Thanks for the Sour Persimmons, Cousin

Thank Daffy Duck for the title this week. Lawman has always wanted to use that in a conversation. 

Anyway, this week we harvested the persimmons from our tree. Over the past years, six was the most we ever got. Just enough for a taste and to add to our Christmas jelly. This year, we got three dozen. Lawman had enough for a whole batch of jelly and still had enough left over to add to the Christmas jelly later this year.

It made twelve jars, three pints, and a jelly jar not quite full that we are using on now. 

Other goings on this week, we added dye to the ponds again. We read the reviews where people said they used the dye in the winter, and when the ponds froze with snow around them the picture was one of beauty. We enjoy beautiful things, so we went ahead and pulled the trigger.

We kid about "The Outlaw" a lot, just because he choose poorly. But this week we give all props and a shout out to him. One of the few fond memories Cupcake shares when her family comes up in conversation is her father making egg bread for breakfast. It seems it was the only thing he had a handle on in the kitchen. We searched the interwebs and found a recipe. The online recipe called for yeast, but no proofing the yeast or letting it rise before baking. Lawman called an audible, and switched up to baking powder and baking soda. We figured "The Outlaw" used self rising flour? We're just speculating.

Anywho, Lawman whipped up and batch and it met with Cupcake approval.

One night around bedtime, Augustus was making a fuss. We went in to check on what all the drama was and we saw Willow making fun of him. Usually, Augustus sleeps on his back. We could only assume she was making fun of him, and he didn't appreciate it? Our dogs are goofy sometimes.

That smile tho

The big goings on follow below, but involved the harvesting of wild game and the butchering of said game. If you snowflake at the sight of such things, or think meat should be bought humanly from Wal-Mart, please stop reading here. 

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"The Boy" drew first blood. He took to the trees and dropped the ol biggun that has been spotted around all summer long.

We all pitched in and it only took us about thirty minutes to work it up and get it in the cooler. We iced it down and let the blood soak out until Saturday. Lawman and Cupcake sliced the backstrap and tenderloin up for gravy, then ground the leg meat to burger, and packaged it in one pound packs.

Fillet like a fish

We put twenty pounds of burger and twenty five packs of backstrap/tenderloin in the freezer. The whole operation took about an hour. 

After we cut the meat off the leg bones, we cut the bones in to smaller pieces and boiled the bones to make broth.

After we got the boy's deer worked up, we went out on the porch to play with a new toy. Lawman bought a coyote call off the interwebs and we went out on the front porch to try it out. The call makes the sound of a wounded fawn deer, and we didn't really expect it to work. We had the DT's out there with us and it started getting dark, which is prime coyote calling time. Lawman gave it a couple tries, and a doe came out of the woods and stood looking toward the house. He went in the house and grabbed his bow, and came back outside to keep using the call. We called the doe up to the house, almost close enough we could have thrown a rock and killed it, but Lawman used an arrow. By this time it was dark dark, so we decided to wait until the next morning to track it down. Then we hit on the idea to let the DT's loose and see if they would track it. 

They got to the wood line and wandered around, it seemed like they had no interest in the deer at all. Cupcake noticed Augustus had stopped and was pointing. She walked up to him and he found the down deer and stopped near it. He didn't know what to do next, and we didn't know he was on a track. We have much to learn. But....we added another stack of meat to the cooler with plans to grind it up next weekend.

Liver and onions? Anyone?

We ended the week with several much deserved naps. And Halloweenies

K&K

 

BAYONETS!!

 This week we took Serendipity out for her longest run yet. We loaded up the Dudley Twins and headed for the hallowed ground of Gettysburg. Lawman has a favorite campground (Drummer Boy) and we made reservations the day after we brought Serendipity home. 

We've been gearing up for the trip all summer, we would buy a little at a time. By last weekend we had everything we needed all loaded up and ready to go. We hooked up and got underway. 

The DT's travel very well, they slept most of the way. We stopped every couple of hours to let them stretch their legs and potty. 

The trip took almost five hours, we hit quite a bit of traffic in Harper's Ferry, but it gave Cupcake a chance to snap some pics.

We arrived and set up camp. We are a well oiled machine 

Our pal JM came up and grabbed the site next to ours, so we had a friendly face next door. We tried to show him a good time.

After a couple of campfire meals, we split the battlefield up into two days. We did the Union side on day one.

Big Roundtop

"Place your colors here"

View of Devil's Den from Little Roundtop

Valley of death

Day two, the confederate side

Lee's Headquarters

Virginia's memorial

"The Angle"

Lawman's people were in the 24th Va

Peach Orchard

In between visits to the park, we enjoyed campfire cooking. We kept a pot of cowboy coffee on at all times, and did a couple of meals in the cast iron pot.

"Get this man a tent....and a cigar"

After a week of getting our camp on, we came back home to a tree full of persimmons. We're looking forward to making a batch of jelly this coming week.

We ended the week with unpacking, laundry, and naps. A bunch of naps.

K&K