So What Happens On The Side Of The Road?

This is a calf that was hit hard (who also starred in my video)Here we are skinning him

More skinning

The spine is broken and the abdominal cavity has been punctured.

I didn't show good pictures of it, but I removed all 4 quarters before opening the abdominal cavity (any more than it already was).

On a small critter like this a tailgate makes a good table, and then it is really easy to dump the guts into a wheelbarrow.


After the guts are out we need to clean up the chest cavity (wipe out the blood, it's easier now than later).
What a mess.


Looks like the terminator moose.

I Hit a Moose!

We had some excitement last night. On the way to a kids activity in town, a moose trotted out in front of us (the whole family). I got on the brakes hard and kept the van straight, but we hit her pretty solid. It came up on the hood a then skidded 15' into the ditch on its butt.


Fortunately we were not hurt. The older boy saw it happen and said it took his breath "half away".


As for the damage to the van...





Dang it!!!

She bent bent my fender where antennae mounts! (see the ellipse)

And I'm not too happy about those hairs in the lock nut either...

Actually the Trooper was impressed that there was so little damage to the vehicle.

As for the moose...


I bet her butt hurts this morning.

I Did It!!! I made Haggis!

I started with these meat products. I couldn't a sheep's pluck (if you don't know... you may not want to). So, I used some moose tongue, moose heart, moose roast, and beef tripe. I also used bacon fat instead of suet (hey it's what I had)




These are the spices I selected. Don't ask me how much, I just added until it looked right.




Here I have cut up the meat and tripe, and I am about to boil the meat for 30 minutes.




Now the meat has been boiled, the tripe added, spices added, onions added, oats (7 grain cereal) added, and bacon fat added. Looks yummy.





This is what the whole mess looks like after I ran it through the course plate on the meat grinder.






As there is a distinct short shortage of sheeps' stomachs locally (and in particular, my kitchen) I am substituting fiberous casings (intended for summer sausage).






These are haggises (haggae? haggisaurus?). Ok, here are six haggis. Notice that I didn't stuff them super tight (the oats will double in volume as they cook and I don't want to bust a gut).





Here it is boiling. It ballooned up quite a bit. Now I have to wait 3 hours (or three days, and not a minute more...).

Haggis

I've been dreaming of making haggis...

Processing Roadkill Moose

This One Was A DLP

If you are wondering, DLP means "defense of life and property".



This little one charged an 88 year old man in his back yard, so he shot it. In cases like this the Troopers call someone on the roadkill program to recover the meat.




Not real big, but plenty of meat. Since it was shot and not hit by a car there are no broken legs or road rash. A little meat damage near the exit wound, but not bad.




HELLO!




Who are you?




This is the mama. She is not too thrilled about this whole process. I worked quickly to winch the calf up into the truck (took about 10 minutes). Mama kept circling around, putting her ears down, and just generally looking menacing. Fish and Game expect she will hang around for 5 days or so until she gives up and moves on.

Kilz Behr?

I was sent to a training for work recently and they gave me a new water bottle. I wonder if it is somewhat prophetic?







I can always hope...

Biscuitosaurus

We had a visit the other day from some prehistoric baked goods.



Of course you recognize the ever popular and fearsome biscuitosaurus.



Here is a shot of the whole herd. I should mention that the boys were impressed, Mama was more impressed by the bacon gravy.



In case you were wondering... (and I knew you were)

Dang! Hunting Season is Over

I tried you arrange my work schedule so that I could hunt every day before work and have 4 three day weekends and 1 four day weekend during the season. It was not to be. Circumstances conspired to limit it me to one over night hunting/camping trip, two full individual days, and several AM patrols before work. Here is the story of my overnight hunting trip.



















You may be wondering why I included a photo of these boots. You may notice that the laces do not match. In my extensive planning and prepping I had a small planning snafu. I had greased my boots shortly before I left the house and wanted to let the grease soak in, so I wore other shoes on the way to the trail head. When I got ready to put the laces back in I realized that I had left one lace at home. DANG Never fear captain field expedient to the rescue. I used some white 550 cord as laces. I think I like them better that the commercially available laces. I left them in after my trip and it seems to have less wear than the other lace.



















This tree made me think of Middle Earth. I wonder what the bag limit is on fawns and ogres?



















1200 vertical feet later (in 2 hours humping a 60# ruck) I arrived at my home for the night.





















I dined on blue berries, lingon berries, and granola bars and wished I had that ever popular hunting supper side dish from years gone by.... Gummy Bears. As you can see I made my camp under a tree and then put my tarp up too. I was warm and dry all night despite the wind and rain. The next morning I climbed another 5 to 600 feet higher. When I started knocking rocks loose from under the moss and rolled for more that a minute I figured I was steep enough and maybe I should go down intentionally before I went down anyway.




While the moose hid well and the bears were taunting me (leaving tracks on top of mine) the sheep were visible but I didn't want to tackle such a steep hill on a solo hunt. I did not come back entirely empty handed. I brought some berries (in the water bottle) and a couple grouse.

Palin/McCain in 08

The Fruit of my Labor

Our strawberries are doing very well this year. I guess that is what happens when you weed them and water them and mulch them and...

Look what I canned!

I wanted to label them as "Deer" from my hunting trip to Roswell.




























Actually they are chicken feet. I thought you might like to know how to can them yourself.

















First you need some chicken feet. Although I have 16 chickens of my own, we were not ready to slaughter any of them yet. However, one of my co-workers slaughtered 16 of theirs over the weekend. I appreciate that they prefer that nothing goes to waste, even if they don't want to eat it. Once you have the feet, they need to be cleaned. Don't be too picky, just get the big stuff off.





















Then dunk them in 190 degree water for 45 seconds. One minute cooks the meat and less than 45 does not loosen the skin.
























Now you peel them. Use your thumb nail to get it started and just peel the top layer off. Sometimes the pad is worn through and you will have to cut it off, if this is happening to your chickens they might be spending too much time on a hard floor. I use some tongs to pull the feel out of the scalding water and after the skin is off I use it again to squeeze the outer layer off of the toe nails. Some people suggest you cut the tips of the toes off, but I think that is harder than popping the nails.



























Next you can as you would normally. I looked in the Cooperative Extension Service Guide to Home Canning and used the processing time for bone in chicken meat (65 minutes).

Now that's some good shootin!

This weekend I took my older boy to a gun show. It was pretty lame. Lots of empty booths. I only found one gun I was interested in, and it was out of my price range. I can't believe how much people want for junk sometimes.


It wasn't a total loss. There was booth that would let you shoot airguns on a little range. This is my target























You may notice that it is sideways, because that is how they mounted it at the range. 5 shots decent group. This was off hand (no rest).






This was my boy!
























It's a little hard to see but there is a hole at the top of the target. I tried to explain a "sight picture" to him. When his first shot missed by 5' I though he might not quite understand. His second shot missed by about 10". I looked through the sights and lined it up and then had him look, to try and show what it should look like. He missed the paper just a bit high. For his fourth shot I tried to steady the gun and he punched that high hole in the paper. For his last shot I lined up the sights and used my hand to hold the butt in position ( there was a sand bag for the forstock). He hit the bull. Some may say that was cheating, but I think I showed him a good sight picture, and he had something to brag about and feel good about.

Hobby farmer

This is my garden on a rare sunny day.



















From L to R peas, potatoes, beets, lettuce, and carrots. It is hard to see but at the far end of the spuds are onions.




















These are some feathered friends. We have Buff Orpiningtons, Black Australorps, White Leghorns, and 2 Rhode Island Red Roosters.

Addition parts III and IV

Not a lot of narrative but here's a few pics.















































































































Hey, what are you lookin at?

















I got a little boo boo.