Processing Venison

In my previous post I mentioned the old hunting axiom that the works starts after you pull the trigger. Processing or cutting up the meat is some of the hardest work in the process, mostly because it involves a lot of standing and holding your body in some rather fixed positions for hours at a time. Again, the subject of this post and the photos contained therein might be offensive to some readers. I would advise these folk not to read on.

Some commercial meat lockers will cut up your game meat for you. We have always done it ourselves. I learned how from my mom and dad who learned from their parents. Since stock and game animal anatomy is very similar between species and hasn’t really changed for millennia, this practice has been in my family certainly for over a hundred years and possibly (probably) stretches back to the dawn of humankind. Butchering might be timeless but using a freezer, our primary means to preserve and store meat, is definitely a more modern technology. There are lots of different ways to process meat. This is the way we do it.

We like to hang our meat to age to tenderize it. It is always good to protect the carcass against blowflies. Cheesecloth works pretty well. There are also commercially made game bags, essentially, bags made of cheesecloth that large enough to fit around a deer carcass. We have used cheesecloth and game bags in the past but for the last few years we have used clean cotton bedsheets. This method is a throwback to older times when people had to make do with what they had and use everything until it couldn’t be used any more and it is an effective method for protecting meat. The cotton is cool and allows air circulation while keeping flies out of the meat.

Different people have different preferences but, for our taste, a week is usually about the right length of time. I was a little worried that the warmer weather this year might speed things up to the point that the meat would go bad before we got it cut up but everything worked out just right. The shed where the deer carcass was hanging stayed cool during the day and the nights were quite cool so the meat aged well. I usually check periodically, every few days, to see if the meat is starting to go bad. There are always a few areas on the carcass where blood collects and I smell these. Blood with go bad before  meat will and I have found it to be a good indicator of the condition of the meat. About the time the blood starts to sour the meat is ready to cut up.

We cut up the meat on Sunday the 20^th. My mom was gone this year. She is always a big help. Sacha helped for about six hours before she had to go get Vashti who was with a friend. I ended up working another four hours after Sacha left, a total of ten hours. We probably got about 80 pounds of meat for our trouble.

The deer carcass hanging in the tractor shed. The old bed sheet allows air circulation to keep the meat cool while keeping blowflies away from the meat. 

Hind quarters of the deer. The front quarters have been removed in order to cut them up. 

Front quarters ready to be cut up. The white bucket is full of bleach water which we used to wipe everything down with on a regular basis. The meat saw is antique. It was originally my grandfather's. I don't know where he got it from. I can't imagine how many cows, pigs, deer, bear and other animals this saw has cut up in its day. 

Front quarters with one leg removed and the neck meat and backstraps cut out. 

Neck meat in vacuum seal bag. We used to use butcher paper for wrapping meat. There are a lot of glitches involved with using the vacuum seal bag but it protects the meat much better from freezer burn. The neck meat pictured here is very tough and needs to be cooked for a long time. We usually make mincemeat, stew meat or ground meat from it. In this case, it will go to make mincemeat. 

Remains of the front quarter. The rib meat has been cut out. You can make spare ribs, leaving the bone in the meat and save a little more meat. This time, the bullet hit some ribs and the splinters perforated the gut, causing the body cavity to be filled with the gut contents which has a lot of potentially harmful bacteria in it. I washed the body cavity thoroughly when I initially cleaned it but just to make sure, we decided to cut the rib meat out, wash it well and cook it well as stew meat. The stew should also help hide any bad flavors that might linger. This was the last step in the process and the knives used to cut the rib meat were thoroughly washed before cutting any other meat. There is actually not much meat left on the bones here. I used to strive to get every last scrap of meat and I still try to get as much as I can but I have also come to the realization that whatever is left will feed coyotes, crows, ravens and a number of other creatures and I am OK with that.

Front leg ready to be cut up.

Front leg taken apart at the joints. The first two shorter joints will be roasts. I was able to find each joint and was able to take the leg apart with a knife without using the saw. The lower, longer joint is the shank. It is is full of tendons and sinew and very tough. It will be cut up for stew meat or ground. Nowadays, tendons and sinew are kind of a nuisance but in years gone by they were a very important source of cordage because they are incredibly strong. There is a long tendon that runs along the spine which I understand was very valuable for making bowstrings. 

Backstraps. These run along either side of the spine and are, by far, the best cut of meat. 

Cutting steaks from the backstraps. 

Hind quarters ready to be cut up. 

Lower spine with backstraps and hind legs removed. The saw and sharpening steel on the stool at the left have been cleaned before being placed on the stool. 

Hind leg ready to be cut up. The hind leg was removed with a knife at the ball and socket joint that is the equivalent of our hip joint. This first joint of the hind leg down from the hip on a hog is what ham is made from. 

Cutting steaks from the ham of the hind leg. The meat here is so thick it is hard to cut steaks evenly. It helps if the meat is partially frozen and you cut it with a motorized saw like a band saw. We don't have the capacity to freeze a piece of meat this big or a motorized saw so we make do. 

Steaks cut from hind leg.

Hind leg taken apart at the joint. The smaller piece will be a roast after deboning. The long piece is the shank, which, like the front shank is full of tendons and sinew and will be used for stew meat or ground. Sometimes we save the large bones for a cousin who likes marrow bones. This year we are short on freezer space so they ended up going to the coyotes. 

End of the day. Sealed packages of steaks, roasts, stew meat and meat that will be ground for sausage another day. 

Deer Season

A cousin of mine said it best: “I like deer. I like watching them and I like eating them.” That pretty much sums up my feelings and the feelings of a lot of people I know as well. Deer are beautiful animals and, though they can sometimes be pests, especially when it comes to gardens and seedling trees, I like seeing them, just to look at them. Venison tastes good too. So just because I use deer for a practical purpose and not simply aesthetics doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them. This post covers hunting which some readers might find offensive. I would advise those readers who think this subject might be upsetting to them not to read on. However, if you have ever wondered why people hunt, this post might provide some insight.

The hunting season using modern firearms for deer has been the last three weeks of October for as long as I can remember. This is a very special time of year for me. It is almost sacred, a time of spirits. In the old traditions of Ireland and Scotland the last day of October is a very special day. In the old traditions it is called Samhain (I believe it is actually pronounced So’ain or something like that). According to these traditions, on the night of Samhain the veil between the living and the dead disappears and the dead can walk the earth along with a number of other otherworldly beings and monsters. Halloween is the now hypercommercialized American version of these old traditions.

I have often wondered if the weather and climate conditions here are similar to the conditions at this time of year in the old country where the traditions of Samhain arose. I could see how the idea that the boundary between the living and the dead thins and disappears at this time of year. Twilight, which is not really day but not really night either, is longer. At the same time the harvest is being brought in, insuring that life will continue through the winter ahead, all the plants are dying. The smell of living, growing things mingles strongly with the musty smell of decay. So it is a time of active vibrant life and at the same time, death. The living and the dead are present at the same time on the same plane.

I love being out in the stillness of twilight at this time of year. It may just be my imagination but, at twilight, at this time of year, it seems like I can feel the presence of spirits, the mountain spirits and spirits of the people who were on this land before me, my direct ancestors as well as other people. It seems that, without a lot of effort, one can touch almost physically touch times long vanished, especially if you are involved in a traditional activity such as hunting, where you are walking in the footsteps of the people who went before and experiencing at least some of the things that they experienced.

I feel spirits all year long but they are especially strong at this time of year and, in some places, the sensation is stronger than in other places. I feel the presence of spirits most strongly on overcast days after a good rain. They inhabit the mist and fog or a vagrant breeze. In at least some of the versions of the Samhain traditions that I have heard of, Samhain is a time of dread and danger. I have never gotten a bad feeling though I can’t say I have gotten any warm fuzzy feelings either. The way that best describes these spirits, as I feel them, would be watchful and mostly indifferent but not outwardly hostile.

Usually the best weather for deer hunting is overcast with either steady rain or showers. I tend to see more deer during the daylight on days like these. I don’t know exactly why this is. I do know that deer’s eyes are adapted for the blue light of early morning and late evening and they see best under these conditions. Blue to them is like blaze orange to humans. Possibly when it isn’t overcast, there is enough light at night, especially if there is a moon, for them to be very active so they hole up during the day. However, I have often encountered deer on the roadway in the middle of rainy nights so it is obvious that they can see well enough to be active on overcast nights. Weather fronts cause animals of all kinds to be more active so maybe it is something related to that phenomenon. It is also very hard to be quiet in dry weather, especially in areas with lots of hardwood trees that have dropped their leaves. The leaves dry out and crunch loudly underfoot.

Hunting is not going out and murdering innocent deer at will. As stated previously, deer can see better than humans so can be active during much of the time after dark and before daylight when it is illegal to hunt. They also have a keen sense of smell which they can use to detect and avoid a hunter long before that hunter is even close. Finally, there are restrictions placed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on where you can hunt, when you can hunt and how many and what type of deer you can kill, if you are good enough or lucky enough to see a deer.

Since deer are important to them, hunters tend to be keen observers of where deer are, when they are there and what they are doing, including what they might be eating. Also, if an animal happens to be carrying diseases or parasites, the successful hunter often gains intimate knowledge of this while field dressing or gutting it. This all holds true for any game animal. This might be particularly important as environmental conditions change. Hunters are liable to be some of the first folks to notice birds and animals that are in poor conditions or carrying new diseases and parasites or even carrying more parasites than usual. 

Because many hunters are also pretty keen observers of the surrounding environment, they also tend to notice a lot of non game animals as well. I have observed a curious thing that refers to the opening paragraph of this post. I know a lot of people who hunt who also look for deer when the season is not open. The object of this is not poaching. They will stop, admire and leave unmolested animals that they would not hesitate to shoot if the season was open. They also take pictures, though as I related earlier, taking photos is not hunting. I think most of these people would agree with this. I think they like looking at beautiful animals but they are also gathering information that could be used to make a successful hunt in the future. 

I rarely go more than about 20 miles from where I live to hunt. It is getting harder to hunt here. Much of the land I hunted when I was a kid is now posted no hunting or now has houses on it. The spot where I got my first deer and grouse is now posted. In addition, a lot of the private timber land is now gated, requiring an investment of the better part of a day to get into an area to hunt. There are only three weekends, a total of six free days off work, in the modern firearm season so an investment of an entire day is pretty big chunk of that time.

In 2009 I got a deer on some private timberland very near a spot where I got a deer in 1994. In 1994 I had the deer home in less than half an hour. By 2009 the road was gated and I had to drag that deer for about 4 hours, so long and far in fact, that I dragged the hair off the hide and there was a hole worn through the hide and flesh down to the shoulder bone.

The weather this year was going to be clear, at least in the area where I hunt, close to home. Clear weather is not the best for deer hunting. Access to many areas is now more difficult. And I ended up working the first weekend of the season, which I hate to do. So I was expecting very poor results this year and, if I did manage to get a deer, I figured it would be in a spot where it was going to be a lot of work getting it out. It didn’t work out that way.

I hunted for about an hour Sunday after work. This was all the time I had because it was getting close to dark by the time I got home. Monday after work I decided to try a spot that I had scouted earlier and was close by. I didn’t expect to see much, figuring the deer would be less active because of the clear weather. In less than 10 minutes from getting out of my pickup, I had my deer for the year. I had gotten a deer after investing less than 2 hours of hunting, one of the shortest hunting seasons I have ever had. I actually got it in almost the exact spot where I took a photo of some browsed piggyback plant that was in my post about scouting for deer.

Deer hunting is often like that. I have hunted entire seasons in good hunting weather, in good spots where I new there were a lot of deer, investing hours without seeing a legal buck. And sometimes you run across deer in unexpected places under unexpected circumstances. My dad always told me that you have to keep trying because you never know when you might turn one up and always be ready for the unexpected.

All that being said it wasn’t perfect. I killed the deer with one shot but that shot didn’t hit quite where I wanted. Always pray for single, quickly fatal shot. The deer I got last year was like that. It dropped like a sack of potatoes. That is when you know you had good hit and the deer died instantly without suffering. I always say a quiet prayer of thanks to the powers-that-be when this happens.

This year the deer didn’t die instantly and I watched it take its last few breaths, feeling awful the whole time and hoping it wasn’t suffering much. It was obviously done for so I didn’t shoot again and it was dead in less than a minute. The few times I have been badly hurt, it usually took several minutes for pain to manifest itself. So it is my fervent hope that the deer died before it really felt any pain but I can’t know this for sure.  

I don’t know why my shot was off but there are several possible reasons:

It was an easy shot except that the deer was standing in some brush. You don’t want to guess where your target is. You need to know so you can aim properly. I thought I could see enough of the deer to make the shot. Maybe I was looking at some maple leaves hanging on the brush instead of the deer’s side and aimed too low. I don’t know. After all the shooting practice I did earlier this year, it still boiled down to a judgment call, whether I could see enough of my target to make a good shot. Maybe I made the wrong call this time. In the future, I need to double check to make sure I am looking at what I think I am looking at. In 2011, I jumped a deer and in went behind some thick brush. I could only see a few small parts of it so I didn’t shoot because I had no target. The deer ran away through more brush and I didn’t get a shot. I didn’t get a deer that year but I know I made the right call that time.

The shot I took this year was an offhand shot. It is harder to take a steady aim shooting offhand and I didn’t practice any offhand shooting this year. In future years I will.

Finally, I discovered later that my scope mounts were loose. So my sights could have shifted on me, causing the shot to be off. I don’t know how the mounts got loose. I haven’t done anything to them in years but I now realize that this is an important thing to check every year as well.  

Waiting for the deer to die also made for reflection on how I will leave this world. Will it be after suffering a long time in some obscure corner of the mountains? Or after suffering a long time hooked up to a machine? Or suddenly or slowly after a car crash? Or maybe I will just go to sleep and not wake up. There are many possibilities. The only sure thing is that it will happen some day.

I don’t like killing but it is part of hunting. I have tried just taking pictures but this is not hunting. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking photos but, to me it seems like I am more like a spectator than an active participant in life. I always offer up prayer after a kill. This is not the macho, praise God, high five type that you often see on TV hunting shows. For me it is a time of solemnity in the recognition that this creature has just paid the price for my existence. It is more of an apology to the deer for taking its life and asking its forgiveness as well as offering thanks to the powers that be, God included, for allowing me to procure food. The whole experience of killing a game animal, for me is rather unique, sadness and grief mixed with thankfulness and a sense of satisfaction at having secured a lot of food.

I have always heard it said of hunting that the work begins after you pull the trigger and I have found this to be true. Dragging the deer this year wasn’t very hard. I had to drag it several hundred yards over mostly flat ground with one small hill. Last year I ended up dragging a deer for about 2 hours and I have already related my experience in 2009. I know of one guy who died of a heart attack while dragging a deer and several who have severely injured their backs while dragging deer.

I took the deer home to gut it because it was close and I had access to running water and tools like gambrels and bone saws which made the job easier and cleaner. It was early evening, around 6:00 p.m. when I killed the deer and it was well after dark by the time it was cleaned and skinned. The process, done mostly by headlamp and with only hand tools, was not nearly as smooth as the farm butchering depicted in my Butchering Day post but I got it done. It was after 9:00 p.m. by the time I was finished.

There is an ethic I follow that almost everyone I know who hunts follows as well. This is, if you kill it, you eat it. Killing an animal and then taking only the head and leaving the rest is a despised act with everyone I know. We try to make as much use as we can of any animal that we kill. I have always felt a sense of responsibility to any animal I have killed. Since I took its life, I should make as much use of it as I can so it wasn't killed for no good reason.

Nothing is perfect so there is always a little waste. I have reached the point where, as long as I have made an honest effort to use everything I can, it doesn't bother me too much to leave something for the scavengers such as coyotes and ravens because, if something besides me had killed the deer, the scavengers would have gotten their share of it. We will get as much meat as possible from the carcass. The deer’s hide and brain will go to a friend who makes drums. The brain will be used to tan the hide. The hooves will go to that same friend to be made into ceremonial rattles. The heart and liver went to another friend who likes heart and liver.

When the modern firearm season is over, I am required to call in to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and submit a harvest report. This report includes where I hunted, if I was successful and, if I was, the sex of the deer and, if it was a buck how many tines or points were on its antlers. Over the years, I have also seen check stations set up where additional data like a deer’s age (determined by examining the teeth) are collected. For several years WaDFW was also collecting grouse wings for a study. To my mind this is an excellent way to collect data on wildlife, or at least game animals. You are getting data from people who are paying to collect it (my hunting license and deer tag cost about $60 this year) instead of having to track down a source of money from somewhere in order to pay someone to collect the data.

So ends my deer season for this year. Already I have experienced regret that I am not still out at twilight with the spirits, poking around the places that hunting takes me, places where I wouldn’t otherwise go. But there are a lot of things that I let slide during the summer that I need to take care of, not to mention getting everything ready for winter. So, all things considered, I’m actually pretty happy to be done for the year.

This is the deer I got this year. It is a two point or "Y" which refers to its antlers. We use western count here so you count the tines on each antler separately. A deer with 3 tines on both antlers would be called a 3 point while one with 3 tines on one antler and 4 on the other would be called a 3 by 4. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife splits the state into areas called game management units and there are various restrictions on what you can shoot in a given unit. In some units, the deer has to be at least a 3 point, with at least 3 tines on one antler. In others it must be at least a two point. In others, it is any buck with antlers. In areas where they want to keep the deer population in check, they might allow you to shoot does as well as bucks. It is hard to see in this photo but under my left hand is the deer tag, in official terms, the transport tag. You only get one for the year in this unit and, upon killing the deer, the date of the kill must be notched in the tag and the tag attached to the carcass. You get a big fine if you don't tag your deer. This prevents people from killing more deer than they are allowed. In this area you are allowed, one per year. My deer this year isn't a trophy by any stretch of the imagination. He is probably a little over two years old which means he should be good eating and just big enough to finish filling the freezer for the coming year. I hunt for food so I usually don't pass up a legal deer. This is the type of photo that may backfire in future years, especially if Vashti decides to be a vegetarian when she grows up. She wasn't really scared of the deer, mostly she was just curious. She likes venison but I don't think she has connected it with the living creatures that it comes from. 

Butchering Day

Thursday the 10^th was butchering day. Butchering day is a day of mixed emotions for me. On the one hand it is the culmination of the growing season and the payoff for all the feeding, watering, fence fixing, cow chasing and putting up hay for the year. On the other hand it is the day some of our pet cows, most of whom I have known since the day they were born, get killed.

This year wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t overly attached to any of the animals that were butchered though I didn’t bear any of them any ill will either. When I was about 10 or 12 years old I was given the chore of feeding one of our steers a bucket of grain every day to get him ready for butchering. I hated that steer and hated having to feed him. He was always stepping on my toes and I had to feed him when I would rather have been doing other things. I couldn’t wait until butchering day when I would be free of my burden. Funny thing is, when butchering day arrived I felt really bad. I went from gloating about the day to wishing even asking if we could spare the steer. When that steer was killed I bawled my eyes out for an hour.

That was almost the worst experience for me. The worst happened in the early 2000’s. We had a young bull I named Little Feller. This little bull had the sweetest disposition I think I have ever known. He was never rambunctious or mean and when I was out in the pasture, he would always come up to get scratched and he would follow me around like a dog. I had problems moving the cows once and he was there, calm and even, helping me get the other cows to follow along to the other pasture. When butchering day arrived for him, I couldn’t be there. Mom had to handle it. As it was, the place I was working that day was close enough that I heard the shots that killed Little Feller and the three others we had butchered that day. I was in a kind of numb daze for several hours afterward.

The reader might be wondering at this point why do I raise cows and put myself through this? Well, I like the taste of beef. And there is one fundamental, irrefutable truth about life, which is that everything that lives, including me, will die someday. Another truth that I think many people ignore or aren’t aware of is that every organism, including every one of us, uses resources from this planet at the expense of other organisms. Even vegans are not exempt from this. If the food they eat was grown locally in western Washington, forests were destroyed, obliterated in a manner worse than the most egregious clearcut, in order for these farms to exist. In other places prairie grassland communities or some other native habitat was likewise destroyed. I have nothing against farms, obviously. I have one myself and I eat food every day that was grown on farms. I am merely trying to make the point that nothing is free. Permaculture purists who don’t rely on tilled soil for food aren’t exempt either. They are still eating the products of plants that other organisms would have utilized if the permaculturalists hadn’t, so by their existence there are fewer resources for other organisms to exist. Butchering day (and hunting) is a constant reminder of at least a small part of the price that other organisms pay for my existence.

If our cows weren’t raised for beef they would never have existed because we and most other folks I know wouldn’t go to the trouble and expense of raising cows for pets.  And, if the cows (and bulls) were left to their own devices without some kind of human intervention, their numbers would increase to the point that we would run out of pasture, probably in about 4 years. Then they would starve. I have heard of some movements afoot to create artificial meat in laboratories so animals won’t have to die. I wonder if the proponents of these ideas have ever thought about what I have stated in the previous sentences. If our cows were no longer useful as a food source, we would have to get rid of them, which, if they were essentially worthless, would probably involve killing them all.

I believe it was Michael Pollan who put forward a very interesting idea that other species of plants and animals have used humans to spread their genes all over the world. From this viewpoint, it could be said that we humans are actually working for the species we have domesticated though I think it is more of a mutually beneficial situation for both the domesticated and the domesticator.

If I remember correctly, Pollan specifically mentioned corn in the interview I heard but I think he also mentioned cattle. Based on my situation, it would appear that this is the case. Where our pastures and hayfields are, a forest has been cleared by humans who shed a lot of blood and sweat in doing so, to create habitat for cattle which would never have existed here otherwise. The price that cattle have paid for this expansion of their presence to a valley in the North Cascades as well as onto continents far from Europe is that periodically some of their number are eaten by humans who have “domesticated” them.

As I stated previously, every living being will die. As far as the cows go, as I see it, I try to provide a quality life for them, plenty of pasture to roam around in and be cows, and as quick and humane a death as possible when the time comes. I think our cows lead a much easier life than their ancestors did on the plains of Europe, scrounging for food all winter, facing starvation in the harder years and year round death from predators that was quite a bit slower than a single bullet.

This year butchering day went pretty well. The designated animals were dispatched quickly. I doubt they even knew what happened to them. We hire our butchering out because it gets done more quickly and cleanly. I have butchered a number of deer over the years so I am sure I could butcher a cow as well, only it would take most of the day and be pretty messy. The butchers can have a cow “disassembled” (as they put it) in about half an hour with almost no mess.

Some readers might find the photos for this post which involves the butchering of a cow offensive or gross and, if so, I would advise them not to look at them. The purpose of the photos is not to be sensational and I didn’t include any photos of cows actually being killed. I am showing these photos because the process of butchering is a part of my life and it is also part of the process by which many others get their food whether they are aware of it or not. Scenes like this have played out, with varying technology, for hundreds of millennia all over the world. Our distant ancestors didn’t create arrowheads, spear points, knifes and other killing and butchering implements from stone to process plant materials.

Step one in the butchering process. The cow's throat is cut so it will bleed out. The line where the cow will be initially cut open to remove the entrails is washed down.

The butchers frequently wash things down during the butchering process. They have a certain number of animals that they have to butcher today but it is nothing like the volume done by a factory slaughterhouse so they have the time to ensure things are done properly. 

Removing the front legs at the knee joint. 

Removing the head. 

Removing the hind legs at the lower joint. I have never been able to find this joint myself. 

Starting to skin the cow and sawing the breastbone in half in preparation to remove the entrails. 

Skinning. 

Preparing to hoist the carcass with gambrels. 

Hoisting the carcass 

Washing down and beginning to remove entrails. 

Skinning the tail. The tail will be kept in a separate bucket with the heart, liver and hanging tenderloin. The tail will be used to make oxtail soup. 

Completing skinning the tail and removing the entrails. 

The entrails or offal are placed in separate 55 gallon drums after removing the undigested grass from the rumen and sent to a rendering plant where they are cooked down and used to make about 26 different products including chicken feed, dog food and cosmetics. About one-third of the products made from offal at the rendering plant are cosmetics, think glycerin and related substances. The butcher actually has to pay the rendering plant to pick up the offal. 

Completing the skinning. At this point, no knives are used. The hide peels right off the carcass. The hides are sold by the butcher to make leather. Recently the big market for hides has been China but this market is down currently. 

Preparing to quarter the carcass. Two cuts have been made just behind the ribs. The butcher's boots are washed down before climbing into the truck where the meat will be hung. This helps prevent the spread of bacterial contamination. 

Both boots are washed down. 

Beginning the cut. The carcass is cut in half lengthwise down the spine. 

Finishing the cut. 

Washing down the carcass and preparing to quarter it. 

Attaching gambrels to the front quarters. The hind quarters have been transferred to hooks that roll on an overhead rail. 

Washing the carcass. 

Cutting off front quarters. 

Rolling hind quarters into truck. 

Hoisting front quarters and transferring them to the hooks on the rail system. 

Washing the carcass and preparing to roll the last quarter of this carcass into the truck. This whole process took a little over half an hour. It would have taken me a minimum of half a day. 

Buckets with heart, liver, tongue, tail and hanging tenderloin. These don't go to the butcher's we keep them.  They go directly to the people who bought beef from us if they want them. If not, we disburse them. We generally keep the tongue (good sandwich meat), tail and hanging tenderloin and give the heart and liver to people we know who like beef heart and liver. 

All that is left after a little less than 2 hours work. Three piles of undigested grass from the butchered cow's rumens and some blood and scraps. Approximately 1700 pounds of biomass built by these three cows from the grass in this pasture and at the Stump Farm have been removed from the system. This means that, over the years, there has been a constant removal of nutrients from the soil here and at the Stump Farm so, at some point, they will need to be replaced by fertilizer of some kind. Nothing is free. 

End of Hiking Season, Scouting for Deer, Grouse and Mushrooms

September started quite well for me but ended on a kind of discordant note. I was able to get two trips in on the first two weekends. Then the weather turned on the third weekend. The crew I work on was short handed and needed help that weekend so I ended up working. There was a small window where I might have been able to do a trip toward the end of that week but by that time I had some kind of bug that left me feeling chilled and filled my sinuses to the point that it hurt to move my eyes. So I abandoned that idea. The last weekend was a washout with flood warnings posted throughout the state for the weekend.

This year I got into about 40 lakes, ponds and wetlands, some 21 of these I had never been to before and were mapped so they counted toward my high lake project goals.

At this point, I was in shape to do long expeditions and I would have dearly loved to get in one more trip for the season. The first weekend of October looked good but I needed to do some stream crossings and wasn’t sure if the storm water from the previous weekend and week would have run off enough to let me cross. Also, in my experience, October is getting a little late in the year for good amphibian observations at higher elevations. You still see them but if it is cold, they are not as active and the egg masses of some species like Northwestern salamanders are almost gone and hard to identify.

It had been cold and snowing during the previous week and the place I wanted to go was pretty hard to get to so I wanted to make sure conditions were optimal for good observations if I was going to put the effort into going. I reluctantly decided to abandon my hiking season and start getting ready for hunting season.

Before my high lake project started consuming so much of my summers, I usually ended my hiking season around the first of September when grouse season opened and hunted grouse and scouted for deer. Some deer seem to stay in the same area year round while others migrate seasonally for fairly long distances. Sometimes you will see some big deer at low elevations early in the summer that disappear for several months and then reappear later in the fall. I once saw a doe with twin fawns headed downhill across a logging road at about 4500 feet in elevation and several hours later saw the same deer still headed downhill at about 1500 feet on the same road system. I don't know a lot about seasonal deer migrations but I have hunter friends who can talk about these migrations like they are reciting from a textbook.

Deer season for modern firearms is the last three weeks of October and I had a lot of luck with this system of scouting, often knowing the best places to look for deer at the start of the season. Scouting gave me more up to date information on where the deer were. When my high lake project started consuming more of my time in September, I had to depend a lot more on luck, guesswork and past experience and became a little less successful at deer hunting, though I still got my share. In 2008, I hunted low elevations heavily for the first part of the hunting season. It was only in the last part of the season that I figured out that most of the deer were at higher elevations around 4000 feet or higher. If I had been able to scout more that year, I could have started hunting where most of the deer were.

When I scout for deer, I look for signs of their presence, tracks, trails, droppings, browsed plants, buck rubs etc. If you find an area with high concentrations of sign, it is a pretty good bet you will run across some deer before too long. It also helps to look in spots where deer are likely to be. Some of the best spots I know of are logging units, burns and river bottoms though I know a lot of people who also hunt heavy upland timber with quite a bit of success. I carry along my shotgun with birdshot in case I see a grouse. The best spots for deer aren’t always the best spots for grouse but there is a lot of overlap. I also usually check spots that are better for grouse.

When scouting and hunting I usually end up poking around in areas where I otherwise wouldn’t go and, as a consequence, end up seeing quite a few things that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. This year the mushroom crop has been abundant, probably due to all of the wet, warm weather. 

One of the first things I do when getting ready for deer season is check the sights on my rifle to make sure they are still on (accurate) and, since I don't do a lot of shooting throughout the rest of the year, re-familiarize myself with the process of shooting. This makes it more likely that I will be able to hit what I am shooting at, and hit it where I intend to. I frequently hear of people who neglect checking theirs sights and end up missing cleanly, or even worse, botching a shot. I don't particularly like killing but it is part of hunting and love hunting (taking pictures with a camera is not the same thing in my book). Therefore, I try to take every measure I can to make sure I will kill an animal as quickly and with as little suffering as possible. A few times in my hunting career a quick kill has not happened and the feeling I was left with was one of the most awful in my life. I have found that paper plates with a circle drawn around a quarter in the center of the plate for a bull's eye is a cheap effective target. I like to sight my rifle for 100 yards which is the most useful range for the kind of hunting I do. Recently, North Cascades National Park abruptly and without warning closed the rifle range in Newhalem, in the Recreation Area, not the Park, that had been in existence for decades, years before the Park even existed. This made it a little more difficult for me to get my rifle sighted but I managed as did a number of other people I know. 

This is the first "group" that I shot. A group is a number of shots fired one after the other while holding the sights dead center on the bull's eye. Four shots is usually enough for me to establish a group. This repetition helps control for any errors you might make in aiming. This is a good tight group, all the rounds hit in about the same place but they are to the left of the bull's eye. This is a perfect example of why you should check your sights before hunting. These shots are far enough off target to possibly result in a botched shot. For years I only used open sights and disdained scopes. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. You don't have to worry about open sights fogging up or having to find your target in the sights. I now use a scope because my eyeglasses are thick enough to distort my vision to the point that open sights are often difficult for me to use effectively. 

This is the second group I shot after adjusting my sights to the right. The side to side adjustment of the sights is called windage. Now the rounds are hitting above the bull's eye. The vertical adjustment of the sights is called elevation. This is probably a good elevation for 200 to 300 yards because at those distances the bullet drop due to gravity would put the rounds at the same elevation as the bull's eye. 

This is the third group I shot. I fired eight rounds at this target. Most hit in the missing area just above the bull's eye. The two rounds to the left of the bull's eye were pulled shots. In other words, I didn't fire the round properly, resulting in my aim being off. I decided not to try to adjust my sights any more. Because I had to use a makeshift rest that wasn't really solid, there was quite a bit of wobble in my aim and it would take a lot of time and ammunition to dial it in closer than this, though, of course, the practice would do me good. As it is, this is good enough to make a good killing shot under most circumstances and, if the circumstances aren't right, then I shouldn't be shooting. 

This is the last group I shot at 50 yards, a typical range for the type of hunting that I do. The round to the upper left of the group is a pulled shot. 

Deer browse on a red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). The bare stems are hard to see in this photo but most are below the center of the photo. Red elderberry leaves and stems contain cyanide and are poisonous to humans but not to ungulates like deer and cattle. This plant was small, either it was a newly established seedling or an established plant that had been damaged during logging operations and was now growing in a stunted, slightly deformed manner. Deer seem to favor both newly established plants and new growth on damaged plants over more established plants. This may be because the newer plants may have a higher nutrient content or are easier to digest, etc. I had heard years ago that new growth of plants growing in logged off areas are lower in nutrients. This may be so but when many areas are logged you start seeing more deer there at least for a couple of years and the deer population in the area usually increases. 

Deer browse on new growth of fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium). Bare stems are hard to see in this photo but most of them are at or above center of the frame. This was in a logging unit. Deer don't seem to eat much fireweed once it is more established. I know that fireweed fibers are an excellent source for material for cordage (rope) so the larger, more established fireweed is probably much harder to chew and digest. 

Deer browse on salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis). There are numerous bare stems on this plant, some more obvious than others. This looked like an established plant that had been damaged by logging operations. 

Deer browse on bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata). This small tree was established immediately following logging operations. Bitter cherry bark contains cyanide (I think) and is poisonous to many organisms, including humans. I discovered this at about 10 years of age when some toad tadpoles I had captured began to metamorphose. I put some large wood chips in the tank so the newly metamorphosed toads would have a place to rest. Unfortunately I used chips of cherry and this killed every tadpole in the tank in about a day. 

Deer browse on thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus). Again, the bare stems are hard to see but most are on the left hand side of the plant. 

Deer browse on youth-on-age or piggyback plant (Tolmiea menziesii). This was in a forested area with a pretty closed canopy where large patches of piggyback plant often grow. This area was logged about 30 years ago and has now grown back. 

Deer browse on western red cedar (Thuja plicata)seedling. This was probably browsed last winter or early this spring. Deer often browse cedar heavily in the wintertime but mostly leave it alone during the spring and summer growing season. I have a hunch that cedar may not taste that good so it is not preferred by deer when other forage is available.

Deer trail in woods between pastures, old fields and logging units. 

Deer bed in logging unit. Deer often use old rotten logs or stumps to make their beds.  They also often bed down right next to stumps, often on the side of the stump opposite of roads. One often finds deer beds in locations that provide good visibility and nearby escape routes. It wouldn't surprise me as well if many bedding locations are also determined by the prevailing winds which would allow deer to smell predators long before they are seen. 

More deer beds. There are often several to many deer beds in certain locations, probably because these locations are prime bedding spots for deer, allowing good visibility and good routes to escape from predators. 

Deer droppings or pellets. These are clumped together which might have a lot to do with the type of food the deer was eating. These pellets are also gray which means they are pretty old, probably months. 

These deer pellets are all separate which is a more common condition to find them in. These pellets are dark so they are newer than the pellets in the photo above. It is not obvious in this photo but these pellets also had white mold beginning to form around them which means they were also fairly old. Fresh pellets are shiny green or black. If they are steaming, they are really fresh.

Deer track on old road in forested area. Over the years, I have heard people swear that buck tracks are different from doe tracks. I have also heard people, experienced hunters say that you can't. I side more with the skeptics. The same goes for urine patterns in snow, with some exceptions. You can still get a lot of information from tracks though such as relative size of the animal and its gait, walking, running stotting. You can also tell something about an animal by the routes their tracks take. If a deer trail goes through a tight hole in the brush, and there is a separate trail that goes around the tight spot in a more open area, the animal or animals that made the side trail are probably bucks with antlers big enough that they can't get through the tight spot without hanging up. 

Fresh deer track in logging unit. I know this track was absolutely fresh because I saw the deer that made in although I didn't get a picture of the deer itself. This deer stotted or bounced away. It was a small animal but the stotting forced its hooves quite deep in fairly firm soil, much deeper than if it had merely been walking. 

Buck rub. Male deer or bucks use trees or brush to rub the velvet off their antlers  once the antlers have hardened.  Bucks also continue to use trees to spar with to get ready for the rut when they might be locking antlers with other bucks. 

Young buck blacktailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) rubbing the willow tree.  I took this photo from my front porch with the deer standing only about 10 feet away. This was the weekend before deer season opened. This little buck and two others he was with had been eating pears from the tree in our front yard. By opening weekend, they had moved on to somewhere else. A neighbor ended up getting this one later in the season. This is quite a large tree for the size of the deer so the size of the tree being rubbed isn't always indicative of the size of the deer doing the rubbing, an erroneous assumption that I had held for many years before seeing this. 

Hidden Lake Peak in the morning from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road 1550.  Scouting and grouse hunting are also another excuse to get out and about and check things out. I usually poke around in this area several times a year. The views from the road are great and accessible to anyone who can drive a vehicle. I am sure this road is slated for closure, along with many other Forest Service roads. 

West ridge of Marble Creek drainage from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road. 

As far as I know this high point on the west ridge of Marble Creek is not named. The creek in the valley in front of it is called Haystack Creek so I have always called this high point "Haystack" which, by the form of it, seems appropriate.

Mount Formidable on the Middle Fork of the Cascade River from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road.

Telephoto view of Mount Formidable on the Middle Fork of the Cascade River from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road.

Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). These birds have a wide range, occurring all across North America.  Here they are quite common in river bottoms and old orchards and you frequently see them on forest roads that are either in use or abandoned. References that I have read on line state that they prefer early successional and scrub forest habitats which means young second growth forests. Ruffed grouse eat a wide variety of things from insects to leaves and berries to buds. I remember reading a scientific paper years ago that stated that bigleaf maple buds were important overwintering food for ruffed grouse in this area. This might explain their affinity for river bottoms. There is usually a lot of bigleaf maple and a lot of scrub. I have gotten ruffed grouse early in September with their crops full of Pacific dogwood berries (Pacific dogwood fruits are actually drupes, like cherries but they look kind of like berries). The crop of the grouse on the left was full of bigleaf maple buds and the crop of the grouse on the right was full of huckleberry (Vaccinium) leaves. According to Western Birds by Roger Tory Peterson, ruffed grouse occur in two different morphs or phases, gray with gray tails and red with red tails. The grouse on the left appears to be a gray phase and the one on the right a red phase. 

For having a seemingly mundane color palette of brown, gray, black and yellow, ruffed grouse are some of our most beautiful birds. And they taste good too. This is a close up view of the back of the red phase grouse in the photo above. 

Close up of the left wing of the red phase bird in the photo above. 

The tail is one of the most impressive parts of a ruffed grouse. For years I tried to figure out ways to preserve them and put them to some use. This is a tail that I pinned out years ago with the idea of somehow making a fan out of it. Sacha used some of the tail feathers of the grouse pictured above to make a mobile for Vashti who was quite fascinated by them. I gave the rest to a friend who will use them on his hunting bow. Sometimes the black and gray lines along the back of a grouse's tail will be broken with the lines on several of the middle feathers being discontinuous with the rest of the tail. I have always been told that this is the difference between male and female birds with the males having the unbroken tail lines.  

I ran across a number of mushrooms during my roaming and scouting. It was pretty wet this September, resulting in a bumper mushroom crop. These are chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius). 

More chanterelles. 

This is one of our (Sacha's) chanterelle patches. I say it is Sacha's because she likes chanterelles while I am not much into eating mushrooms though I think they are really cool organisms. The yellow objects on the ground that look like leaves are chanterelles. This is a second growth mixed conifer hardwood forest that was first logged about 80 years ago and partial cut about 50 years ago. From my observations, larger patches of chanterelles seem to be more common in second growth forests, either old burns or logging units. I saw one patch this year in a logging unit that was only about 20 years old.  

Lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum). I saw a lot of these this year, starting in mid August. Many of the places I saw them were old roads and trails. This one was in the middle of an abandoned Forest Service road. This is mildly surprising because usually the soil compaction associated with roads adversely affects things growing there, although, on the other hand, I understand that fungi are quite remarkable at soil restoration. 

Lobster mushroom are actually composed of two mushroom species,  Hypomyces lactifluorum and a gilled host species, either Russula or Lactarius that it grows. The lobster mushroom infests the outer part of the host and may cause it to take on strange shapes. This photo shows the faint traces of the gills of the host mushrooms that are buried under the lobster mushroom. 

Lobster mushroom with the gills more visible but still obviously clogged. Many people highly prize and eat lobster mushrooms though, in Mushrooms Demystified, David Arora states that there is no guarantee that some are not poisonous, because the host mushroom may be poisonous, unless they only infest edible species. I remember reading somewhere else that a lobster mushroom infestation on some species of Russula turn them from tasting bland or unremarkable to tasting delicious. As I stated previously, I don't really like eating mushrooms so I wouldn't know.

This is a lobster mushroom that is either growing on a different host species than in the previous photos or has not infested the host completely. 

Underside of the lobster mushroom in the previous photo. The gills are obviously clogged but the mushroom is not completely orange. 

Russula spp, a potential host for a lobster mushroom. This one is not infested by a lobster mushroom. 

Underside of above Russula showing what the gills look like in mushroom not infested with lobster mushroom. 

Angel wings (Pleurotus porrigens). This relative of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) typically grows on conifer logs and snags where oyster mushrooms typically grow on hardwoods. These angel wings were growing on a Douglas-fir log. 

Dyer's polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii). This was on a western hemlock log. I believe this fungus can be used as a dye for clothing as the name implies.