Let's have a general winter thread.

[KurtR]

-15 last night so the coyotes were hungry. Playing with the new thermal was fun.

 

[Chris in TN]

We survived a night of rain/ice/sleet/snow.

My metric for successful camping is the time I first check to see what time it is. I rarely sleep in a tent. There’s always an armadillo or farm animal moving around. No wind to speak of last night, but I heard the cows tromping around in the ice (they do have a shelter with hay in it!) and all the neighborhood roosters, including ours, do a series of crows throughout the night. Coyotes howl.

We stayed dry and warm but my inflatable sleeping pad developed a slow leak and my hip hurt when I ‘woke up’. Clock said 5:45; better than most nights. We stayed in until 6:25 and headed in. Ice everywhere. Tree limbs drooping. Dozens of reported power outages and it’ll get worse through the day as we descend into the coldest snap of the year. There’s always last minute preparation for ice here - feed the animals, then feed them some more. Crank up the wood stove and the central heat, while we can. Bring in wood for the stove. Feed the animals. Do laundry and start a pot of chili we can finish over the wood stove.

Brrr.

 

[Yoder]

I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone. The white death started falling a few hours ago and there is no way we can survive. I know it will be at least 12 hrs before we can drive 20 min to the store.

 

[go_deep]

I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone. The white death started falling a few hours ago and there is no way we can survive. I know it will be at least 12 hrs before we can drive 20 min to the store.

And if the snow doesn't get you, the exploding trees will for sure. Good knowing you!

 

[NMNomad]

I’ve been out doing a little winter hiking. Watching some deer, waiting for sheds to start. I’ve been debating on tearing into the old Dodge’s dash to change out the ac evap and heater core. That chore isn’t getting much traction though.

That's a big job. I'd rather winter hike. LOL

 

[waspocrew]

Felt warm last night at 0* haha. Saw quite a few coyotes, but with some intermixed snow, couldn't get a solid range of them so I elected not to educate them. Did end up getting one last night (along with several jackrabbits).

 

[MuleyFever]

I've been wanting to get some targets set up. Put these together this morning and hopefully I'll get them out next weekend.

 

[Chris in TN]

Just finished one of my favorite annual winter tasks:

The wife came home from the grocery store the other night with a beef brisket. That means it’s time to grind venison.

Last night I trimmed the fat off the brisket while the kids retrieved all the frozen venison chunks to thaw. We had ~22 pounds of venison to grind - we only shot two deer this year and the shoulders and necks went to roasts. I’d trimmed the hindquarters as carefully as I could, for ‘chop steak’ and a couple packs had ended up in chili or stew already.

The brisket flat got rubbed. The point got froze for later. The fat was refrigerated. Early this morning the flat went in the smoker. We have about 30 peach trees here so there’s always a dry peach limb for smoking. I prefer it to hickory. YMMV.

Before lunch the grinder came out. I took all of the frozen hindquarter parts and all of the brisket fat (4lbs) and sliced it all into thin strips that could be fed into the grinder, and we ended up with 25 or maybe 26 pounds of raw ingredients. My goal isn’t to make hamburger, my goal is to make a reasonable approximation of what restaurants call “chop steak “. 22 pounds of venison, almost 4 pounds of fat, and we started by grinding a couple of pounds as a test batch. Those got turned into ‘chop steak hamburgers’, seasoned with nothing but salt and pepper and cooked on a cast-iron skillet with a couple of tablespoons of bacon grease. Delicious, and inspiration to get the kids through the process. After lunch, the remainder got turned into about 20 pounds of that chop steak mixture, plus maybe 4 pounds of little pieces of trim I culled along the way, the odd bits that still had silver skin on them, and those got ground at the end, just for general ground meat use. They might end up in chili or spaghetti or anything else, but they have a little too much silver skin to make chop steak.

From start to finish, it only took us two hours and 15 minutes. Everything is put up now, the grinder is clean and put away, the meat is in the freezer, and I’m looking forward to having brisket for dinner.


I didn’t get a picture of the whole batch but here’s the first bowl of venison and the dish of brisket fat:




ETA: for chop steak, I use the coarsest grinder plate I have, and I only run the meet through it once. By the time you move the meat around and get it stuffed into a bag for freezing, it’s decently well mixed, and if not, you will always be able to mix it further when you’re making patties out of it immediately before cooking them. I do not add any seasoning to the frozen meat. I have over the years came to strongly prefer to put salt or seasonings on my meat immediately before cooking, not before, for burgers.

 

[downthepipe]

57 and sunny in Boise today. Looking up toward Bogus Basin ski resort, there is literally no snow to be seen in any of the mountains. I notice I’m not getting any emails about next years Ski Season Pass Presidents’ Day sales… sad year. Hopefully things change and quick.