(gentle music) - Coming up on an all new "Prairie Sportsman," join me, Brett Amundson, along with a retired conservation officer on his first pheasant hunt in over 40 years.

And we'll show you how conservation can start at home.

And we'll join Nicole Zempel for a fast forage.

I'm Brett Amundson.

Welcome to a brand new episode of "Prairie Sportsman."

We've got a great show for you starting right now.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Live Wide Open.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters.

And the members of Pioneer PBS.

(gentle music) - [Brett] Tasked with protecting natural resources and public safety in some of the state's hardest to reach locations, Minnesota conservation officers do some pretty wild things.

But it also means officers don't always get to spend much time in other corners of the state, including former CO Darin Fagerman.

Today we join him and his friend Scott Mackenthun as Darin tries to shoot his first pheasant in a very long time.

- I haven't shot a rooster in over 40 years.

Because I haven't hunted him because I grouse hunt mostly up in northeast Minnesota.

So it was great because I spent 15 years as a state trooper and like I said, very proud, great organization.

And after 15 years I went in to be a CO for 15 years, split my career.

So I got to be a rookie all over again.

- [Brett] Darin was stationed in Grand Marais patrolling a unique area including the boundary waters and Lake Superior.

- It was the best station in the state as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of snowmobile patrol, did a lot of snowmobile work details.

Other than an airplane, a snowmobile is the best way to see the countryside.

From lake to lake to lake in the summertime, being able to go into boundary waters, canoe area, wilderness.

Find the bird.

Find them, find them.

Hen!

Sorry.

Daydreaming.

- [Scott] What was it?

Rooster?

- The time I got up, he was a little bit too far I think.

One of the best times I ever had is I got to deliver a message to a bull hunter during bear season that his father had got a donor heart.

When you're out there every day and you're checking bear bait stations, you know where everybody hunts, you know what they drive, especially up there where there's not a lot of population.

So when they put that out right away, I knew exactly where this guy was and I was able to go in and tell him that his father was on the list, got off the list, got a heart, and he was going into surgery.

And I thought that was a pretty cool experience to see the emotion in that guy's face.

- Hen!

Get him.

Hen!

Getting those really good looks at the females, which I guess that's a good thing.

- One time I had a buck caught in a swing, a hammock actually.

And it was starting to get dark, and the intent, when I got there, the guy thought I was just gonna walk up to this buck and shoot it in the head and kill it and kind of thought, you know, I didn't know what I was gonna do.

I walk up to this thing and I didn't bring a shotgun or a rifle or anything with me.

I just had my pistol and it's starting to get dark and this buck is in this hammock.

And every time I got close to him, he was swinging around, he was kicking.

I didn't want to get hit by those hooves.

So I thought, well, you know what, he's only in here by one antler.

Maybe I could shoot his antler off.

And so the guy, he thought I was trying to shoot the steer in the head and kill it, it was a citizen that called in.

So here I'm trying this buck's moving around, and I'm trying to get a shot at the antler.

And I had a couple shots and I missed the antler.

Well they're kind of hard to hit.

And it was getting dark, it was getting pretty dark and this thing's moving around.

So he makes a comment from behind me.

I'm not a very good shot, and I kind of got a giggle because I didn't think he knew what I was doing.

And on the, I think it was the third, maybe fourth shot, I ended up blowing the antler off and the buck ran away.

(gentle music continues) - Hey.

Get it tiny.

Get it, get it.

Good.

Good job, right there.

Once I started taking my time a little bit more and trusting the dog and putting a pattern together, we've had unseasonably warm weather and birds were actually close to water and kind of hanging out in places that maybe we wouldn't think they would be till later in the season.

But that's the fun of what we do.

You're always solving the puzzle.

- [Darin] We got dogs for that, Scott.

- Man.

(gentle music) - [Brett] Dealing with the vast wilderness of northeast Minnesota sometimes meant dealing with wildfires.

- The biggest one that we had was the Ham Lake Fire.

And some of it was kind of hairy.

I remember having, on more than one occasion, having to lay down on the front seat of my truck with the flames shooting up in the ditch up the jack pine and spruce trees.

We assisted with putting sprinklers on places.

We did pretty much everything that needed to be done.

There was a gas station in town that brought me a trailer full of gas cans every day to my personal residence.

And we'd hook up that trailer and we'd haul them up the end of the Gunflint Trail, and we would go and bleed the, there were two can systems in the old Mk4 pumps, I think the sprinkler pumps.

And we were going around filling up those cans every day, gas cans, making sure the sprinklers were running on cabins.

And then sometimes too, we'd just go and we were transporting food.

We'd go to the lodges that were catering to some of the firefighters that we would pick up a whole truckload of lunches and we were delivering them to maybe wilderness people that were taking them in the boundary waters or to access just to try to keep just doing everything that we could do.

And I was involved assisting the sheriff's department with evacuations on the Gunlint Trail.

A couple people that we evacuated, my wife and I took them into our house, into our basement, and made a good relationship with them.

And probably one of the reasons too that I'm here with Scott today.

- I think we go back probably around to that Ham Lake Fire time and it just so happened in that manner that he ran into my in-laws.

And I've been able to chat with him, check in, I've been checked by him.

He's a great person that spends a lot of time in the outdoors and he's put me onto a lot of fun experiences and really enriched my outdoor experience.

You're always grateful for people that do that.

In the back of my mind, it's always trying to return the favor when I inquired about, hey, have you ever been pheasant hunting?

You kind of wanna do the things that you have in your backyard and he doesn't have access to this.

So I floated the idea and he was game for it.

(upbeat music) (gunshot firing) How are you holding up, Darin?

- [Darin] Good.

- I may push you through just a little faster.

See if we can close the door on them a little bit.

- Ooh.

- Ooh.

Right there.

- I know for some folks they go, well it's not a native bird or they can look at things a little bit differently.

I think a ring-neck pheasant is a practical and pragmatic response to the kind of landscape that we have now.

We have a mix of of leftover remnant prairie or restored areas or wild places that are in small chunks.

And our ring-neck pheasants can prosper.

If we wanted to go back to our native upland game birds, they wouldn't do as well.

(gunshot firing) - [Darin] By the time they come off, I'm way by them.

- Rooster!

Ah, too high.

(upbeat music continues) - [Darin] Hen hen hen.

- You done, you got it.

- All right.

- [Scott] Find it.

Find it.

- I think 1981 I think was the last time.

- Very nice.

- Thank you.

That was a lot of birds.

Unfortunately nothing in range.

- We got one.

- Oh you did?

- Yep.

- I didn't even hear you shoot.

- Twice.

First one was just a warning shot.

Yeah.

- [Scott] Sometimes you gotta double cap them.

- Well it was two different birds.

- Oh!

- For Darin to have that experience with a wild bird, I'm happy for him just because he spent all that time sort of chasing everything else that was in his backyard.

So to come down here and do that, that made me happy.

That made the trip for him to get one.

- This was a lot of fun, something different and I enjoyed it.

- [Kathy] Love to botanize, look at plants and identify them.

I am a birder, so I like to see birds and figure out what they're doing.

- [Nicole] So it's been used as a spray tincture, also people just take it as a tincture for the medicinal benefits.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Minnesota's natural resources are our most important asset.

Water and land sustain our lives and need protection from pollutants, erosion, and invasive species.

It's not only up to government agencies to protect our natural world.

We can all be environmental stewards.

In Minnesota, it's simple and fun to become a volunteer citizen scientist.

Every January, the National Eagle Center in Wabasha hosts a Golden Eagle Survey to better understand the migrating raptors.

Volunteers spread out over parts of southeast Minnesota and adjoining states to count golden eagles that are on their way to Northern Canada.

- What we're trained to do is look in these areas, just spend time, maybe a half hour in one spot, watching the bluff, the top third of the bluff, slowly scanning the bluff and looking for clusters that almost look like squirrel nests and really zooming in and focusing on those because golden eagles tend to tuck into the tree more.

They wanna be stealth, they wanna be hidden from their prey.

The squirrels, the rabbits, the wild turkeys they're hunting.

- [Narrator] Bald eagles will perch on open branches over waters to look for fish.

The goldens camouflage themselves, so they're more difficult to spot.

- Even if I don't see anything, it's just good to get out in the outdoors.

(bright music) - [Narrator] In the summer, there are citizen scientist opportunities to collect data on lakes and streams so the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency knows which waters need special attention.

- Volunteers monitor water clarity, which is a good indication of lake or stream health.

It looks at sediment levels or algae levels in the water.

And if those levels are too high, it can impact recreation and fish and wildlife communities.

Anybody can be a volunteer in the program.

It doesn't require any prior training or equipment.

- [Narrator] Aquatic invasive species can impact water quality, and they need to be located and monitored to stop their spread.

In August, volunteer groups around the state participate in Starry Trek, a one day event organized by the University of Minnesota and DNR to search Minnesota Lakes for Starry Stonewart and other invasive species.

Minnesotans who recreate in lakes and streams can stop the spread of aquatic invasive species by cleaning up everything that we pull out of the water, including boats, recreational toys, and waders.

Throw aquatic plants and unused bait in the trash and remove drain plugs.

If you've been in infested waters, spray down your boat with high pressure water.

Clean waders with hot water, and let everything dry for at least five days.

Earth-friendly practices can start with simple things like using less salt on your sidewalks in the winter.

When sodium chloride enters our waterways, it harms aquatic life and cannot be removed.

We can all use less plastic that can break down on the environment and cause microplastic pollution.

- Plastics are so ubiquitous, they're everywhere.

And so it's not terribly shocking to find that they're getting into our food and beverages.

If you compare tap water to bottled water, the ingestion annually, if you just drink tap water alone, something like 4,000 particles.

But if you drink bottled water, it could be 90,000.

So it's like a 22 fold increase.

So we looked at 12 brands of beer that draw their water from all five of the Great Lakes, and we also looked at 12 brands of salt that were just purchased here in the Twin Cities, but they're globally sourced.

All of them had it.

Whenever I hear something like, oh, it'll take 400 years for the polystyrene to break down, what does that even mean?

Don't truly know what happens to it.

What we do know is that when it's left in the environment, depending on the conditions, it just breaks into smaller and smaller parts.

They're gonna be around for a long time.

So if we wanna do something about that future, then we need to start making changes now.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Lead can also be toxic to wildlife as well as people.

Many hunters are replacing their lead shot with non-toxic copper shot.

And the Minnesota PCA is encouraging anglers to get the lead out of sinkers and other fishing tackle.

- Our campaign is centered on the common loon, which is our state bird.

It's a waterbird and they have a gizzard.

They pick up rocks and they use that to aid in their digestion process to grind up small minnows and fish.

And oftentimes they will mistaken a piece of lost fishing tackle as one of the rocks they use for eating and digestion.

And that of course results in either illness or death.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] We can help protect birds, bees, and butterflies by providing them habitat in our own backyards.

Consider setting up a bird feeding station.

It should be in the open and at least 10 feet from shrubs or places where predators like cats can hide.

The most successful stations are set up in clusters of three or four feeders that each contain a different food to attract a wide variety of birds.

Or create a monarch waystation in your yard.

- A lot of people say, okay, what's a waystation?

I know what that is when I'm on the highway, means you can stop and go to the bathroom and get some rest.

Well that is exactly what it is for Monarchs.

So because most milkweed from Minnesota all the way to Mexico has been mowed on our highway systems and our farm systems, there's nothing for them to eat as they migrate.

By having these little island waystations of nectar and especially milkweed to kind of get them to where they need to go to complete what it is their DNA is written for.

It's just amazing to be part of that.

- [Narrator] Woodbury homeowner Dana Boyle has converted her entire manicured turf grass lawn into a bug hotel.

- This isn't for everyone.

I get that.

What I am offering here is an alternative vision for people to be able to say when the time is right, if they want to, here's a way to do it.

- [Narrator] Dana received a $350 cost share grant and help from coaches through Minnesota's Lawns to Legumes program.

- And that's not just limited to homeowners.

Renters who have their landlord's permission can also apply for the program.

Whether that means putting in a traditional garden or putting in potted plants or raised bed gardens on balconies, for example.

- These projects can be really rich sources of pollen and nectar.

We have around 450 species of native bees, but there's butterflies and moths and beetles and hummingbirds, lots of different pollinators that can be benefited.

The more of these projects we have across different areas, the more insects we can benefit.

- The program Lawns to Legumes provided me with was a $350 grant, which was a very small portion of what I spent to convert my yard from basically sod to native Pennsylvania sedge.

But the educational value was really a treasure.

- [Narrator] Dana is also a certified Master Naturalist Volunteer.

- Master Naturalists are people who are interested in the environment, interested in connecting people to the environment, educating children and adults about the importance of maintaining our connection to nature.

- I became a Master Naturalist because I really enjoy the out of doors and nature.

I love to botanize, look at plants and identify them.

I am a birder, so I like to see birds and figure out what they're doing.

- [Narrator] 2,500 Master Naturalists are working across the state to restore habitats, lead nature hikes, gather research data, and educate the public on environmental stewardship.

The program was launched in 2005 by the University of Minnesota extension and DNR and includes 40 hours of classroom education.

Master Naturalists are then asked to volunteer 40 hours annually.

To learn how to become a Master Naturalist and explore many other nature-related citizen science opportunities, go to citizen science.umn.edu.

Whether it's volunteering, reusing, or planting, we can all help protect our natural resources.

Environmental stewardship starts at home.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - We are looking at a native plant, it is commonly called yarrow.

The scientific name, which I cannot pronounce, but I'm sure we'll have on the screen for you, actually translates to "To stop bleeding."

And then the other part of it translates to "Mini feathers."

So with the mini feathers, they are referring to the fern-like leaf that is also kind of feather-like.

And then with the to stop bleeding, this plant has been used for a millennia as a wound healer.

Apparently it was used also on battlefield.

People will actually make a tincture out of yarrow, and say you have a wound, you're out hiking, you cut yourself, spray that yarrow tincture on, and your wound will actually kind of pucker up and it will stop bleeding.

So it's been used as a spray tincture.

Also people just take it as a tincture for the medicinal benefits.

The whole plant is edible, and I especially love to use it for tea.

And the stem, it is edible.

You can grind that right up as well after drying it, but it's just pretty woody.

So I just stick with the leaves and the little tight flower clusters, which is an IDing characteristic of yarrow.

So you've got the tight white daisy-like flower clusters, then you have the feathery or fern-like leaves.

And unlike bergamot, which was the leaves were opposite, these are alternating leaves and they also hug the stem.

So there's not really an extending stem with the leaf.

And so for making tea, and again, yarrow is a great example of a plant where you really do wanna do your research.

Check if you are pregnant or nursing or think you could be pregnant, or if you are taking other medications for other health issues.

When consuming tea, it is recommended that you don't overdo yarrow.

So they say no more than three cups a day.

And I also wanna point out, as we're looking at the IDing characteristics of yarrow and utilizing for tea, when they are a young plant, they're gonna have a bunch of just very thin stems popping up from the ground.

And the leaves are actually very large when they're beginning to form.

As the plant's stem grows, then you're gonna get these tinier leaves.

So when I do tea, I harvest the leaves, I harvest the flower clusters, I'm gonna naturally air dry them, again, in just a cool darker place.

I like to use paper bags, I like to use cardboard boxes, and it still allows for breathing and drying, so you're not gonna get any kind of moisture or mildew.

After it dries, takes maybe about a week, then I can choose to grind it up however I want.

Could be powder, could be fairly looseleaf, or it could be partially ground.

And I'll use that for my tea, up to two teaspoons for one cup.

Also, it's got kind of a peppery flavor, so people do actually utilize this kind of as like a pepper maybe replacement, but they do grind that up and use it as pepper.

The plant can be utilized raw or cooked.

I prefer, like I said, to use it in my teas, and I do grind it up and use it as kind of that peppery component.

With anything, there's a myriad of nutritional and medicinal benefits.

Yarrow though is pretty spectacular and just stands out.

So again, if you're experiencing chest congestion, sinus issues, of which I have major allergies and sinuses, yarrow tea is fantastic for that.

It contains a boatload of antioxidants, which basically goes to town detoxifying our bodies from just everything we're taking in by virtue of walking out our front door in the morning.

It is a fever reducer because it actually induces hot flashes or some heat, which causes us to sweat, which helps to tame that fever.

Basically this plant is just great for our bodies.

And like I said, you can eat it raw or cooked.

You can make tea, you can make tincture.

So multifaceted, multipurpose plant.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Live Wide Open.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters.

And the members of Pioneer PBS.