instead of Uggs, mukluk boots

[malkin]

I'm all in favor of not eating any food that tastes like cardboard in pretty much the same way that I also reject wearing any fake fur that becomes a sticky cold soggy mess when it gets wet.

[lph]

So am I, but... cardboard? That bad? I can't really think of any food, frozen, fresh or dried, that I would describe that way.

With the notable exception of rice crackers.

[malkin]

Some of the widely available grocery store frozen veggies are pretty bad. Circa 1973 my dad compared some frozen veg. on our plates to the green paper napkins we were using at the dinner table, but that was a long time ago.

I am quite a fan of frozen blueberries. As for the rest, Brewer does almost all the cooking and makes it taste fabulous, so I don't care how it got here.

As for rice crackers, aren't they more like packing peanuts?

[OakLeaf]

Ever tasted those cornstarch packing peanuts? They're better than rice cakes. Especially with a little salt.

[goldfinch]

Picking bits from what others have posted. . .

In northern Minnesota black bears are common and I see them frequently. Even when I lived in the city come spring bears were everywhere. I had one friend who had a black bear come right into his screened porch when he was in the house. We have to be really careful with birdseed and garbage in all but the winter months. My understanding is that the farther north you go the more carnivorous the black bears become, because of lack of plant life.

One of my neighbors had a run in with a black bear over a deer she had killed. She and her husband ran off the bear. We have had a couple of black bear attacks on people, but no one has been killed.

I grew up eating venison and I still eat venison. I just had it in chili last weekend. My relatives all hunt. Our major deer predator besides humans is the timber wolf. Our deer hunt was down this year. One speculation is the high wolf population. Timber wolves are now a common sight. Our wolf population is high enough that locals who keep cattle or sheep now keep llamas to deter and fight off timber wolves and brush wolves. Our neighbor has not lost any sheep to wolves since he began keeping a couple of llamas. Not that it is a 100% solution, but it beats defenseless cattle or sheep. Data on success though is pretty good.

On the mukluk topic, I've worn mukluks for years. They are moose hide. I eat meat but I try to eat meat killed by those I know who kill animals as humanly as possible. I won't eat factory farmed animals.

My family home has a root cellar. Current temperature, 46 degrees. Good for keeping root vegetables and squash. This year, four wagons of squash:



FWIW

[malkin]

Llamas fight wolves?!

Cool, who knew?

[shootingstar]

I don't know my bears, but wild bears in city of North Vancouver and some of the suburbs do get a bear roaming near backyards. I know at the construction site where I worked, there was a bear spotted by construction workers about 5 km. away or less. This is out in the suburbs, but within 30 km. of a regional wilderness park. We were also located near salmon spawning river areas.

Bear warnings are taken seriously in any of the protected wilderness parks in British Columbia and Alberta. They are much more ie. plentiful than in Europe.. because Canada has huge tracts of wilderness.. it continues to amaze one how daunting our distances are and very much uninhabited just going north less than 300 km. of huge Canadian cities.

2 days ago while we were heading to the mountains in B.C., Greyhound bus had 2 suddenly slow down twice: 1. for a herd of bighorn sheep on the road 2. for a freshly hit deer lying on the road. I could see it twitching still on the road. I am certain that animal might get run over again by cars in other direction in the dark on this high speed highway.

In southern Ontario where I grew up, you never heard about bears..but when I moved out to B.C. and Alberta yes, of course.

This afternoon we went snowshoeing in a mountain area, where several skiers told us they saw a moose and her calf today. Unfortunately we didn't see them. There is an area in this marked x-country skiing area named "Moose Meadows".

I have encountered bears twice in the wild..both times in national parks --continental divide in Banff National Park and another one roaming through a parking lot at Waterton National Park. Latter was only less than 10 ft. away.