handsome patch of sweet corn?


















It’s all tasseled-out and the ears are forming.





However, someone swiped an ear and gnawed on another one.

I put out a cage trap and baited it with some chicken fat thinking that the culprit is likely a raccoon.

Checking the trap in the morning it was triggered and the chicken fat gone.

Whatever it was it was small enough to squeeze through the mesh cage.

I think the thirteen-lined ground squirrels are back.

Plots

The disaster of a food plot that I planted earlier this year has been plowed-under.

I hit it with a 6% solution of glyphosate (RoundUp) last month and disced it today.

Two additional plots as well.

In a couple of weeks the boys and I will replant them with a mixture of rape and turnip. Brassicas make for a great late summer - cool season - crop. They're also frost-resistant and should persist well into November.

The deer love the stuff.