Had a crazy weekend in Pittsburgh for the holiday, but I'll get to that later. First I want to pass along a link showing that I'm not the only one that has a huge issue with Monsanto. This article is from the front page of the Sunday Nov 29th Washington Post. Very interesting. Enjoy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/28/AR2009112802471.html

Wow. It has been absolutely pouring here for the last 3 days. I'm getting really, really sick of the rain. Sawyer is getting really sick of the rain. Drivers are finally learning how to navigate in the rain, which is the lone bright spot in the whole thing.

Last night I emptied my rain gauge. It was completely full. 5 inches of rain in basically 2 days. It will be interesting to see what it looks like tonight.

Today is Ejdo's birthday, so we're having shrimp for dinner. All he wants is steamed shrimp with Old Bay. He's an easy man to please.

Hokies play tomorrow at 1 in their new white uniforms. They look pretty sweet.



No pictures that are steal-able, but the gloves, shoes, and pants all have Ut Prosim elements. The inside of the collar says BEAMERBALL. Gloves and shoes also have Hokie Stone elements. They're pretty sweet looking.

Those unis will be up against UnderArmor's camo unis which Maryland will be wearing. Camo sleeves, and instead of player names, the backplate will say things like Courage and Brotherhood. Could be cool. Too bad the game is only on ESPN360. Luckily, my laptop has an HDMI output, so it won't be too horrible looking.

Steelers play the Bungals on Sunday at 1. Instead of televising that game, I get to watch the Broncos beat up the Deadskins. Right. Maybe I'll watch the figure skating instead.

Pens lost last night....again. But hey, its only November. I'm not sweating it too much. They play the Bruins on Saturday. There are a lot of injured guys right now, so once they're back, it will be smooth sailing. Get the injuries out of the way now, so we don't have to worry about them during the playoffs, right? Wouldn't it be great if it really worked that way?

Go Hokies, Steelers, and Pens! I'm gonna be busy in front of the TV this weekend! Enjoy!

So, onto the food. I've been making more of an effort to document the interesting new foods we eat because I'd like to share with everyone that you don't have to limit yourself to what you find at the grocery store. Fishing and hunting are fantastic ways to obtain protein, and you have way more fun than you do crusing the aisles at the local food mart.

This past weekend we were up in West-by-God Virginia at my parents cabin. Their cabin is in a community with a 150 acre lake, which is stocked with various fish. Rainbow trout, brook trout, and large mouth bass are all easy to find, and we hear there are catfish too. This lake is almost perfectly clear, fed with rainwater and snowmelt and is really, really cold. If there's a good place to eat the fish that you catch, this is it.

We didn't get in until pretty late on Friday, so Saturday was our first opportunity. I'd like to start by mentioning Sawyer loves to fish as much as we do. You'll see that in one of the upcoming pictures. He wanders around and investigates why our lures are stuck. Hopefully he doesn't scare away too many fish.

We always go to the same place along the lake, but soon that will change. Ejdo "procured" a depth finder and has retro-fit it so we can use it on my parents canoe. So next time we go up there, we'll be able to fish the middle of the lake. What this means for Sawyer and fishing is yet unknown.

Ejdo was the lucky one all weekend. We were fishing less than 40 ft apart most of the time, but they hit his lure much more than mine. He got a nice rainbow on Saturday morning, but we were unsure if it was big enough to keep. That lucky guy went back into the lake. A few hours later in the afternoon though, Ejdo hooked this guy, and he was definitely a keeper.



Took him back to the house, read online about how to filet a trout (pretty different bone structure than the fish we usually catch) and stuck him in the fridge.

Sunday morning, we were back at it again before we left for NoVa. Again, Ejdo was the lucky one. All I caught were sticks and leaves, but he came up with this nice rainbow trout and a largemouth.



You can see in the picture how much Sawyer loves fishing. Got this final fish all cleaned off and fileted out and headed home.



Fast forward to last night. I decided that we were going to make our fish with this recipe: Pecan Crusted Trout with Citrus-Rosemary Butter. Turned out to be a pretty time consuming creation, but it was fantastic. The fish was quite light, and was almost overpowered by the pecans. The butter was a real PITA to make but tasted fantastic. And the cabbage mixture was really, really good, despite the lack of ingredients. Served with a side of potato (we recieved half a massive potato in the CSA and it was more than enough for both of us as a side).



So our first adventure with cooking trout was a pretty successful one. I think next time we will prepare it whole fish style, with less powerful ingredients, so that we can really highlight the fish. Regardless, it was yummy.

I have some food to discuss, but first I wanted to talk about how awesome my dog is.

Today is Veterans Day, so we're all at home. Ejdo and I sat around and were lazy all morning. The only thing we really accomplished was eating, doing dishes, and looking at new fishing rods/reels online. Very productive.

He left around 2 to go hunting with his dad, even though its been pouring rain all day. I was kind of wanting to run, but feeling a little unsure, since again, its been pouring all day. I looked at Sawyer and said "Do you want to run in the rain?" and he jumped right up and ran to the door. So off we went.

Now we're back after a few miles through the woods. Its amazing how enjoyable it actually is to run in the rain. Very peaceful, only you and the path to think about. We saw one other runner and she looked to be enjoying herself as well.

My dog is awesome because he is the best running partner ever. He has helped me train for 5 mile trail runs, triathlons, and a number of road races. He always wants to go run, always has a "smile" on his face, and never has an excuse. If I'm not sure how much I want to run on a particular day, he always reminds me that running is fun and we should go, like right NOW!

Anyway, he's all curled up in a ball sleeping on his bed now, all tuckered out from our jaunt in the woods. This pic was taken right after we walked in the door this afternoon. What an awesome dog.

I have a few things to get to, but most involve photos that I don't currently have access to. So I'll start with this.

Have you heard the new commercial about farmers being the stewards of our land? The ad is sponsored by Monsanto, an agricultural seed producer. This ad is quite tricky, in my opinion. It evokes a sense of the average American farmer as a good steward of our land, when in fact, many aren't.

The ad mentions that today's farmers produce more food per farmer than in the past. What they don't tell us is this is because many small farms have been run out of business by larger, corporate farms, and genetically modified (GM) seed products. These larger farms have the ability to create more corn each year yes, but at what cost? Many times these large agricultural sites do not rotate crops or naturally enhance the soil the way smaller farmers do. They simply fertilize the hell out of the land once the product has been harvested, in hopes that there will be enough nutrient content to grow as much, or more, product next year. Many small farmers get priced out of the market because it takes more money to farm in an environmentally sustainable way, thus raising the price of the product. These farms go under, and large corporate farms simply buy up the land.

As I mentioned, this ad is sponsored by Monsanto, who produces seed. You may have heard of "Roundup Ready" seed in the past. This is GM seed that allow a higher use of other herbicide/pesticide products while functioning properly. In the past, high use of pesticides/herbicides would damage the crop, but this product allows a farmer to spray a much higher concentration of pesticide/herbicide to kill off competitors. This photo shows Roundup Ready canola.



This obviously encourages much greater use of these chemicals on the land and is essentially the opposite of organic, or even natural, farming. I'm not even going to mention the effects of all these chemicals on the land itself or the thousands of pollinators, wildlife, or (God forbid) humans. Yet Monsanto says they are "committed to conserving natural resources."

Even worse, in my opinion, are the products that have built in pesticides, such as the Yield Guard Plus corn pictured below. This corn has pesticide built into the seed to prevent the European corn borer from damaging the crop. I don't want to eat that!



Monsanto has publicly shown that they will sue those that infringe on their copyrights in any way, including farmers that save seed and other agricultural companies. I'm not suggesting that its wrong to protect their copyright against other companies, but shouldn't a farmer be able to save the seed from the plant he has already purchased? This is how farming stayed sustainable for centuries. This is like saying that you can purchase a cow, but when that cow delivers a calf, you have to return the calf to the person you purchased the cow from. In what world does that make sense?

The only redeeming thing Monsanto has going for themselves right now is their claim that they will not create "terminator" seeds or Gene Use Restricted Technology (GURT) seeds. Basically these are seeds that are sterile, and thus unable to produce more seed. GURT seeds are produced by other ag firms and farmers are required to purchase more seed every year to continue to farm that particular plant. My issue is, if Monsanto isn't allowing farmers to keep seeds, then whats the difference? Farmers using Monsanto products still legally have to purchase new seed every year, just we as consumers can "feel better" knowing our corn didn't come from sterile seed. Give me a break.

So lets recap. Today's farmers produce more food than ever before (because the corporate farms are driving small farmers out of business), the company that sells seed to the large corporate farms essentially requires the use of more (and more powerful) chemicals to grow the product, and if you attempt to farm in a natural or organic method, you are doomed to fail. But somehow Monsanto can help solve the world's food crisis (while banking quite a bit; the 2008 net income for Monsanto was $11.365 billion.)

Monsanto wants us to believe that their genetically modified seed products can help feed they world. In my opinion, the only thing that will get fed is the bank account of the Monsanto board of directors.


//All the photos and descriptions of products come directly from the Monsanto website.

////I bet you can guess who makes Roundup too ;-)

This is long, and I apologize in advance.

Today I found myself in an odd position. ADT was coming to place more sensors at some windows in the afternoon, and the morning was relatively booked, as I was going to the gym, going to vote, and taking the dog for a walk (since we'd be stuck around the house all day waiting for ADT).

Well ADT threw me a loop and showed up early. I still had a towel on my head from the shower, but I was thrilled that I now had the entire afternoon to do as I pleased. Did some much needed cleaning around the house, putting junk away and generally straightening up things. Surfed the web for a little. Scrubbed the floor (joy of joys). Got the mail and discovered something that I wanted to return ASAP, so Sawyer and I went for another walk. What a lucky dog!

As we're leaving the house, we encounter another woman with a dog that looks like a relatively young labradoodle. I have issues with people paying big bucks for designer dogs, but thats not really something I spout off about while on a walk. She made the turn into the park and we continued on to the mailbox at the end of the street.

At the next turn for the park, she emerges and asks me if I saw the big buck. Sadly, I had not. I responded that someone was going to get a great surprise when they find him. Her response is what prompted this blog posting. She said "Well hopefully he won't end up on a dinner plate or with his antlers in the den."

Those of you that know me know that we don't purchase beef in our house. We eat venison. Ejdo and his father hunt whenever they get the chance, and the deer they harvest provide enough meat for 10 people each year, plus some. We butcher the deer at home, make the sausages and jerky at home, and feel very good about the food that we eat and the impact we make on the environment.

When this woman made that comment, she obviously had no idea about my family and our connection to hunting. She had no idea that a very large part of my job is coordinating deer hunts. She simply knew what pop culture, Disney, and PETA have told her. She thinks hunting and eating venison is a bad thing.

How can we as hunters/anglers/foragers change the minds of people like this? What methods can we employ to educate others on why it is good not only for me, but for the environment, to harvest this deer? There has to be a way we can get our point across without becoming a joke like I feel PETA has. PETA has some good ideas, but the extremists invalidate their name.

IMO, harvesting deer for food purposes is one of the best things the average person can do for themself and the environment. The removal of a single doe can have a huge impact on the number of deer in our forests. There are already far too many deer in Northern VA, and if you look at the woods, you can see it. The natural, native understory does not exist in many places, because the deer have eaten everything. This vastly affects the way that entire ecosystem exists. If a similar ecosystem were allowed to advance for 50+ years, the large, mature overstory trees would die and there would be nothing to replace them. Our forests would begin to disappear. The above argument doesn't even touch upon the loss of predators within much of America and the fact that other than the hunter, the only predator many whitetailed deer encounter is the SUV.

As for the human impact, the beef that you can find in the average grocery store is only somewhat similar to "actual" beef. Many commercial cattle operations feed the cattle corn, which is not what beef have evloved to eat. This alters the fats held within the meat (corn is mainly a carrier of Omega-6 fats, while grass carries Omega-3). In addition to an altered diet, many cattle operations innoculate their cattle with antibiotics and hormones to encourage good health and proper growth. These antibiotics and hormones are passed on to the consumer upon consumption. One major issue associated with this is that many Americans are now developing immunities to these antibiotics, and when they get sick, the drugs no longer work. Some theorize that these hormones are contributing to the issue of young girls entering puberty earlier than in the past.

Venison is lower in fat than beef, so low in fact that we have to add pork fat to our ground venison to make it bind together for burger. As deer still prefer to eat clover, grass, acorns, and soybeans to corn, they are much higher in the helpful Omega-3 fats. Deer move quite a bit, with some having daily ranges of up to 1 mile, and their muscles and heart are in much better shape than a cow that is kept in a feed lot. The culinary world is beginning to embrace venison as a specialty meat more and more, and you can purchase venison by the pound at stores like Whole Foods. Small steaks can go for up to $20 a pound.

I wanted to tell this woman "I understand that you don't know me or what I do, but I feel that your statement is extremely one sided and rather ignorant." But I didn't. I kept walking and let her feel the akwardness of the situation. She has the right to her opinion. She doesn't have to share it with everyone she meets. Someday I hope to be able to educate her, but today was not that day.