Right Place, Right Time....

Well - I guess that's the thing about scrounging - ya gotta be there to get it!
Yesterday afternoon, my sister and I were in town at the local convenience store (a Casey's). We happened to see two hunters with a deer in the back of their truck. We decided to talk to them about it. Low-and-behold, they didn't want the meat! All they wanted was the "back straps" and were going to waste the rest (they wee from out of town and didn't have a way to butcher it). They said they would call when they were done with it. I didn't have a paper (I DID have a pen, though....) so I pulled a corn shuck from my pickup bed to write my phone number on. We headed home to wait.

On the way home, we spotted two sets of old school lockers that were being thrown out. Naturally, we stopped to load them up. They were bent a little, but still worked fine. There was also a nice coating of mud on them. We also found a small roll of woven wire. I'll add that to the pile.....
We got home and unloaded the lockers (slid them out the back of the truck....) at about 3:45. We were just finishing up hosing the lockers down when, here comes a little black truck down the driveway. It was the two men with the deer. They didn't even call, they just drove out with it! We unloaded it and told them thanks for the meat!

It was wrapped completely in plastic, so we had to unwrap it. We found that they had COMPLETELY skinned it for us (instead of just enough to remove the straps). All we had to do was cut it into manageable "chunks" and get to work. After cutting it into small enough pieces to handle, I washed it and removed any hair I found. My wife and sister then started to remove it from the bone and cut it.
We cut a bunch of steaks, ribs, and meat for canning out of it. This morning, I borrowed a neighbors hand grinder to finish the hamburger. We only did 8 pounds for jerky. I don't know the total weight of the meat, but it takes up a good part of the freezer! My wife is canning 21 quarts of meat (two different varieties), so that will help a lot this winter.

If you can't guess what we had for breakfast - I'll tell you! DEER STEAK and eggs! We NEVER hang any meat, we always cook some as soon as we can after butchering. Hanging the meat does nothing but start the ROTTING process. The "aged" flavor you taste - it's rancid meat. It's all either in the freezer - or being canned - right now. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.....