I was quite excited for hunting season this year! The Pennsylvania Game Commission changed the rules for archery hunting to allow the use of crossbows, so for the first time, I purchased an archery stamp. I have never been interested in hunting with a compound bow as I didn’t feel I could make a good accurate and clean kill shot. That has changed with the use of a crossbow. Now I can be very accurate and feel comfortable shooting out to 40 yards. Let me just say that I’m not putting down hunting with a compound bow, so if you hunt with one, don’t get your dander up! There are lots of people who are extremely accurate and deadly with a compound bow! I’m just not one of them!

This change has been wonderful for me. I can now hunt earlier in the season without freezing my tail off! This is a huge issue for me because I can’t take cold weather very well. I’m also excited about being able to hunt the rut! I’ve only been out hunting two days (archery started here on October 3rd), and already I’ve had some great and wild experiences! The first day was pretty uneventful as far as seeing deer goes, but still a joy to sit out in beautiful weather with the leaves changing, watching the sunrise, and listening to all of the songbirds wake up and the squirrels leave their nests to start looking for acorns! The second day was quite a different story!

My stand sits with my back facing the woods and my front and both sides watching a field. Deer come out naturally to feed. I was in my stand before sunrise, listening to the day come alive, and watching the sun come up as it glittered like little jewels off of the dew drops covering the field! I got to see a flock of turkeys working their way through the field, looking for bugs, grasshoppers, and other hidden delights! I waited and watched but … no deer! However, I did see something that I have never seen before.

Toward mid-morning I heard a noise behind me, and slowly turned to see what was making the soft swishing noise in the leaves. There came a rabbit from straight behind me through the woods. It wasn’t running really, just steadily hopping forward. It got right behind me and then turned to my left and disappeared under a heap of brush. As soon as it was out of sight, I heard another noise in the leaves. This time it wasn’t a rabbit, but a mink that was following in the exact path the rabbit had just gone. It also disappeared under the brush. In just a few seconds, the rabbit came out from under the brush, went behind me and to my right, and entered another pile of brush. You guessed it, in just a few seconds the mink was following in the rabbit’s footsteps. It also entered the brush and then it stopped. At that point a chipmunk alarm started going off, followed by a squirrel alarm. I don’t know where they went from there, or if the rabbit got away, but it was so cool to watch something like this, that one would normally see on a nature program on TV. I got to see it in extreme high definition!

But, morning was not the only excitement I was to have this day! In the afternoon I went back to the house to take care of a few chores before going back out to hunt in the late afternoon and evening with my best hunting partner, my husband! We decided that my husband, Jim, would go to my stand to hunt, and I would go to my dad’s stand, which is about 500 yards from mine and also sits with its back against the woods and faces a different open field that is a natural feeding place for deer. This field is on a hill with my dad’s stand at the top. My dad doesn’t hunt archery, so it’s nice to be able to use this stand. To see deer coming out in this field is very common. The issue is whether they will get close enough to get a shot. The sun was sinking in the sky, and things were just starting to get that dusky look. It is what we like to call “prime time.” Out at the end of the field a doe and two young emerged. They headed right down over the front of the field, and out of sight! Shortly after that, to my left, two more deer came out into the field. This time there was one buck, a five or six point, and a smaller deer. I ranged them at 60 yards. Too far to get a shot if I had wanted to, but I know there are better deer here, so I wouldn’t have taken them anyway.

It was now getting pretty dark, although it was full moon, and I could see quite well across the field. It was too late to be shooting anymore. Now I just had to wait for the deer to leave the field so I didn’t spook them when I left the stand. I watched them eating for some time, till they finally worked their way back to the woods.

By now it was dark, but as I said, with the full moon, I could see quite well. I scoped the field again to make sure there were no other deer out, and I saw a large dark spot about 60 yards on the other side of me. There in the field were not one, but two black bears! Seeing bear here is not uncommon, but I had never seen them out in this field before! I was enjoying watching them. They would interact with each other, and browse a bit on the alfalfa. They started working their way toward the stand as they were eating, till they were a mere 10 yards away.

Both of these bears were nice size, although it was too dark for me to make a guess at their weight. One was significantly bigger than the other. The larger bear turned all of a sudden, and headed right for my stand! Now I should explain what this stand is like. It is a wooden enclosed stand with windows that can be opened on all 4 sides. It sits slightly up in the air, with 3 or 4 steps to get up into it. I had three of these windows down to watch all the action. The bear got to the base of the stand and started to stand up to come up the steps. I had my head out the window watching it. That’s when I realized that this bear had some size. I think if I stretched, I could have tapped it on the nose. This was getting a little to close for comfort, so I clapped my hands at it three times, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP. It immediately stopped, turned and walked back to the other bear, still at 10 yards away. There they stood, trying to figure out what the sound was. I clapped again, and they ran just inside the woods and stopped. They stood for a couple seconds, then started walking toward the stand again. I clapped the third time, stopping them once more. They waited a few seconds, and then took off back through the woods, sounding like bulldozers as they ran through the brush. I don’t know if they finally picked up my scent, or just decided they were not sure enough of the situation and it was time to get out of there.

I gathered up my stuff and started walking in to meet my husband and tell him about my adventure! I don’t mind saying that as I walked across that moonlit field, I looked over my shoulder more than once to make sure a couple of curious bears didn’t decide to come back to investigate a bit more! I wish I could have gotten pictures of all these exciting events, but even if I had carried my camera, it would have been to dark anyway!

You don’t always have to bag your quarry for it to be a successful hunt! Some experiences in life are priceless!

Keeping chickens for eggs and meat has become quite a movement, especially in the last year. For us the reasons are many, to raise our own chickens. As Lacy recently blogged about, the eggs are so much better for you than store bought eggs. We like knowing what goes into the foods we eat. Our chickens are dual purpose birds. They give us beautiful brown eggs and home grown meat for on the table.

If you are just starting out with chickens, you will eventually find yourself asking this question one day when you look in the fridge. “What on earth am I going to do with all those eggs?” I’m going to give you some EGGcellent ideas on what to do with some of them!

First, you should never overlook the obvious choice. Tomorrow morning, instead of going for that box of cereal, make your family a wonderful cooked breakfast with eggs. I like to make a big batch of them scrambled. Break your eggs into a container. Add any seasoning that you might want like salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, red pepper, whatever you prefer. Beat them up with a fork and cook in a skillet, (I use no-stick for easy clean up) over medium heat. When the eggs are done, sprinkle with your favorite cheese and let set a few minutes to melt. YUM!

Another wonderful way to use up a few eggs is to make a quiche. GRIT has a great recipe for one in the current issue that I highly recommend!

If I want to use up a few dozen eggs at a time, I turn them into little devils! My family loves deviled eggs! They are very easy to make, and you can be so creative with them. First, you have to hard-boil your eggs. I recommend cooking plenty because they will disappear quickly! When they are done, peel and rinse. Now you simply take a sharp knife and cut the hard-boiled eggs in half and pop out the yoke into a bowl. Set the whites aside to refill later. I just use a spoon to smash the yolks, and then the fun part begins. You can add almost anything you can think of to the mix here. I start with mayo and mustard. I just spoon some into the egg yolk and stir. If it seems a little dry, I just add some more. I don’t use exact measurements. Then I start adding the “good stuff.” Add whatever seasoning you like and want to try. There are no rules. You can also add bacon, or chunks of ham, onion, green pepper … you name it. The last batch I made, I used bacon onion seasoning mix, dill, and some horseradish sauce. My husband approved of this mixture when he tested! When you are finished with your own special concoction, just spoon the filling back into the egg whites. Use them on top of a salad, or just serve them on a tray.

When I peel my hard-boiled eggs, I always have some that don’t look so pretty when I’m finished. Those eggs get chopped up and put into a separate bowl. They then get turned into another great way to use up eggs, egg salad. Like the deviled egg filling, you can be very creative with egg salad. To my chopped eggs I add once again, mayo and mustard. Then I like to add onion, and whatever other seasoning I’m in the mood for. I like to add ground red pepper for a little kick. Taste test as you go and adjust accordingly. Spread on some bread, add some lettuce, and voila, a yummy sandwich!

If you have a favorite egg recipe that you use all the time, please feel free to share. I’m always on the lookout for ways to use those eggs!

Things have been very busy here in our neck of the woods!

My little darlings, as I like to call them, are now permanent residents outside. Of course I am referring to the three baby squirrels that we rescued earlier this year when I found them fallen from their nest. They are looking for food on their own, but we still spoil them with corn and sunflower seeds.

On some days they greet us on the porch in the morning, and will still come running up my leg, or jump onto my shoulder. My husband, Jim, built a couple more squirrel boxes and hung them in trees near our house. The babies are all staying in one of those boxes overnight. They have been a great success, and it is a joy to have them around!

Our garden is growing beautifully! I have already picked sugar peas three times, and I have gotten quite a few Eight Ball zucchinis!

Our green beans are in blossom, and our potatoes just started to blossom.

Our cabbages seem to put size on every day, and my carrot tops are beautifully frilly!

The onions are big enough to start harvesting some to eat, and there are little green tomatoes hanging from the vine!

My peppers haven’t started to blossom yet, but I was a bit late getting them in the ground this year.

My flowers are starting to bloom beautiful too.

My Delphinium are opening, one of my favorite.

I’m a sucker for the cottage garden look!

On the fauna side of things, I have had lots of broody hens in the past month!

We now have four mother hens with peeps running around, and another that is still sitting, but not on chicken eggs! Our neighbor over the hill is a farmer, and farms the fields right next to ours. He came to our house a couple of Saturdays ago. He was mowing his field when he came across a turkey hen sitting on a nest. The hen took off without being hurt, and he just missed the eggs with the mower! He gathered up the clutch of eggs and came to our house. He knew we had chickens, and wondered if we had any broody hens we could stick the eggs under? It just so happens that we had a Welsummer hen that had just gone broody. It’s funny how things work out sometimes! So that hen is now sitting on ten turkey eggs. We don’t know how long it will take them to hatch, because we don’t know how long the turkey hen was sitting on them before she was disturbed. We also don’t know how they will do if they hatch. I know wild turkeys are very touchy. It is an experiment, and we’ll figure it out as we go! Our goal is to get them big enough to let them loose.

It is fun to watch all these mothers with their babies, and as they get bigger, we will start culling some of the older chickens from the flock and put them in the freezer. The first four babies that Mamma hatched for us back in December are now laying beautiful darker brown eggs.

Another change with our chicken flock is they are now in a very large fenced area. I prefer them roaming free, but we couldn’t let them roam and have a nice garden and flower beds! They thought they had to remove all my flowers and replace them with large dusting holes for themselves! We bought 300 foot of chicken fence and made a large enclosure. We hope to add another 300 feet very soon. That fence also gives us a little more peace of mind as far as predators are concerned.

My husband and I just took a vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in May.

The beach there is so nice. It is never crowded, and is within walking distance from the house we rented!

What a way to relax! We had a great time! As I said at the start … life is good!

It was a normal Friday afternoon at our house. My husband, Jim, had gotten home from work around 4:00. We usually have a Friday ritual of going to the bank and the grocery store to pick up any items we might need, and sometimes go out to eat. Hubby was on the phone, so I decided to go collect the eggs awhile. That way, when he was off the phone, we could leave. I grabbed the egg basket and away I went.

We have to check for eggs late in the afternoon because about half of our hens are late layers. I stepped into the chicken house and was gathering eggs when I realized I was hearing a noise. It sounded kinda like a high pitched squeal or whistle. My first thought was, “Oh, there is a nest of baby birds close by.” I dismissed it as that, and started back about my business. In a couple minutes, the noise got louder and more demanding. I listened again, giving it more of my attention now and I realized this was not baby birds but something else. I looked out the door that the chickens use to go in and out of the chicken house, and I saw all of our ducks and chickens with their faces pointing the same direction, intently staring directly on the other side of the fence. I knew that whatever was making the noise also had the attention of our poultry. I finished gathering the eggs and walked around the back of the fence. There, on the ground, squealing their little heads off were three baby squirrels that had obviously fallen from the nest. It was very windy, cool, and raining. I’m not sure if the wind blew them out of the nest or if they crawled out and fell, but it really didn’t matter. As soon as I saw them, I scooped the poor little darlings up and brought them in the house to show my husband and to warm them up. They were still pretty small. They did have some hair on them, but not completely covered, and their eyes and ears were stilled closed.

We are not strangers to taking care of baby squirrels. About three years ago, my husband found a single baby squirrel that had fallen out of the nest not far from the same place these three did. We decided then we were going to try to save that one too. We got online and looked up info on how to determine the age of the baby squirrel, and how and what to feed them. The info was not difficult to find. We were to use a syringe, remove the needle of course, and fill that with the formula to feed the baby squirrel. We needed to get puppy milk replacer, available at our local pet store. That squirrel we named Spunky. It was very easy to teach him to drink from the syringe, and he did very well. We fed him the recommended amounts, and after a few weeks, we started to wean him on to solid food. He ate things like seeds and dried fruits and nuts.

I have to say here that I do NOT recommend keeping wild animals as pets. It was and is our intention to raise these babies up, re-introduce them to the wild, and set them free. When Spunky was big enough, we started taking him outside every day.

My husband built a squirrel box for him and attached it to one of our trees. He took to the box, and eventually he started staying out all the time. He would still come to us for peanuts, but he was doing fine on his own. Spunky was a success. He still comes to our bird feeders, three years later.

Now back to our new babies. As I said, we were familiar with what we needed to do, but these babies were a bit smaller than Spunky was, and there are three of them instead of one. We went to the pet store and got the milk replacer. Once again, it was very easy to teach the babies to drink from the syringe. So far, these babies are doing fine. If they continue to progress the way they have been, I have high hopes that they will be just as successful as Spunky was.

It is, however, more of a challenge trying to deal with three baby squirrels as opposed to one. They are adorable and getting more rambunctious every day! On advice from my niece, Jordan, we have named the squirrels Alvin, Simon, and Theodore! Those names fit them very well! Now if we can just convince our cat Belle, who is not happy with the situation, that these babies are just temporary residents…. No worries, the squirrels are completely safe from Her Highness!

A greenhouse has always been on my list. You know the list I speak of, everyone has one. It is the mental list that we all keep of things we would like to have someday. That “someday” came for me when my husband suggested we go ahead and put up a greenhouse.

I was extremely excited with the thought of being able to get a jumpstart on our gardening, and experimenting with different plants and flowers, but I also knew we needed to be economical about it. We couldn’t afford to incur a large expense in the construction of the greenhouse, or in the heating of it later. This sent me on the path of the internet highway to do some research. As you can imagine, I found lots of information on all kinds of greenhouses. There is everything from prefabricated kits that come with everything you need to instructions on building your own greenhouse out of many different materials. What I found that caught my attention the most was information on a thermal mass greenhouse. This type of greenhouse uses energy from the sun to store heat, and then release that heat at night when it is needed. Energy from the sun = free, just the right price!

According to the information I found, many things can be used for the “mass” to collect the heat and energy from the sun. Anything that retains heat would probably work. Some of the items listed included soil in raised beds, wood, block or brick foundations, concrete, or even the floor of the greenhouse. But the most effective and least expensive thermal mass is water! Again, water = free! It didn’t take much for me to decide that a thermal mass greenhouse was the way to go for us. But how would we store the large amounts of water that would be needed? The recommended amount was about 2-3 gallons of water per square foot. Apparently, a common practice is to store the water in containers along the back wall of the greenhouse, or use 55 gallon drums filled with water to support the benches in the greenhouse. In one instance I read about, someone had used the method of water in barrels under their benches. They said it kept the temperatures in the greenhouse above freezing except on the very coldest nights. On those nights, they used a very small space heater as a supplement to keep the temperatures up.

My husband and I have a great setup to use this type of greenhouse. Our basement wall is underground on three sides. The fourth side is exposed and faces in a southeastern direction. We came up with a plan to use the face of the exposed basement wall as the back wall of our greenhouse. It would face the right way to capture the heat from the sun. The block wall in the back could store some of the sun’s energy, and we would also use barrels of water on both sides of the greenhouse with planking across the tops of the barrels as bench tops. The wall we wanted to put the greenhouse against has a window into the basement. I thought we could also use this to our advantage. We heat our home with a woodstove in our basement. This keeps our basement nice and warm too. If we built the greenhouse around that window, then on the coldest nights, we could open the window and use a small fan to pull some of the heat from the basement into the greenhouse as a supplemental heating source. I was excited to test all this and see if it would work!

We began construction in March. We decided to make the greenhouse 8 feet deep by 24 feet long. My husband was the brains behind all the measurements. He came up with all the figures and sizes for making the correct cuts, and attaching the greenhouse to our basement wall. With some help from our son, my greenhouse soon started to take shape. It wasn’t long till we had a frame in place.

We knew that it was also important to have a way to let some of the heat escape when the temperatures got too hot, so we put a window in on the parallel wall to the door opening on the shorter 8-foot wall. This would correspond with the predominant wind flow here, so we could open the window and door and have air move through.

Finally the framing was completed. Now, we were ready to wrap the greenhouse with plastic. This was the one thing that we would later realize we should have done differently. We wrapped the greenhouse, roof and sides, with the plastic. Dancing in the streets, laughter, and applause … MY GREENHOUSE WAS READY TO USE ... well, almost!

We still had to get the “thermal mass.” This is where my wonderful son-in-law, Deron, comes into play. Where he works, he has access to large, 55 gallon black plastic barrels. The company he works for gets them full of alcohol for sterilization purposes. He was able to get the empty used barrels for me for free! I LOVE FREE! We set the barrels along both the outer and inner long, 24-foot walls, and filled them with water. We then used planking a crossed the tops of the barrels to act as my bench tops. Now, I was ready to start planting. Since we were already into March, I wasn’t sure if we could really accurately determine how the greenhouse would do in colder weather, and I thought I was getting a late start in getting seeds in the ground to be able to transplant for planting time. It turned out that timing for transplanting was perfectly fine by starting my seeds in March. For the most part, everything had plenty of time to sprout and grow to size for transplanting into the garden.

We installed one of those thermometers in the greenhouse that has an extra unit that we could put in our house. This way we could monitor the temperature of the greenhouse from inside our home.

On average, the temperatures inside the greenhouse stayed a good ten degrees or more than the temperatures outside, overnight, with no extra heat source. As soon as the sun would come up, the temperature would raise substantially higher than outside. There were only a couple of nights that we opened our basement window to the greenhouse, to let in a little extra heat.

I consider this greenhouse almost a complete success. The one thing that was a problem for us would not be a problem for most people. When we bought the plastic to wrap our greenhouse, we did not take into account the fact that we have free roaming poultry! Here is an interesting little tidbit for you. Ducks and chickens LOVE to poke holes in plastic! Till the end of the growing season, the plastic on the greenhouse was pretty much done for! This is simply what I call a live and learn experience! We now need to rewrap the greenhouse with plastic. We will either use a higher grade of plastic, or use plastic sheeting. That will be determined by cost right now. Either way, we are planning a very large fenced poultry enclosure, so we shouldn’t have to worry about the same thing happening again.

All in all, I would recommend this type of greenhouse, but, beware of ducks and chickens!

Hunting is a very big part of our lives in this family, so wild game recipes are always welcome. I thought I would share a recipe for a dish I made with a rabbit my husband brought me from a successful hunt.

Hubby cleans and skins the rabbit, and then I take over. I put the rabbit in my slow cooker, and almost cover with water. I season with various spices including salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and oregano. You can add whatever you like. I cook at a medium temperature for a few hours, or till the meat starts to fall off of the bones. At this point I remove the rabbit from the broth. I strain the broth, and set it back. I pick all the meat off of the bones. This is usually very easy to do at this point. It pretty much just falls off in your hand. Be careful of small bones. I cut up any larger pieces into bite size chunks. Now I take a small portion of the meat and add it back into the broth. This gets put into the fridge to make another meal with. That’s right, two meals from one rabbit! It usually gets made into some sort of soup or stew. That will be a recipe for another blog.

Now you have cooked and de-boned rabbit cut into bite sized pieces. I used this to make a casserole that my family has repeatedly asked for again. I took one of those boxed pasta salad mixes, I think it was the bacon ranch kind, and prepared it per instructions on the box. I know that’s kinda cheating, but very easy! When it was done, I added my rabbit pieces, some butter, and some cheese cut into chunks. Use your favorite kind of cheese, or combine a few kinds. I poured this mixture into a baking dish and topped with a little more cheese, (more is better) and sprinkled the whole thing with seasoned bread crumbs. Just heat this in a 350 degree oven till heated through. Absolutely yummy!

To go with this meal, I also made some easy corn muffins. The recipe is:

1¼ cups flour
¾ cup corn meal
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 egg beaten

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk, oil, and egg, mixing just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour batter into greased or paper lined muffin cups. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

These went great with the rabbit casserole, and they are also a very good breakfast addition. I made some peach butter to put on them. Very easy to make, I simply set out a stick of butter and let it get to room temperature. Then I add some of my homemade peach jam, and whip it together. This goes great on muffins. You could use whatever flavor you like. Strawberry, blueberry, apple, any of these would be yummy.

Anyone with a good wild game recipe out there? I would love to hear it!

It is that same old question we ask ourselves everyday! The real question is probably better put, “What can I make for supper tonight that I haven’t made before?” Sometimes I find myself stuck in a rut of making the same meals over and over again. This has a lot to do with what we have in our freezer. Our main food supplies consist of frozen chicken, hamburger, and venison steaks. The challenge comes with trying to find different ways to prepare these three main foods. I put together a combination the other night that turned out particularly yummy. I thought I would share it.

Steak is always a great choice for supper and very popular at our house, so I pulled some venison steaks from the freezer in the morning to thaw. After they were thawed, I seasoned them with coarse black pepper and steak seasoning. I chopped up some onions and garlic cloves, and opened a can of mushrooms.

The prep time for this only takes about 30 to 45 minutes. At suppertime, I browned my steak on both sides. My steak doesn’t take long to fry up because we usually slice it on the thinner side. Your cook time will depend on how thick your steak is, and how well you like it done. I then added my chopped onion, garlic, mushrooms, and some parsley and stir-fried them in with the steak for a few minutes. While the steak was frying, I took one of our packages of frozen sugar peas from our garden that I had thawed earlier, and stir-fried them with some seasoning. At the same time, I cooked 2 cups of minute rice. When the rice and peas were both done, I combined them.

To serve, I put a bed of the rice and peas on the plate first. Then, I added some steak pieces. On top of the steak I melted some shredded cheese (use whatever kind you like best), and topped with the mushroom, onion, and garlic. Absolutely yummy, and your family will love you for it!

If any of you have any new supper ideas, I would love to hear them!