A Crazy Experience

 Recently, DH was out of town on a snowmobiling trip with DS2 and friends, and I was here holding down the fort, tending the animals, keeping the fire stoked, etc.  One evening, when I was stoking the fire (which is DH's job when he's not gone on trips) after caring for the horses and chickens for the night, I heard dogs barking.  Not just any dogs, these had the distinctive voices of hunting dogs.  Looking around, across fields both north and west--towards where the roads are--I noticed several trucks idling on the shoulders.  Coyote hunter trucks.

So, the dogs I heard were definitely coyote hunting dogs, and they were, it sounded like, in the woods north of my property.  I went back to stoking the fire, one biggest-I-could-carry-and-fit-through-the-wood-boiler-door chunk of wood at a time. 

Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught movement over on the east perimeter fence line of my pastures.  Turning my head for a better look, it was two deer, does, running from north to south, spooked up by those dogs.  They ran on past, heading for the marsh to hide in.

I kept stoking the fire, carefully putting the wood in the boiler in neatly placed rows and stacks, trying to stuff as much as I could in there to make sure the fire would make it through the (very cold, around zero degree F) night.  Turning and walking to the wood pile for another piece, I was startled to see a coyote run right between me and my barn.  Okay, he was about 30ish feet away from me, but, WOW that's close!  I've never been that close to a coyote before, even when I'm up in the deer stand. 

He ran right past the front of my barn, and down the driveway, headed west towards the road. Now I could hear the dogs heading towards me from the east, on my own property, and soon they came bounding through the backyard also heading west.

I figured that was that, as the hunters' trucks had moved along the road to be in front of this little place here now.  The coyote was heading toward the road, driven by the dogs.  Surely any minute I would hear the crack of a gun and the coyote would be successfully harvested.

Finished stoking the wood boiler, I went to the backside of the garage to grab the trash bin, as it was the day we put the trash out at the end of the driveway (also DH's job) to be picked up the next morning.  Trundling through the snow pulling the bin behind me, I realized the dogs' barking had not only changed from chasing to 'treed' as it were, but that they sounded like they were in the front yard.  

Coming around the front corner of the garage, I could see one dog at the bottom of my front steps, baying, and the other dog on my front porch also baying. And a coyote on my front porch, to the side of the front door, standing in a faceoff with the dog!

Oh hello!  Never in a million years did I ever expect to see a coyote on my front porch.  With him right up against the house like that no way would anyone be able to get a shot at him.  

So what, you ask, did I do?  I let go of the trash bin, went tromping through the snow waving my arms and in my most authoritarian animal commanding voice loudly said

"Get off my porch!"

The dog at the bottom step looked at me coming it's way using my manly don't mess with me supreme commander voice and it backed away into the yard.  I climbed the steps, still standing tall and waving my arms and commanding the dog and coyote remove themselves from my porch.  Which the dog reluctantly did, giving up his prey to this crazy lazy.  

Now I'm standing about six feet away from a wild coyote.  Making sure I was not blocking his route to the steps, I looked at him and he looked at me and I said "Get off my porch!"  But he didn't listen like the dogs did.  Rather, he looked at me, looked down the steps, looked at the dogs, and chose to go curl up in the corner.

By now the coyote hunters have figured out their quarry is housebound, and two of the trucks are driving up my driveway.  I went down the steps, met one of them as the truck came to a stop, and, as he was apologizing profusely, told him the coyote was apparently not planning to get off the porch under it's own power.

Long story short, I took the trash bin the rest of the way to the road, the hunters gathered up their dogs, then, with the coyote still determined it wasn't chancing running anywhere, got a catch rope and took the coyote off my porch.

Meanwhile, I got my mail out of the mailbox, and talked to another one of the hunters whose truck was still pulled off the side of the road.  He assured me, before I had a chance to say more than "well that was pretty crazy to find the coyote on my porch" that they had gotten him off, and would 'take him to the field and let him go again'.  At which point, I looked him in the eye and said "Really?  I would think you'd take him safely away from the buildings and pop him one.  I mean, that's what I do with raccoons that I catch in my live trap."

I'm pretty sure, because I'm a woman, he expected me to be all 'poor little coyote, don't hurt him'.  Nah.  The coyote population needs to be kept down.  I'm always watching for their tracks around the chicken coop, and would definitely shoot at any coyote I found sniffing around over there.  

Just make it quick, and dispatch them as humanely as possible.  

And don't chase it onto my porch!

As they were pulling down my driveway to leave, and I was walking back to the house, one of the hunters did introduce himself, and ask if DH still lived here (he and DH met years ago and have sometimes had words in regards to the coyote hunting as this guy is supposed to call/text DH and give him a heads up if they are hunting near our property where the dogs might be coming through onto this little place here).  I told him yes, DH does. We talked a few more minutes, me never letting on that DH was currently out of town, not just at work at the moment.

Because I may be brave enough to command strange dogs and coyotes off my porch, but I am not crazy enough to ever tell anyone that DH isn't home and won't be for days!

I Hunted A Lot.

The last half of November in Michigan means firearm deer season.  And that's when I go hunting, since I've never been a bow hunter and honestly am not that interested at this point in my life in becoming one (DH keeps hoping he can convince me to try a crossbow).  I have so many other things I need to be doing in October and early November than sitting in a tree stand for hours.

Late November, however, is a different story.  I still have lots of things that need my time, but I try to squeeze in deer hunting with a shotgun.  Some years I hunt much of those two weeks, and other years (like the last couple) I may only get into the woods 3 or 4 times of the possible 32 hunts available (we're talking mornings and evenings times 16 days) 

This year I got to the woods quite a bit, seeing lots of sunrises and a few sunsets; DH stayed in a couple evenings and brought horses in for me, otherwise I came in from the woods before dark so I could get horses in while there was still enough light to see by.  My vision is terrible in the dark.

Sunrise on the 16th.

Fiery looking sunrise on 11/18

a pastel sunset 11/16

walking to the pastures as the sun went down on 11/19

Crockett wanting to know why I'm late on the 23rd.

(I was "held hostage" by several deer coming in 10 minutes before I'd wanted to get out of the tree stand.)

The 'deer season' dish towel was hung on the upper oven door in late November.  Because, well, I do like to keep the towel that hangs there in theme with the seasons of the year. I'm not super into decorating, but I do have some girlish tendencies.  Full disclosure: this towel is about 10 years old, so probably no longer fashionable to any woman but me.  I guess I'm assuming any woman but me did ever think it was fashionable. Ha.

DH tagged out of bucks during bow season.  He did go buy an antlerless tag, but was in no hurry to use it during November.  So he was mostly a fair weather hunter, and mostly watching more than aiming at anything.  Which is why he was unusually interested in volunteering to bring in horses for dinner feed so that I could get a full evening hunt in. 

He was also gone for 10 days in late November to do some elk hunting in Colorado (which was a bust).  Which meant all of those evenings I had to choose to a) skip hunting or b) do an abbreviated evening hunt because *I* had to bring horses in for their dinner on time.  He's only so saintly, but he is getting better at it than he used to be, LOL.

I saw lots and lots of does and this year's fawns, but as the only one in this household still in possession of a tag that can be used on a buck, I was not going to shoot a doe in November either. There's a whole ton of antlerless hunting coming up in December and January. I did see several smallish bucks: small 6 point, a couple of 4 points, a spikehorn and a few button bucks.  Because there are so many bigger deer in our area (and because there's two 8-points in the freezer all ready), I try to never shoot any buck smaller than a six-point, so I did not do more than watch those little guys.  

While DH was a fair weather hunter when he was home, I sat in both super windy weather and sleety/ice pellet weather, not just the calm sunny days.  We did have a lot more calm sunny days than usual, and I think I went out for a total of 12 hunts.  Which is about three times as many as I did the year before.  If I hadn't been the only one home and having to deal with the internet situation and meeting technicians when they came to (not) fix things, I would have made it to the tree stand about five more times.  Oh well.

I did not get many deer photos, mostly of this button buck that wanted to be my buddy (or, rather, was clueless I existed in that great big tree) on a Sunday morning.  He hung around for well over an hour, first searching in the oak leaves for acorns to eat, then going and bedding down about 15 yards from me for a snooze.

naptime

Every year I pack a book to read during slow times in the woods.  This year I read Silas Marner.  Partly chosen because of it's slim, easy to carry size.  Partly because its a classic I had yet to read.  And partly because the colors of the cover blend in with the camouflage I wore, LOL. As a review of the book itself, I found it a little slow in the beginning, but all that made sense as necessary info about a quarter of the way in, and I was quite interested in seeing how the story turned out after that.  It's been a few years since I've read anything that is considered classic literature, and this was a nice docile break from modern fiction.  Zero swear words!  All conversations, even hostile ones, were worded so politely.  Why can't we speak that way these days??

Anyway, November wrapped up without filling my deer tag.  However, in my area of the state this year I can again go out with my shotgun during what would normally be muzzleloading season.  So I am planning on seeing if I can get a buck then.  If not, there will be late antlerless hunting until about the middle of January, so there's still the possibility of getting a doe before deer season comes to an end.
 

Oh, one last thought in relation to November's deer hunting.  This year I observed something that made me think squirrels must be made of rubber.  Or, like cats, they have nine lives.  One morning, I was watching a couple of does coming in toward my tree when out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was a short chunky limb fall out of a tree near one of the deer. Only, when it hit the ground it broke apart and was actually two squirrels, not a piece of wood at all!  They hit the (well padded with fallen leaves) ground, let go of each other, and scampered away as if falling 10+ feet to earth was no big deal and didn't hurt a bit. Hmm. Rubber squirrels. . . 

More Bow Hunting Success

 Warning!  Hunting related photos ahead.  Stop reading now if you are squeamish or don't want to see a dead deer.

For the first time ever, DH has harvested two bucks during bow season! And they were taken exactly two weeks apart.  Both on Wednesday evenings. (Confession: I'm a long time Survivor watcher and while I willingly tracked and helped get these deer in from the woods, field dressed, and hung in the shop, I wasn't super thrilled to miss two episodes of Survivor!)

This second buck is also an 8-point.  Unlike the first buck, he did not leave an easily followed blood trail.  For a tense fifteen minutes, both DH and I wondered if this one was actually fatally wounded and if so, would we be able to find him?  But then, suddenly, the blood spots started appearing in the leaves on the ground (more than 20 yards from the spot he'd been standing when DH shot him with the crossbow), and the trail went from a drop here and there to several spatters to a very thick unable to miss trail.  

Phew!  Stress levels instantly lowered!

This buck was quite a bit deeper into the woods than the one two weeks prior, so rather than DH and I using our own muscle power to drag him to the woods road where we could load him into the tractor bucket for transport, we made use of the 4-wheeler.  

DH carefully maneuvered between trees to get to the deer, and we tied a rope around its antlers and then to the ball in the hitch behind the 4-wheeler. After that it was careful driving, dragging the buck behind, between standing trees and over smallish logs on the ground (me walking behind and lifting the deer's head when necessary to not get him snagged up on a downed tree). 

This second buck seemed larger than the first one, but you know, sometimes your memory is off, so we weren't sure if it was actually all the much bigger until we got it dressed and to the shop where we hung it from the game scale.

He most definitely was bigger!  In fact, he's the biggest whitetail DH has ever gotten!  This one weighed in at over 159 pounds (the first one was 140 lbs) and has a rack that is 3.5" wider than the other 8-point's rack.  

We definitely won't be hurting for lean red meat in our diet this winter!

Fresh Venison!

 Warning!  If you are vegetarian, or anti-hunting or squeamish in regards to blood and/or death, you probably want to skip this post.  If none of those apply to you, then by all means, read on!

DH has gotten a very nice 8-point buck with his crossbow.  After shooting at two nice ones last year, and getting neither into the freezer (one we tracked into the corn field on a very scant blood trail, but then lost it about twelve rows in--it was found a few days later by the combine harvesting corn about 50 more yards in from where we'd finally given up searching after several hours of trying to pick up the trail again), both DH and I were very afraid that this buck was going to be another heart breaking hunting experience.

But, thankfully, the 'curse' has been broken and he easily tracked and recovered--in the dark, no less-- (with my help, we're a team in most everything) this big buck.  This picture, taken at the point in the woods that it was laying when we reached the end of the blood trail, doesn't do it justice.

This one, taken the next afternoon while hanging, is a little better.

Field dressed, it weighed in at 140 pounds, which is not bad at all for a Michigan whitetail. 

DH let it hang and dry age a few days before quartering it and bringing it in the house to debone and finish processing. Currently, with exception of the burger meat which we have yet to run through the grinder (tomorrow after work), it is all cut, wrapped and in the freezer.  

Well, in the interest of full disclosure,  several pounds have also gone into our stomachs, as we had tenderloin and onions for breakfast yesterday, heart and onions for breakfast today, and venison steak with roasted garlic and sweet potatoes for dinner tonight.  Gotta love boosting my iron levels with tasty lean red meat!

A Whole Bunch of Random

 Back in November, during firearm deer hunting season here in Michigan, I didn't get out into the tree stand much.  But when I did, the first time, I found that the squirrels had pretty much destroyed the seat cushion for the tree stand I use (that DH had put up in October).

That hunt was fairly uncomfortable, sitting on a cushion that was one narrow strip (the cushiony part) and several large spots with no filling between my gluteus maximus and the metal frame of the tree stand.

By the third time I went out to hunt, DH had dug up a new 'cushion' (a not very squishy foam board--very likely ancient and petrified) to temporarily replace the one the squirrels excavated for nest insulation material.  I used farmer ingenuity and secured it to the tree stand with baling twine.  Because, baling twine.  LOL.  If you know, you know.

In early December, DH was out of town the week of my birthday.  DD2 was also away, so I was home alone.  Rather than just kind of not have a birthday, like I've done in recent years when DH is away on my natal date, this year I decided to celebrate myself.

So I bought myself a (cheap) bouquet of flowers from the grocery store, ordered a yummy "salad" (lettuce, chicken, rice, roasted corn, black beans, guacamole)  from the local Mexican restaurant to be ready for pickup when I was done bringing horses in for their evening feed, and made myself a small cake (chocolate with peanut butter frosting).  I even put two candles in it, leftover from when K3 and Toad were very young and often were here on short notice for an indefinite amount of time (number 5 and number 3, my current age).  I of course lit them so I could make a wish and blow them out.  It's not a real birthday party without blowing out the candles.

Silly?  Maybe.  But it was better than pretending it wasn't actually my birthday just because no one else was around to celebrate with me. 

I forgot to set aside a bit of frosting to add food coloring to and use for decorating the cake, so instead of writing Happy Birthday on it, I used colored sprinkles to carefully spell out HAPPY.  The whole message being too big to write in sprinkles on an 8" x 8" cake.  Actually, I think maybe HAPPY will be my mantra for this year of my life.  There's been a whole lot of years of late that I was frustrated, overwhelmed, hurt (by and for others), and pretty much unhappy.  I'm rather tired of all that.  Happy is my desired goal from here on out.

We had a couple decent snows in December.  After one late in the month, I found myself walking in the woods (helping DH track a doe he'd shot during the late antlerless season) and took a picture of the trees in the snow.  I/We really need to get out there more and just walk around for the sake of wandering, not because we're working on finding a deer, or cutting/hauling firewood or tapping trees and collecting sap for syrup.  

Since the first of the year, I've started working on a new baby quilt.  Grandbaby #7 (who shall be dubbed with the name of Lucky here on the blog) is due on Valentine's Day.  This is the first child for DS2 and Surprise, and they are keeping the gender a secret until Lucky arrives.  Surprise suggested 'genderless' colors such as light blue, green, yellow, gray, for this quilt.  

As usual, I've taken that concept and am running with my own adaptation.  I'm not a pastel lover for baby quilts, especially as I make my grandkids quilts that will cover them until they are about 8 or 10 years old, not just as newborns.  I don't want a theme they will outgrow quickly.  And, since DS2 and Surprise originally met at Disney World 10 years ago, I just had to go with Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pluto fabric too.

The weather has been rather cold lately, as it should be for January (but wasn't in Jan. 2024), and the Yarn Thief has been preferring to stay in the house rather than go outside to hunt birds and mice.  She's getting a bit of cabin fever, though, and while I was changing the sheets on my bed she crawled underneath the fitted sheet where she made a lump I couldn't smooth out.  This is a favorite game of hers that usually involves me getting one or more claws in my fingers as I'm trying to make the bed.

There have been other things happening around this little place here in recent months, and I'm hoping to turn a few of them into their own posts rather than including them here.  But I can't resist adding a couple pictures of  a Christmas present my kids got me.  I'm willing to bet I'm the only Mom who actually put these on her Wish List:

Caution cones!  Coming to a pseudo riding arena near me (okay, my temporary riding arena behind the barn) once the frigid weather breaks long enough for me to get back into the saddle.  I'm so excited to be able to set them up in multiple configurations to use as training aids.

Homegrown Food, 2023

 This summer, I started listing everything we ate that came from this little place here.  From earliest in the year, till now, this is the comprehensive list of all the edibles that have been produced (planted, raised, or grown wild) in 2023:

Maple syrup

Eggs

Asparagus (feral, as I had replanted my asparagus bed Fall 2022 and didn't harvest any this year so the crowns could be well fed).

Strawberries (although chickens and wild critters got most of them GRRR)

Lettuce

Chives

Peas

Mulberries (oh my, the crop just seemed to go for months!)

Cherries

Raspberries (a handful)

Black raspberries (the wild ones)

Garlic

Dill

Cilantro

Basil

Oregano

Lemon balm

Spearmint

Peppermint

Cucumbers (not many, abysmal year for squash types)

Chickens (raised two batches of broilers this summer)

Green beans (both bush and pole)

Sweet corn (good year, even managed to can and freeze some)

Potatoes

Blackberries (wild)

Green peppers (not great yield)

Jalapeno peppers (enormous ones; should have made poppers)

Paprika peppers (a mild kind and a spicy kind which I dried and ground into powder)

Tomatoes

Broccoli

Onions

Eggplant

Apples (a bumper crop)

Pears

Grapes (the grapes!  Grapes beyond my wildest dreams!)

Beets

Butternut squash

Venison (not grown by me, but produced by God)

Turnips (from the deer feed plot, LOL)

Deer Harvest 2023

Warning: if you're PETA, or if you're squeamish, you might want to skip the third, fifth and sixth pictures in this post.

Given that we have a lot of project stuff we've been trying to accomplish before winter sets in, and that DH was able to get an elk on his trip out west in October, neither he nor I have hunted as hard this deer season as we have in years past. 

For him, that meant not going out in bow season (Oct 1-Nov 14) hardly at all.  For me, that has meant if I'm not feeling up to the hike to the woods and up the ladder to the tree stand, or if the weather is rainy, (or like the several days in the second week of firearm season snowy, windy, and suddenly subfreezing) I haven't gone out. So, although deer season is not done yet, I'm going to post about it now.  December gets really crazy with all the Christmas stuff added in.

The morning of November 15th (opening day of firearm season) was beautiful, if a tad warm.  I didn't even wear my insulated bibs (and I chill easily), that's how warm it was.  The sunrise from the tree stand was reddish, and I thought of the old saying about 'red in the morning, sailors take warning' and wondered if it applied to deer hunters too.

The deer were active.  I saw many in groups of two or three, and occasionally a lone deer also.  But they were either does, which I wasn't going to shoot on opening day (especially as we are low on freezer space since DH brought an elk home from his Colorado trip), or they were fawns or small bucks.  I began naming the bucks as I saw them: Skewers (tall, spindly spikes reminiscent of shish kebab skewers), Tiny Basket (six points, but the whole headgear was shorter than his ears and wasn't any wider than his ears), Fork-Half (antler on the left only, and forked, which distinguished him from the buck DH has seen that also only has an antler on the left but has four points on that one antler).

Small deer eating windfall apples at the entrance to the woods

DH was also seeing does and smallish bucks.  Until, slightly behind him over his right shoulder and coming through the trees, he saw a much wider rack.  I heard a shot ring out to the south of me, where DH was sitting, and I got excited, thinking he'd gotten something.  Then a second shot rang out, and my exact thought was "either that's not him or he's shooting trees", as rarely does DH take a second shot unless the first one missed.

As I found out a few minutes later, via text, he'd shot a tree.  Literally.  His scope was not adjusted quite right for that distance.

But he'd also shot a deer and there was a clear blood trail.  So looked like we'd be bringing a deer in from the woods later that morning.

painting the woods red

We waited almost two hours before I got down from my tree stand and walked carefully to the other side of the woods where DH was sitting.  I didn't kick anything up on my way there, so we hoped that meant that his buck was dead and piled up somewhere.

From his stand, DH directed me to the spot where he thought the buck had been standing when he'd shot it.  Then he got down, and we started following the very clear blood trail. But after only about 10 minutes, up ahead of us a buck leapt up and went crashing off.  Dang!  It wasn't dead yet.  And we didn't want it to run across property lines, so we backed out the way we'd come, away from the direction the buck went, and went into the house for some brunch.

DH tracking

It so happened that opening day was a half day from school for the grandkids, and I'd told DS1 I would pick his kids up from school so he wouldn't have to take off early from work.  When I went to get K3, Toad and Rascal, DH went back out to the woods to locate his buck.

By the time the grandkids and I arrived at this little place here, DH had located the buck and was getting ready to go bring it in from the woods with the 4-wheeler and wood hauler trailer.  The grandkids and I quickly threw orange hats on our heads and jumped on the trailer to help.

They were quite interested in touching and examining the deer, although Rascal was a little sad that it was dead "Because I like deer".  (I wonder if being around the deceased deer touched something in him about the death of his mother this Spring. . . ) 

While they may not have had classes at school that afternoon,  they got quite a life science class at this little place here instead.  Started with Field Dressing 101 where they watched intently and asked questions while DH dressed the deer.  That rolled into an Anatomy Class as I explained each step of the process and DH pointed out organs as he removed them.

After the deer was dressed we put it back on the trailer and hauled it up to DH's shop, where he rinsed the gut cavity with the hose, and then hung the deer from a gambrel.  More deer anatomy lesson as he explained to the grandkids how there were tendons in the back legs that you could hang the deer from and what they did on a live animal (and how people have tendons in our legs too).  Once the deer was hung, K3 was excited to find the entrance and exit wounds, although she wasn't brave enough to put her finger in them.

A few days later we had them overnight, and we served venison from that buck.  They looked a little skeptical at first, but then dug in heartily (except Rascal who doesn't eat hardly anything except pizza and chicken nuggets; neither of which this Grandma is willing to buy premade just for him.  I was/still am a picky eater and learned to either eat or go hungry and am of the mindset that he can learn the same thing.)

Hunting is pretty much over for me now that there's horses at this little place here that need to be fed at certain times of the day (I'm not that fond of late season hunting anyway since it overlaps all the Christmas prep craziness).  Dh has gone out a few times a week, but he's not in a hurry to harvest another deer unless a really impressive one happens to walk his way.

Success Out West

 Elk hunting is something DH talked about wanting to do for many, many years. How many, many? At least 25. When he was a very young child, his father and uncle and some friends of theirs would occasionally go out West and go hunting.  Apparently that made a big impression on him; and, when his dad died when DH was only 24, DH inherited his dad's hunting rifle.  I didn't know it at the time, but back then DH set a goal for himself: to one day harvest an elk with his dad's rifle.

In 2021, for the first time, DH had the opportunity to go out to Colorado and go elk hunting.  So he did.  And he came back empty handed, with the desire to go again in the future.

In 2022, DH again went to Colorado and went elk hunting.  He didn't get an elk, in fact he didn't even hardly see any elk, but he was able to harvest a mule deer (the owner of the land he was hunting on had permits for mule deer, so DH bought one of his permits.) He was really happy about the mule deer, but he still wanted to harvest an elk.

This year, DH again went to Colorado (to that same land owner's property) and went elk hunting.  This year, he returned home with an elk!

As elk go, it wasn't a huge one, but it was decent sized. It's what they call a five-by-four: five antler points on one side, and four on the other.

Success!

Even being not a giant elk, it is a whole lot of meat!  DH quartered it, and brought it home packed in dry ice in two enormous coolers.  And then he and I spent probably somewhere in the vicinity of 10 hours over four days (around work and meeting schedules) getting it all deboned, cut, and packaged for the freezer.

We forgot to weigh the meat before putting it in the freezer, so not sure of the total yield, but one hind quarter alone gave us 16 packages of steaks, and we ground over 50 pounds of burger!  The day after DH got home from Colorado, we had three of four kids and all the grandkids over for an elk steak dinner (so that meat never got weighed either, as it didn't even make it into packages for the freezer). He also made a batch of elk jerky in the smoker out of at least two pounds.  As a rough estimate, DH thinks we ended up with a minimum of 150 pounds of meat.  Our freezers are full, for sure!

In addition to the jerky, steaks, stew meat, tenderloins, backstraps and elk burger we have, DH also made a 15-pound batch of elk summer sausage.  It's delicious! In the picture below, notice the slice of sausage; we of course had to sample it while getting the majority of it vacuum sealed for freezing.

DH is very excited about his dream of shooting an elk with his dad's rifle finally coming true. Twenty-nine years in the making. And I'm really glad about all the meat in the freezer!

Hunting

 Regular firearm deer season has come to an end at this little place here (but there's still archery, muzzleloading, and late antlerless seasons between now and January, so lots of chances yet for harvesting venison).  It started rather cold and snowy.

When I left the house,  it was cold, and cloudy, but not snowing, and the ground was bare.  Practically the moment I climbed up into the tree stand and sat down, the sky opening and snow fell.  Blowing basically right into my face.

After the first hour, I looked like this:

Near the end of the third hour, I looked like this:

I didn't stay to see what the accumulation would be after more than three hours.  I went in the house, pulled the ice chunks out of my ponytail, and had a big mug of hot chocolate.

The afternoon wasn't quite as snowy, at least not falling from the sky.  There was a nice couple of inches on the ground which made it a whole lot easier to see the deer from a distance.  But, a distance was as close as they got for me.  Other than a silly little button buck that I saw nearly every time I sat during the next two weeks.  And he's off limits until he gets another year or two on him.

Which means that it was a bust for me.  I may or may not go out during the December seasons; really depends on my schedule and the weather.  I missed quite a few hunting opportunities due to working mornings, unexpectedly having DS1's kids 3 afternoons/evenings, a warm spell that brought pouring rain, a wind storm with 45mph gusts (not great for sitting in a tree. . .), and pulling a muscle in my back which made sitting still impossible.  *sigh* Maybe next year.

DH, however, got lucky on the very last evening of November.  He was able to harvest a nice 8-point buck.  

He also had the opportunity to go out to Colorado with a friend of his in late October/early November, where they stayed on the ranch of a friend of the friend's dad and did some elk and mule deer hunting.  The elk didn't show themselves, but the mule deer did, and DH was able to get this beautiful 10 point.

Can't wait to do a side-by-side taste test comparison of Michigan white tail and Colorado mule deer.

Deer Hunting Success

I will warn you right now, there are photos in this post that some might consider graphic.  If you are one of those, read no further.

Last deer season was a bust. A total bust.  I got sick a few days into firearm deer season, and then proceeded to spend weeks upon weeks coughing and weak. Which meant I sat in the woods maybe five times and shot zero deer.  DH hunted heavily, but kept waiting for that big buck to come into his sights. It never did. Then in late doe season, he saw no does.  So, he shot zero deer.  It's been a long year without venison in the freezer.

This deer season, however, is a vast improvement (and it's not over yet!).  Opening day of firearm season, we were both up early and in the trees.

dawn's early light: blue woods

We'd had quite a bit of snow earlier in the week, and even though temperatures were rising, the snow was still about five inches deep on the ground.  Perfect for spotting deer in the woods.

Other than the neighbor to our south, no one got a shot off on opening morning.  Lucky neighbor, he took a nice buck.

Our afternoon hunt was much more successful than our morning had been.  And I do have to say, I love snow for tracking.  Makes things so much easier, especially in the near dark.

such bright red in the gloom

blood on side of snow, on top of fallen tree that buck jumped over

Landing point, on other side of tree

I can't even begin to express how happy I was.  My very first set of horns (seven points!!), and fresh venison!

tenderloins for breakfast

nice 7pt buck

We were back at it the next day (although I do have to confess that I slept in, since I had a deer hanging).  DH always checks his trail cam on Saturday mornings, so he brought the SD card from it in with him after the morning hunt.  On it, we were surprised to see a picture of my buck, only about a half hour before it made the fatal mistake of walking my way.

The afternoon was sunny, beautiful for sitting in a tree in the last hours of the day.  I only saw deer from a distance, and birds close up.

Red bellied wood pecker

 

blue jay

Apparently I looked enough like a tree that the birds were comfortable getting up close and personal.  I had a tufted titmouse nearly land on my head!  No pictures of that, obviously.

Do I look like a tree?

Golden hour; 

when the woods light up as the sun approaches the horizon at the end of the day.

DH, however, was the successful hunter that afternoon.  He got a nice six point buck that was kind enough to just curl up and die practically right underneath his stand.  No tracking necessary.

Two days into firearm season, and we've got meat to last for months!  Of course, there were many hours that went into processing that meat and getting it into the freezer as the outdoor temperatures rose and melted off all the snow. I meant to keep track of how many pounds of what cuts we harvested, but I lost count.  I do know that my deer yielded 65 pounds of meat, because I insisted DH weigh it after it was deboned and before tossing it in with the meat from his deer for the final processing.

Venison burger to last for months!

Estimate of 40 pounds from the two deer.

Since day 3 of season, it's been hit and miss with getting to the woods.  The weather has been spotty, I've been back to work, and DH didn't hunt as much as he had wanted during his final week of 'vacation' (in which he had to attend to some business affairs via internet and conference calls at our dining room table).  The times we have been out, we've seen deer, but not been able to get a shot off.  Either too far away, too much brush between us, or in my case, one came directly under me.  Literally, I had to look through my feet and the grating on the stand in order to see it.  It was a button buck, so I just took pictures and let it keep walking.

Hello, little boy

Over my shoulder, behind my tree.

Sunset

We're hoping to get one more deer.  That would be nice; it would mean lean red meat to last most of a year for us.