Wild and Backyard Food Use During COVID-19 in Upstate New York

 

Wild and Backyard Food Use During COVID-19 in Upstate New York

1906 US Army Emergency Ration Preserved Survival Food Testing 24 Hour MRE Review

Going Feral: Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

I am, by vocation, a hunter.  A hunter of wildlife and fish.  And I'm not exaggerating.

This isn't a hobby with me.  I'm stuck in a feral past, or perhaps a more feral future, but lving in the present.  

And I'm more of a hunter than a fisherman, in contrast with my father, who was the other way around

The first two seasons of the year open on September 1.  Like most years, due to my occupation (which most people, at least who are professionals, would claim as their vocation, although I'd wager that it is with less than half, very conservatively), I worked.  Opening weekend for me, therefore, is usually when I first get out, and I first get out for the greatest of the wild grouse, Blue Grouse.

They are, I'd note, delicious.

This is a somewhat complicated story, but because of the route I take in, I need permission to cross, which is always forthcoming but I didn't hear back in time this year. That meant that I needed to drive into a location a good two miles further from my normal jumping off point.

And the road, due to the heavy rains this year, and the winter snow, was eroded to impassable. So the walk was further than expected.

But still very pretty, in the morning light.

Because of the very long hike, and my recent surgery, I armed myself with a kids model 20 gauge and buttoned my shirt up to my neck.  Because my old M1911 campaign hat was a casualty of a rattlesnake event two years ago, I wore a replacement United States Park Service campaign hat.  I don't like it nearly as much as my old M1911.

I will say that those wearing synthetic hats are, well, missing the point, and the boat.

The entire trip involves some mountain climbing for the dog.

The dog won't eat in the morning (poodles and doodles are strange about this) due to excitement, so I packed his uneaten breakfast with me. When we hit the high country, he was by that time hungry, in spite of his excitement.

Those boots?  White's smoke jumpers.  Best boots ever.

We hike a fair amount. The dog drank out of a few streams, but I also carry a canteen and he's learned to drink out of a canteen cup.

We found and bagged two young grouse.

And ate them one that evening.  I fried both, that night, and had the second one, reheated the second evening.
 

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Brisket

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Brisket: When I start in on cutting a cow the first thing I go for is the brisket. It's handy to get to and it opens the front quarter to other p...

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part VIII. The high cost of freedom.

September 3, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

President Zelenskyy has replaced the Ukrainian Minister of Defense.

Russian drones hit the Danube River port infrastructure in Ukraine.

September 6, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine has designates PepsiCo and the Mars candy company as :international war sponsors" due to their continued operations, and continued tax payments in and to Russia since the start of the Russo Ukrainian War.

PepiCo has operated in Russia, if you consider the USSR its predecessor, since 1974, as opposed to Coca-Cola which did not until 1985.  It has nineteen plants in the company and employs 20,000 people directly, and 40,000 agricultural employees indirectly.  It's Russia' fourth-largest food and beverage company.  Since the war started, its net profits have increased by 333%.

Mars profits have increased 59% since the start of the war.

To give an illustration of the absurd nature of consolidation and market domination in corporate capitalism, PepsiCo trademarks (brands) include the following (list courtesy of Wikipedia):

• Agousha (Russia)
• Alvalle (Spain)[3]
• AMP Energy
• Aquafina
• Aquafina Flavorsplash
• Aunt Jemima/Pearl Milling Company
• Baconzitos (Brazil)
• Cap'n Crunch
• Cheetos
• Chester's
• Chipsy (Egypt, Serbia)
• Chudo
• Cracker Jack
• Crunchy
• Diet Mountain Dew
• Diet Mug
• Diet Pepsi
• Diet 7UP (only outside of the United States)
• Diet Sierra Mist
• Domik v Derevne (Russia)
• Doritos
• Duyvis (Netherlands)
• Elma Chips (Brazil)
• Emperador (Mexico)
• Evervess (Russia)
• Fandangos (Brazil)
• Frito-Lay
• Fritos
• Fruktoviy Sad (Russia)
• Frustyle (Russia)
• G2
• Gatorade
• Gatorade Zero
• Grandma's
• Imunele (Russia)
• Izze
• Ivi (Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia)
• Kas
• KhrusTeam (Russia)
• Kurkure (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan)
• Lay's
• Life
• Lifewater
• Lubimy (Russia)
• Manzanita Sol
• Marias Gamesa
• Matutano (Spain, Portugal)
• Marbo (Serbia)
• Mirinda
• Miss Vickie's
• Mountain Dew
• Mountain Dew Code Red
• Mountain Dew Game Fuel
• Mountain Dew Kickstart
• Mug
• Munchies
• Naked (naked?)
• Near East
• O.N.E.
• Paso de los Toros (Uruguay)
• Pasta Roni
• Pepsi
• Pepsi Max
• Pepsi Next
• Pepsi Zero Sugar
• Pioneer Foods
• Propel
• Quaker
• Quaker Chewy
• Rice-A-Roni
• Rold Gold
• Rosquinhas Mabel (Brazil)
• Ruffles
• Russkiy Dar (Russia)
• Sabritas
• Sakata (Australia)
• Saladitas
• Sandora (Ukraine)
• Santitas
• 7UP (only outside of the United States)
• 7UP Free (only outside of the United States)
• Sierra Mist
• Simba (Southern Africa)
• Smartfood
• Smith's (Australia)
• Snack a Jacks
• SoBe
• SoBe Lifewater
• SoBe V Water
• Sonric’s
• Stacy’s
• Star
• Starry
• Stiksy (Brazil)
• Sting
• SunChips
• Tonus
• Tostitos
• Trop 50
• Tropicana
• Tropicana Farmstand
• Tropicana Pure Premium
• Tropicana Twister
• Twisties (Oceania Region)
• Vesely Molochnik
• Walkers (United Kingdom)
• Ya (Russia)
• Yedigün (Turkey)

Hopefully that list will help reduce their profits.

Mars, which also owns Wrigley, is also gigantic, and its brands are:

• 3 Musketeers
• Ben's Original
• Bounty
• Celebrations
• Cirku
• CocoaVia
• Combos
• Dolmio
• Dove
• Ebly
• Ethel M
• FLAVIA
• Fling
• Flyte
• Forever Yours
• Galaxy
• Galaxy Bubbles
• Galaxy Minstrels
• A Twix bar
• M-Azing
• M&M's
• Maltesers
• Marathon
• Mars
• Masterfoods
• Milky Way
• Munch
• Promite
• Revels
• Seeds of Change
• Snickers
• Topic
• Tracker
• Treets
• Twix
• 5 gum cobalt packaging
• 5 (gum)
• Airwaves
• Alpine
• Altoids
• Big Red
• Bubble Tape
• Doublemint
• Eclipse
• Eclipse Ice
• Excel
• Extra
• Freedent
• Hubba Bubba
• Juicy Fruit
• Life Savers
• Lockets
• Orbit
• Ouch!
• Rondo
• Skittles
• Spearmint
• Starburst
• Surpass
• Tunes
• Winterfresh
• Wrigley's

Mars also manufactures products for pets, including:

• Pedigree dry dog food
• ADVANCE (Australia and New Zealand only)
• Aquarium Pharmaceuticals
• Buckeye Nutrition
• Cesar
• Chappi
• Crave
• Dreamies/Catisfactions
• Dine (Australia and New Zealand version of Sheba)
• Exelcat
• Eukanuba
• Exelpet
• Frolic
• The Goodlife Recipe
• Good-o
• Greenies
• Iams
• James Wellbeloved
• Kit-e-Kat
• My Dog
• Natura
• Natusan
• Nutro Products
• Optimum
• Pedigree
• Pill Pockets
• Royal Canin
• Schmackos
• Sheba
• Teasers
• Techni-Cal
• Temptations
• Trill
• Whiskas
• Winergy

Obviously, the two companies are hard to avoid, and people can make their own judgements, but even from an economic social justice standpoint, this is absurd.

September 7, 2023

Armenia

The United States will participate in military exercises with Armenia next week.  Russia has voiced concerns.

Syrian Civil War

By Thespoondragon - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82968413

The Syrian Democratic Forces captured Diban.  The alliance of anti-government Syrian rebels is the army of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which controls approximately 1/4 of the country.

ISW reports that protests against the government have been increasing.

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian forces continue to advance in the south, with there being indications that some Ukrainian elements have advanced past prepared Russian positions.

September 8, 2023

North Korea

North Korea has announced that it has launched a nuclear attack submarine. Assuming this is true, this is a massive upgrade in its nuclear warfare capabilities and may very well be one that makes it invulnerable, as a practical matter, to being attacked. 

September 9, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Russian forces have reportedly made notable changes to their command and control (C2) in Ukraine to protect command infrastructure and improve information sharing, although Russian force deployments are likely still exacerbating issues with horizontal integration. Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) Deputy Director of Analysis Magarita Konaev and CSET Fellow Owen Daniels stated on September 6 that Russian forces moved headquarters out of range of most Ukrainian strike systems and have placed forward command posts further underground and behind heavily defended positions.[1] It is unclear if Russian forces have employed this more protected command infrastructure throughout Ukraine and to what degree these defensive efforts have impeded Ukraine’s ongoing interdiction campaign.[2] Konaev and Daniels stated that Russian forces have improved communications between command posts and units at the front by laying field cables and using safer radio communications.[3] The Royal United Services Insitute (RUSI) stated on September 4 that Russian forces are also trying to improve signals through the wider use of application-based C2 services that require less training.[4] Konaev and Daniels noted that signals at the battalion level downward are still often unencrypted and that Russian personnel still frequently communicate sensitive information through unsecure channels.[5]

The Russians, the same ISW report notes, are changing their artillery tactics to emphasize accuracy over mass fire, a change that was long ago implemented in Western armies but comes about here due to ammunition shortages.

These changes, it should be noted, if successful, would amount to improvements in Russian capabilities.

North Korea

The Old Salt's Blog, which is linked in at the side, reports that there are reasons to doubt the capabilities of North Korea's new, and diesel, powered submarine.

September 12, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Kim Jong Un has traveled to Russia to meet with Putin.  He traveled by armored train, an anachronism if ever there was one.

The Russo Ukrainian War has served to make Kim relevant in ways he was not before, one of the ways being that, given the fall of the Warsaw Pact following the end of the Cold War, it's one of the few countries in the world manufacturing the old Soviet patter munitions that Russia is consuming which will also export to Russia.

South Korea, for its part, has became an arms supplier as well, shipping armor to Ukraine and Poland, and artillery to Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 7. Summer.

Blog Mirror: TV Dinner Anniversary. A great day in history.

 I loved these as a kid, back in the pre microwave day.

TV Dinner Anniversary

Thursday, August 26, 1943. War bond baseball.

$800,000,000 worth of War Bonds were sold for an exhibition baseball game that features seven of the then twelve living members of the Baseball Hall of Fame; Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins, George Sisler, and Connie Mack as the manager.

The event also featured entertainment from James Cagney, Ethel Merman, Cab Calloway, Milton Berle, Joe E. Lewis, Carole Landis and Ralph Bellamy.

Babe Ruth hit his last home run during the game, more of which can be read about here:

1943 All Pacific Recreation Fund – Service All-Stars vs Los Angeles & Hollywood

The 800 million dollars was equivalent to over 10.7 billion dollars in current funds.

The Germans occupied the Alpine passes with Italy in anticipation of the Italians surrendering.

The USSR recognized Egypt.

The US, Canada and British governments give limited recognition to the Free French Committee of National Liberation.

Blog Mirror: “We Eat What We Can. . . “

A very agrarian approach:

“We Eat What We Can. . . “

Blog Mirror: Eating Wyoming: Foodies At All Levels Rediscovering Cowboy State Lamb

 

Eating Wyoming: Foodies At All Levels Rediscovering Cowboy State Lamb

August 4, 1943. Famine in India.

Churchill and his cabinet decided not to ship British wheat to India, a decision which has been claimed to have resulted in the devastating Bengali famine of that year.

In actuality, the story is quite complicated, and the wheat request didn't have a 1 to 1 correlation with food supplies.  In the UK the request for wheat shipments was interpreted as an attempt to reduce grain inflationary prices and that a famine was ongoing was not appreciated.   The cause of the famine itself isn't particularly clear, as it was not associated with drought, which prior then recent Indian famines had been.  When the Indian Viceroy took action, belatedly, the famine was brought under control, but not before huge numbers of people had died.

Indeed, the Indian wheat harvest had been at a record level that year.

Claims that Churchill, who opposed Indian independence, was vicariously responsible for the famine didn't really come about until the 21st Century and to some extent reflect a post-colonial tendency, particularly in regard to India, to blame the British for every bad thing that occured during their imperial period.

Germany made the decision to employ concentration camp inmates at Peenemünde.

US forces prevailed in the Battle of Munda Point.

Sarah Sundin notes the beginning of the US assault on San Frantello Ridge in Sicily.

Thursday, July 29, 1943 Coca-Cola to the front.

June 29, 1943 – During WWII General Eisenhower Requisitions Ten Portable Coca-Cola Bottling Plants

Bringing a taste of home, I guess.

The Japanese evacuated Kiska.  This was made possible by the U.S. Navy being diverted by a radar signal that appeared to be a relief convoy for the island.

The United Kingdom announced that women under the age of 50 were required to register for war work.

Boeing B-17F  “Alice from Dallas” returning from a raid on Warnemunde on this day in 1943.

Russia’s decision to terminate the grain deal shows who is a friend and who is an enemy of the poorest states.

The leaders of nations who don’t distinguish between the attacked and the aggressor should reflect. Using hunger as a weapon is another crime against humanity.

Giorgia Meloni 

Blog Mirror: Old-fashioned Club Sandwiches

 I love Club Sandwiches.

Old-fashioned Club Sandwiches

Why am I posting this on Wednesday?

Because on Wednesdays I publish stuff that pertains to work.

I don't usually eat lunch, although recently, due to my messed up post surgery colon, and my messed up pre-surgery thyroid, I have been eating very light lunches.  Something like this I only have if I'm in a restaurant, and I'm only in a restaurant at noon if I'm doing so in some sort of work capacity.  When I do that, I always look for the club sandwich, if we're in a place I expect to have one. 

They're great.

Club Sandwiches trace back to New York of the late 19th Century, and seem to have appeared either at the Union Club of New York City or the Saratoga Club.  It's not clear which.  The first printed reference to them was in the Evening World, and referred to the Union Club. That was in 1889.  Amazingly, in this day and age in which social clubs have taken a pounding, the Union Club, which dates to 1836, still exists as a private social club.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Oatmeal

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Oatmeal: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Though I like to mix it up on special occasions, oatmeal is my standard breakfast of choice...

Tuesday, June 29, 1943. Wartime childcare, Coca Cola for GIs, Wallace blunder, Reprisal at Waksmund, Encylical

Congress passed a bill providing a whopping $20,000,000 for childcare for working mothers.  According to Sarah Sundin, 3102 child care centers were established which served, if that is the proper word, 600,000 children.

Photo taken for the June 1943 issue of Colliers with a Father's Day theme. The lieutenant is shown wearing wings, so he is an air crewman.

You can almost hear Bernie Sanders starting to gush about it, retrospectively.

Vice President Henry Wallace made a speech attacking Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones, damaging his credit with President Roosevelt.

I can't find what Wallace said, but Wallace was in the political far left and sometimes suspected of being a Communist.  Indeed, The New Republic, which he later served in a senior position in, declared him to be one in an anniversary issue, which is remarkable.  He doesn't seem to have really been, but he was so far to the left, it's remarkable that he'd ever been chosen for this position.

Roosevelt would dump him in his next campaign, which perhaps should provide a lesson for Joseph Biden.

Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower requested "three million bottled Coca-Cola (filled) and complete equipment for bottling, washing, capping same quantity twice monthly".

More on that can be read about here:

June 29, 1943 – During WWII General Eisenhower Requisitions Ten Portable Coca-Cola Bottling Plants

The Germans conducted a severe reprisal massacre in Waksmund, Poland, aimed at punishing support for the Polish resistance.

Pope Pius XII released his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi.

Fish on Fridays, the Environment, and somewhat missing the point.

Here's an odd item that I found through a British newspaper:

Catholic Church can reduce carbon emissions by returning to meat-free Fridays, study suggests

Eh?

This found:

In 2011, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales called on congregations to return to foregoing meat on Fridays. Only around a quarter of Catholics changed their dietary habits—yet this has still saved over 55,000 tons of carbon a year, according to a new study led by the University of Cambridge.

FWIW, 10% of the British population remains or has returned to Catholicism (more Catholics go to services on Sunday than any other religion in Britain).  England in particular was noted for its strong attachment to the Faith before King Henry VIII, and even after that, as it was not at first clear to people at the pew level that he'd severed ties with it.  This gets into our recent discussion on the end of the Reformation.

Indeed, Great Britain's Catholic roots never really completed faded at any one time.  Peasants rose up in 1549 over the Prayer Book, a good 30 years after Henry has severed from Rome.  Catholic hold outs continued on, on the island, under various penalties of the law, some extremely severe.  And the illogical position of the Church of England that it wasn't really Protestant, while not being able to rationally explain why then it wasn't that, or wasn't, if it wasn't that, schismatic, lead High Church Anglicans to continually flirt with returning to Rome. King Charles I was so High Church his position in regard to not joining the Church didn't make sense, something that his son, Charles II, ultimately did, in spite of his libertine lifestyle.The Oxford movement by Anglican churchmen in reaction to Catholic assertions that their Apostolic Succession was severed lead at least one famous Anglican cleric, John Henry Newman, into the Catholic Church, where he ultimately became a Cardinal.  In recent years, notable British figures have converted to the Church, along with many regular people.

Abstaining from meat on all the Fridays in the year, which in Catholic terms doesn't include fish, was a long held Latin Rite tradition that fell in the wake, in some places, but not all, following the reforms of Vatican II.  It was not part of Vatican II, as some improperly assume, but something that occurred in the spirit of that age.  It was a penitential act, not an environmental one.

For a variety of reasons, I'm pretty skeptical of the "blame it on cows" part of the climate change discussion.  But as a localist and killetarian, I am game with grow or capture it on your own. That isn't really what this is about, but it's worth noting that anything you buy at the grocery store, or wherever, has had a fair amount of fossil fuels associated with it.  The Carbon reduction here would be because fish don't burp much, if at all, or fart much, if at all.  But for that matter, neither do deer or rabbits, ducks or geese, or for that matter grass fed cattle.

Go out there, in other words, and get your own if you really want to save on the carbon.

For that matter, I might note, for those who are vegan, production agriculture is the huge killer of animal life.  I always laugh to myself when vegans think they're saving animals, they're slaughtering them in droves.  Anyone who is familiar with the agricultural logistical chain or how production agriculture works knows that.

I'm for growing it yourself as well, of course, although I've now been a hypocrite on that for years.  I need to get back to it.

Anyhow, the "this would be a good thing for the Catholic Church to do globally in the name of the environment" might be true, or might not be, but it misses the overall point.

Related threads:

The secular left's perpetual surprise at arriving at the Catholic past.

Secular suffering for nothing

Pancake Day.

Blog Mirror: “A Good Dish for the Meatless Meal” Recipe

Blog Mirror: Trout: From Elite Sport Fish to Global Aquaculture

 With a few comments from me on the linked in blog:

Trout: From Elite Sport Fish to Global Aquaculture

Friday, June 8, 1923. Infidelity without desertion.

The House of Commons passed a bill authorizing women to divorce on the grounds of infidelity without having to prove desertion.

The Craven Holding Company purchased Pepsi Cola's trademark and trade secret information out of bankruptcy.

Bryce Canyon National Park, designated a U.S. national monument by President Harding.

Metis leader Ambroise-Dydime Lépine, who had been sentenced to death due to his role in the Red River Rebellion, but whose sentence had been commuted to five years in exile, died at age 83.  He is buried next to his co-rebel, Metis Louis Riel, at the St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg.

Native Americans visited the White House.

Monday, June 7, 1943. Australia rations butter.

 

Today in World War II History—June 7, 1943: Off Guadalcanal, US Thirteenth Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, and Royal New Zealand Air Force fighter aircraft shoot down 24 Japanese A6M Zeros.

So notes Sarah Sundin, who also notes that Australia began butter rationing.   You can learn more about that here:

1943 Butter rationing introduced

Monday, May 21, 1923. Delmonico's closed.

The original family owned Delmonico's restaurant closed.  The restaurant had been in business, in more than one location, since 1827 and had become one of the most famous restaurants in New York.  It was a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt.

It was not able to survive Prohibition.

Not surprisingly, the famous name had cache and there were subsequent operations that used it, having some connection with the original, but not owned by the original family.  There are plans to reopen a restaurant in the location late this year.

The restaurant is the claimed originator of a variety of famous dishes, the best known being the Delmonico's Steak.  Roosevelt favored the double lamb chops.

The  Labour and Socialist International, an organization of socialist and labor parties, was formed and became the largest organizational union of those entities.  It ceased to exist in April, 1940.