
A tubby suburban dad watching hunting and adventure shows on TV and wondering could I do that? This is the chronicle of my adventures as I learn to learn to Forage, Hunt and Fish for food that has lived as I would wish to myself - Wild and Free.
Showing posts with label vegitarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegitarianism. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Dig For Victory

I've just seen a really interesting blog post over at Earth Connection a bushcraft school in northern Virginia. It set me thinking............
Looking out of the window, towards my my sit spot at the far end of the garden, it's really high time I got to digging over the garden to plant a vegetable patch.
Last summers apple crop was massive, but our month in France came at the right time for us but the wrong time for effective harvesting. We left unripe apples on the tree and returned to overripe wind falls on the ground. apples aside this year I want to get into it a bit more than last summers tomatoes and chills on the kitchen window sill.
During the second world war the efforts people could make at home were a valuable source of both morale and nutrition. The concept was sold to the public as 'doing our bit' on 'the home front'. The project proved to me a huge success - the British haven't been as health since! A fact that's always worth pointing out to fatties when they moan 'its my genes' - the nation had pretty much same genes '39 through '46 as we do today but the availability of processed foods was massively restricted by rationing. So people grew their own vegetables and hunted rabbits, hares and pigeons with a previously unknown vigour and were healthier and slimmer.
I once read an interesting account of a German woman's post war experiences in Berlin, after the war food and pets were thin on the ground. She said she became something of a local celebrity due to her skill at trapping! Oh and she confirmed, dog is a lot better eating than cat.
The climate change, food miles, rising food prices, and city air quality issues (lets gloss over my need for mass reduction)are compelling reasons to take up a little suburban smallholding. Could I really live in the suburbs by the estuary, on garden grown veg, and the proceeds of shotgun, rod and ferret?
I proposed as much to Mrs SBW
'Stop blogging and go back to work'
Thanks for reading
SBW.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Hunter Angler Gardener Cook Joins My Blog Roll

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook has left this comment on a post
Bushwacker: I see it as my goal in life to get those who turn their noses up at game meats to shed their hang-ups and give it another go. If you ever need recipes for whatever it is you bring home this week, I have a fairly monstrous collection of wild game cookbooks and have a few tricks up my sleeve to make the wary drop their guard and pick up their forks...
His blog Honest Food: Finding the Forgotten Feast has made a great start, I'm looking forward to reading more, check him out!
Told you you wouldn't need to buy the papers this weekend!
bushwacker.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Deer Scrap!!
'Always hunt with someone else', is usually good advice.
However there's an exeption that proves every rule.
With a 'friend' like the cameraman, you're probably safer hunting on your own!
Thanks to MB for the link.
Bushwacker
However there's an exeption that proves every rule.
With a 'friend' like the cameraman, you're probably safer hunting on your own!
Thanks to MB for the link.
Bushwacker
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Wivart Yer Opinel You Aven't Got An 'Ope In 'Ell'!

Showed a vegan friend my blog: Loved the bad puns (even donated one of his own - above). winced at the guns, remained tolerant at the meat eating, hunting 'n' fishing, then brightened considerably on sight of the Opinel.
Takes all sorts
Bushwacker
PS Check out Marc Armand's illustrations
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Mother! Behave Yourself!!
Just in case you didn’t believe me when I told you about the foraging septuagenarian matriarchs!
As I was taking this picture I got into conversation with one of the park guys who told me he blamed the current crop of wildfood TV show’s.
“They only show cooking, people don’t know when they’re ripe and they just try and pull ‘em down. It’s a problem for us”.
Keep ‘em peeled
Bushwacker
“They only show cooking, people don’t know when they’re ripe and they just try and pull ‘em down. It’s a problem for us”.
Keep ‘em peeled
Bushwacker
Shh Keep 'em Under Your Hat
They've arrived! Ripe and ready to gather!
I picked (picked up?) this crop yesterday.
Had a few for tea, after last nights running club.
More details and Recipes in my next post
(I didn’t have a camera with me and there’s something in the park I want to show you)
Bushwacker
Monday, 25 June 2007
Stay Calm Ladies, It’s Not That Kind Of Rabbit
Mrs Bushwacker taught me this one with chicken, but as its Spanish I’m sure my bunny version is more authentic.
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1 can of beans
a couple of cloves of garlic
Peppers 3 or 4
Onions 1or 2
A big bunny or a small chicken or both
Half a chorizo, sliced
Smoked paprika
Olives a goodly handful
Stock .5 litre or a pint
Wine 1 big glass or more (rioja if you have it, plonk if not)
A tablespoon of dark sugar
Fry some chorizo, set aside the chorizo
In the fat that’s left caramelise the tomato puree (i.e burn it a bit)
Fry onions and garlic
Set aside the now coloured onions, tomato puree and garlic.
Add rabbit (and or chook), brown and set aside.
In go the peppers.
Put onions and chorizo back in
Add tomatoes (1 tin per rabbit)
Add smoked paprika (at least half one of the little jars Tesco sell)
Add olives green or black to suit your preference
Add beans
Simmer 1.5 – 2 hours or until tender
If it seems too thin – turn up the heat
If it seems to thick - add more wine and or stock
Serve with rice, or bread or fried spuds, and the rest of the rioja/plonk
Yummy
Bushwacker.
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1 can of beans
a couple of cloves of garlic
Peppers 3 or 4
Onions 1or 2
A big bunny or a small chicken or both
Half a chorizo, sliced
Smoked paprika
Olives a goodly handful
Stock .5 litre or a pint
Wine 1 big glass or more (rioja if you have it, plonk if not)
A tablespoon of dark sugar
Fry some chorizo, set aside the chorizo
In the fat that’s left caramelise the tomato puree (i.e burn it a bit)
Fry onions and garlic
Set aside the now coloured onions, tomato puree and garlic.
Add rabbit (and or chook), brown and set aside.
In go the peppers.
Put onions and chorizo back in
Add tomatoes (1 tin per rabbit)
Add smoked paprika (at least half one of the little jars Tesco sell)
Add olives green or black to suit your preference
Add beans
Simmer 1.5 – 2 hours or until tender
If it seems too thin – turn up the heat
If it seems to thick - add more wine and or stock
Serve with rice, or bread or fried spuds, and the rest of the rioja/plonk
Yummy
Bushwacker.
Monday, 21 May 2007
Why am I doing this?
To awake from my comfortable homeostasis, rediscover my physical self and embark on the adventure of reconnecting with the natural world. Fat and lazy as I am, I get the feeling it’s going to be a rude awakening! I live in one of the most highly urbanised societies on earth, and it shows. Mainly around the middle!
Ambition:
Hunt, and kill a massive Elk with a bow. To skin it, butcher it, put it’s meat on the table and in the freezer, hang its skull and antlers on the wall, spread its hide across our bed and love-wrestle Mrs Bushwacker on top of it in its honour.
Between here and there:
Lose quite a lot of weight, gain quite a lot of muscle, develop endurance, learn archery, learn bushcraft and stalking skills, choose then buy (or trade for) all the kit needed to trek out into the wilderness, kill and bring back the body of my noble prey.
Why Hunting?
Ever since I started eating meat again, I was vegetarian for a few years in my teens and early twenties, I have felt a growing need to have an honest (and some would say blood thirsty) relationship with my dinner.
I’ve noticed a lot of hunters refer to killing an animal as ‘harvesting’, just as there is no polite word for a euphemism, on this blog killing is called killing. I’ve met too many people who can/will only eat something if its origin is obscured. Fish, but only if it does not have a head, prawns without their shells, chicken but only when it comes from a plastic tray, and then only the white meat. These are people are afraid of their dinner. Our food deserves our respect. On the days when our skill and tenacity overcomes the animals guile and awareness, we earn the right to eat the flesh of another being. If you cant (or won’t) kill it, gut it, cut it, and cook it what gives you the right to eat it? I believe in celebrating and honouring the life that is taken so we may live.
Why Elk Hunting?
1.Stone sheep aside, it’s renowned as the hardest hunt there is.
2.You get a lot of meat from one success, and my time is limited
Why Bow Hunting?
To me bow hunting is a pure unadulterated expression of man’s ingenuity and the spirit of the hunt. With a HS Precision loaded with 200 grain .300 Winchester Magnum you can shoot to kill at 400 yards*. The commitment and skill required to kill ‘up close and personal’ with a bow is something such a noble adversary deserves.
* How do I know? During my only rifle hunting experience, with zero tuition I shot and killed a moving White Tail Deer at 100 yards+ with the first shot I ever fired from a (non air powered) rifle.
Ambition:
Hunt, and kill a massive Elk with a bow. To skin it, butcher it, put it’s meat on the table and in the freezer, hang its skull and antlers on the wall, spread its hide across our bed and love-wrestle Mrs Bushwacker on top of it in its honour.
Between here and there:
Lose quite a lot of weight, gain quite a lot of muscle, develop endurance, learn archery, learn bushcraft and stalking skills, choose then buy (or trade for) all the kit needed to trek out into the wilderness, kill and bring back the body of my noble prey.
Why Hunting?
Ever since I started eating meat again, I was vegetarian for a few years in my teens and early twenties, I have felt a growing need to have an honest (and some would say blood thirsty) relationship with my dinner.
I’ve noticed a lot of hunters refer to killing an animal as ‘harvesting’, just as there is no polite word for a euphemism, on this blog killing is called killing. I’ve met too many people who can/will only eat something if its origin is obscured. Fish, but only if it does not have a head, prawns without their shells, chicken but only when it comes from a plastic tray, and then only the white meat. These are people are afraid of their dinner. Our food deserves our respect. On the days when our skill and tenacity overcomes the animals guile and awareness, we earn the right to eat the flesh of another being. If you cant (or won’t) kill it, gut it, cut it, and cook it what gives you the right to eat it? I believe in celebrating and honouring the life that is taken so we may live.
Why Elk Hunting?
1.Stone sheep aside, it’s renowned as the hardest hunt there is.
2.You get a lot of meat from one success, and my time is limited
Why Bow Hunting?
To me bow hunting is a pure unadulterated expression of man’s ingenuity and the spirit of the hunt. With a HS Precision loaded with 200 grain .300 Winchester Magnum you can shoot to kill at 400 yards*. The commitment and skill required to kill ‘up close and personal’ with a bow is something such a noble adversary deserves.
* How do I know? During my only rifle hunting experience, with zero tuition I shot and killed a moving White Tail Deer at 100 yards+ with the first shot I ever fired from a (non air powered) rifle.
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