Monthly Archives: May 2011

Feeding Families, Meating Needs

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The North Dakota Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers have come up with a program called “Feeding Families, Meating Needs.” In essence, they are arranging for donations of livestock or wildlife (or even money to cover the processing costs!), to be processed and distributed through the Great Plains Food Bank and Community Action’s Sportmen Against Hunger. What a GREAT program!

With the deer issues that we had this spring, we are looking at changing some of our management plans. We realize we need to handle our hay differently, we need to be more proactive and we need to be creative with our solutions. And so we shall.

Step one, I’m going to promote this program fully. How many people apply for a deer license and intend only to shoot a trophy deer, not concerned about the meat, because they don’t want to go through the hassle? How many pounds of venison is wasted every year? How many families could that feed? Let’s change that!

Here’s the scoop (and pay attention, because this is important stuff!):

Livestock – If you want to donate livestock, you need to contact Ann Pollert at Community Action, Sportsmen Against Hunger, to make arrangements. Processing will be done by approved facilities, and (if donated locally) meat will be distributed back to the region it came from. To contact Ann, call (701) 232-2452 or email annp@sendcaa.org .

Wildlife – You will need to contact the nearest approved processor on the Sportsmen Against Hunger list to verify that there are funds or vouchers available to cover the processing.

Money – This whole idea won’t go far without monetary donations to cover the cost of processing. Just to give you an idea, the processing charge for deer is estimated at somewhere between $50-55, beef is generally estimated at $40 per head plus 45 cents per pound on hanging weight, and then an additional 20 cents to grind. It all adds up quickly, and monetary donations will ensure the food banks receive these meat donations.

This food drive started in April, and will run through January 13, 2012. I am urging you to consider contributing, either through your successful hunting endeavors, an animal donation, or money to cover the costs of processing.

I’m going to bringing this up from time to time, especially as the deadline nears for deer license applications in North Dakota. Instead of applying for buck only, why not apply for buck first choice, doe second? Then, if you don’t get your coveted buck tag, you can still shoot a doe, prove your hunting prowess, get some exercise and target practice in, and donate the meat to a good cause?!? Win-win all the way around! (If you’re wondering about my hunting preferences, I normally apply for a gratis tag, which allows me to shoot either buck or doe, as long as it is on our land. In the last four years, I have shot one spike buck and three does…which made some very tasty sausage!)

If you need more information, shoot me a message, or contact Katie Heger (who’s heading up the program for the NDFB Young Farmers and Ranchers). You can get a hold of Katie at skheger6@gmail.com.

And stay tuned for some other ideas that we’ve come up with. We’re not going to go down in this battle with the wildlife without a fight! 🙂

Mother’s Day bouquet

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It’s Mother’s Day this weekend, and I was hit with an idea last week when a friend of mine (on Twitter, I’ve never met him face-to-face…funny world, eh?) tweeted about an idea of baking cupcakes in an egg shell. It piqued my curiosity. You see, I’m not a baker…and I’m not very crafty, either, although I try to pretend now and then. But these cupcakes made me itch to try it.

But instead of just making a cupcake, I though, why not a bouquet of flowers??? Easter was already over, but Mother’s Day was coming up…so:

Voila!

Awww! Pretty flowers! And yummy!

Now, let me start by telling you that (again) I don’t bake…but that’s going to be changing. But to start off, I decided to use a box cake mix. I need to get my legs under me before I try to fly! 😉

Baby steps for me...I start with a box mix.

And then, I have a dozen eggs (a box mix will give you enough for a dozen eggs and a dozen cupcakes).

These are the eggs, and this is my handy corkscrew.

I used my handy-dandy corkscrew and put a hole in the BOTTOM of the eggs. (Eggs have a pointier end and a rounder end. The rounder end is where the air pocket usually is. If you drill the hole there, then your egg will sink better in part 2.)

Once the hole was made, I peeled back enough of the shell so that you could put the tip of an icing bag in it (or, in my case, the tip of a baggie with the corner cut off!).

My version of a piping bag...it works spendidly, and the clean-up is quick!

I used a toothpick to stir the insides up (breaking the yolk) and then drained out the egg. You can use the egg for the cake mix, make scrambled eggs for the family, or bake away for the rest of the day!

A weapon of mass destruction...mostly just yolks.

I then rinsed the eggs out, and placed them in hot salt water for 30 minutes. Rinse, drain and let dry.

My egg shells, in salt water.

I used a muffin tin, with tin foil inside to help the eggs stand up.

The foil in the muffin tin helps the eggs stand up.

Mix your cake batter up, and fill the eggs about 1/2 full of batter. (Warning: they WILL overflow, but it’s not too tough to clean up, just scrape off the cake, and wipe off with a damp cloth.)

My eggs, standing at attention, awaiting filling.

Bake at 350* for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Yeah, they’re kinda messy, but FUN!

Then comes the fun part!

I took bamboo skewers and craft sticks (we call them popsicle sticks in this house!), and I stuck the eggs on them. I then took paper baking cups and flattened them out a bit. I had the boys color the white ones with bright markers, and I also used some of the colored wrappers. I placed them on the sticks, under the eggs, and presto! A flower!

Not just beautiful, but delicious as well!

You can use different sized cupcake wrappers, depending on the size of your eggs. To make a bouquet, I used a formula can, cut holes for the craft sticks, and just stuck the pointy end of the skewers in the lid. You can decorate the can all fancy-like, or, if you’re like me, you can just be amazed you made it this far and call it good.

Hey, I’m taking this whole Betty-Crocker thing one step at a time, I don’t plan on going all Martha-Stewart as well! 🙂

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Deer, oh dear

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I’m not sure if you heard, but we had a slight deer problem this winter. Well, slight is an understatement…it was a MAJOR deer problem. If you look back through my posts, you will find pictures, videos, eloquently-written, almost poetic-like blogs, etc. (well, I’m pouring it on a bit thick about that one, sorry 😉 )

I figured I would wrap up the winter deer posts with this update:

This is a pile of deer carcasses that were collected from our hay yard. Approximately 60-80 deer in this group.

Yeah, we had a problem. And some deer died. I’ve been asked many times, “Why?” The answer isn’t so simple. Game and Fish statistics say that most of the dead should be does and fawns that couldn’t handle the winter conditions. But from personally witnessing and inspecting many of the dead animals, (well, from a distance anyway) I can tell you that there were a LOT of nice-sized bucks in that pile.

So, again, why did they die? They had protection. They had plenty of protection. They had feed. Very nice, dairy-quality alfalfa. Which would have been worth between $10,000-$20,000 in the hay market. Ouch. That hurts. My guess is that the deer couldn’t handle the feed. It was truly too rich, and they basically died from really bad stomach aches. Kinda like dying from too much caviar. (Can that happen???) You see, deer are built to browse, they eat things like leaves and berries and your brand new trees that you plant! 😉

But the fact of the matter is, they died. And beside this pile of deer, remember that Game and Fish had already come and picked up a pick-up load of carcasses? So that’s more than 100 deer that died on our farm.

A closer shot of the pile that Mark buried.

What frustrates me almost more than the lack of action by Game and Fish is the waste of meat. Can you imagine the food pantries that could be stocked with this much meat? But I have an idea for this year…and it’s a way that we can curb our deer problem, encourage hunting, AND stock the food pantries!

Stay tuned for an announcement tomorrow! I can’t wait!!!