My dear husband recieved a text message today, offering him a deer. We had to drive an hour and half to get it, but it was well worth the drive.  Loading it into the back of truck, we drove home and hung it in the garage. 

 After dinner, we skinned it, taking care not to cut the meat and leave it on the skin.  Behind cut: picture of me skinning the deer.

Because deer fat has such a high melting point, it is unpallatable. Moreover, it has a reputation for going rancid quickly, even in the freezer.  So we trimmed off as much fat as possible. One of the best parts of the deer is the backstrap, the large muscle running along the sides of the spine.   The following picture shows the cuts my husband made in order to remove the backstrap.After that, we quartered it and cut off any small pieces of meat that were clinging to the carcass.  We took them in the house, rinsed them off and bagged them for canning this week.

 Butchering and clean up took roughly two hours, though it might have gone faster, had we not needed to stop to warm our hands due to the cold weather and frozen carcass.

Just another day on the Copperwyre homestead. ) 

And for some gratuitous dog pictures, since they enjoyed the butchering, too: