Surprised PETA hasn't Flagged my Blog

Go now and re-read this before continuing...

Okay, seriously, I can't believe I'm doing this. My involvement in the antelope doe was minimal. I sat in the living room distracting myself with YouTube Videos as Stephan cut it into pieces. I did cook two meals with the meat so far, but I managed to do that without actually touching the meat. And I ate it. It was yummy.

So now we have this deer doe. Stephan cut it into pieces last night, but just quarters, not actual cooking pieces. And he put 'dog scraps' in a bag. Oh, and the back straps [stop reading now if the last sentence made you queesy] were in the fridge. This morning I managed to cook the dog scraps in the oven for 2 hours on low, trying to dry it out a little. Stephan wanted the back straps cooked fresh, so the next thing on the list was to clean them and soak them in milk for a few hours.

Ok. No problem. Except he'd left a good deal of skin, really fascial tissue but that's a geek thing. Ok. No problem. Just have to cut the skin off... Just... find a knife... and, with two fingers of one hand...

Actually I'm really proud that I haven't thrown up yet over all this. I did manage to cut the meat off the fascia and put the meat in a bag with milk. It's still there. If you know me, and a lot of you do, did you EVER imagine I'd be skinning fresh ungulates?

And I've been reminded by a few people that out in Baker, there are many women who refuse to be involved in the hunting/skinning/cooking game process. So, it's not that I'm alone in this, it's just that I'm a minority.

FAQ: What do you do when you're not working?

Photo credit: Colon

When one of us is working, and the other one is 'home' most of that day is spent cleaning, fixing, organizing, cleaning, resting.

When both of us are off for a day, watch out Montana! Usually we find some place to drive to, some place to spend quiet moments, to explore, go watch movies (that's a 50 mile drive minimum), read books together, take the dogs out to crazy fun places and let them run around.

Usually we close the day by cooking together, or walking all the way across the train tracks to the Plevna Bar to hang with friends and enjoy a refreshment or two. We're known for putting away Jack Daniels and coke, sometimes Pepsi. The walk home is refreshing and fun. Often we watch Netflix movies, or rent one from the bar (totally reminds me to return The Ice Harvest).

The photo above is of us picking out our Halloween pumpkins right out of a field. After Stephan found his, he said, "hey, where was that little one you liked?" and thus began a 20 minute search for that one that I liked. But the weather has been nice lately- little rain and lots of wind, temps in the mid 50-60's, so exploring is still a lot of fun.

Opening Day Part 2

photo by Stephan

Colon, Clint, and Stephan left bright and early to bag a doe. And- they did! Stephan took photos with his phone, and when they got back, Colon grabbed the camera so we wouldn't have only artistic shots of the prize. I'm learning quickly how boring 'hunting stories' really are. A little edited:

"We got up at 5am and were at Clint's by 5:30am. Anna was nice enough to get up and make us a little snack which we needed because we ended up at the verge of death. We drove out about 20 minutes Southeast of town to just about the North Dakota border, signed in at the Block Management Box, and went to a place where Clint said he had seen deer. As usual, when the sun came up, before I could see anything, Clint said he saw some deer in the distance, and Colon and I took his word for it. The deer broke across the plain and headed toward antoher road. Clint drove the truck down the road to intercept them. Colon jumped out of the car to set up for a shot, but didn't get it. Luckily, he didn't get one of those, because we later realized they were the wrong type of deer. We didn't have tags for those...

"We drove to a different part of the ranch, spotted a small herd in the distance, jumped into a riverbed to follow them. We came out of the riverbed to find that the small herd had magically disappeared. When we looked up we saw three trees full of sharp-tail grouse. But we didn't have shotguns to shoot them (since we were too lazy to carry them while hunting deer- lesson learned). We spent about 2-1/2 hours hunting birds. I managed to get two sharpies and a Hungarian partridge. Clint got some too. It was getting toward the end of the hunting day, about 1pm, and we knew we probably only had one long stalk left, so we drove to Clint's father's land. We came up on the downwind side of a small butte, stalked across to another, larger butte where we could survey the land, but saw nothing. Luckily Clint had hunted this land before, and knew there were some contours about 1/2 mile South. So we walked down, and as we popped our heads over a small hill we saw two groups of small deer. Colon and Clint came up with a plan, but I just stayed where I was. The next plan included a 100 yard belly crawl across a small draw- Clint had a good view of Colon's jeans dropping down to reveal his butt-crack. What a view!

"Finally, Clint sticks his head up to get a read on the does and they were basically running right toward him. He did two backward summersalts, grabbed the rifle, put it on his shoulder, plugged his left ear, and instructed Colon to take a shot. Which he did. As the two deers bounded over the next hillside, Colon and I weren't sure she was hit. Clint said she was limping. As we came over the hill we saw her smaller companion running solo, so we figured ours was hit. In the tall grass it took us a good 20 minutes to find her. The bullet had entered just behind the front left shoulder and unfortunately, had gone diagnally through the belly cavity through the back. It was a little messy. We field-dressed her, dragged her 1/2 mile to the nearest access point, walked the rest of the 1/2 mile to get thr truck, and now she's hanging in the garage."

Still reading?

I didn't think so.

Quick before the Melatonin kicks in...

A trip to Billings yesterday to pick up Colon (we're going with the nick-name to preserve a tinsey bit of anonymity) from the airport. We took a quick tour of Red Lodge again to check out more shopping and amazing vistas. Back in Billings we came across tickets to one of the bigger rodeos in Montana, the "Nile". We watched a little over 2 hours of it, including an opening prayer, bare-back bronc riding, saddle-back bronc riding, calf roping, calf wrestling, and a really interesting event where they put helmets on 3-year-olds, instruct them to hang on tightly, and put the kids on sheep. The sheep run about for a while, until the kid falls off. The crowd goes wild, and the kid gets their photo taken. I didn't know whether to laugh or call a government official.

Today- pumpkins, driving, dogs, dinner, drinking, dancing, discussions, (is there a "d" word for bowling??).

Now- sleeping.

Tomorrow- boys heading out to the shooting range to practise for their big doe/turkey day on Sunday. Photos soon!

Comparison

8pm in Chicago

Toilet is plugged! Uh oh!
Step 1: Call Dad.
Step 2: Get in car.
Step 3: Drive 5 minutes.
Step 4: Arrive at Wal-Mart purchase plunger.
Step 5: Go home and fix problem.

8pm in Plevna

Toilet is plugged! Oh no!
Step 1: Call Stephan.
Step 2: Walk to neighbor's house.
Step 3: Make funny-but-awkward comment and ask for plunger.
Step 4: Go home and fix problem.
Step 5: Make funny-but-awkward comment and return plunger.

Me: Should I clean it?
Him: Just get the chunks off and dry it off.
Me: Should I disinfect it?? What's the etiquette for something like this?
Him: Anna, it's going back into another toilet, just get the chunks and give it back.

How to Cook Antelope

So far we've made three meals out of it:

1) Marinated overnight, then crock-pot cooked the next night (still dry)
2) Put in chili instead of shreaded beef or pork (VERY good)
3) Stuffed with garlic, covered in Thyme, cooked on low in cream of chicken soup with potatoes and carrots (Excellent!)

I have recipies for jerky and fried steaks. Any other suggestions?

In other, annoying, news Stephan worked until 9pm last night (that's a 15 hour day) and this morning was told he had to work the night shift tonight. Luckily (does that even apply in this situation??) he won't have to double-shift it since someone is working his day-shift tomorrow. He will be back during the day on Wedesday, provided nothing stupid happens tomorrow night.

Grrr. It's like being single again, but someone keeps eating and messing up the kitchen.

Summer's Last Gasp

The last few days have been pretty busy. Since the weekend was chuck full of dead animals, this week was devoted mainly to trying to catch up with house work and preparing for visitors! Stephan worked late most days, and I tried to get my 'act' together to present 30 minute yoga lessons to two groups of women.

Stephan spent his two days away from the hospital clinging to the roof by his toe nails putting up the last of the tar paper and flashing before it gets too cold and snowy. He still has a vent cover to install, and we need a tube of Liquid Nails for something, but he's back to work this weekend so those projects will have to wait. Luckily, the ceiling hasn't bled in quite some time (could be due to lack of rain though).

The dogs and cats are all behaving exactly as they should be- cats jumping and scratching, dogs chewing antelope bones and throwing up in the bed.

The weather has been getting colder (30-50F) but still very dry. The wind howls every day between 15-35 mph. The vacuum is still broken. The antelope tail was removed from the car on Tuesday night (but now I don't know where it is).

That's really it- it's nice to have spent a few days just gettin' it done.