Sunday, February 28, 2010

Unexpected Gifts Part 2

As I said, we were given a roadkill deer last two nights ago.  Yesterday, while boiling sap and working on the bowl, we dressed the deer.  I have harvested many rabbits and found that the deer was not much different, just bigger.  The big difference is after your got it quartered. 


During the process, Mr. Field and Stream, who has dressed deer before, commented that I was much quicker than his first and that he didn't know how I could stand the smell.  The smell was not really any different than that I remember from the rabbits.  And, I've had lots of practice on rabbits.  Mr. Field and Stream's experience ends with field dressing, so the roles were reversed and I instructed him on removing the hide properly for tanning and quartering the deer.  I learned this with Game Processing: Field To Freezer.



I am no expert butcher.  It took a really long time to cut all of the meat into steaks, roasts, and stew meat.  I also made a bit of hamburger, but it did not come out very nice.  At the end, I felt like I was hit by a truck ... it was an exhausting 8 hour manarthon session between the deer and the sap.  We are guessing though that we now have an extra month of meat in the freezer and I now have another hide to tan.  Maybe, I'll only make this one into rawhide.  Unfortunately, the deer was hit in the head and the skull was crushed ... I was not able to save the brain.  Regardless, the journey to my moose hide boots, my MooseBoots journey, continues.

1 comment:

  1. I know that feeling. I feel much the same after a day of processing apples or strawberry jam, but the next day, and all of the days after when we have yummy food to eat, it's totally worth it ;).

    I'm grateful that you are willing to do it, even though it's not easy ;). But many of the things most worth doing aren't easy to do, which is what makes them worthwhile.

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