Putting meat on the table, using what Mother Earth offers us.

[FarmerChick]

Tony has been in his deer stand....saw a small spike, small doe, giant doe, but his friend said he saw 8 pointer in our fields, so Tony is waiting for that deer.....Ugh---he won't take a doe til he knows he can't get that buck...LOL

so waiting for deer here.

 

[Chickenkitty]

As you guys can see from my two posts, I got a 6 pointer last weekend and a nice 7 today!!!

No more bucks this season.....might take a doe, we'll see how much our freezer can hold, we'll give some to our neighbors too, their kids help us an awful lot!

Hey Lori, we're in SW VA and are so overrun with deer it's not funny. We've put up 7 deer so far and not fired the first shot. Hubby said he'll not accept even one more! Tired of it. We've made deer burger (50/50 chuck roast) 28 pounds of sausage (50/50 Pork shoulder), tenderloin, little hams whole, deer steaks, jerky, deer chunks canned (some with vegetables)................ and dog food baggies.
And today a neighbor stopped asking if we wanted a wild turkey!!
Bring it on.......... We'll have turkey breast tomorrow.

 

[old fashioned]

Here in Washington state hunting is so over regulated. We can't use dogs or crossbows and can only harvest one deer per year, but we also have elk (only one per year). I don't know about the rest of the country but here the state is broken up into several GMU's (game management units) and when you buy your tags and license you have to choose if you hunt either eastern WA or western. Since we live in the west side, hubby hunts here. Most western areas are populated enough that hunting is restricted (too much chance to miss your target and hit the neighbor I guess) the best places for successful hunting are near state or federal land in the mountains and of course you can't hunt there either. Alot of the land outside of "National park" boundaries is owned by big companies and only some of them let you hunt there and most insist on you having a seperate permit to do so. Most of our open seasons only last about 2 weeks each, but do include an early and a late hunt-most of the time but not always. And some good GMU spots are closed to hunting for "wildlife management".
Both deer and elk GMU's usually have other restrictions like antlerless or 3 point minimum. Here in the west, we only count the points on one side not total points of both.
So in our neck of the woods, we take what we can get. Hubby isn't out for a trophy, he hunts for food and because he's elk-obsessed. When it comes to deer, he usually takes em young and that's for several reasons. One being the meat is usually less "wild and gamey" and we process it ourselves-atleast the cut and wrap and jerkey since we don't have a meat grinder for burger or sausage.
Backstraps are great!
And in 18+ years of marriage, he's gotten 2 elk. The last one was 11 years ago so he's due but this is the last weekend. First one was a cow about 15 years ago, but the last one was a 6X7 bull and both were alot of meat. These are so big we have them butchered and processed.
We don't do bear cause neither of us like the taste. Hubby did shoot one a few years ago only because the guy he was hunting with wasn't able to take the shot for some dumb reason and he was the one with the tag.
I don't know that we have wild turkey around here unless in eastern washington DH has never hunted them but would like to one day. Oh I take that back, I do know of some "wild turkey" but it comes in a bottle. (is just for a joke, my drinking days are long gone thank you very much)

 

[framing fowl]

While pulling out, we saw a few rabbits, can't harvest them for a few more weeks.

Is that due to hunting regulations? I thought you could eat rabbit any month that had an R in it?

The reason I'm asking is our subdivision is overrun with rabbit. After reading that Farmfresh has a trap for squirrels in her yard, it got me thinking. Maybe I could live trap them and then process. Would I have to worry about them having worms? Any other suggestions or things I need to think about?

 

[FarmerChick]

Season over and Tony got NOTHING

last day of deer hunting he took Nicole. What a fiasco...LOL...but she begged to go hunting. With about 3 trips back to the truck for forgetting mittens, paper and marker to draw, to forgetting her hat, etc.....then the "I have to pee" came and into the truck they go and to the barn to pee under 50 layers of clothes. Almost crying to go home cause "she was bored and deer hunting was no fun"--they loaded the blind up into the truck etc. and first thing she said when he pulled out of the pasture was "why are we leaving, I want to stay"

UGH

Tony's problem with hunting is our farm. We have to process and sell to customers etc. and the big front end loader is broken and they are fixing it, etc. etc. and life got in the way as usual on the farm. Sad. When you farm for business and work a real 12 hr. shift job, the poor guy is too tired to hunt.

Time for changes and we are making them definitely.


oh well.....

nice thing is his buddy got 2 so we got a good sized care package of meat from his friend. So will be eating good..LOL