Category Archives: Wild Food Harvesting

Stuffed Venison Burgers – Cooking Wild Game

cooking wild game, cooking venison, cooking deer, deer recipe

Cooking Wild Game Venison is versatile. Anything you can do with beef can be done with venison. I craved a burger last week and didn’t want just a cheese burger, it had to be something really good. It took a few hours to think of something different while the burger from my deer thawed. Cheddar […]

Cooking tasty bear chops is simple – Cooking Wild Game

It took five years but I finally did it. I finally shot a bear. We are enjoying the meat. Last night we had chops for supper and this time, I remembered to take pictures so I can write about our meal. Bears can carry the parasites that cause trichinosis and toxoplasmosis. You must cook the […]

Breakfast with dandelions

Dandelion greens are great in scrambled eggs

Dandelion greens – those things my mother made me eat as a child and then said, “Don’t screw your face up like that, they’re good.” They weren’t good. They weren’t. Nothing made them good…except time. I don’t know why. They’re dandelion greens. They haven’t changed. But now they taste good. Mum would laugh and say, […]

The weather was lousy on opening day of turkey season but that didn’t stop me

It was raining hard at 2 am and pouring by 3:30 am. Howling wind kept me awake most of the night. It was opening day of the spring turkey hunt. “I’d be happy to just go for a ride and stay dry and see what happens,” I offered. Steve, my husband, didn’t answer me. We […]

Maine Maple Sunday recipe – grilled dirty maple shrimp

It was so cold the sap wasn’t running but that didn’t stop Chandler’s Sugar Shack from opening up on Maine Maple Sunday. The sap did run briefly but it was just enough to flush the lines between 3,100 taps. They aren’t too discouraged because it’s going to warm up later this week and when it […]

Ice fishing with college students who help shape our outdoors

Taylor Follette and a 16" smallmouth bass

Before she went back to Unity College for the new semester Taylor and I made plans for a weekend of ice fishing, home cooked food and hanging out. She arrived home Saturday morning with Rebecca Zirlin, Grainne Dougherty and Connor Shaw. They unloaded the truck, changed into warm clothes and loaded the truck. Steve left […]

There’s still time to pick mushrooms

Summer is over but there’s still time to pick mushrooms. I’ve been picking a few boletes, goatsbeards and new to me, chicken of the woods. The nice stretch of weather has helped up my annual take. The first frost usually happens the first or second week of September out here but here we are in […]

BOW Intro Skills Weekend has openings

The board of directors of Friends of Maine BOW met Wednesday Evening at the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. Emily MacCabe, BOW coordinator for the state, gave us an update. There are still openings for Introductory Skills Weekend and a few of the workshops are full. The cut off date to apply for a […]

Becoming an Outdoors-Woman, 2013 Intro Skills Weekend

Maine Game Warden Kris MacCabe teaches ATV Safety

It’s time! Last year’s Introductory Skills Weekend filled quickly and had a long waiting list. Emily MacCabe, coordinator of Maine BOW, released the workshop schedule and registration form (opens a pdf file) this afternoon. The cost of the weekend is $225. The fee includes meals from Friday’s through Sunday’s lunch, all equipment, bunking in a […]

Smelting at Flood Brook

I’ve wanted to go smelting for years. The last time I went I was seven and a half months pregnant with our first child and Dad took me to dip smelts in the Penobscot River. That “child” is now 28. Uncle Bobby would go smelting, come to our house and clean a bucket of smelts […]

Making maple syrup at Chandler’s Sugar Shack

It started out as a few hundred taps in 2006 and has grown to 3,000 taps this year. The small, inefficient evaporator in a small sugar shack has been replaced by a huge, efficient, state of the art evaporator in a beautiful building I thought was going to be someone’s home as it was being […]

Bear Sausage Quiche

bear sausage, quiche recipe

I led a workshop called Cooking Wild Game for Maine BOW’s Winter Skills Weekend. One of the dishes we made is Bear Sausage Quiche. Thanks to Jeremy and Gene, generous hunters who donated sausage to my workshop, we were able to taste the sausage alone and use it in quiche. It was a big hit. […]

I Love and Hate the Wild Turkeys

Eastern wild tom turkeys

It’s no secret that I don’t love the wild turkeys. It’s not an exaggeration some days to say I hate the huge feathered, giant flying crap machines. Their introduction to this corner of northern Washington county is enough to make me ask out loud “why weren’t they thinking when they decided to do this?” My […]

You Can Take the Girl Out of the Woods

You can take the girl out of the woods when she moves to Boston but you can’t take the love of the outdoors out of my  girl. It started in December when we gave Kristin and Matt their non-resident fishing licenses for Christmas. Kristin is our oldest daughter. She’s engaged to Matt. Kristin hasn’t been […]

Hooked On Fishing – Not On Drugs with Joey, Zachary and Kaylee

Jaime and Kaylee ice fishing with a pole.

Hooked On Fishing – Not On Drugs (HOFNOD) is a program I’ve been involved with for a short time. I became a certified instructor last year through Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. I grew up fishing and so did my kids. With my own kids grown and flown, it’s time to share my love of fishing […]