Johnsfolly

My daughter picked up the Zombies greatest hits CD. Been listening in the car. Here are few of our favorites.

Be afraid to go into the Water😉

Also a pry bar, putty knife, and sometimes used for spreading butter or mayo on bread😉

Starting to feel like fall. Had apples so we made an old favorite from an old Irish Cookery book. Dublin pork stew. Basically apples and pork. Used cut country rib pieces and tart apples.

Squirrel don't scare us at all. I do tend to braise them more than any other preparations. You know that we do like Hank's Aurora recipe. We follow that and also have a few preparations of my own that we enjoy. Rabbits are meatier and as Wrench mentioned a bit more forgiving to prepare. However, I do prefer squirrel over rabbit since I find that they have more flavor.

I have never found any of that fungus. Seen a lot of wood ears when out foraging, which may be related to this one. I miss finding black trumpets. They were a favorite fall fungus and we haven't found one in 15 years or so. Loved to dry them and add to stew to give a really strong mushroom taste. No matter when we found them they did tend to be a bit wormy. I would first start drying them on paper towels on the counter before we would put them in a dessicator and typically the worms would leave during that first drying step. If not, a little more protein never hurt 😉.

The magic number is 6 😁😉

She should be thankful that she doesn't work in a GLP (Good Laboratory Practices) contract research Laboratory🙄😉.

"And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing. And the road goes on forever. And I've got one more silver dollar. But I'm not going to let them catch me, no. Not going to let them catch the midnight rider"😁😉

I used daikon radish since they wouldn't discolor😉

MDC reports Missouri hunters harvested 15 black bears this season Missouri’s 2024 black bear hunting season ran Oct. 21-30 with 15 bears taken out of a maximum harvest of 40. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reports Missouri hunters harvested 15 black bears during the state’s fourth bear hunting season, Oct. 21-30. More than 5,969 hunters applied during May for 400 permits for the season with the maximum total harvest being 40 bears. Of the 400 hunters selected through a random drawing of all applicants, 319 hunters purchased permits for the season. Bear hunting in Missouri is limited to Missouri residents and restricted to three designated areas of southern Missouri called Bear Management Zones (BMZ). Each permit issued is for a specific BMZ and hunting is limited to public or private property within the BMZ. Twelve bears were harvested in BMZ 1 out of a maximum of 20 with 166 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. Three bears were harvested in BMZ 2 out of a maximum of 15 with 121 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. No bears were harvested in BMZ 3 out of a maximum of five with 32 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. Of the bears taken, 13 were harvested using firearms methods, one was harvested with archery equipment, and one was harvested with a crossbow. Ten of the harvested bears were males and five were females. “We had another successful black bear hunting season this year,” said MDC Furbearer Biologist Nate Bowersock. “Despite the acorn crop potentially being above average, hunters were able to harvest a record number of bears. This could be due to the dryer fall conditions, which likely caused bears to move more often in search of water.” Congrats to all that participated and were successful in their 2024 bear hunts!

I did find it interesting as to how much folks in Ireland identify with the pub that they most frequent. We would get asked a lot which pub we went to regularly. I don't go to a lot of local bars here, but maybe it's the same.

I have been known to partake in some Southern Comfort on occassion with many that I no longer talk about though I am likely past the statute of limitations for those😅

Though I am not a cider fan, this looks good😉

At our old place, we would get a couple of reds interested in our chickens every Feb/Mar as the males were roaming for mates. One year one got a little too interested and now we have a fox tail😉

Happy Halloween from the Folly family! Since our last place had only three houses and no children, this is first year in a while that we have done jack-o-lanterns. We hope that everyone has a great time today/tonight.

I was deer hunting one time and watched one climb at least ten feet up a hickory tree to check out some squirrels. Another time while turkey hunting I saw one with a large rabbit in its mouth and I presumed taking it back to it's kits. We have quite a few red fox out this way but I like the grays a lot better.

@Ham my local redfin pickerel spot dried up two years ago 😒. However, I still have a spot or two down in FL that you could try.

It's my understanding that they were stocked in the James River in VA to create a trophy fishery. I believe that was done in the 80's. I think that they thought at the time that the salinity of the bay would have kept them from spreading throughout the bay. Obviously that was not the case since blues are found in almost if not all river and tributaries of the bay. The blue cats and flatheads found in MD are considered to be invasives. They cannot be moved live from any body of water.

Congrats Dave. Sound like you guys had a great musky trip!

Thanks Al. It's interesting to me that there are twenty two fish in your list that I haven't caught yet. Mostly those are more western species.

I found out yesterday that Jonathan used my information to catch one of those Brook sticklebacks on a fly. Said that there were a couple hundred in the school. He had lots of bites but just the one hook set. Takes just one😉.

They are fun to catch and I haven't caught any big ones.

I didn't have the time to make it that way on my CO trip. But the storm that ran me off the mountains did drop up to 20+ inches in some areas and opened the ski seasons In a couple of resorts.

Jeff looks like all the above and more. A recent study showed up to 49% mortality from catch and release. I've heard from a reliable source that blue cats were seen having a feeding frenzy on striper spawn after the cats followed the bass up the spawning creeks. Recruitment has dropped dramatically over the last ten years. There has been higher recruitment in the populations spawning in the Hudson River than the bay. Menhaden, aka bunker, overfishing in the mouth of the Bay in VA has dropped the numbers that reach the upper Bay that are a high energy forage for juvenile and adult stripers.