Deer Burger and Jerky

The other day, as you who read the last post know, I made deer burger and jerky. Originally I had thought to keep the deer leg whole but I just don't have enough room in the freezer. My brother posted a Youtube video on facebook about adding bacon to your ground deer meat to make burger and I have plenty of bacon so decided to do it that way.
I got all the white skin off of it and it ground up really nice and easily. Every now and then I would throw in a hunk of bacon and keep grinding (the bacon had not been sliced yet and I used the fattier ends).
I ended up with 6 very generous pounds of deer burger. I also had a backstrap which I cut in half. The deer meat is all the darker meat on top of the freezer.

The rest I prepared as jerky. I have several jerky kits (Eastman Outdoors) that I bought last year after deer season when they went on sale, plus I had regular jerky mix that came with my jerky maker. One of the jerky kits was for 3 lbs, that was the BBQ one the other pound or so I did with the regular jerky kits from the jerky maker.

These are some of the BBQ jerky before it was dried.

I had to drag out the old brown dehydrator for the regular jerky. These were made before they came with fans so it takes a lot longer to dehydrate anything.

This isn't even all of it. The two darker pieces on top were the only two pieces of the regular jerky that were done when I took this picture. They are all done now though. I have some in a canister and the rest in a Ziplock in the refrigerator.

So this was a few days ago. I love being home! But you all know how fast the days go when you are home. I am trying to get things done that haven't been done for far too long. Went through the bedroom and collected a Salvation Army bag full of junk. Got the shades off the lights and scrubbed them clean, etc. etc. Today I got to town to do a little shopping though we didn't eat much since most of last week was ham eating week. I did however get a deal on a box of smoker chips. They had a box that had 4 different big bags of wood chips- cherry, apple, mesquite and hickory plus it had a DVD and a metal wood chip holder for $9. Can't wait to try the cherry and apple wood!
When I got home I finally got another batch of wine going. This will be more of the Welch's grape wine only this will be a 3 gallon batch.
So that is all that has been going on this week. I am still practicing the violin every day...some day... a few years from now...I'll be good at it :)

A Violin

Today was all about deer meat here but since I mentioned the violin on facebook, I will save the deer meat post for tomorrow. I should have some finished jerky to photograph but then anyway.

When I was a child in 4th grade, for one year, I took violin lessons in school. Our school had their own violins and trumpets so my brother and I were able to play without having to buy an instrument (he played trumpet).  I can't say that I was all that good at it. I never did understand how to read notes. Our teacher must have explained it to us but all I remember is that she took us step by step through the first selection that we were to play. She told us the string and how many fingers and apparently we were supposed to just know the notes after that. I never did.
However, all these years I have wanted to play the violin again. To see one, anywhere, made me long for it but I never could afford one...until now. Not because I have so much money now but because there are cheap violins on eBay now and that is what I got as an early Christmas gift.
It actually came in on my birthday Dec. 8th but I didn't get the tuner until several days afterwards and then I broke the fine tuner on the E string the first time I tried to tune it because they are just plain made cheaply. So Phil took it in to a music store in Augusta with him and they replace the tuners with nice metal ones.

I remember very little about how to play the violin. I know how to hold the bow and the violin properly but other than that I don't know a thing. I bought several books to help me get started. I practice every day and I love it. Oh, I'm terrible right now but I am slowly getting better and best of all I understand how to read the notes now.
For Christmas Phil gave me a nice stand and a very nice binder to hold the sheets of music. I don't know as I'll ever get really good at it but I truly enjoy it anyway.

Ham

I just wanted to show off our Christmas ham. I wish I could send out samples so you all could taste how perfect it was. Normally my hams are a little dry but this one was wonderful.

It cured for about 3 weeks and was in the smoker on 250 for about 6 hours. It was a pretty big ham and we were pleased that it was done so quickly. The rest of the meal was great too though we cooked way too much as usual.
Hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we had!