On a beautiful and warm day in the middle of October I got another message for yet another dead deer. My plan was to make it to deer season with the road kills and then I had high hopes that we would get enough for the year. I had friends and family willing to hunt and let me have the venison. So I assumed I was getting close to being able to close down my “road kill cafe.”
I called my son DJ and daughter-in-law Dani and they helped me go find it. We walked up and down the road looking and suddenly a live deer stepped out on the road. I told DJ he could run it over quickly, but he didn’t appear to like my idea. Finally we found the deer. It looked like a very fat one and I was expecting lots of meat off it. After we picked it up and came back home I had to wait for Doug to go to his doctor appointment before we could go over to mom’s.
Mom called and asked when we were coming, and I told her I was still waiting for Doug. She asked if it was gutted already and I told her it was not. She said I couldn’t leave it like that; it was too warm. I got off the phone and did what every other person does. I Googled it. After watching a 10 minute video called “How to gut a deer 101” I took it out back and decided to do it myself.
I stood by the trailer trying to figure out how the best way to precede was. I realized I couldn’t pull it off the trailer to gut it and then get it back on by myself so decided to just pull it to the edge of the trailer and try my best. I figured praying might help. I said “God, you created this beautiful creature, now I’m going to need your help taking it apart”. I stuck the knife in and air started gushing out. I got back about 20 feet and tried not to throw up. I was finally able to open it up and just figured everything on the inside needed to be on the outside.
It took me a lot longer than the guy in the video, but I was pretty proud of myself for getting it done. I just kept repeating “I love my dog, I love my dog”. I left the pile for Fred Foxx, our friendly wild “pet” and I went off on my own.
By the time I finished Doug was back and we headed to mom’s. But he said he thought it smelled bad. I told him about the gush of air and he looked like he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t want to ruin my good mood. My dad has lost most of his ability to smell, but even he got a whiff of the deer and said nope, it wasn’t any good. I did all that by myself for nothing!!!! Dad just kept asking “You gutted this?” I had him check and see how I did and he said I did good. I’m not sure if he was impressed or shocked that I did it myself, but after all that, it still ended up as coyote food and I still didn’t have more venison……
- Yooper Life: For The Love of a Dog (Part 8) - June 17, 2020
- Yooper Life: For the love of a Dog (Part 7) - June 2, 2020
- Yooper Life: For the love of a dog (Part 6) - May 11, 2020
I love reading about your adventures!!!
Love it! Knew when the gush of air rushed out this was not going to end well!! So good to have a laugh during these times.