Heat & Meat

With a quick cold front destroying my cucumbers, green beans and the last of the tomatoes things have been slow lately, but there are other things I have been trying to get done. This is an old beech tree I have finally gotten around to sawing up for fire wood.  I have two of these and a Walnut tree to get to, but I should have cut them up much sooner and we will end up buying at least some firewood.  This might be ok, later in the winter if I can get it split and put up.  I used a cheap electric chainsaw and a generator to cut this thing up.  The key with a cheap saw is to keep the file close at hand and sharpen it often.


The main happing around here is that I finally got my first deer.  A little doe.  I was just happy to hit what I was shooting at.  I had fired a few practice shots, and they were about four inches low so the first thing I shot at I aimed a little high, but not enough and I put a slug into the leg of tripod stand that holds up the corn feeder.   My practice shots had only been about seventy yards and the feeder is about a hundred and twenty yards from the house.  So I had to aim even higher and I finally hit it.  It went straight through, but didn't drop it so I had to wait an hour and track it into the woods.  It hadn't got very far before it collapsed.

I carried it back to house and strung it up so Luci and I could skin it.  Since I had no idea what I was doing and since Luci hadn't done it since she was a teenager we had to get mom's to tell us how to get started.  I thought getting the skin off was the most disgusting thing I had ever done until I had to reach in to get some of the guts out and I lost my lunch all over the place.  Luckily I managed not to barf on the meat.  I have now come to have a new Indian name.  Puking Bear.  We got it skinned and cut up.  Tonight we ate some of the loin which was fantastic.  Nothing tastes better than death. Even though I will probably puke my way through gutting the next one I will probably try again this weekend.  If I can't bring myself to do at least do some of the killing and cleaning I should become a vegetarian.