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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Critters and food

I was really looking forward to my filbert harvest this year. For the first time, my trees were starting to produce a significant number of nuts. During the night, a bear came by and cleaned me out. Not only did he take the nuts, he ran off half of my most productive bush. In the end, we only harvested 3 nuts. Good thing we don’t have to rely on them for our winter’s food.

Our little garden was under constant attack from slugs this year. I blame the rainy and cool summer. Our squash suffered the most. Not a single one survived. Too bad, as squash stores well and is another good winter food.

Now gardening for us is at a hobby level. We don’t rely on it for a significant portion of our food. Still, we did get a fair number of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, sunchokes, potatoes, herbs and other odds and ends. Every little bit helps.

The grocery stores are still well stocked, so it’s not a crisis. I can buy what I need for my winter storage. While fresh garden food is nice, a bad harvest wouldn’t be the end of the world. During tough times, however, a herd of deer could completely wipe out a survival garden. That would be a crisis.

Today I can laugh off the damage caused by a bear. In a survival situation, I’d be hunting down that bruin.

-Sixbears

7 comments:

  1. A bear roast stuffed with fliberts and a deer roast stuffed with garden vegies - now that sounds like a good feast to me.

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  2. Agree, bear isn't bad braised for several hours with onion and garlic.

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  3. Certainly doesn't take the critters long to find a handy food supply furnished by the nice man by the lake!

    Word probably spreads in the animal world about your location, I'm thinking!

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  4. Methinks when it's survival garden time, that herd of deer will get thinned out significantly...

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  5. Sometimes you don't raise veggies, you raise venison.

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  6. Sixbear very smart you got the wife to put in a garden as a green field .Now you can go hunting out the back door and bring home the meat :}how many people have you known that hunts that have bought a gun a truck a camper got a club membership then kill a deer every other year and say look at what i save hunting?

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  7. That my friend is the future freezer stuffer.
    Think of it all as a food plot and you're job will be to protect it. Fun job eh ?

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