Did You know - outdoor edition

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I don't think I ever abused anyone and I don't even know what disabusement means, let alone have done it. ;D At least, I don't think so.
I just always knew that Pet milk had to come from somewhere.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Since some of us are talking about milking cows, did you know the Masai tribes in Kenya bring their calves into the owner's home at night to protect them from any hyenas, leopards or lions that might get into the brush fenced Kraal at night and mostly so the calves don't get all the milk from the cows? The women catch and milk the cows the first thing every morning then they release the calves to stay with their mothers all day while the cattle are out grazing. I would be surprised if the women get a quart of milk from their best milk cow. 

   The family homes are low roofed structures made with poles in the corners and brush woven tightly for walls and roofs. The walls are then covered with fresh cow manure collected every morning. The cow manure has no smell once it dries. The first 1/3 of the house is partitioned off for the calves and the back 2/3 is where the family cook, eat and sleep.

   Since the area is very arid (and does not get much rain  ;)) the manure coating lasts a long time and is easily repaired from readily available building material and time they need to do do. The homes are cool in a very hot area and provide a wind break from the hot dusty winds.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Did you read about the Walleye tournament in Ohio where the repeat winners were busted for stuffing their winning catch with heavy lead weights? They had won under suspicious circumstances before and while most anglers at such tournaments leave their fish for cleaning and donation by volunteers, they always took their catch home with them. : Since these tournaments are big money events the two are in trouble with the regular legal system as well as the DNR possum sheriff. 

   A little friendly joking around at a local free tournament might be expected and tolerated I think these two are in real hot water and will be lucky if they don't end up walleye food with boat anchors for ankle bracelets.

The wild story of the fishing cheating scandal that could lead to anglers being arrested - SBNation.com

[tule peak timber]

Does anyone here have a good cod tongue recipe?

[Don P]

fenced Kraal at night

Hmm, corral, there must be a story there?

White oak acorns are a good bit lower in tannin than red oak. I wonder if that makes a difference in founder.

I can't think of the name of the spanish acorn fed ham. Chestnut would put that to shame I'd imagine.

[WV Sawmiller]

Don,

 Kraal is the African term generally used for a fenced in compound in Kenya and other parts of southern Africa. The fence/walls is made with brush, especially thorny Acacia to repel predators. There are a number of openings in the wall that are closed at night by pulling brush tops in to close the opening. The Masai build their huts into the wall and each wife has her own hut and her own gate. When a woman becomes engaged, or maybe it is after she is married, they find a likely spot in the wall a decent distance from the next home and make break in the wall and build a new home which becomes part of the wall/fence.

When someone dies they are normally taken a few hundred yards away and left for the hyenas and lions to eat. In some cases if the person is particularly well respected they will place the body in the hut and burn it down on top of him/her cremating them.

 The cattle are brought ion every night for safety and let out with herd boys to watch over them in the morning. As mentioned previously  the calves are placed in the hut with the owners at night for protection and so they don't get all the milk. After milking in the morning the calves are released to their moms and taken out to graze.

[beenthere]

Does anyone here have a good cod tongue recipe?

New one on me. 
But chasing it, found this recipe.
Cod Tongues (Traditional Newfoundland Recipe) | Girl Heart Food®

[tule peak timber]

Thanks, something I want to try.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I never heard of eating fish tongues. I saw zebra tongue on menus in Africa but did not try it. I knew people ate the cheeks off cod and halibut. I save the steaks or nuggets off my catfish. I think that is the same piece of meat people call the cheeks on a halibut. They are a little tough but pretty good eating. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know a handy way to carry corn/feed or such to a remote feeder or other location is to split the feed (normally sold in 50 lb bags) into 2 separate bags, tie the ends together and carry them across your ATV seat or your shoulder like a saddlebag.

  I have one feeder I have to transport feed several hundred yards up and across a hill to a shooting house. I made up two "saddlebags" out of 2- 50 lb bags of whole corn and took the first up to my shooting house with the feeder which mounts with a simple twist on the  15 gallon plastic barrel there hung on a cable between 2 trees. I am really late int he season getting them put out but there is so much acorn and beech mast in the woods now I don't think the corn will attract them much till later in the season anyway. When I got there I found a tree fell this summer and broke my cable and pulled the eyebolt out of the poplar tree it was in. I staged the corn and feeder unit in my raised shooting house and hope the coons and squirrels don't do too much damage but the deer, turkeys and bears can't get into it. I went home and gathered some tools, cable and got my climbing tree stand but then had to cancel because my wife came out and wanted to go early to an eye appointment. I am sawing tomorrow so hopefully I can get the feeder re-hung Friday before I have to leave for Ohio for the Paul Bunyun show.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that driving over a pile of elephant dung can result in a flat tire? One of the principle food items for elephants is/are Acacia foliage. They will rip off arm sized limbs and eat them including 1-2 inch long thorns. They will digest the forage and the thorns will pass completely through their digestive tract intact. The thorns are sharp enough, long enough and strong enough they will actually pass through a car or truck tire causing a flat. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know many mother animals will adopt a baby from another species, even a predator or prey species? This is especially true with new mothers. We had a cat one time who was an excellent hunter and was constantly bringing in chipmunks, moles, shrews, baby rabbits, etc. that she had caught. Once she had a new litter of kittens and our neighbors brought up a baby rabbit their dog had found in the nest on the ground. The dog would find but not kill them. The rabbit did not have its eyes open yet. We put the rabbit in the box with the kittens and the cat readily accepted it and it nursed with its feline siblings. All went well till it jumped out of the nursery box a week or so later and our other cat found it and hurt and finally killed it playing too rough with it.

     I have seen where a pair of bald eagles were raising a red-tailed hawk chick they had caught. I saw where a lioness in Africa kept stealing and trying to raise oryx fawns. I don't think she would nurse them but she would protect them from the other lions but invariably at some point she would be away and the other lions would kill and eat it then the lioness would go steal another fawn.

[Ljohnsaw]

This goes back a few posts about crows and birds of prey.  Up at my cabin project there are big ravens (double sized crows).  They are quite talkative and fun to listen call each other.

As I was leaving today, a big Red Tailed Hawk flew low through the trees and crossed the road.  Right on his tail was a pair of ravens.  I looked in the woods as I kept driving and saw in a thick group of cedars, the hawk landed on one dead branch and the ravens landed on dead branches in adjoining trees just above the hawk and about 10' on either side.  The hawk didn't look too happy.

[WV Sawmiller]

   We talked a while back about color phases in squirrels and we are visiting with my wife's family in Mogadore OH near Akron and I spotted a black squirrel here yesterday. I remember my wife's aunt talking about them. This one was a black pine squirrel which is normally red rather than a gray/cat or larger fox squirrel. Maybe we can get a picture while we are here.

[KEC]

I, for one would like to see a black (melanistic) Red Squirrel.

[WV Sawmiller]

KEC,

   Sorry but my camera died this morning and I could not get a picture of the black squirrels but a pair came to the feeder at my wife's cousin's home and they were close enough I could se they were black phase gray (S. carolinensis) and not pine squirrels.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I see the sister thread about Texas hunting is talking about feral hogs so I'll chime in. Did you know there are feral hogs in Ohio? I did not know this but there was a booth at the Paul Bunyan show run by the Ohio branch of the USDA talking about them. They had a map of Ohio showing where they had been found or were considered common. They also said their program, as I understood it, was the landowner could report the hogs and the USDA would come trap them and vaccinate them and the landowner could continue to raise or butcher or sell them as they chose. I was surprised to hear that as I understood most states pretty much had a shoot on site and prohibited movement beyond the county or even the site where captured.

   They are probably not as plentiful as many of the southern and western states. One local hunter heard us talking and said he'd hunted deer all over the place where the hogs are supposed to be but had never seen any.

[Magicman]

They are mostly nocturnal. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   That's definitely a factor but you'd think he'd have seen sign of them rooting and rubbing, their droppings and such and from our discussion I got the idea he had not seen any sign of them as well as not seeing the actually animal. 

[Texas Ranger]

You can go days in the woods and never see a hog, then they are all over the place.  Story was hogs would never migrate to west Texas, to dry, problem was, nobody told the hogs.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Did you know the surest way to be alerted about another animal coming into the area is to keep a close watch on the other animals as they will see and let you know as soon as they see it? Even watching domestic animals is a good give-away. Cows and horses will stare at a deer or fox or coyote or such so if you see them staring intently be sure to identify what they have spotted.

    I went bow hunting today and a pair of yearlings, one spike and a doe, came out and suddenly they raised their heads and I kept watching and finally an old doe came out. Once I saw a pair of fawns start looking behind me and when I checked it out it was an old sow bear with her 3 coon sized cubs.

[Magicman]

Which means that you had a very successful hunt!  8)

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

   If you mean did I have a very nice time in one of my favorite places - yes I did. I did not get a shot at a deer as none of the three I saw came into bow range but it was fun to watch the squirrels and birds. One old corn stealing dove may be coming back today to look for some feathers he left behind. (I really need to replace the rubber on my slingshot up there as it is badly dry rotted.) There was a yearling spike there I'd love to shoot and may get more changes in the days ahead. Saturday and Sunday are youth hunt days which allow kids 8-14 and seniors over 65 to shoot an antlerless deer each day and I may go back and shoot one or two those days for the freezer. I could not shoot the spike unless I went back and got him with a bow. 

   I really need to look more into a crossbow as my age and sore shoulders are catching up with me and I don't know how much longer I can pull a bow. Makes me appreciate people like Fred Bear who I think shot a recurve bow up into his 80's.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that feral hogs are omnivores? They will readily eat grain, nuts, fruit, roots, grubs, worms, meat including fawns and young calves, carrion and just about anything else they find.

    This trait makes them much better survivors in almost any environment but also contributes to them being the threat and nuisance they generally are considered to be.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that wild turkeys will gobble sometimes in the Fall and Winter and not just in the Spring during mating season? I don't know why they do that but they do. I went bow hunting this morning and heard 2 distinct gobbles right at sunrise. I don't if it was 2 different turkeys or the same one gobbled twice.