Shearing time at the nieghbors

    Late evening before yesterday I got a call from the neighbors needing help shearing yesterday, they were lookin for two, but Son had to go to school and take care of work that was time sensitive, so Gus and I headed up North about 7:30 in six inches of wet Spring Snow. 1000 head in the sheds ,dry (they need to be dry when they are sheared).
    I haven't helped much with sheep over the years but remembered helpin a few folks 15 and 30 years ago. they work alot different than cattle, for sure. Freinds John and Eric helped get me lined out pushin sheep up to the shearers and, cuttin out lambs and blackfaces (lower quality wool)  through a side gate. Their Dad was ahead of me and helped all day (he's 89!). Also helping me get it right was one of their Peruvian herders (thanks Omar). I don't think I embarssed myself too bad, and maybe was a little help after all.
    Was a cold grey day with heavy fog in the forenoon, not really ususal weather here, but not unheard of. If you follow the 90 day fog rain forecast we should be lookin for a good rain in late June which would be perfect timing.

Spring on the High Plains / Char's Casserole

Every day looks more like Spring here, just after dark I heard the Killdeer calling. So that makes for Nuthatches, Sandhill Cranes, Robins , and now Killdeer back in that order. I taught Gus to come to Nuthatch calls when we were out hunting, as whistling isn't really conducive to hunting! He also looked back at a Pine Squirrel bark, which allowed me to use hand signals to communicate once he looked at me. The old gentleman doesn't hear well enough now,  but that's ok. 25 degrees and wet Snow driving in from the Northeast this morning, wet horses chewing their feed audibly in their nosebags with all the birds calling in the Brush along the River.

Today's a good day for Char's Casserole.. so here goes at the request of freind , Nelle Door:

1 1/2 pounds ground Deer Elk or Antelope Burger
1 small onion chopped
1 can Mixed vegetables
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
4 slices Cheese

Fry the onions til tender, push to the side and brown the hamburger.
While the burger is browning dump all the canned goods into a saucepan and start heating them.
When the burger/ onion is done, drain excess fat and combine with the stuff in the saucepan.
Top with cheese slices just long enough before serving to melt the cheese.
Takes 1/2 hour and serves 4

This is an easy quick hunting camp meal. Char swears you should add the canned goods to the cast iron skillet you fryed the burger in, makes for even better taste.  I find it easier to wash the saucepan than clean the skillet, but her way is no doubt superior. Another thing she does is steam fresh potatos and vegetables an add them instead of the canned type, that is definitely superior, but might cut into your hunting time!

And Nelle, I bet this would freeze great in a big batch for your lambing crew!

Yellowstone Park Lantern for Client in Utah

This lantern was made for the best client anyone could ever ask for. He found my name stamp on one of the Lanterns in Yellowstone and sought me out on the internet. That kind of client is very much appreciated, thanks. This lantern will ship out today.

Wet Saddle Blankets

We had a great Spring ride yesterday with our freinds from the Z6. We are planning a little wagon train trip around the time of the 100th Anniversary of the ranch, just family and freinds of the Ranch. We wanted to scout out a wagon pass we'd heard of West of my Trapline and get a mileage figure, look for campsite etc. Yesterday turned out to be the perfect day to get it done on the spur of the moment. We made arrangements about 1:30 to get started about 2:30, by the time we loaded our horses saddled up and got to the Ranch, our freinds were ready to go too. We drove out about 6 miles on a county road , and headed out West of my trapline through the Rimrocks into a beautiful valley between two pine studded ridges with glimpses of the mountins all snow capped through the ridges. We finlaly found a few cattle/ horse passes through the north rims and turned back East after about 2/1/2 hours of steady riding, crossing the South Rim at an angle towards the pickup and tailer. I didn't really know we'd parked in a hole, and we all knew where the truck was, but we were surprised that we never did see it on the return trip until we got less than a qurter mile from it!. The Plains Indians, Coyotes, Bobcats and Modern Hunters learn to use low places in the prairie to sneak up or away from things, I won't forget that low spot where you can hide from about 5 miles of open Plains, might come in handy hunting Antelope someday.

We loaded up the horses and drove back down the county road to the narrowest possible spot on the road, and found a neighbors pickup hooked to a HEAVY packer roller, stopped in the road making it impassable.

Just as we saw it a horse trotted up out of the sage like it was spooked a little. We investigated the scene, and thought maybe our neighbor had walked out in the sage to do who knows what, while I stomped around hoping not to find someone injured my freind started the truck to move it so we could get by, and discovered the truck wouldn't budge, upon further investigation he saw a total bearing failure on a ten ton packer, that made mving it impossible. At that point I turned the trailer around and we headed back to a ranch trail on my trapline, which took us through a rough coulee pretty slow back to the cow lot and finally to the highway. By the time we got all the horses put up and fed it was 8:30 and dark. A great little trip where all turned out well.

Cabin Visit

    Spring may be here, and there are some harbringers of Spring in the Mountains, but we have a ways to go. While the Sandhill Cranes are calling here and the Geese are back ( I heard my fist Robins calling tonight), the snow at the cabin is still 3 to 5 feet deep, the few bare spots are greening up though. Gus and I slipped away for a couple nights in the Mountains, I loaded the toboggan with bedroll, some rations to restock the cabin for Spring, and a cooler with Deer steaks to throw on the grill. We got there just before dark and sledded our gear in. I was able to skid the toboggan right over the top of the yard fence without scratching the bottom on the top wire, and level onto the front porch!.
    The snow was soft in the eveningand my good freind Augustus had a helluva time with my help getting to the cabin, once there we ate supper by the wood cookstove and he promptly fell asleep! He kind of spreads out like pancake batter when he sleeps now, give him a break, he's about 100 in Weimaraner years!
    Come morning after the snow stiffened up overnight, we took a little walk around the place and did a  wildlife track survey to see who was around. A few brave Gophers had tunneled up through 4 feet of snow and were checking it out. We saw our first Bluebird, cleaned out the nest boxes,and listened to the Coyotes howling, they are denning now and very territorial.
    I ran out of propane so sledded the tank out to the pickup, we don't need propane at the cabin it is just a luxury, so we did without and just used gas lanterns and wood cookstove to cook. I spent a little time tearing out a derelict pole fence that I'd been wanting to clear out, but will have to wait for the ground to thaw before pulling posts, and working on new fence repair projects.

Montana Rustic Asian Lanterns Completed / Mediterranean Deer Kabobs

I hope you like the looks of this Latern. These lites are MASSIVE!  Standing about 27 inches tall, they weigh about 20 pounds each! They are forged from heavy iron with lots of forged grooves and heavy hammer texture that accentuate the plasticity if hot iron, and are not evident in the photos. The rectangular iron backplate will mount on the old barnwood siding of the new Barn. Below the oiled old barn wood is rusted corrugated iron roofing that protects the building from snow and rain splashing up from the ground, the iron extends up approximately three feet. This photo is taken in my entry way, about the only place I have to prop them up with a minmum of background interference.

We were fortunate enough to have a Sage Grouse Biologist staying with us for the better part of a  week while he looked for suitable housing for he and his wife.They are moving to Montana to trap and radio collar Sage Hens for the purpose of studying them so as to help stabilize thier numbers which are declining throughout the West. I treated him to one of my families' favorite use of ground Deer Meat.

MEDITERRANEAN KABOBS

1 1/2 pounds ground Deer, Elk, or Antelope

1 Teaspoon ground ginger

1 Teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 Teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 Teaspoon black pepper

1 Teaspoon salt

1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg

2 or 3 ground Jalapeno Peppers

Mix all ingredients thouroughly by hand, you can form these into patties and grill them on a hot grill til done, but the best way is to wet your hand and form them onto flat skewers and then suspend them over the grates of the grill and grill til done. I forged my skewers from 1/8 inch by 3/4 inch iron, the flat iron skewers allow the ground kabobs to stay in place, they taste similar to Greek Gyros, and are a favorite with everyone who tries them at my place, including the people who tell me "I don't eat game." They always come back for seconds. This is another 1/2 hour prep time, followed by 15 minutes on the grill. We serve them with rice from a rice cooker( which even a blacksmith can operate) and Ainslie Barbecue Sauce and Teriyaki Sauce on the side. Serving them on the skewers also lends an exotic air, and fools your guests into thinking you slaved over it all day! All these quick recipes are designed to allow you more time to hunt, keep in mind wild Turkey and Black Bear Season are almost upon us.

Oldest Brand in Montana sucessfully registered!

The first brand recognized by the Territorial Legislature in 1864 was the number 84.That was 25 years before Montana voted to enter the Union! It was authorized to be used by Thomas D. Pitt, an early pioneer who served as a Vigilante, made several arrests and presided over at least one hanging. The brand was not registered for some time when a good freind revived the brand and had it registered as a cattle brand, by a reluctant brand registrar, who got into the historic background of the brand and relented allowing it to be re-registered for use on cattle. My freind offered it to me, needless to say I was thrilled to get it, and I appreciate the gift knowing full well that she could have advertised it for sale and gotten some dollars for it. She'll probably read this so let me say "THANKS" once again!

A couple days ago I got a call from a lady in Broadus Montana, she told me she had my brand registration, and that Helena had sent it folded up with her brand ( Open 8) by mistake. Rather than send it back to Helena, she thought she would just drop it in the mail to me. We chatted some time about her operation, it turns out I drove through her place several times last summer, and recalled seeing her sheep. She told me their country is full of Coyotes but they haven't lost a lamb since they brought in Burros to guard the sheep. Some people don't know it but Burros will stomp a canine to death, and they don't differentiate between Coyotes and pet dogs. They have also spotted some wolf tracks on their range, but haven't lost any Stock yet to them. Anyway the brand registration arrived yesterday.

I am working on gettting the brand registered for horses now and meeting some resistance from the Brand Office, but they have been very helpful and picked up the spirit of reviving the brand to its full historic role so I am hopefull we will eventually get it back for use as a horse brand too!

Game Meat Pie I wrote about yesterday

Work continues on the Asian Montana Rustic Lanterns / Deer Meat Pie

We are enjoying haveing a house guest for a few nights, he is a wildlife biologist hired for an 8 month stint studying Sage Grouse in our county, mostly North of here in my trapping territory. He is here looking for a suitable rental for he and his wife, also a wildlife biologist. He enjoyed my whitetail stew last night. Tonite the leftovers get put into my wife's specialty : Meat Pie.

My recipes are supposed to be fast and delicious. I literally don't have the time or the inclination to spend alot of time seeking out exotic ingredients and prepareing supper, you probably don't either. I think it is important to honor the animals whose lives we take for our sustenance by preparing the meat in a delicious recipe .Most of my recipes take 1/2 hour of active prep time, a few take a  little longer. Using leftover stew, I can put a pie in the oven in about 1/2 hour, not bad for a blacksmith!

Prepare a pie crust
2 cups flour (I like to use 1 cup white and 1 cup of whole  wheat)
1 Teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of Bear Lard if you have it or Crisco if you don't
1/4 cup Water
    Mix the dry ingredients
    Add the Crisco by cutting it into the dry mix with a fork, the more thourough the lard is cut into the dry mix the flakier the crust will be.
    Add the water a little at a time, sometimes you need a little more sometimes a little less ( evidently this has something to do with the weather, humidity, and Moon Phase but I have to admit only my wife seems to know what, trust me if I can make it work you can too. Keep in mind the little woman at your place will be so impressed with your efforts she'll be waiting at the door next hunting season with your rifle so you can bring home some more delicious meat, who knows maybe she'll even start hunting with you!)
    Don't over mix the dough,as soon as you can form it into a ball, take about 1/2  of it and roll it out between two sheets of wax paper , remove the top sheet of wax paper , and invert it over the pie plate, then remove the second sheet of wax paper.
    Fill the lower crust with the leftover stew from last night, mixed with cream of mushroom soup.
    Roll out the top crust and lay it over the whole shebang.
    Seal the edges, my wife uses her fingers and a fork, I prefer the front site of my six shooter, so I guess we all use whats handiest.
    Slit the crust to allow steam to escape.
    Pop it into a 400 degree oven and bake for about 1 hour.
    We like it with sour cream and Mexican hot sauce (Cholula is my favorite and it's own food group).

  

Asian Style lanterns

I've been working on some lanterns for a freind of mines' farm. He is a landscape architect and we work together on projects from time to time. He designed the play area with the Hobbit Doors I made the hardware for and posted on Facebook last Fall. His son wanted to slump the glass for the windows in the door which were meant to simulate the moon, and it just so happened  I have a neighbor who is a glass artist and specializes in hot slumping glass. So everyone came up for supper and to slump the glass. My freinds 15 year old son was in 7th Heaven working with the glass artist and sucessfully slumped the glass for use in the Hobbit Doors. My architect freinds' mother is Japenese, and his father is White. While they were looking at a lantern I built for an end table in our house, the Dad said " I really Like that lantern it reminds me of an Asian Design, but at the same time it looks very Montana Rustic." His son replied " So Dad, it's kind of like us."
We had a good chuckle over that! We love having kids around, their fresh view of the World is refreshing.

Any way I started forging the lanterns yesterday. They are very heavy and textured by the forging process, I will post some photos when they are finished.

March 8 2011 Update and a new recipe

For those of you who haven't heard, I have been writing a cookbook for a couple years now, and if I only had some computer skills it would probably be done by now. When my wife went back to work full time I found out PDQ that if I didn't want a frozen pizza for supper I had better learn to cook meals that she would eat. I have always been a decent backwoods bull cook but cooking for Does is more of a challenge!

I have hunted for my families' meat for almost 30 years now and I love the hunting and we all treasure the meat, my kids would have starved to death when I started my business if it hadn't been for Deer Elk and Antelope! We always process our own meat and are very careful to kill choice animals with carefull shots to be humane, and protect the quality of the meat. We like knowing we are helping the wild herds we love thrive and stay healthy.

Visitors often say "I can't believe this is wild game, you must've learned to cook it some special way."
Actualy I don't think I do anything to wild meat that I wouldn't do with domestic meat , but its been so long since we had much of it that I can't say for sure.

My cook book includes the favorite recipes of my family and freinds. The subtitle should read: "wild game recipes tasty enough for women;easy enough for men." I'm hoping the self-deprecating aspect will allay any sexist/chauvanist complaints!

Try this one out :

Take one frozen Elk, Deer, Antelope, or Bear Roast I like neck, shoulder blade or arm roasts
place it in a crockpot in 3/4 inch of water, with
1/2 cup red wine
a splash of soy sauce
splash of Liquid Smoke
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 can Beef Consumme' soup
allow to simmer on low all day
At about 2:30 PM cut up 4 medium spuds to bite sized pieces, along with four medium carrots, and  1 small onion. Fish out the shoulder blade or arm bone and add the vegetables,turn it up to high for two hours . thicken the broth with two tablespoons corn starch dissolved in cold water, add the corn starch slowly, it will thicken the stew when it boils.

I always make enough to have about a pie shells' worth of leftovers and the following day bake it in a home made pie crust, watch of that recipe one of these days!

Z6 Cattle Drive from the Bakan Meadow, A few pics of George and Whitney Taken by my wife from the back of her gelding Senior. Senior likes to work cows and needed to be reminded to STAND STILL  while She shot the photos. The rimrocks in the background are West of Montana Highway 3,

Photos from Prairie Elk Forge -George Ainslie the Blacksmith

Here are some selected photos of the table lamps I have been working on and mentioned in the blog. They are heavy massive lamps forged from 3/8 X 1 1/2 inch flat iron, the assembly rivets are forged in a die I made to reproduce decorative rivets from Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park ,Wyoming. The rivets are forged from antique wrought iron recycled from the old railroad watering tank on the old Milwaukee Railroad which ran through Lavina in the late 1800's.    

The lampshades are masterfully crafted from cow rawhide  in Idaho, and really add to the finished product. I really like the way these turned out, partly because the construction technique also mirrors a technique used in the forging of some light fixtures from the Inn.

Making blacksmith's tongs

There was a hint of Spring in the air this morning, and it warmed up to about 45 above. The struggle between the Cold Maker andt he Summer Maker has begun, sounds like this week we will witness the struggle as the temperatures are due to vary widely.

My horses were happy to get their grain this morning after the good workout yesterday. I spent the morning working on the Old Faithful Inn Lantern, and called a client from the neighboring town that had commissioned me to make two pairs of blacksmith tongs for him. I had already forged a pair of tongs for holding round stock, so invited him to come watch as I forged a pair to hold flat iron for him. He is fascinated with Blacksmith work and wants to do some in his retirement. We had a nice visit while I forged the tongs.

We were happy to have our neighbors up for supper tonite I made them Ainslie's version of Shepherds Pie which was appropriate as they own a large Sheep and Cattle ranch near Lavina. We had a great visit and it really helps the Winter pass to have good freinds at our table. If you want to try my recipe I'll include it below:

Shepherds Pie
1 1/2 pounds of ground deer,elk or antelope burger
1 large onion chopped
2 Envelopes of pork gravymix
2 cans of green beans
8 Servings of instant mashed potato

Fry the onion til tender
Brown the burger meat
Follow the directions on the instant gravy mix and pour it over the browned burger in the skillet,
Sprinkle the green beans evenly over the meat /gravy mixture in the skillet.
Make up the instant mashed potatos and spread the evenly over the top of the whole mess,top with pats of butter and bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

A few years ago I had some freinds from California hunting here. One was a 80 year old homesteaders' kid from here in Lavina, he spent his career as a mechanical engineer working for Lockheed, He brought his hunting buddy's two sons. Both are wildife biologists and great guys, as well as very capable hunters . To make a long story short we all went our separate ways for the morning hunt . I shot a fat yearling deer a mile north of our cabin ,and after I hung her up at the cabin, settled in  for a little nap. The boys came back with no game. That afternoon we all sallied out for an evening hunt, I was lucky again and shot another fat doe early in the evening. A fierce storm blew in blowing snow while I cleaned the doe and dragged it to the pickup, by the time I got back to the cabin and hung her up it was really howling. I made up the above recipe on our wood cook stove, plopped it in the oven and settled down to a good book until the boys returned. One of em said "George is really showing us up he shot two deer today and  came back here and got supper ready while we didn't get any!"  These guys were really good natured and plenty good hunters themselves, I kept telling them most of my recipes only take a half hour to prepare, Shepherds pie is one of em. Let me know how you like it, it really shines when the wind hit 20 MPH and the snow is falling sideways!

Cattle Drive

I always help our neighbors when they work cattle on their ranch, I've done it for years, I'm not much for keeping score but it must be 15 years or more now. There's been five generations of the same family on this ranch, I've been fortunate enough to have known four of those generations. The ranch started in 1911, so this is their 100th year, their brand is a Z6 on horses and cattle.

Today was the annual cattle drive to bring pregnant cows home to calve. My wife went off to work for a couple hours while I fed, caught and saddled the horses and brought them home where she met me about 9 AM. We dressed warm (it was only about 5 above by then) and drove a couple miles to the ranch, picked up the our freinds horses (they work for the ranch full time) and drove out south of Lavina about 7 miles to what we call the Bakan Meadow north of Painted Robe Crick ( so named because the Indians prized the clay along its banks for earth paint to paint their Buffalo robes). From there we rode south a mile mile and a half and started gathering the cattle for the drive north, our freinds went East and gathered the cattle under the rimrocks and we all started them north while the fourth generation rancher led them with a big round bale of hay on the pickup.

 The weather improved  all morning and must've got into the mid twenties, we rode along pushing cows and visiting. Took two hours to get to the bridge on Big Coulee Crick which the cattle hesitate to cross, it actually went pretty good this year and  about another mile and a half got us to Montana Highway 3, where we met the Sheriff's deputy who stopped traffic for us while we crossed the Musselshell River Bridge(another potentially hairy spot) and trotted the whole bunch through town up Cemetary rode where we tipped our hats to my Mom and Dad as well as the third generation rancher who we lost way to fast last summer. Aout seven miles from the Bakan Meadow we dumped em into the airport pasture about a mile from the house. We trotted the horses part way home, enoyed some homemade chicken soup and brought the horses home.

While I was resting after our cattle drive I put the finishing touches on the table lamps I talked about last week.So now I have to figure out an economical way to get the 300 miles across the state to the homeowner, they weight about 20 pounds each!

March 1st 2011

Looks like Spring is finally here, it was 6 degrees ABOVE zero this morning. Last week I sent a knife off to an 18th Century reenactor from Georgia. He' reenacting eastern longhunter from the mid 1700's and ordered a knife replicated from Madison Grant's acclaimed book "The Knife in Homespun America". The knife sports a 9 1/4 inch blade, brass bolsters (recycled from the circa 1900 bank in Columbus Montana) and elk horn grips. He called tonite at suppertime and was a little hard to get talking, I finally asked him if he got the knife and did he like it?  He responded that he got the knife yesterday and was speechless, he was very complimentary...evidently he liked the knife.

I have to tell you I am very fortunate to be able to live where I do, do the kind of work that I love and have the kind of clients that are so appreciative of my efforts, when was the last time anyone called Wal Mart and told them how much they liked their products? At least in one way I got to beat Wal Mart today! Ha!