The Neighbors

The second time we were on the property – the first was a tour with a real estate agent –we took the old Jeep onto the upper ridge which has since been cleared and planted for wildlife. It was autumn, the day crisp and bright in the early afternoon. We followed a deeply trenched road into a sink hole and even though the jeep was raised, it quickly became high-centered on the mud bottom. When the drive to reverse wheel spinning proved futile, we abandoned the vehicle, waded out and stared at it. Presently Jim, my son, said he heard a truck and so we headed to the sound.



A mile later at a fork in the road, we saw a gate, a barn, and beyond, a man leaning against a tractor. He watched as we came through the gate. He was tall, gaunt, dressed in faded and worn blue denim overalls. The tractor on which he leaned had weeds growing around its wheels, the tires gone flat. Its paint had long since given way to rust.

He was as weathered as the tractor. Behind him was a flatbed truck without side rails. On its wooden bed there were many items, worn, but of use to anyone working a place like this with a broad and undulating pasture on which grazed Hereford cattle – some cows but mostly steers, altogether about fifteen animals not including the bull confined to a wooden fenced pen beside the barn.

We shook hands as introductions were exchanged. “We are looking at the place up above, thinking we might buy it,” I said. “But right now, we’re stuck and hoping you might be able to help.”

Bison Steaks with Wine Sauce

This recipe is to help get in the mood for the coming deer season. We just enjoyed this prepared with buffalo (OK, bison) steaks but it is terrific with venison, elk, or any other large game meat.

A Place Called Brown Hollow

As men are called to the sea, the mountains, the great spaces of the American West, throughout my life, the military, college, a professional career, wandering and travel, the Missouri woodlands of my childhood have called me home. The place of my childhood is now gone, subdivided beyond recognition. Through great good fortune a substitute was found -- a place known as Brown Hollow.

It is not a place of the imagination, although it lends itself to great imagining, but an actual part of the Ozark mountains with a vast repository of life, topography, springs and streams. The hunting tradition of my family, spanning now three generations of living hunters continues there.



But Brown Hollow is much more than hunting. There are fish in the clear river, swimming, unlimited photo ops, camping, and once a year a great gathering featuring a bluegrass band. And cooking.

The ethics of hunting, at least the ethics practiced and passed on in my family, require respect for the life taken, and that respect requires its proper preparation, cooking and eating, actually feasting.

This space will be used to report on Brown Hollow in its many aspects.

This is autumn and the hunters moon is in the sky. These tales of Brown Hollow will follow the seasons. They will include some thoughts on preparation, gear, techniques, survival and, yes, most important how to eat the bounty. The freezer already contains the result of one successful pheasant hunt (from south Dakota not Brown Hollow, no promise of strict geographic boundaries). But our whitetail hunt for bow is going on now and rifle season is soon to start.

So the installments to follow will focus on venison, how to find it, kill it, cook it, and, most importantly, eat it. So if you have been wondering what this is about, wonder no more, it is about how to cook game linked to the traditions of my family.

More to come.

Welcome to Brown Hollow!

In our family the primary purpose of each hunting trip was to come home with a good story. Almost equal was the need to come back with something to eat, preferably tasty.

Our home was on a hillside above a creek surrounded on three sides by the woods that covered the western third of the 65 acre family farm. My older brother carried my deceased father's 1897 Winchester 12 gauge shotgun and I a single shot .22 J.C. Higgins. Our bounty was mostly rabbits, squirrels and sometimes quail. In the summer we worked the creek for sun perch, catfish, frogs, crawfish and, on rare occasion turtle -- big snappers that we knew could take your finger with one bite.

And yes we came home with stories now retold, refined and improved into that form of immortality known as 'family legend'.