Hunter program provides food for local food banks in Georgia

Donated deer meat feeds thousands of Georgians through the 
Hunters for the Hungry program. (Photo by E. Jones, Grist)

By participating in Hunters for the Hungry, Georgia hunters use their harvested deer to feed their own families and help local food banks address food insecurity, which is often concentrated in the state's rural counties.

Sponsored by the Georgia Wildlife Federation, the program allows hunters who harvest more meat than they need to donate the extra. Emily Jones for Grist reports, "This year, the program has set a goal of collecting 140,000 pounds of donations, which the state Department of Natural Resources estimates can feed 560,000 people."

While not all donated meat is used to feed rural residents, a large percentage stays in the rural community where the deer were harvested. "Across Georgia, nearly 15% of families are food insecure," Jones explains. "Rural Hancock County, nestled between Atlanta and Augusta, has the highest rate in the country of children facing food insecurity, at 47%."

Many people outside of rural systems tend to think that because rural areas have large farms, everyone has plenty of food. But that isn't how the U.S. food industry works. Most of the peanuts, chickens and eggs produced on Georgia farms supply "the wider U.S. food system. . . which means the majority of people who grow food and farm animals have to rely on grocery stores to buy their food just like people in big cities."

So far, the Hunters for the Hungry program has proved successful, and its state-sponsored support is growing. Jones reports, "The state recently increased funding to $350,000 annually, allowing the program to expand from six processors to 56 and add freezer trailers to store additional meat."

The Rush at Rush Pond

By Tom Cosgrove
The Daily Yonder

Starr Lodge

Four of us sleep in borrowed beds at Starr Lodge; the fifth, our host — the one who left our Pennsylvania town decades ago for northern Maine — sleeps in his own with his wife.

Before the alarm rings, the truck is already loaded: two canoes strapped down, chairs wedged in, decoys packed, guns cased, a cooler full of food.

Up at 3:30 a.m., we move through the familiar motions.

No matter how many times we’ve done this, or how old we’ve become, there’s still a charge in the air. A quiet boyishness. A flicker of anticipation we pretend we’ve aged out of, but haven’t.

It’s the same energy we felt at twelve, finally old enough to hunt with our fathers — only now with the weight of time. We know these trips aren’t endless. We know how many parents we’ve buried. We know each other’s triumphs and losses. We know the years ahead are fewer than the ones behind.

Climbing into the truck, we recognize something sacred: we don’t assume we’ll all be here next year. 

Bruce Van Allen in the bow of a canoe paddling 
toward the take out. (Photo by Tom Cosgrove)

First Light

By 5:30 a.m., the five of us are at Rush Pond.

Two canoes — one with two of us, one with three.

Never perfectly balanced, but always enough.

We push off in the dark.

The sky is a deep, endless gray.

Headlamps off, eyes adjusting. 

Paddles dipping in and out: the only melody for miles.

We glide upstream, almost silently. The cold air stings just enough to remind you you’re alive.

We split into two spots, set the decoys, and settle into chairs.

And then, a miracle modern life almost never allows:

We sit still.

No notifications.

No meetings.

No cell phone calls.

Just breath, water, woods.

The rush at Rush Pond isn’t adrenaline.

Tom Cosgrove

It’s presence — the clarity that comes when nothing competes for your attention except your own heartbeat and the friends sitting ten yards away, doing exactly the same thing. 

This Year, Nothing Happens

No ducks committed.

No geese.

No shots fired.

The pond offered itself, nothing more.

But nothing is ever nothing.

This “uneventful” day will outlast most of the “important” ones because it held: 

hours of quiet company,

old stories retold and new ones added,

proof our bodies can still do this,

updates on family and friends,

honest conversations that stay on the pond,

silences that don’t feel empty,

the rare sense of being exactly where you’re meant to be.

Eight hours slipped by in a way modern hours never do.

Time didn’t race or drag.

It simply moved with us. 

The Photograph

Jeff Kann towing Michael Cosgrove and Allen 
Starr to the pull out. (Photo by Tom Cosgrove)

On the paddle back, Bruce and I reached shore first. 

Jeff, without a word, stepped into the water and began towing Michael and Allen’s canoe toward land.

I snapped the picture: one man, boot-deep in the river, rope in hand, pulling friends who’ve been part of his life for more than half a century.

It could have been any of us.

On a different day, it would’ve been.

That’s what decades do — they rotate the burden.

No drama.

No complaints.

Just selflessness.

The photograph captures what the hunt was never about — not ducks, not sport, not success — but friendship in its simplest form: someone stepping in to pull the load. 

The Real Rush

There’s always a moment on these trips when the truth hits:

We don’t get this forever.

We don’t get each other forever.

We don’t get mornings like this forever.

The rush at Rush Pond isn’t the hunt.

It’s the awareness:

We are here.

Today, all five of us are here.

No one is sick.

No one is grieving.

No one is missing.

No one is gone.

In a country where loneliness has become an epidemic — especially among men — showing up for each other isn’t nostalgia.

It’s survival.

It’s medicine.

It’s meaning.

Friendship isn’t the garnish.

It’s the meal. 

Rush Pond (Photo by Tom Cosgrove)

What We Bring Home

By late afternoon, we reach the take-out.

We load the boats.

Peel off waders.

Toss the gear into the truck.

Head to the house — still connected, still talking, just warmer.

No ducks.

No tailgate trophies. 

Nothing to freeze or brag about.

What we bring home is different: 

Five men still able to gather,

decades of shared history,

the memory of a quiet pond,

the comfort of presence,

the joy of not being alone in the world.

No guarantees for next year.

No guarantees for tomorrow.

Just this day, this year, this trip, this moment. Maybe that’s the real rush —

the rare awareness that today was enough, and you lived every second of it.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Flora & Fauna: Delightful Federal Duck Stamps; pumpkin history; bats for bug control; the incredible shooting plant

The simple genius behind duck stamps has supported conservation for over 90 years. (Adobe Stock photo)

Undeniably adorable when waddling on land, elegant and playful while paddling in water and given to showstopping, streamlined moves while flying: Ducks give artists so many reasons to love them. Among those artists, there is a special group -- realist wildlife painters vying to win the Federal Duck Stamp award, which many artists consider a "career pinnacle achievement, comparable to the Oscars or the Grammy’s," writes Kim Kobersmith of The Daily Yonder. The simple genius behind duck stamps has supported conservation for more than 90 years. "Duck hunters over 16 years old are required to purchase the stamp annually. . . . Ninety-eight percent of stamp proceeds go directly to add protected land to the National Wildlife Refuge System. In its 91-year history, the duck stamp has raised $1.2 billion and conserved 6 million acres across the country." The Fish and Wildlife Service website features the nation's Federal Duck Stamp gallery. 

How pumpkins evolved from a humble staple to a "spicy fall obsession" is a tale that began 9,000 years ago in ancient Mexico, writes extension specialist and horticulturist Shelley Mitchell for The Conversation. "I educate the people about the plant’s storied history and its prominence today." Mitchell explains that Native Americans grew pumpkin crops "even before [they grew] corn and beans." Being completely edible, pumpkins are a versatile crop, and early American settlers learned that growing them in North America was easier than in Europe. Read Mitchell's full history about this adaptable member of the squash family here.

A bat researcher measures the ears of a 'chatty' evening bat.
(Photo by Michael Minasi, KUT News)

An orchard filled with stink bugs, mosquitoes and dusty moths is an evening bat's dream dinner. "The tiny brown bats fill the Texas skies each night, and collectively eat tons of insects. They’re essential for farms – including where these researchers are working: Swift River Pecans," reports Michael Marks for Harvest Public Media. "The orchard’s owner, Troy Swift, hosted the researchers so they could collect more information on the species that visit his 266-acre property . . . Swift decided to forego using pesticides on part of his pecan orchard and just let the bat population handle the bugs this year."

An autumn road trip through rural Maine is one way to find the rarest and most coveted apples. "As leaf-peepers flood the state, apple-obsessives also fan out to find oddball specimens that range from rare heirlooms to never-before-tasted seedlings," writes Jen Rose Smith for The Wall Street Journal. "As an amateur fruit fanatic myself, I’ve long wanted to taste my way through Maine’s apple underground. . . along the state’s 3,500-mile coastline." Read Smith's complete apple adventure here.

A great blue heron stands in a restored stream that was once a cranberry bog. 
(Photo by C. Jackson, The Living Observatory via Inside Climate News)

Rising temperatures in Massachusetts have left some cranberry farmers unable to grow the state's signature crop. Instead of continuing to grow cranberries in a climate no longer suited for them, some area farmers are using state assistance to "transform their bogs into wetlands, ensuring the land remains protected," reports Nicole Williams of Inside Climate News. "The shift, called a green exit strategy, has been developed by state agencies and conservationists and driven in part by farmers finding tougher competition from regions with colder climates and younger vines."

American witch hazel plants use internal 'spring' pressure to shoot
their seeds at alarming speeds. (Snapshot via bioGraphic video)

 

As an understory shrub native to the eastern U.S., the American witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) plant may sound boring, but it has secret powers. "For centuries, Indigenous peoples in eastern North America have brewed 'magic water' by boiling bark from the twiggy shrub and using it to treat all manner of maladies," writes Katie Garrett for bioGraphic. "Perhaps the plant’s strangest trait is how it spreads its seeds. As winter approaches, they fire their glossy black seeds across the forest floor with audible pops — sometimes launching the start of a new generation as much as 10 meters (33 ft) away from the parent plant."