The Hunting Times

So today is actually Nick's 28th birthday (May 20), but we are just getting around to Kathy's birthday (May 02) meal due to our hectic schedules. She requested meatballs, onion soup, and apple crisp.  So Mama is in the kitchen making all those things and I suggest I make a batch of meatballs too. I grabbed a bag of pure venison ground meat (no seasonings and no pork added).  I mix in a stack of Ritz crackers and half a diced onion.  I use BBQ sauce for the liquid.  I add black pepper, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, seasoned salt, and a 1/2 cup of brown sugar.  I thoroughly mix all that up and roll them into balls of Heavenly Goodness. The balls I throw on the stovetop with teriyaki and Worcestershire.  I brown them up and put them in a baking pan.  I deglaze the pan with a bottle of Leinenkugal's Snowdrift Vanilla porter beer.  I add more brown sugar and BBQ sauce.  I let that boil until it is the consistency of syru...

I picked up Will a little after 11 am.  We drove into Frankfort and through the John Deere dealership to see the Big Tractors and the Baby Tractors.  All the way in we played "hiding."  He covers his eyes and says, "Meese hiding, Papaw."  I have to pretend to look all over the car for him - Grandma's seat, Sissy's seat, before finding him.  "Meese more hiding, Papaw" all the way in to town.  Then off to Taco Bell for lunch. I had three tacos and Will had a cheese roll-up.  Will saw me putting hot sauce on my tacos, so he naturally wanted some.  None of mine, I suggested.  Instead I got him some ketchup.  He ate his entire roll-up and then asked for more.  I bought another one - of which he ate two bites and then started just eating ketchup.  Oh well, tomatoes are classified as a fruit! We left Taco Bell and headed over to Rural King to view the Peep-Peeps (baby chickens, ducks, and turkeys).  Even before we got i...

Well we have had about 8 deer in the freezer waiting for a day that we could all get together and process them.  I do have to give a shout out to Bill H.  He went to Texas and helped a ranch cull their deer herd.  He had so many tags to fill that he brought me back six deer.  Thank you, Thank You! It may sound like a lot of meat, but the deer in Texas are not like the deer here in Indiana.  The six deer I got only provided 100# of meat.  But hey, that's more than I had.  Recall from earlier posts that I got O-Ferred this year.  Nada.  So I'll take it.  Nick and Davey helped me clean and bag those deer. So anyway, we spent most of the day yesterday, Saturday, 21 APR processing deer (Nick added his two to the pot, for another 75#).  Nick, Davey, Alex, and I drove down to Rob V's in Montezuma, IN.  Rob made us a wonderful breakfast and then we got to work. We put in 18# of deer, 7# of pork and seasonings before grinding it t...

We have had several encounters with coyotes here on the ranch lately.  Mostly they are "playing" with the dogs.  There have been a few cats that we have not seen in a while.  We suspect they have fallen prey, but cannot confirm this. In any event, we got a nice evening with little wind, so Alex and I went out to call.  We ended up only having two Great Horned Owls buzz our heads - which was totally awesome - but no coyotes. Light quickly fading as we call in owls

Wow.  It's been a while since I have posted anything to this here blog.  Apologies to my long-time subscribers for keeping you in the dark.  I did not, however, truly appreciate my time off.  Been very busy working around the ranch - but that's for another post.  This one is all about fun... So twice a year, the Knob Creek Gun Range shuts down for an entire week-end to allow Class 3 firearms to rule the range.  That's right, we are talking full-auto machine guns of all sorts.  You know, the stuff that drives the Liberals Bat Shit Crazy. So, a group of us took off from here and drove the three hours down to West Point, KY to partake.  No, we do not own any of those types of firearms, BUT you can rent them from folks who do - and that is exactly what we did. The weather did not cooperate too well.  It was a torrential downpour all the way down.  Then it rained most of the morning, but lightly.  Finally the sun came out and we ha...

Davey got permission to go out tonight, so I picked him up at 3:30 pm.  We went back to Marshall's S farm since we are seeing deer there. Davey dropped me off at the S property line on the W end.  He drove back around to the square woods and set up a chair in the middle of the woods - where the deer ran through earlier today. I walked W to E and sat on the S side of the swamp.  I kicked nothing out of the SW woods or the swamp when I walked in.  We sat until sunset, at which time I walked W through the swamp to try and push anything out to Davey.  No dice.  There was nothing in the swamp. I then walked N along the E property line and sat until dark at the NE corner - Davey, at this point, has started walking S out of the woods. And then the deer appear.  Ten of them.  All feeding from the W to the E at the W end of the swamp.  If I would have stayed there, I would have my pick of which deer to shoot. Well, this does not sit well wit...

I picked up Davey at 6:35 am.  There was snow on the ground.  It was 34 F with wind out of the NW. We drove to Marshall's S farm and set up a bit different.  Davey went to the S side of the top / square woods and I walked to the N of the swamp. We sat until about 9, when Dave saw deer running through the woods at Mach 2.  They came from the NW and ran out the SE.  He was hoping they would come to me.  They did not.  They continued E and ran off Marshall's property to the NE. We did hear some shots this morning.  Four to be exact.  Sounded like 2 guys took 2 shots each.  None of those shots were from us. But hey, we saw deer.  We called it at 10 am and drove into Hoops for some breakfast. Text I sent to RePhil about how we're doing hunting this morning.   Looking S at the swamp with fresh snow.  Still a bit dark, but certainly legal light. Looking back to the NW at the square woods on top. Davey...