Hunting Seasons

Just a reminder, hunting seasons start up soon, so be sure to check the parks and wildlife website for your state, that's where the dates are posted. For Texas the website is tpwd.texas.gov. For wood and smith counties fore sure, SQUIRREL SEASON STARTS TOMORROW!

Learning from Cooking Mistakes

In this post, I am going to discuss my gear modification, and we're I went wrong with my backwoods cooking, so please learn from my mistakes. Since my last post, I have completely redone my hut, and my gear pack. On my hut, it is now just a roof which is a combination of a tarp and debris, with a overhang covering my fire pit. My gear pack now consists of the following:

Homemade Mora knife and sheath, hatchet, folding knife, ferro rod, bankline, paracord, twine, lighter, steel wool, rock salt, beef jerky, 2 bandannas, frying pan, stew pot, soup can , compass,  oil, water bottles, hard tack mix, johnny cake mix.

First, I started work on the fire, and since it had rained the past 4 days, this was not an easy task. I got a cedar bark tinder bundle and as much tinder as I could. I lit the bundle and it burned up without igniting the sticks. Then I used 0000 steel wool and that didn't work, so I moved to grass and the third bundle with that had enough coals that I was able to blow them to life. That done, I put the pot on the fire and got some water to a simmer. I say simmer because that's all that it was, wet wood does not burn very hot. 

Then I cut a couple slices off the frozen squirrel I brought out there, and put them in the water. I added the potatoes and when they were done, I served myself and my brother. Neither one of us liked the meat, but the potatoes disappeared instantly. I put the meat back on the boil, and broke out the jerky.

Next I went to work with my Johnny cake mix. I added water to it, and then realized that I had used corn starch instead of corn meal. Well, that was a bust. Next I did the hardtack mix. I added water, and then fried it. You bake hardtack. So I threw that out, and put some more mix in some aluminum foil and put that in the fire. It cooked real good, but when I went to eat it, it tasted like I was eating pure salt cake. So I threw it out. By now the squirrel meat was looking good so I took it off and ate it all. Clean up was simple; boil water and use the bandanna to wash the plate and knife off, then burn the trash.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

First, I would make a bigger fire. Next I would use a "just-add-water" cornbread mix. Lastly I would stew the meat with some vegetables in a larger pot. Lack of cleanliness pretty much made the process miserable, and next time I will have a large bucket of warm, soapy water to wash all the dishes and utensils.