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Nikki
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« on: June 18, 2012, 01:54:52 AM » |
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Well, this board has been dead for a while so I thought I‘d make an announcement... we got our Spring bear! He is (or rather, was) a lovely huge guy, very black, including his face. Over 6ft from nose to tail. Our 4 year old son was even with us, so that was pretty exciting too. We worked for over 6 hours today and only got halfway through butchering (it was skinned last night). Tons of meat, almost no fat compared to a Fall bear!
It‘s our first animal of the year, and the season closes here on the 30th. We were starting to really think we were out of luck.
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"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden."
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Ethan
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« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2012, 05:37:09 AM » |
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Congrats! Never head bear meat, though I hear it's very tasty when cooked/prepared right. Should be plenty of meat to go around for some time I'm guessing, right?
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Nikki
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« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2012, 11:01:37 PM » |
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Yeah, so far we‘ve processed half of it and gotten 4 big roasts, quite a bit of stew and around 35lbs of ground meat. The other half will all be ground or cut into stew, and we‘re turning a lot of the ground meat into sausage and will give quite a bit away. There‘s no way we could use it all, and we hunt quite a bit in the Fall (deer, moose, elk, and whatever smaller game is in season) so we‘re happy to know people who want (and need) whatever we have to give! It‘s fairly common around here for people to hunt and eat bear.
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"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden."
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Nikki
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« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2012, 05:03:13 AM » |
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Sooooo. Long story short, NEVER underestimate the power of a meat grinder, especially an electric one, no matter how slow the auger turns. Yep. Hubs is now missing part of his right middle finger, down to the first knuckle. RIGHT after we were talking about how the electric grinder (first one we‘ve ever used) felt ‘safe‘ because the auger turned fairly slow. Needless to say, I thought he was joking... he wasn‘t.
If you butcher and process your own meats, be extra careful! I know I will tomorrow while I‘m finishing the chore of pepperoni/sausage-making by myself because hubs has a heavily-bandaged half-finger!
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"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden."
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ShenandoahJoe
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« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2012, 09:07:37 AM » |
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Ouch! I'm really sorry to hear that.
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Nikki
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« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2012, 05:16:35 AM » |
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Yeah, it kinda sucks but he‘s really not too concerned. I definitely realize how weird that sounds, haha, but we live in a town that includes a lot of farming and logging/sawmills... literally about 1/4 people are missing fingers, parts of hands, etc. I figured it‘s a good warning to post here though - be careful about processing your own meats! (And other things that include sharp blades - I‘m honestly surprised that I wasn‘t the first one to lose a finger since I‘m fearless when it comes to things like the table saw and such!)
Probably stating the obvious (maybe not) but I‘ve already been picking on and laughing at him pretty much since right after it happened, heh... BUT STILL. Meat grinders are serious business, no matter how slow the auger turns! He got ahold of the guy we‘d borrowed it from and apparently 2 other people have lost fingers - one guy lost part of one finger, the other guy lost parts of two fingers! We won‘t stop processing our own kill(s) but we‘ll definitely be a hell of a lot more careful!
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"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden."
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