Stealth Gardening

[steev]

Venison would go a long way to cover the "hunger gap".

I am also plagued by the resident deer; I think they're on rails, they come by on such a tight schedule.

I don't much like my local mule deer, taste-wise (too gamey), but if I can't fence my acres, I will invest in a crossbow and learn to like the voracious vermin. Maybe bacon grease will be the solution.

[circumspice]

Oct 3, 2012 22:22:53 GMT -5 steev said:

Venison would go a long way to cover the "hunger gap".

I am also plagued by the resident deer; I think they're on rails, they come by on such a tight schedule.

I don't much like my local mule deer, taste-wise (too gamey), but if I can't fence my acres, I will invest in a crossbow and learn to like the voracious vermin. Maybe bacon grease will be the solution.

Soak the meat in milk for a couple of hours, drain it, dredge it in seasoned flour, then fry it in bacon grease. Works like a charm to rid that gamey 'buck in rut' taste from the meat. If you're going to roast a haunch or a neck roast, you still need to brown the meat in bacon grease first.

[circumspice]

The deer in central Texas are tiny, the smallest deer I've ever seen. A friend of mine, who hails from Michigan, once told me that we didn't have deer, that something that small couldn't possibly be a deer... I read somewhere that the size of our deer was the result of a highly inbred, isolated population of animals. Currently, the state of Texas is spending BIG bucks on a breeding program to try to increase the body size of our native whitetail deer population.

[steev]

Clearly those Texas deer need some big bucks to help out. Any Michigan "deer-boys" ready for a drive South? Might be easier to herd cats.

Wednesday afternoon in north Berkeley, there was a six-point buck twenty feet away, waiting for my truck to go away; did I mention a crossbow? That sucker was probably as sweet as the rosebuds he'd been feeding on, the past month. Can't discharge a firearm within 25 miles, so guess who prunes the gardens?

[mountaindweller]

How can you convert the inulin in Jerusalem Artichocke in usual starch? Is that possible at all?
I think I must try to cook some of it and feed it to the chicken - can they digest this as starch?

[steev]

I think that's pretty funny; a henhouse-full playing "Blazing Saddles" after chowing on fartichokes. "Oops, I thought that was gonna be an egg".

[Deleted]

Oct 8, 2012 2:08:50 GMT -5 mountaindweller said:

How can you convert the inulin in Jerusalem Artichocke in usual starch? Is that possible at all?
I think I must try to cook some of it and feed it to the chicken - can they digest this as starch?

I understood that booze was distilled from Jerusalem artichoke. To me, this implies that complex starches would break down, into sweeter sugars, as the tuber sits.

Thistle also contains inulin and is given to birds.

Inulin was said to help people assimilate calcium, so was given to help mothers produce milk. I see that steev is only joking, but would it literally help chickens to lay eggs?

[Deleted]

I would sure like to have too many deer around.

Soak the meat in milk for a couple of hours, drain it, dredge it in seasoned flour, then fry it in bacon grease.

I do very similarly, but use milk and egg. I am not afraid to use bolder seasonings, sauces, etc.

I was introduced to wild game as a child, but carefully, can honestly say I was never given anything too unusual.

I think the trick to using substitutions in a "normal" recipe, or adding something new, is to only change one thing at a time.

The deer in central Texas are tiny, the smallest deer I've ever seen. A friend of mine, who hails from Michigan, once told me that we didn't have deer, that something that small couldn't possibly be a deer...

I once saw an antelope-like thing, that was no more than knee high, jump off a 10ft embankment, into a sandy streambed, and scamper away, unphased.

We have unusual hybrids, in the desert. Nothing unnatural, but it defies identification -- rodents with rodents, pigs with pigs, birds with birds. Many of these are not quite albino, but colored to match the sand.

Some suburbanites are surprised that wildlife would exist, at all. You tell them it is only a quarter mile off the edge of the road at dawn, or in the hillside within eyeshot of their house. They say, maybe, but noone would really go out there. Or, it is rarity. Only old timers know about it. I must have heard about it from one of them. You would think picnickers or forage-hobbyists were some serious pioneers for venturing into the light of day.

[steev]

I'm sure the wildlife is grateful for the lack of adventurousness of many people.

[Deleted]

I seem to do them more good than harm, by far.

[synergy]

I pondered the many places to put this link and I think it is worthy of being posted in all of them but I will suffice at posting this link to one of Geoff Lawtons permaculture videos where he addresses the stealth of forest gardening. This is one of the first permaculture videos where a permaculture icon seems to address the convergences of collapse scenarios as a true doomer but offers a solution to meeting our needs and rebalancing the worlds life support systems . I think this is weel worth watching ( I had to submit my name and email to see the video ) :

www.geofflawton.com/fe/32461-surviving-the-coming-crises?r=y

[adamus]

AUSSIES eh.? Mad as snakes.
Makes sense when you think about it.
We seem, downunder, to like being naughty.

[synergy]

Think about it I shall, how is it you Aussies and we Canadians both speak the same language but I am not quite sure what the heck you just said?

There seems to be some broad thinking outside the box that some people are capable of and some of the Aussies have really been open minded, thoughtful and ran with it . I am always impressed by that and nothing I would fault in the conviction shown by Geoff Lawton either, we need a billion more like him.

[mountaindweller]

Comfrey, not to eat but food for your garden. I have two sorts of tomatoes: strong ones mulched thickly with comfrey and small ones I didn't get around to mulch them with comfrey. Comfrey is good if you try to trim your finger with the secateurs too.

[steev]

We are so many peoples separated by a common language: English! Fun, though, isn't it? The rest of you aren't gonna have a clue when we in the Southwestern USA get fluent in Espanglish. Landraces? Lord love a duck but humans are SO promiscuous!