You would think that picking up roadkill would be simple. I mean, how many people actually do that kind of stuff? Amazingly a lot. Time after time I would get a message or a call that there was a deer hit, get ready, hook up the trailer and head out only to find that someone had already beaten me to it. It came to the point that as soon as I got the call, I wouldn’t waste any time getting ready and getting there, but still several times I was too late.
One evening I got the call at 8:00. I looked at Doug and told him it was his turn to help me. It was cold and windy, but I knew how much meat I still needed. I got everything ready while I was waiting for him and off we went. We pulled onto 129 and found the hit. It was huge and I wasn’t sure the 2 of us would even be able to pick it up. Just as we were trying a truck pulled up and a very nice gentleman who works for the county pulled up. He had been there to put the deer down right before we got there. I was very thankful that he had done so, since we didn’t bring a gun with us and it would have been another “It’s not dead!” moment.
After loading it we came home and put the trailer in the garage for the night. The next morning I pulled it out back where I “do my thing” away from the neighbors. Since I didn’t have my helper (she had school) I had my earbuds in and was listening to music while I was processing it. I’m back there all alone, so I was dancing around to some great Christian rock.
We live right next to the groomed snowmobile trail. Finally I turned around and saw that there were 2 snowmobilers that had stopped and were watching me. It was like they had never seen a lady dancing around a dead deer with a knife in her hand in the middle of a field before. But the funny thing is, I had looked that night and saw that it was a buck. But when I flipped it over that morning I saw 2 Willie’s. I thought ‘what the heck’ so I looked closer and they were nipples! This was a huge doe! I had to apologize to Doug since he and the other guy both said it was a doe.
Normally I get around 25-30 pounds of burger off a doe, this one I got 57 pounds and 7.2 pounds of back strap! I was that much closer to my “Goal weight” for the year!
By Misty Murdock
EUP News Contributor
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- Yooper Life: For the love of a dog (Part 6) - May 11, 2020
