…for posting pictures of dead animals. Well, the hide of an animal anyway.

Andy’s been hunting for a few years and finally got his first deer last week. A doe, the opening day of gun season. He bow hunts too and would have preferred getting one with the bow as he thinks it’s more sportsman like (somewhat more of an art than just blasting the thing). Actually, I have a compound bow too and target shoot in our backyard. I’m not sure I could ever hunt though. I don’t have any issues with it, we eat the venison and Andy does it respectfully and makes sure things are quick for the animal. I’m just not sure I could bring myself to do it.

But this post is about Andy, and his deer. The friend he hunts with taught Andy how to gut the deer and the guys process it themselves. It’s actually very cool, very “old world, self sufficient” like. If we were ever in an end of the planet, society as we know it is crumbling situation…I would want to be on Andy’s team. He can MacGyver his way through pretty much anything. They carve out the fat and other stuff and end up with fabulous cuts of meat. They’ll also grind some which we use to make burgers, jerky, in tacos and any other place you’d use ground beef. I should do a whole other post on how to get venison to taste yummy, when done correctly it’s actually really good.

So what’s left over after all the meat is cut up (besides icky innards and organs) is the hide. Have you ever seen a deer up close? They’re gorgeous animals, so graceful looking. The hide is really pretty too, softer than you think it’d be. Andy thought he’d try his hand at preserving the one from his first doe. I’m not sure what he plans to use it for (I will not be snuggling up under a deer blanket) but I’m curious to see how it turns out for him. He cleaned it all up last night and needs to start the next few steps which involve lots of salt and some chemicals. I’ll have to let you know how things work out for him and what we end up doing with it :) Yeah, we have some weird hobbies…