Hark! The Wilderness Beckons....

[Carrot Top]

Not counting the veg and herb gardens, including two cart-sized rosemary bushes, and a six foot fennel that tend themselves . . .  we pick pounds of grapes for backfence grape jelly every summer, the wild persimmon is continuing to ripen to its greenish blackness -- makes ugly but very tasty jam (also plan to try a wild persimmon fudge recipe I found because I can't resist the experiment  ). Dandelion leaves for salad, wild onions, and garlic.

Fragrant and beautiful lemon horsemint, a lemony herb that is heaven in the mouth with chicken, lamb stew, and many other soups and butter sauces.

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This photo is just plain too gorgeous. I want to lie in the field next to that beautiful thing...do let us know if the persimmon fudge recipe turns out good...that sounds like a bit of heaven....!

[Dr. Funk]

A fat doe who likes to eat the tops of my tomato and pepper plants. Luckily, in this state it's legal to shoot her without a license if I catch her in the act. I also have wild plums, chokecherries, horseradish (8 patches) and wild asparagus. Oh, I forgot the hop vines.

[Carrot Top]

A fat doe who likes to eat the tops of my tomato and pepper plants.  Luckily, in this state it's legal to shoot her without a license if I catch her in the act.  I also have wild plums, chokecherries, horseradish (8 patches) and wild asparagus.  Oh, I forgot the hop vines.

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Only one fat doe?! Well at least it sounds like she is eating right.

From my back deck where I used to live in West Virginia....you would see herds of fat does and an occasional buck...every day for months on end. People used to hit me up for the chance to sit on the deck of a quiet afternoon with their shotguns...(nope, never let 'em...)

Those deer only had hay to eat, though...hay hay hay and nothing but skinny ol' fescue growing there at that....your doe will be much more flavorful.

We even had a white deer...a buck...that was famous in the area. He came through once. Fantastic sight.

Of course even the most avid hunter would not go for him. He looked like he came from a dream...glorious....sacred-looking....

Edited October 11, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[ojbowl]

THe other day after reading this thread, i was walking through the woods setting up a campfire the the weekends outing. So as i was walking i found some sheep sorrel. THis pleased me and so i picked a few leaves and suckled on them for a while. I dont think that it was sheep sorrel

[Pan]

It looked like the sheep sorrel in the picture I linked to? Any adverse reactions?

[ojbowl]

it did not have any horrible adverse effects other a turning stomach, and a sudden repulse . It was as though eating crab grass, then a sudden bitter disgusting flavor took over my senses. i now know first hand why dogs eat grass.

forgot to answer your question. Yes it did look very much so like the picture you posted. This plant i noticed also had pricklies on it stem.

also i chewed on some ditch weed a while later.

Edited October 11, 2004 by ojbowl (log)

[Pan]

I don't recall sheep sorrel having much of a stem at all, just low-lying leaves. Certainly, I don't recall anything prickly about it.

I am fully confident I can recognize wood sorrel anywhere, but I haven't seen enough sheep sorrel to be confident I could differentiate it from similar-looking leaves, so I never intend to find out the hard way, like you did. But it could have been a lot worse.

ojbowl, do all your friends and loved ones a big favor and never gather wild mushrooms.

[ojbowl]

ojbowl, do all your friends and loved ones a big favor and never gather wild mushrooms.   

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I have a book on mushroom classification, however i am much to warry to go and experiment.

when i was younger i gulleted a bunch of wild berries and became disturbingly ill.

curious as a cat i guess.

Edited October 11, 2004 by ojbowl (log)

[Dr. Funk]

The fat doe is now in the freezer, the tomatoes are canned and life is good. You have to remember, Carrot Top, that the deer you were watching in W. Va. were not the same as we have here in Wy. Yours were white tails where a 100#live weight deer was huge and ours are mule deer. The dressed weight on my fat doe was 120#.

[Mabelline]

Hiya, Dr. Funk. I totally know where you're comin' from with the size difference in whitetails and muley's. When I moved to MT, my previous experience with antelopes were those I'd seen in southern CO, NM, TX, etc., that are relatively small --as in labrador-dog-sized. The first ones I saw strolling around on the rims were HUGE! I was astounded.

Our yard's got pears, apples, crabs, burdock, dandelions, no more garden, and a placid pair of deer who nonchalantly hop over the chainlink, munch happily, then hop back out. We also have a marmot that toddles down when he's in the mood for a little gourmandizing, but I'm not up on marmot recipes!

[Dr. Funk]

I've got a marmot too. It spent one winter under my back deck, but since then it has discovered the unused chicken coop and has tunneled into it. It's not hurting anything so I leave it alone.

[McDuff]

A giant hen of the woods mushroom, growing on an oak stump in a corner of my front yeard.  I was too afraid to eat it at the time, but I know better now. Luckily, they're pretty common nearby.

--L. Rap

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Guy across the street called me over the other day and popped the trunk on the lebaron conv. I could smell the mushrooms before I could see them..trunk was full of hen of the woods, he calls them senoritas. Huge..pounds and pounds of them. He soaks them, rinses well several times, cores them like a cauliflower and then sort of rips them by hand, then boils them and freezes them. He usually squeezes out a hot Italian sausage and browns the meat, adding the mushrooms and then deglazing and reducing several times with chicken stock till the mushrooms are "like padada chips." I treated a smallish one to the same thing, but added the leftover gravy from short ribs brisket style and several cubes of well cooked stew meat. Gratineed it in the oven with good parm reg and some fresh bread crumbs. Good.

Edited October 16, 2004 by McDuff (log)

[Carrot Top]

'Good'? Merely 'good', McDuff? That sounds more like a small taste of heaven.

Now we need to hear what you would define as 'great', please, for we are hungry and rely on these words to feed us....

[McDuff]

'Good'? Merely 'good', McDuff? That sounds more like a small taste of heaven.

Now we need to hear what you would define as 'great', please, for we are hungry and rely on these words to feed us....

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I'd have to think about that. I just polished off the last little bit of the mushrooms.