Hank Shaw's Duck Duck Goose

We've waited a long time for this, there are plenty of books about game cookery that have a few pages dedicated to wildfowl, but there hasn't been a single work that puts all the wisdom in one place. Until now.

I've followed Hank Shaw's blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook since it's first post, we've conversed by email and in the comments sections of our respective blogs. I am an unabashed fan of his writing, recipes and outlook on food and hunting.

There are lots of johnny-come-lately foodie bloggers, and frankly I'd trust most of them to tell me about the ambience of the eatery more than the food, some of them are very experienced customers, no bad thing, its all part of the deal. But if you wish to 'know' your ingredients, you must have put in your 'dirt time' hands on with the soil, walk the earth, gather and hunt from its fecundity.
The GF - Elfa, drank, and sold a lot of wine, but for her to feel her education had begun she had to make seasonal pilgrimages to the vineyard, to walk away from a planned harvest knowing another few days sunlight would take the crop to another level of ripeness, then crush the grapes with her bare feet, before her connection to the wines could become an almost living thing. I've seen a lot of wines sold, but passion will out. It's easy to fake the sincerity, but not the deep connection to the repast you serve.

I'd like to tell you some underdog-tale of how Hank's blog started from small beginnings and grew, but no, Hank was already an accomplished writer when he made his first post. He'd worked as a journalist for many years, he'd put himself through journalism school by slaving at a hot stove and he's walked the forests, fields and beaches with rod and rifle, with gun and basket. His books could be seen as a confluence of that time and many many evenings spent between the stove and the bookshelf.

The book hits AMAZON right about now

The book tour has started, so you can meet and more importantly EAT with Hank - the details are google mapped HERE

You can follow Hank on Facebook HERE

More soon
SBW

Tapas In Valencia: Tasca Angel

Sea Snails con Nails

I've not been posting much lately as other projects have been getting in the way, one of them had me visiting Valencia with Elfa.  

We stayed with Mr & Mrs Spainglish a couple Elfa is friends with, "You're going to love them, they are like you about foodieness, just not fat. Like you"

Mrs Spainglish (the English half), who has lived in the city for about thirteen years, warmly recommends Tasca Angel for authentic tapa, and it didn't disappoint. Obviously we ate all the weird things on the menu, Eels: good but a bit expensive, Brains: the best I've ever had, likewise the Sardines, and the Snails con Nails were amazing, but they sell less carpetovetónica food too. It's only about five minutes walk from the Mercado Central, which if you're not visiting you may as well not bother going to Valencia. 

Carrer de la Puríssima, 1 46001 Valencia València, Spain‎ +34 963 91 78 35

Your host, I wish I could tell you his taste in music was as good as his tapas.
If you like 80's power ballads with your tapas you're in luck!

Enjoy

SBW

Halal Slaughter: Questions And Controversies

While out on the town drinking a few nights back I met up with [Lunches With Sharks -you'll meet him later] and a group of his friends I was introduced by LWS  as 'The Hunter'.  I'm accustomed to getting a broadly interested and positive response to being introduced like this. For the most part North london's 40-something dads are in favor of hunting for the pot, and reluctantly approving of pest control. For starters we chatted about hunting in the UK, the number of Deer there are these days, Fox predation, the Badger controversy, all the usual stuff. But where's the fun in that?  Without exposure to new and sometimes surprising ideas there is no learning, no expansion of my worldview. I like the slightly troubling thoughts that take our knowledge in new and sometimes surprising directions, and I like to test them out on other people, hopefully clever people. With that in mind whilst out on the town I've told this story a few times, and the faces people pulled tell me this one is perhaps, not for the hard-of-thinking.

If you've read a bit of this blog you'll already know that my preferred outcome for my dinner is that the animal was just mooching along, minding its own business, when out of nowhere an arrow or bullet severed a major artery and the animal was already dead when the bang or twang reached its ears. For me there is no better way for the animal to meet its end. The way for most food animals in the western world is, er, slightly different. It's entirely acceptable to have the animal severely traumatised, then stunned, before being skinned alive-ish. There is little time for compassion in industrialised animal husbandry. There is another method, one that people have heard of, disapprove of, yet seem to know little about. The intersection between wilful ignorance and distain has proved to be an interesting hunting ground in the past, so I thought I'd shine a flashlight into the chasm of my own ignorance and learn a little more about how other cultures relate to their food. Starting with Islam.

When you ask the average English or American person about the practice of Halal slaughter, they start pulling faces, and words like 'barbaric', and 'sickening' are used. The speaker is seldom able to describe exactly what they are objecting to, just the feelings the very word 'Halal' evokes. Occasionally you meet someone who'll tell you "they just slit the animals throats"this statement is accompanied by a look of distaste. Hmmm anyone for wilful ignorance with a side order of distain? I dont know about you but that just about makes me drool with curiosity. We have found the edge of the map. I have to know more.

Here's a video made by some chaps who are adherents to the Muslim faith, demonstrating their slaughter practice, and giving their explanation of the effects that they believe make up the process. It's not particularly graphic, part one of the video deals with the method of submission so no blood is spilled.



What interests me about the practice we're shown is the neurological effects, and particularly the resonance between the slaughtered and the slaughter-man. The practice of keeping the animals together as much as possible makes a lot of sense. As a herding animal the goat will obviously be much more relaxed when in a herd setting - where many eyes and ears can keep a look out. Separated from the herd, the animal wants to rejoin the group as soon as possible, going into distress until its reunited.
The slaughter man we see obviously takes his responsibly to the animal seriously, he seems un-hurried and benign towards the animals, there's no beating and shouting. As he intones the words of his religious conviction he seems lost in a revery, which then seems to affect the goat, it calms right down.
Its as though once disorientated by being tipped onto its back, and having it's head pushed back, the goat takes its que from the slaughter man who is exhibiting great calmness. As he covers its eyes, and strokes it the goat really does look so relaxed that it could doze off at any moment.

"these animals are Bilingual they always know the name when its mentioned no matter what language and they always feel the heart of that slaughterer if he belives in that word or he dosent"

The first part I'm not yet convinced by, but the second part is looking at least plausible. Most people who hunt will tell you that they believe animals have a sense of our intention, go out without a gun the place teams with game, the same walk with a gun nothing about, a common theme in stories from woodland stalkers is 'I was watching the deer from a hidden place, when a dog walker yapping on the phone wearing a fluro cagoule walked into the scene and the deer ignored them'. Just as many hunters report having a sense of there being hunt-able species in the area, it would seem animals have a sense of there being predators in the area. If this is true (its at least anecdotally true) the slaughter man has obscured his intention by going into his revery.

Lets turn this on its head for a moment; if he's made loads of threatening noises, banged a stick on the ground in between whacking at the animals with it, the separated the animal from its heard before of and ministering more of the same. He would have pushed all the buttons that tell the animal to be hyper alert. Instead by pushing the other set of buttons: he's basically hypnotised the goat.

How would you like your dinner to die? Is this what you were expecting? What other traditions do you think I should be investigating? I welcome your thoughts and comments: have at it.

More of the usual nonsense soon enough, thanks for reading
SBW

Plucking Pheasants And The Pheasant Plucker's Song

Many years ago when I first met Tobermory, among the smart things he taught me we some very very silly things. One of them was this drinking game/linguistic dexterity exersise.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes. I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son. I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.

How fast can you say that after four pints of Stella?

Turns out it comes from a lager body of work

The Pheasant Plucker's Song
I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son
I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.

Me husband is a keeper, he's a very busy man
I try to understand him and I help him all I can,
But sometimes in an evening I feel a trifle dim
All alone, I'm plucking pheasants, when I'd rather pluck with him.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's mate 
I'm only plucking pheasants 'cos the pheasant plucker's late !

I'm not good at plucking pheasants, at pheasant plucking I get stuck
Though some pheasants find it pleasant I'd rather pluck a duck.
Oh plucking geese is gorgeous, I can pluck a goose with ease
But pheasant plucking's torture because they haven't any grease.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, he has gone out on the tiles
He only plucked one pheasant and I'm sitting here with piles !

You have to pluck them fresh, if it’s fresh they’re not unpleasant,
I knew a man in Dunstable who could pluck a frozen pheasant.
They say the village constable had pheasant plucking sessions
With the vicar on a Sunday ‘tween the first and second lessons.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's mum
I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker's come.

My good friend Godfrey is most adept, he's really got the knack
He likes to have a pheasant plucked before he hits the sack.
I like to give a helping hand, I gather up the feathers, 
It's really all our pheasant plucking keeps us pair together.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's friend
I'm only plucking pheasants as a means unto an end !

My husband's in the forest always banging with his gun
If he could hear me half the time I'm sure that he would run,
For there's fluff in all my crannies, there's feathers up my nose
And I'm itching in the kitchen from my head down to my toes.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's wife 
And when we pluck together it's a pheasant plucking life !

Click to consult the expert for a recipe

More soon

SBW

How To Plait Garlic - Ish!

This afternoon I was able to extract a small sample of mother natures bounty from the Ex Mrs SBW's garden. The Garlic was ready! Yea!!

The Littlest Bushwacker was an enthusiastic helper 

and although the harvest was small, and if I'm honest all mother nature's
work, we were both delighted to be outside doing something together.

The plaiting part was easy to do....  

Well, easy to do badly.

If you'd like to see how the pros do it here's the tutorial I followed gave a cursory glance.

Hope it's all good with you, more posts on the way
Your pal
The bushwacker.

I Could Definitely Kill One Of Those

If you've ever had a thought about the ethics of the food chain and your place in it.

Read this post by Tovar.

Nuf Sed

SBW

Freeganism In The Suburban Bush

Freegan = Someone whose diet is made up of free things

One of those funny blogging coincidences sprang up the other day, just as myself and Horsemouth were talking about how the freegan lifestyle might be both an answer to our pecuniary problems, and to the waste problem on this small island, Chad was posting on the same subject.

'Great Minds Think Alike' or 'Idiots Seldom Differ', you decide?

Sometimes I thing that this whole 'big brains and opposable thumbs' thing is a test, one we may well not pass. Modern life has brought us so many wonderful things, but looked at in it's totality, the whole sorry enterprise has been a bit of a debacle.

As America joined the second world war, within one week, just seven days, the automobile industry had been reborn as builders of the machines of war, not another car was made in the USA until the war was won.

Massive changes in perspective and direction are possible. If the will is there.

We have enough resources to end hunger today, we have enough resources to raise expectations all over the planet so people are too busy enjoying the fruits of freedom to nurse to the grievances of extremists.

Here in blighty the second world war saw a massive increase in the nations health, while slashing the nations food bill. Peoples ingenuity was focused on getting the most from every resource and finding new ones in unexpected places. Food wasn't wasted, instead of landfill, scraps became the next meal and people were healthier for it.

There's an oft quoted statistic that a third of the food bought in in the UK is thrown away. Yep, 'scared of their dinner' doesn't only mean that meat must come in a little plastic tray, it means that all foods have to have a a 'sell by' or 'use by' date. Even eggs have a 'best before' date printed on each shell and the hilarious thing is people actually think these dates are sacrosanct. I was brought up in a 'scrape the bad bit off' household. The dried out edge of a block of cheese becomes the basis for a cheese sauce, jam is fine once the furry bit is chucked and dry bread makes the best toast. Why would you need a stamp to tell you if an egg is edible? You have a nose on your face after all.

"What are we having for dinner?"

Can always be answered,

"what needs eating, today?"

Food is one of the most carbon intensive things we consume. With most calories of food costing an average of ten calories to produce and transport to the table. Every time a piece of food hermetically sealed in a little tray is thrown away its made a long carbon consuming journey to the store and then to the house. Before it makes one last diesel powered journey to the tip, where because it's sealed it wont be composted,as it beocmes yet more land-fill.

Less wasted food would be a massive step towards making our current lifestyle more sustainable. The other benifit of gathering these foodstuffs is that once in the hands of a freegan, the packaging is removed and concieniusly added to the recycleing thereby adding to the amount of traded and reccyled plasics. Good for the environment and good for the economy. In these cost conscious times more and more , sustainable isn't just a dislocated wish, it's the distance between pay cheques. Modern Life is Rubbish, we just need to be more intelligent with the rubbish.

Horsemouth is a cheapskate to rival even The Northern Monkey, and as your representative I thought I'd do a spot of Freegan Foraging too. We know we can eat for free, but what will we eat for free? What's the legal position? What tools do freegans use? All these and many more questions will be answered in part 2.

Your pal

The Bushwacker

This Weekends Recommended Reading

Blogs. Just like buses, ya wait for ages and then three come along at once. Two of them by the same dude.

First up I'd like to introduce Hubert Hubert an Air Rifle hunter from the bit of england between 'darn sarf' and 'oop north'. Lets call it the 'mid-lands'. The writes a blog he calls Rabbit Stew. Self described as

Surviving the credit crunch! Middle-aged bloke takes to the fields with an air rifle in search of free food.

.... because of a nagging sense that the stranglehold that the all-conquering giant alien supermarkets have on both the farmers that produce the meat and the Joe Publics that buy the meat is a fundamentally crazy, rude, unfriendly - and moreover, somehow, and this is where it gets a little less rational, I fear - yucky state of affairs: it just feels queasily, weirdly wrong to buy lamb chops from Tesco's. So, I don't really seem to do it any more. What I seem to do is go out and try to shoot rabbits instead (except I'm not very good at it, get very few, and have become, as a result, much more of a damn veggie than I'd have thought likely at the outset when I proudly purchased my manly, German, hell-bent-on-meat-eating air rifle). I seem to find myself thinking more and more of a little shack on the edge of a wood somewhere where I can dwell hermit-like with my Weihrauch, pot rabbits, pick mushrooms, grow a giant beard and, unbelievably, wash even less than I do now.

Nicely written and for such a new blog quite a few posts too. Welcome to the blog roll Hubert.

Best make your self a cup of something hot and a sandwich before you start on this one. For, dear reader, this is some blog. 

Alcoholism, Divorce, Penury, AIDS, Third world debt, Kleptocracy, Corruption, Land mines, and the fun doesn't end there. This blog contains all sorts of insights into the human condition, from the  grotesque to the inspirational. A really genuinely unique voice, and frankly the reason I've achieved so little this afternoon. 

A Hippo On The Lawn - the diary of an involuntary expatriate

Here's how it starts:

I am sitting in a 20-foot container, a reasonably well-appointed container admittedly but a container nevertheless. The kind of container in which people stuff cars, or building materials, illegal immigrants, whatever, or wash up on the southern coast of UK loaded with BMW motorcycles, that sort of container. It is one of a few that sitting on their little wooden blocks plugged into a generator together form the residential half of the industrial site that I am running........

......I came here nearly 14 years ago for a six-month humanitarian demining contract. Apart from occasional interludes in places like Gabon, Nigeria and Uganda to name a few, I have been here ever since. I have been shot at and stabbed in this country, I survived a plane crash here, got married and divorced here, have been formally expelled from the country and then very grudgingly and still precariously allowed to stay, been arrested three times and detained many times, went through a week long court case facing ten years for trumped up charges before being acquitted. I am raising a son here, have had seven varied and interesting jobs here, have a farm down south on which I intend to run sheep and have just finished building a house in the southern suburbs to replace the one I lost after the divorce. As much as the immigration services want me to leave, I want to stay.

I really can't do justice to his writing in a few short exerts, READ IT yourself. I promise you won't regret the time you spend on it. 

The last of this weekends blogs is also written by Hippo. 

Cooking In The Frontline is a recipe blog of stunning (and mouth watering) simplicity. 

.........I had better teach myself to cook. Easier said than done when in a war zone. It is all very well getting the best cook books but all of them assume that the local delicatessen or well stocked supermarket is but a short drive away. So I stopped lugging the books around in my back-pack and started to look at the ingredients that were available around me. I then figured out the best way to turn, what were sometimes collectively quite an odd assortment, into a dish that would not only sustain me, but was a delight to eat. Well I wasn't always successful, my rats in Satay sauce were, quite frankly, gut churning but I was desperate at the time.

To my surprise, however, I found that cooking in the front line, so to speak, was an enjoyable experience. It took my mind off the horrors around me and the discomfort we all suffered. It brought me close to a surprising variety of people and I am sure that on more than one occasion, instead of being ambushed, the smell of cooking wafting through the bush encouraged my would be assailants to appear sheepishly out of the gloom, weapons pointing safely towards the ground, politely asking if there was any going spare.

Sure he's no Hank, (but who of us is?) the great beauty of his writing is his knack of reveling just how easy it is to knock up terrific grub even in seemingly adverse circumstances. Think of him as an older, wiser, wittier Jamie Oliver, based in Angola. 
Off for a spot of fishing. 

Don't stay up too late reading will you

SBW

Happy Blog Day Nor Cal Cazadora!

Norcal Casadora - She’s another late convert to hunting and wild food and I’ve always felt an affinity with the trails and tribulations of her journey from foodie to cazadora (huntress). I remember when she only had a couple of posts up and I’ve really enjoyed watching her blog and its reputation grow. Her writing and analysis are both first rate. This is how the professionals do it. Where most bloggers do something else for a living she is a professional word smith, teaches writing, and frankly it shows. My prediction for the next year is that she’ll be asked to take over the Field and Stream huntress blog.

Happy Blog Day To You NorCal!!

Forks and Roasting - Online!

I've been a fan of, and occasional poster on, the bushcraftuk.com site for a couple of years now, and while it's full of really useful information, it's much like human nature itself; a mix of the good the bad and the ugly. It's also not short of moments of high comedy

There are some people who can't seem to think about bushcraft without buying yet more tat to drag around with them.

(sound of glass house resident throwing stones)

As a wise man once said 'there's a seeker born every minute, two to teach him, and another two to sell him 'must have' accessories on the internet'

The Swedish company Light My Fire sells some really cool stuff, but sometimes people get a bit carried way and 'it's a really cool idea' gets confused with 'it's going to be a really cool product'. You know what sales and marketing people are like.

(another stone flies past)

This toasting fork is a case in point. You get some wire and you bend it, it becomes a really sweet way of keeping the bread, sausage, or marshmallow stable on the end of your stick while you're toasting it over the fire. It's not rocket science - but it is the kind of cool idea that the internet is so good for sharing. Barry Crump would be proud of you.

A chap whose forum name on bushcraftuk is Cobweb has gone to the trouble of posting a straightforward tutorial showing exactly how to make one in 12 photos. Nice one mate.

Then follow 3 pages of sad, angry men telling each other how each of them believes they know best. After a while the guy who started the site asks them to play nice, they don't listen!
It's hilarious! Boys and their toys! What can you say?

thanks for reading
SBW

PS the toasting forks absolutely rock - and are very very easy to make
PPS have a look at the silly poll I posted about an English TV show and the responses it got!

Trota! Rod? Line? Nah!

Our friend who is yet to get his TLA (three letter acronym) lets call him jon, has just sent me this picture from his place in Italy. Apparently he was standing by his trout stream (you think that's jammy - he has Boar and Deer too!) wondering weather or not to take up fishing (I know! Some people!) when he saw this one had invited itself to lunch by marooning itself in a shallow pool.
So he picked it up and took it home, as yer would!
Thanks for reading
SBW

Can Trout Laugh?

"When the beginner can cast his fly into his hat, eight times out of ten, at forty feet, he is a fly fisher; and so far as casting is concerned, a good one."
James A. Henshall, MD, 1881

In the spirit of 'what gets measured, gets done' I thought James Henshall's criteria could be tracked. I mulliganed the first two casts, but as you can see from the landing sites of one through ten, I'm still falling some way short of the hat. When you deduct the length of the rod (eight feet) it's even worse! I keep telling myself the Chalksteams are only ten to fifteen feet wide and that the fresh Trout aren't the only reason I'm doing this......

"Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done."
Charles F. Orvis, 1886

SO TRUE.

But then he would say that wouldn't he? He's got an agenda to push, and fishing gear to sell!!

I'm lovin' spending time outside, but the Trout are perfectly safe.

Any pointers gratefully received!

SBW

Jus' Like That!

After my recent outburst on the comments section of Andy's Blog, and this weeks exaltation of the biscuit there are two reason to show you the picture at the top of this post.

One: Tra-la! They really are as easy as I said, and if you get down to the shops later today you've still got the chance to be a hero tomorrow morning.

Two: Andy's point about the farm shop being the best place to buy your eggs from is so true. Look how flat the yolk is on that egg. It's perfectly cooked, but being from a supermarket, it's not really fresh and so instead of being a perfect hemisphere the yolk has sagged.

Such is suburban life
SBW

PS Here's how I poach eggs

Breakfast - It's All Good This Weekend

This one you gotta try!!

American readers will already know this, so this post is really for those of us not residing in the USA. America leads the world at breakfasting, really, and here's for why...

It's not just a legend, there really are special breakfast beers brewed in Germany, a wonderful idea, shows real imagination, but no. It's not quite what I'm looking for.
A croissant, even a chocolate stuffed croissant or pan au chocolat, washed down with a bowl of hot chocolate is good. But not good enough.
The 'full English' while a fine thing in itself could do with a few additions. Those additions hail from the US. The American take on the pancake, all risen and fluffy is a wonderful thing too, and may well become the subject of a future blog, but this post and this weekends breakfasts are dedicated to the majesty of the Biscuit.

By biscuit I don't mean the English word for cookies, I mean the half way house between bread and scones that ANYONE can make in TEN MINUETS. Transforming themselves at a stroke from kitchen lummox to culinary hero in less time than it took me to write this post. TRUE.

I've eaten biscuit with American family's and in dinners loads of times but it never occurred to me just how easy they are to make.Until I read A Proper Breakfast by GWH (the Great White Hunter). His recipe cannot over state just how easy they are to make!

Shortening isn't that easy to come by in the UK so I use vegetable suet which all the big supermarkets sell. You'll find it in the baking section it looks like this


The only things I would add are;
Don't make them too thin. At first I was nervous of making them too doughy and rolled them a little thinner than the recommended three quarters of an inch, as soon a I started to roll them out a little thicker I got a perfect biscuits.
A sponge tin (round and not very deep) is perfect for making one large biscuit which you can serve slices of.

This weekend you're a hero, even if it's only until the end of the meal!
Thanks for reading
SBW

PS This summer while camping out, at the music festivals or later in the year at deer camp, this recipe makes a good alternative to banock -you can mix and bag the dry ingredients and take them with you. While the others are lamenting the state of the squished, soggy loaf they brought with them, you can bake your biscuit in a Dutch oven over the fire. How bushwacker will you look then!

Knots And Brolly

BoB was in town over the weekend and was appalled to hear how bad a job I've been making of learning to knot my own purse nets for Ferreting. Ever the gentleman he limited his disappointment to a weary sigh, and offered to set me on the road. As James had first said "just one knot, tied lots of times". With BoB's patient guidance I'm finally getting the hang of it. I would have a picture to show you by know if it weren't for a curious incident that took place. The Garden umbrella BoB is pointing at in the picture came tumbling over the garden fence and missed braining me by about six inches. Much to BoB's amusement. By the time we'd finished laughing about that the oven was beeping and it was time for me to make the gravy and get dinner on the table. Such is suburban life.

Your pal
The Bushwacker.

Wood That I Could

I cant remember where I saw this, but I liked it and thought you might too.

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut's only good, they say
If for long it's laid away.
But Ash wood new or Ash wood old
Is fit for a queen with a crown of gold.

Birch and Fir logs burn too fast,
Blaze up bright and do not last.
It is by the Irish said.
That Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elm wood burns like churchyard mold;
Even the very flames are cold.
But Ash wood green or Ash wood brown,
Is fit for a queen with a golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke.
Applewood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume.
Oak and Maple, if dry and old,
Keep away the winter cold.
But Ash wood wet and Ash wood dry,
A king shall warm his slippers by.
- Anonymous

Go on! Light one, you know you want to!!
SBW

Guns,Bows,Trebuchet and Pumpkins

flyingpumpkinsthemovie.com

C'mon what's not to like?
SBW

Happy Blogday To Me! Bushwackin’ 365

Suddenly it’s time to do one of those ‘that was the year that was’ reviews that TV stations use as cheap programming on new years eve. A whole year has passed since I formalised my journey and started telling all of you about it. I’ve not been deluged with animal rights nutters telling me I’m a cheerleader for the forces of darkness, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have told me that they couldn’t do it themselves but understand why the wild food journey is so important to me. First things first, I’m always a bit amazed that you are actually reading this, and enduringly grateful to those of you who could be bothered to chip in with the odd comment, it’s made keeping the blog going a lot easier. The year has been full of soaring highs and crushing lows in my other life, the one I lead outside of the adventure in this blog, and the blog has helped. It’s given me a focus outside of work, a perspective, a purpose. The other positive output has been a new found confidence in my writing. Like it or loathe it, mock my spelling and poor grasp of grammar, but there’s no one else writing anything quite like it, it’s mine and, there are a growing number of posts that I’ve started to feel quite pleased with.
I’ve done errhm ‘some’ work on the skill set that my hunt will require, re awakened the kit fetishist within, took a bit more exercise (ok babe a very little bit – but I have dug the vegetable patch over!), expanded the range of my reading, learned the basics of bare bow archery, hunted rabbits with ferrets, used a shotgun to turn flying ashtrays to dust, and cast my first fly at a wild trout. My compound bow still languishes in the garage, certainly not unloved, but unused. I’ve found an archery club I could attend but they are stickbow only as their secretary told me her butt wasn’t big enough. I was confused too until I remembered that a butt is the traditional name for an archery practice ground!

Lessons in feral failure?
When I stared fishing I learned three knots, and for some reason my brain has only assigned enough memory to its knots database to remember those three, I can tie them in the dark, in the rain, wherever. Regular readers will have noticed that while I confidently announced that I would be making my own set of purse nets for rabbiting, so far all I have to show for my efforts are some tangled pieces of string – described in the word[s] of one observer as ‘shocking’.

Tanning Hides?
Firstly I’d like to try to shift the blame onto Mrs SBW – she found my rabbit brains in the freezer and chucked them out. So that was brain tanning out the window. Sadly the rest of the failings are mine. Tanning hides is harder than it looks, one rabbit skin is now hard enough to make a knife sheath from and the other two are still hiding from Mrs SBW in the freezer.

Fitness and Mass Reduction?
I’m too embarrassed to talk about it; there is only one worthwhile prescription.
Eat less and do more

The wild food highlights were;
Bunnies ferreted out by James’s little helpers. The legs cooked with tomato, paprika, and black olives. The loins rolled into spirals, poached, browned and served on top of large slices of black pudding (traditional English blood sausage).
A haunch of Muntjac; which turns out to be the perfect size of eating deer for suburban dads on portion control, skinny bints and picky city kids. I casseroled mine in a gravy of shallots, plonk red and Hoisin sauce. Yummy.
GMT Chestnuts (harvested in Greenwich park) eaten with pancetta and leeks in a cream sauce.
Road kill Pheasant – Although I haven’t had the opportunity to either attend a traditional English pheasant shoot (which looks from the outside like a sort of real life video game shoot ‘em up - for £1000 ($2000) a day!!) or join a walked up woodland hunt. I have been keeping my eyes open and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of daft birds who made the mistake of playing in the traffic. With delicious consequences!

As with every ‘that was the year that was’ round up there are of course some awards to dish out.

On the kit collecting front the Best in Test award is shared by the
Fallkniven F1, covered in scratches, sharpened, blunted and sharpened again, a genuinely bombproof confidence inspiring tool.
The Bahco Laplander Saw: which has proved itself to be thoroughly deserving of its ‘bushcraft’ reputation - lightweight, cheap and a very, very efficient cutting tool. [Apparently there are; hardwood, softwood, and greenwood blades available, but the card mine came attached to made no mention of which blade it’s equipped with. It has happily cut all three.

If there were a category for best gadget (ok there is) it would have to go the spyderco Sharpmaker. It does what it says on the tin.

The Bushwacker Style Award
Rogue for their great hats – described by one observer as ‘Like and outdoor Bez hat, way cool’

Services To Bushwacking – furthering the cause.

In the afield category
James Marchington – for teaching me to hunt with ferrets

In the a-stream category
Jeremiah Quinn – for his inspirational fly fishing lesson

In the best blog comment category
Mungo – Butcher, Bushcrafter, Project manager and Surrealist.

Thanks for reading, stick with it – it gets better!
Your pal
SBW

First Catch A Pike Of 10-12 Pounds

Just beyond the suburbs a Pike, grown old and wily, has stationed himself to take advantage of the deeper water as the stream narrows. He (and I always imagine him as a he) stirs, but not for anything with my line attached to it. Would that I were at the water now; there’s an evening rise of Trout and Grayling snatching anything half hatched that’s failed its Promethean mission and fallen to the stream. The old predator waits, confident that guile honed on long experience will let him feast on the easy pickings of youthful enthusiasm. I can almost feel his slow eyes watching as he waits to flick the hunters switch, turning the stillness of the wait into the lightening of his strike. But alas I’m far away, helping Bushwacker Jnr with his homework and the bait shop is closed.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker.

Photo credit

Digging That Victory

Since I put up that post about suburban homesteading it seems that; either the great and the good of English journalism are reading my witterings or (more likely) I had my finger on the pulse of the weeks Zeitgeist. According to this weeks papers there are now as many people growing their own foodstuff as did during WW2!

If like me you've been thinking about getting started here's some food for thought.

If we were all to follow the advice of eating five portions of fruit and veg a day, we would probably spend at least £1 every day, or around £400 a year, at supermarket prices. But seeds for vegetables to keep a family going for a year usually cost less than you would pay for one kilo of the same product in a shop.

You can pay £1.29 for two beef tomatoes in Sainsbury's [This should be a joke surely - I checked it's true!]while a packet of 30 seeds from costs £1.25.

A Sainsbury's shopper buying a kilo each of courgettes (AKA Zucchini), beetroot and radish this autumn would have paid around £8 while packets of each of these seeds from costs a total of £3.75. And if you have neighbours with vegetable patches, you can always swap packets, as they always contain more seeds than you need.

If your aim is to save money, then you should grow more exotic produce

'Growing main crop potatoes is insane if you look at it economically,I don't think there is any more lucrative crop than hot peppers. Garlic is very expensive to buy. Rocket is quick and easy to grow but can be expensive to buy. Herbs are good. Rosemary and thyme - you can't have too much of those.'

Young apple, cherry and other fruit trees or berry plants can be bought for under £20 each, while organic raspberries, for example, cost more than £23 a kilo in Sainsbury's this year.

Richard Murphy has been growing vegetables for 18 years. This year, he has included pumpkin, salad crops, beetroot and carrots in his vegetable patch.

'For the price of one bag of salad you could grow 50,' he says. His main aims are eating well and introducing his two young sons to this part of the natural world. 'The skill level you need is pretty low. My six-year-old can quite happily plant seeds.'

All sourced from http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/dec/30/food.ethicalliving

Thanks for reading
SBW

PS for picture credit and loads more cool home front posters