Home-Grown Dinner

Our growing season here is quite short so eating fresh from the garden is a big deal.  Yesterday was our first chance to actually harvest something from one of our gardens so I decided to try to make a completely home grown meal out of it.

My daughter Emma and I picked spinach, arugula, baby kale and radishes to make a salad.  No tomatoes yet, they are going into the garden this weekend.

I defrosted some elk sirloin from a nice elk harvested off our property last fall. Heated a bit of olive oil in my cast iron skillet and sprinkled a salt and fresh ground pepper on both sides.

 

Into the skillet they go for a pan sear.

 

Four minutes on each side, they were cut pretty thin and I wanted them pink inside.

 

What a great dinner that tasted even better knowing that it came off our place.  With the exception of the ranch dressing!

Another Walk in the Woods

Went for another walk in the woods yesterday.  We saw one turkey that was running away but I did get some pictures of things more willing to sit still for their picture.

 There's water everywhere and frogs in every puddle.

 

This beautiful teal was patient enough for me to get his close up.

In this muddy spot there was a multitude of tracks from deer, elk and moose.

Here's my big size 10 boot next to one of the moose tracks.

This little green fellow was sitting on top of the lay of much, too light to make an impression upon it.

Everything But the Turkeys

My dad and I went turkey hunting in the woods surrounding our home yesterday.  We didn't see any turkeys only turkey poop.  Fortunately I did bring my camera and take some nice pictures.  I think these flowers are some kind of wild clematis but I am not certain.

 

I do know this is shooting star.

 

We spied a bald eagle's nest which was really exciting for me since I had never seen one before.

I panned out on this shot and marked the nest with a circle.  You can see one of the eagles, too.

 Also, we saw 6 elk but they wouldn't stop to get their picture taken.

Howdy Neighbors!

This morning I was out taking care of the chickens and noticed these elk in our cattle pasture finding something to eat.  Not sure what that something is.  As you can see the pastures is far from being green yet.  Spring takes a while to get rolling here.