Joe the Butcher

It's deer season and that means meat in the freezer for the Horn Herd, an event which I am very happy about. It's not every hobby where you can both have fun and feed your family at the same time. Thankfully too, I hunt with a couple of exceptionally gracious men who are happy to donate the majority of their annual deer harvest to the cause as well. This helps keep our annual supply of steaks, roasts, and burger up to a level where we don't run short of meat until late spring. That said, I have three more tags to fill (1 for shotgun, 1 for muzzleloader, and 1 for late bow season), so I am also hoping that God will provide at least some of our meat needs through my hunting prowess as well (I don't know if I should call it prowess, so maybe I should just say "my hunting," but nevermind).

Anyway, necessity being the mother of invention, I have learned how to do my own butchering. I've gotten fairly adept at it--I transformed two deer into steaks, roasts, and burger in a little over six hours (with a helpful assist from Karen). The upper photo shows me transforming a hindquarter into boneless roasts (round steak). With deer meat, you have to slice off all of the white fat, which is waxy and bitter tasting, make sure that any hair that may have gotten on the meat during skinning is removed, and cut off any of the really objectionable pieces of sinew (aka "silver skin"). Which is why the roasts aren't quite "round" in the lower picture, which shows the results of said process placed on butcher paper for Karen to package. As a man, it's nice to know that, if the economy ever gets really bad, I can always get a couple more tags, spend a few more days in the woods, plant a bigger garden, and still feed our family.