Another Free Meat Day

Well, it's that time of year again, bow season is now is full swing here in Illinois. Plenty of deer around, there were 9 in the barn lot this morning. I consider deer to be the ultimate free meat. Here in southern Illinois you can't hardly throw a rock without hitting at least 2 deer and hunting is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. For the cost of a little time, one can put a nice chunk of meat on the dinner table.

I'm a picky deer eater. I will spend all the time it takes to process my own deer. I meticulously remove every bit of fat and every sliver of sliver skin from my meat. By doing that I eliminate the need to soak my meat in cider or vinegar to remove the "gamey" taste from it. People that don't like the taste of deer meat will eat a meal I prepare and never know that they were eating deer. Commercial processors just can not afford to take that kind of time during their butchering and the resulting meat is such a lower quality than you get if you do it yourself. Plus, doing it yourself eliminates the bill. As usual, I refuse to pay money to have something done I can do for myself.

If you don't own a bow or have no experience hunting with a bow, that's okay. Shotgun season will soon come along and hunting that way is just as good.

So, don't pass up the chance for a little free meat for your table and freezer, go out and get yourself a deer or 2! After all, if you have a garden, you probably fed those same deer all summer and doesn't it make sense to get just a little bit back from that?

Easing into things

Well here it is, mother nature has eased us into Fall. We had our first mild frost and the trees are turning quick now. Combine that with the last 3 days of steady drizzle and it's a mess here. I hate that the leaves are dropping so fast, no good pictures. The Shawnee Forest is so beautiful when the trees start turning. it's the wake up call for being winter prepared here. I always try to do a little bit of preparing ahead for the coming winter while I'm going thru the summer, every chance I get for some firewood and such to go ahead and take the time to get it. I hate it getting cold and all of the sudden I need to spend all my time gathering up firewood. That's really all that's left to do around here now aside from the normal daily stuff. What's funny about it is I don't have any more free time now than during planting or harvest! Go figure!

The heifer calf is now a resident of the farm. My neighbor gave up on her and was going to put her down so I brought her home. Like he and I discussed, the worst that will happen is that I feed my coyotes instead of his. I'm just not ready to give up on her yet. She's not a baby calf, she's a 5 month old heifer. We still have no clue what's got her down, even the vet has nothing which of course makes me feel a little less stupid. After all, he went to school and doesn't know any more than I do! LOL She's been here now for 4 days and I've managed to get her gums pinked back up and she's now eating 4lbs of grain in a sitting which is a serious improvement over her not touching the grain at all last week. She's up to 10 gallons of water a day and she's working her legs as she's spinning herself in circles. I know she's getting stronger because she's bracing herself and not allowing me to roll her over. Typical beef cow attitude, LOL. I'm thinking any day now she'll just get up.

ARG, it's 2 days past due date on 2 of my rabbits and no kits! I've had this problem before with them, so I'm not worried about it, just annoyed. Nothing like feeding them with no results. Weather has some to do with it, and sometimes it's the chickens bothering them or the cats. It will work out, I just hate the lost time which makes less on the dinner plate.

I'm having a heck of a time finding an element for the oven. I guess manufacturers just make throw away products anymore. I am a little disgusted tho, it's a Frigidaire for goodness sake, you'd think it would hold up better than that, it's not a year old yet! I guess normal people just don't bake as much as I do. This is one time I'm sure sorry I didn't get a project done. I'd not be in this fix if I would have got the brick oven built. The old adage of "life is what happens when you're making other plans" comes to mind. Some things just can't be salvaged or scrounged. Hard to get fire brick and mortar. The project itself isn't the hard part especially with the great plans from the fornobravo site. With such simple, easy to understand directions, anyone should have a brick oven built in a weekend. Those darn supplies tho! LOL



I'll have some pictures for the next post...

Nice and Quiet

Oh, that's the way I like it, nice and quiet. It's been that way here the last few days. I'm still working on the sick calf, I'm not ready to give up on her just yet. She's still pretty weak but she does try to get up every now and then. I've been medicating her with some different things, trying to help her. If she doesn't get up soon tho, I'll have to give up. I just hate to tho.

The rain is still upon us, a constant mist with occasional heavy rain. I hate it when everything is wet and muddy. I feel for the farmers in the area, this weather is no doubt keeping them behind in the harvest and will not bode well for the mold content in the grains. All's well here tho, I got all my corn picked by hand. I don't have to worry about the wet conditions clogging up my combine, I'm the combine! LOL I still get stuck in the mud every now and then but boots do pull out of it much easier than a 20 ton combine does.

I should have 2 new batches of baby bunnies pretty quick, they are due on the 20th. I so love the baby bunnies. I sold 3 of the last bunch I had and butchered the rest. We had the last one for supper 2 nights ago.

As usual, the need for frugality is overwhelming here, we've been 3 weeks without any income to speak of and with all the monthly bills due now and no paycheck for another week, nerves are once again getting jangled. I so hate being behind on anything. So, no projects going on around the farm, just the basic maintaining. At least we're all warm, dry, have full bellies and a good stock of coffee and sugar. Nothing going hungry here and that means more than anything else.

I found something good in the storage house yesterday. I'd forgotten I even had it. Way back in a corner of one of the closets, I found the old mini convection oven. It's more like a glorified toaster because it's so darn small but I'm pretty sure I can bake bread in it! I pulled it out, cleaned it and baked some corn bread in it to go with supper and it turned out just fine. Oh glory days, no more store bought bread! Having to buy bread for the last week has really depressed me. That stuff is garbage not to mention ridiculously expensive. $1.05 for a 1 lb loaf of generic bread full of chemicals is highway robbery. I'm so excited over it that I might even try that hamburger bun recipe. If it works well, I will share it.

I still haven't gotten to the ice cream recipe, just too much little stuff going on around the farm to get around to it. No soap making yet either. This weekend is already booked, back up to the neighbor with the beef cows place to help fix a broken barn roof. I really wanted to be tending to planting the winter wheat this weekend but once again it will be put on hold since getting paid is more important than a couple hundred pounds of wheat for the stock pile. i've got more in storage than I can possibly use in 3 years so if I don't get any planted, it will be okay.

I need to get a picture of Polar Bear posted for you all to see. Polar Bear is the blue heeler puppy we got just a little while ago. I've already taught her to fetch, sit and shake, she's very smart. Not quite big enough to train to stock yet but I'm doing what I can to put a good base on her for when we need to teach her the important stuff. I really hope she turns out to be an asset to the farm and not just a pet. A good stock dog will help me out tremendously.

Well, once again my library time has come to an end... see you all again soon!

Cow PT, go figure....

That's right, cow PT. It all stemmed from the sickness in my neighbors herd, the herd hubby and I helped vaccinate and medicate last weekend. 2 calves were down and out a couple days before we started the whole process and we picked them up out of the field and brought them up to the barn for our neighbor. he doesn't have a bucket loader on his tractor so ours is down at his place right now. We made up a sling out of mine belt to hoist the calves up and try to get them to use their legs a little. They've been laying down for almost 12 days and even with rolling them over a couple times a day, the circulation to their legs still is getting cut off. One calf isn't doing so well, seems to not even want to try at all. But the other is bright eyed and is trying, still has some fight left in her.

We spent 4 hours working with her yesterday, a bit too long I think, we wore her out but she did make some serious effort. She might come thru this okay. Still a long way to go for her.

Not much else going on, I picked another 2 rows of corn. The patch is super muddy and it was more work making it down the row than picking the ears but I got them in. Still a bit wet from the rain but should dry out quickly in the sacks. Since I didn't get the crib finished, I'm shelling it right away and it will dry in the burlap sacks. hate doing it that way, it doesn't dry as even as it does in a corn crib but beggars can't be choosers.

We got 8" of rain from the cold front that rolled over us. The 38 degree morning was a real eye opener. I did get the fireplace cleaned up good and set so we stayed nice and warm in the house. Everything is still soft and mushy, it may be all week drying out with these cooler temperatures we're experiencing. Just part of life now, winter is coming.

We're hanging on here, struggling to get those projects that need done before winter finished. Same old story here, no supplies to finish the jobs. We're working on it tho. Just part of the daily routine here. I think we've been fortunate, maybe more fortunate than some in this area. Even tho we had a stint of 2/3 pay (workmans comp), we still managed to get plenty done and put up plenty of hay for the critters and plenty of food for ourselves. Even with the 15% unemployment around us, we still pushed ahead like always and filled the pantry. I look forward to the winter when things slow down here and get quiet.

Oh, I almost forgot to add this in before I headed back to the house from the library computer..... Deborah, you asked about the Colby cheese recipe for your extra goats milk... drop me an email at mmpaints@yahoo.com and I'll send you what I've got for you to try......