It's deer season, and yes this post has pictures!

Image from buckmanager.com

I got my hunter safety permit years ago, but unfortunately my first season out, didn't get a deer.  In fact I haven't been out since that first season.  I don't have a proper deer rifle!!  My husband has one, and I used it that first year.  Maybe soon I can get one, then I too can go hunting!  I love venison, it's hormone free, free range, and very lean!  Not to mention very versatile. I cannot wait to start making yummy things with this beautiful deer.

With the temperatures bottoming out this past weekend I was not sure if my husband would be successful getting a deer.  He went out Sunday late morning to his hunting spot, and didn't see anything.  Then got up super early Monday morning (like 3am) to head back out so he could be in place when the sun came up.  By noon he hadn't seen anything except a bobcat...and he was coooooold!  Fortunately just a while later (like three hours later) a gunshot on another property spooked a doe out of her hidey hole and into his range.

After taking the requisite picture to send to me, he did the field dressing, don't worry, no pictures of that, and loaded her up for the hour and a half trip back home.  Now I have to say, we have the BEST neighbors ever, we borrowed a cherry picker (engine hoist) from one neighbor, and another came down to help us process it!  I'm not gonna post a ton of pictures, cause honestly my hands were icky because I was helping process...  But after skinning we started removing the meat.

And then all of the meat went into a cooler overnight.

The next day we started removing all of the fat and silverskin...

...and chunking it...

...to so we could grind it into burger...

...which is now sitting in the fridge, we still need to add some beef fat, not a lot, and then I will be making jerky, summer sausage, and a bunch of yummy things!  Hopefully he will get another deer either next weekend, if the weather cooperates, or during the antler-less portion that is the first week of December. 

Until then...Happy Eating!