September Weather

These last two weeks have been some of the best weather weeks we have seen this summer. Warming to the 70's and 80's during the day and staying around 60 degrees at night. The moon is called Manoominike Giizis, the wild rice making moon in Ojibwe country. Rice harvesting is at it's peak. Pictured is a common sight in and around Leech Lake, a car or pickup with one or two canoes and at least one long pole. Rice harvesting is still done the tradition way with a canoe and two occupants, one who poles the canoe though the wild rice beds and the other who who has two shorter wooden stakes one of which bends the rice over the canoe and the other to gently knock the grain off the stalk into the canoe. The raw rice is then sold to the DRM (Division of Resource Management) in Cass Lake where it's processed and sold. I bought three pounds this past week of the local rice harvest. I made a wild rice, venison sausage casserole, this evening for dinner and it was delicious. There is a world of differance between commercially grown wild rice and the native grown Leech Lake wild rice.

The recipe I used is as follows, 1 lb venison sausage (any balk sausage will do), one medium onion chopped, two cups of chopped celery, 1 cup of wild rice (uncooked), 1 can of cream of mushroom, beef boulion and french onion soups, two cans of mushrooms (including liquid). Brown sausage and drain, add onion and celery and cook until soft. Mix and put all the ingrediants in casserole and bake at 400 degree for one hour. Add dried cranberries for color and added sweet taste.

A third bear was taken from the neighborhood. It was taken from a stand where one of the earlier bears were taken.

This last weekend Walker celebrated its 17th annual Ethnic Fest to celebrate the many diverse cultures, food, music that make up our community. I still wonder which ethnicity the pork chop on a stick comes from.