Perdido River Overnight

This is a different sort of country for getting out on outdoor excursions and expeditions.

It is best enjoyed from October through April. The time frame, on rare years, can be extended through May. The other months, between the warm up and cool down, are miserably hot and humid. Hot is not altogether bad. Hot, with high humidity, is a bad combination that can turn hard against a person. The stifling combination, at the least, has a way of depriving one of the simple pleasure of being outdoors.

What you enter into, once you leave behind the comforts and conveniences of modern amenities and wander off into the real surrounding natural environment, is a dense sub-tropical jungle environment replete with sets of challenges and resources.

Shirli and I generally curtail our outdoor excursions and expeditions during the hot weather months. About the time our snow climate friends are headed out to enjoy the outdoors, we are looking for things to do inside in the air-conditioning, or close to the air-conditioning, until the heat and humidity subside.

I do make occasional exceptions.

This past weekend was one of those exceptions.

The Perdido River is not a popular tourist attraction. In fact, before the recent development of two canoe landings on the river, there was very little human activity on the Perdido. You had to know the river, and the meandering woods roads that lead to the river, to access it. I first met the Perdido forty years ago, long before the State and Forever Wild stepped in to create the near 18,000 acre Perdido River Wildlife Management Area.

I’ve gone through some changes in forty years.

The Perdido?

Its changes are barely noticeable. I hope it stays that way but it is already obvious, with the ease of access that has been created, that this once near pristine natural area is feeling the abuse of individuals that grossly lack in their regard for caring for natural habitats.

The meandering river is only 60 miles long and, above Highway 112, is swift enough that paddling upstream is not a reasonable proposition. The two landings were recently developed as a “put in” upstream and a “take out” downstream for canoeists and kayakers. It’s a short run that can be done in a few hours. Or, if you are more leisurely minded, find yourself a private beach along the way and do an overnight camp. 

Be mindful of the weather though. The Perdido can run high and mean in a hurry following a deluge.

There’s a log jam about halfway between Staplefork Landing and Barrineau Road that has to be portaged around.

The Perdido River Trail is being developed as part of the Alabama Trail. This is a collaborative effort being undertaken by the various chapters of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society. The Alabama Trail, upon completion, will allow hikers to hoof the 550-mile distance between Fort Morgan on the peninsula and the Walls of Jericho in NE Alabama. The Perdido River Trail Section will be 27 miles long when completed.

Just off the trail … overlooking the river … near Loggerhead Creek … are a couple of shelters that were built by Forever Wild and the AHTS. These are First Class shelters with screened fronts and small porches.

The shelters are not officially open and, from information that I received, will not be officially open “For Reservation” for a while yet. I do not understand the “For Reservation” thing. How do trail hikers … hoofing it through a remote wilderness area … with pitifully little or no cellular phone service … with no ideal way to gauge “when” they will arrive at these shelters … possibly “reserve” a shelter for an overnight?

There are also plans to develop the narrow woods road that leads to the shelters. Personally, judging by the kind of “local” activity by the “local yokels” out romping and carrying on, a drivable road to these shelters sounds like a sure recipe for disaster for this remote site that is already strewn with toilet paper by people that refuse to take the time to dig a little hole and cover their doings.

Cool weather is the best time to hike this area.

Cool weather hiking will likely keep all but the very most-hardy from wading or swimming in the Perdido. Cool/cold temperatures do, however, put an end to the annual mosquito-yellow fly-chigger season. It doesn’t get cold enough here to put a proper end to the tick season in these woods. It slows them down but regular tick-checks are still necessary. A good cool down also sends the fanged serpents … Eastern Diamondback, Copperhead, Moccasin … into winter hibernation.

If you do hike on this trail during warm weather, I recommend wearing plenty of insect repellent … a couple of us, even wearing repellent … are still generously wearing the effects of chigger bites.  And a good pair of snake boots is a really good idea. We’ve not had any encounters these two trips but this is prime habitat for the aforementioned fanged species. Though a very respectable trail has been cut, there are areas where the native flora is doing what native flora does in a sub-tropical environment.

The problem with cool weather hiking on this trail is that it meanders, albeit close to the river, through a Wildlife Management Area where hunting is one of the acceptable and normal uses of the land. It’s lawful to archery hunt on Management Land from October 25^th through February 10^th.  There are also a number of scheduled weekends during the course of Gun Deer Season when it is lawful to hunt deer with a gun on the WMA. Regardless the type of hunting going on, I’d be certain to wear some Blaze Orange for the sake of personal visibility.

Making Deer Jerky

We have a little overnight expedition coming up this weekend with a small select group.

With these summertime temperatures and high humidity steaming our region, I figure the least amount of time necessary cooking over an open fire is a wise investment of time. Do some prepping. Keep it simple. Keep it fast.

Deer jerky is one of the food items that will accompany us on this hike and overnight on the Perdido River.

I’m not a fan of the commercially processed jerky that can be picked up at practically every corner store. I’m also not a fan of the packets of stuff that can be bought and used in making jerky at home. The stuff is packed full of ingredients that I can’t pronounce.

Commercially processed jerky, to my taste, doesn’t taste like meat. It tastes like all the stuff added to the meat.

I’m also not a fan of using purchased beef to make jerky.

Think about it.

Jerky is raw meat that has been dried at a slightly warm temperature. Being raw and dried means none of the nutritional value has been destroyed by high cooking temperatures that also destroys pathogens.

If I am going to eat raw meat it is going to be meat that I’ve killed and processed. Not something that was killed and processed by who knows who, who knows where, then hauled across the country to be handled again by who knows who at who knows where. I’m a little squirrelly about stuff like that and growing more squirrelly with the reoccurring outbreaks of serious foodborne illnesses … illnesses that can do you a lot worse than give you a bad case of the trots.

The particular cut of deer in the first picture comes from the hindquarter. There’s one of these on each hindquarter. It has a number of sections to it that are separated by layers of sinew. It’s a bit of careful work with a sharp blade to turn it into clean bite sized pieces for jerky but I have discovered this cut to be one of the most tender parts of a deer and well worth the time invested.

What do I use on the deer meat to season it?

Whatever happens to be handy in the house.

The marinade for this batch has only a few items in it … Dale’s Seasoning, Liquid Smoke, a little salt, a little black pepper, and a couple tablespoons of honey.

Enough of each to flavor the meat without disguising the taste of the meat.

I prefer to let my jerky marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours before loading it to the dehydrator. The step isn’t absolutely necessary. It’s just a personal preference after making my own jerky for a while.

I cut these bite sized pieces about 3/8ths of an inch thick. ¼ inch or thinner dehydrates faster if you are pressed for time. This batch … at this thickness … on our dehydrator … took better than 24 hours to finish.

There’s a lot of tasty woods goat nutrition in that jar that’s good “as is” or it can be added to the bush pot with a measure of dehydrated vegetables, rice, and whatever your preferential seasonings are to make a really fine stew.

Making Lighter'd From Pine Roots

Lighter’d.

That’s what we were taught that it was. 

Any Southern boy worth his salt knew … and still knows … what lighter’d is. I don’t know where the term “fat wood” came from or when it came into use to describe this valuable resource. 

What it’s called doesn’t change its nature. Knowing its nature and where to find it is what’s important.

Finding good lighter’d is not hard to do where there are stands of Longleaf Pine.

Longleaf is especially resinous and harder than most pines.

I am fortunate to have access to a good bit of lighter’d. More than a good bit. A lot of bit. At least for the time being.

The lighter’d pine top in the first picture is the remains of a Longleaf that fell victim to Hurricane Frederic a few decades ago. The other object in this first picture is the remnants of a lighter’d fence post that finally rotted off at ground level. Everything above ground is as solid as the day my grandfather set that post.

The problem with Longleaf, at least with the timber industry, is that Longleaf is terribly slow growing. The industry remedy for the slow growing Longleaf was to replace stands with faster growing pines cultivated for the needs of the industry. That’s good for the industry but it’s not so good for those of us that like to pick lighter’d for our firemaking purposes.

The faster growing pines are soft and not as resinous. Their stumps rot in the ground leaving behind leg breakers and ankle busters where trees once grew. Trees fallen on the ground simply rot away. It doesn’t take them long, at least in the larger scheme of time, to rot away and “return to the earth.”

Several of the lawns that I’ve taken care of over the years have the less resinous softer pines growing in and around them. One of the things I noticed was something that happened when I skinned their roots with my mower blades. They oozed resin.

So it got me to wondering.

I wondered how these green roots, if chopped out and allowed to dry, would perform as lighter’d.

I chopped out a small root, threw it into my truck, and honestly forgot about it. It rode around with me for several months before I noticed it on the floorboard and gave it a try.

That small piece of pine root looked like good lighter’d, smelled like good lighter’d, shaved and scraped like good lighter’d, and, hit with a good spark from my ferro rod, performed like good lighter’d. It had, indeed, dried out and become lighter’d.

So I’m wondering again.

How do Northern pine and spruce roots perform when taken green and allowed to dry?

Maybe someone can do some experimenting and post their results.