It's hunting season here. Ken headed out one frosty morning a couple of weeks ago about 0700. At 09:30 he called me on the radio to say he was about to start field dressing a nice doe! She was nice too! It was a perfect shot, right through the heart, so she died within seconds - which makes me feel better!
He was quite a ways from the house so I went up and helped sling her to a pole and we made our way precariously down the mountain with the pole on our shoulders. It took us about 45 minutes to bring her out of the woods -and 3 days to get the crick out of my shoulder! Then the real work began! Skinning, cutting, processing and bagging the meat for the freezer. This is only the second deer Ken's dressed out so I think the next one will go a lot faster. He's very meticulous and tries not to waste anything.
The steaks and stew meat from this deer will last us most of the year. He's hoping to get one more before the season ends in January. Most of the meat from that one will be ground for hamburgers, sausage ect. A lot of the old timers around here can or bottle -for those in England- the meat. They put it in the pressure cooker. The guys at the fire station told Ken how to do it. I was always a bit worried about canning meat but our neighbor Ann cans anything that'll stand still long enough and she's healthy as a horse. She offered to lend us her pressure cooker and come and show us how she does it.
Between the deer, our rabbits and the garden we're getting more and more independent of the supermarket. Hopefully the goats will have kids in the spring then I won't need to buy milk for a while. I need to give them their shots and find out if they need extra selenium before breeding them.
One thing I like about the deer, I don't have to worm it , I don't have to give it shots, I don't have to trim it's hooves and I don't have to buy hay and grain and feed it! Well I guess that's more than one thing. But you know what I mean. And they look beautiful grazing on the lawn ( but not in the garden!)
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