Venison recipes I like.

Venison meatballs marinara.
These meatballs don't last long.
3/4 pound of ground venison
1/4 pound of ground Italian sausage
1 onion diced
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 c. Italian bread crumbs
3/4c. of Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp of Lawery's season salt
2 eggs- beaten
1/4 c. of vegetable oil (to fry meatballs)
1 qt. jar of Marinara sauce
In a bowl mix egg and all of the other ingredients except for the meat first.  Add meat, mix well.
In large skillet heat oil then add meat balls (make one at a time about 1" in diameter.)
Brown meatballs, place in aluminum 3" deep baking pan.  When done browning pour Marinara sauce over the meatballs place in oven at 350deg. for 45 min.  These are great alone as an appetizer or over noodles.  (have an extra jar of sauce if you put them on noodles)

Crossbow v. Compound Bow

Well, the way I figure it is that there is a historical progression in hunting implements.  When man got hungry enough, and got tired out by chasing and killing animals with his hands he most likely picked up a club and beat some unsuspecting animal over the head. Nice way to tenderize but a hell of a way to hunt. He then made a jabbing spear; one momentous day sitting around the fire grunting to each other some prehistoric Nimrod decided to place a sharpened rock or obsidian with a piece of gut-string onto the end of a stick, presto!  Worked well, but not well enough.   Guys tend to be guys and over the course of thousands of years you have smart guys, and dumb guys. The smart guys sit around and think of something that works, the dumb guys get mad when they do, sort of like now. Some genius came up with the idea of using a spear throwing stick to leverage distance and power, along with accuracy. Worked great for about 10,000 years of so, but it took a lot of practice, effort, and skill.  However, man wanted more and the bow was invented.  It was a simple idea with complex answers and technology, find the right type of tree limb from the right type of tree which would bend and had the resiliency to spring back without breaking, the right type of string, and the right type of arrow all trial and error. You can stick a sharp stick into an animal but you will not kill it quick and your fast food will run off and die miles from where you shot it.  Thus, the hunting arrowhead was born. It is meant to cut arteries and bleed the animal out quickly. Try this, try that. Glue, leather, laminate!  All manner of bows were made, short, middle, long. The compound bow that I have is a work of art. I think a prehistoric individual would recognize this bow and look at it in wonder, but he would know how to use it. It is a Pro-Hawk Hunting Bow, twin cams with a seventy-five pound pull. It has anti-vibration, string sights and low light front sights. It is light weight and is made from machined fiberglass. I shoot 32" carbon arrows and I can hit a pie plate at 50 yards with no problem. All it takes is practice. I can carry this bow all day and never get tired.  Now, why would I go to a crossbow?  The crossbow has numerous advantages. I can sit and wait instead of standing, this way I can use a sit down blind. Less movement when I see a deer.  I don't have to wait until a deer steps behind a tree before I draw, with a crossbow, the bow is cocked and loaded (it has a safety). I don't have to hold the weight of pull, the crossbow is doing that for me.  It has double the pull weight (165lbs). It has a scope and it is deadly accurate. The bolts (arrows) are heavier than my hunting arrows. You can practice with a new crossbow for a day and you can hunt with it the next, there is no learning curve. If I walk up on a deer I can get a shot off without all of the movement of a compound bow. Sure, one might say a compound bow is more "pure", but then one can say a spear is also.  The object is to put meat in the freezer and to do it in a way that is quick and painless for the deer.

 I harvested this deer in late October with my compound bow from the ground still hunting at 40 yards.

Area 51

Beautiful Las Vegas.  I always wanted to see area 51 and this was a perfect chance. Rachel Nevada is roughly two hours northwest of Vegas, or so I thought. The first alien thing that I came into contact with was our rental car, it was a Toyota, the first import that I had ever driven. We rented the car from the agency at the hotel, it was cheap enough, $79.00 a day with unlimited mileage. We hit the road and turned on our trusty GPS unit, a Garmin 250.  Sure enough the unit could not find the town of Rachel.  So we did what every other red blooded American would do, we stopped and ate lunch. As serendipity would have it a bread truck was making a delivery at the restaurant so I asked the driver if he knew where Rachael was. He smiled and said, "Area 51?"
I said, "yep."
He said with a smile, "It doesn't exist."
I asked, "the town?" I was sort of confused by now.
Smiling he said, "Nope, the town is there.  Not much to see."  And then he gave me directions.

So we set off, our bellies full from a good Mexican lunch we headed off into the desert.  I mean nothing, miles and miles of pure American southwest nothing. Joshuah trees dot the landscape, brown rocks, red ones, and white ones litter the ground. Mountains with snow capped peaks; breathtaking beauty.  After about 150 miles of this we hit the Extraterrestrial highway. I kid you not, that is the name of the road. It is a big sign with a UFO on it and a bunch of "I was here" graffiti. So now we were on this God-forsaken Highway with the same nothing on each side, until we seen them. There they were right on the side of the road. Cows.  Some of the biggest and blackest cows with horns I have ever seen. Out in the middle of nowhere, black cows just waiting for a UFO to come by and beam them up into space to do what ever they do with cows. We continue our quest.  A few miles down from the cows we see on our left a major, almost dare I say, religious UFO mythology artifact of the road: The Black Mailbox. Of course the black mailbox is white and behind the mailbox is the road to OZ, the road that leads to the camo dudes, the watchers, the holy grail, Area 51.   The mailbox is as I said white and it is not the "original" box just a welded steel box with a padlock. But I guess alien  hunters like to meet here to plan their assault on Area 51. 

The Black Box.

The box has graffiti and stickers and all sorts of little notes to other seekers of Area 51. We hop back into the white Toyota and continue down the road.  Rachel sits in a dish surrounded by mountains. We come up to the edge of the town and turn down the a drive/road/street type deal past a small box of a church and trailers that people call home.  A fence sits to my right with the eclectic detritus of leftover life used now as someones idea of artwork. At the end of the road we come upon a heard of antelope contently grazing. We are looking for the "Little Alien Inn" and we wonder if we are in the right place or even on the right planet. A dog follows the car along the inside of a fence but it can't make up its mind if it wants to be friendly or not. We come up to the Inn.  Yes, this is the same one you will see in the movie Paul. A row of trailers in the back, this is the Inn. We are told by the bar maid that "Legitimate Investigators" of Area 51 often stay here, including, I kid you not, CIA agents. I ask, with complete sincerity I might add, how they would know that they are CIA.  I am told with a straight face that it was a secret and they would tell me but then they would have to kill me.  Inside the walls of the bar/restaurant are covered with interesting photos of ufo's and astronauts, signed artwork and pictures of aliens. The beer is cold and taste great. Enigmatic long haired people walk in and out.  "Investigators" who ancient VW bus has broken down wait for a tow truck from 70 miles away. The only other tow truck within 70 miles is out front, by the sign, holding up a ufo. This is great; I am happy, and all is right with the world.  We stay for a while to soak up the ambiance of the place and we listen to the tough "I've seen it all" barmaid get smart with the clientele. We have a few beers, buy a few T-shirts and leave. On the way home the cows are gone. 

   

The joy of hunting.

Nothing beats the woods.  It is you, alone, in the browns and yellows of fall. I, like the season that I love to hunt, are in the fall. The fall reminds me of my life.  There is a lot to learn from the seasons of the woods.  Fall starts out nice, but soon turns brutal. The fall of the season is only short lived, lasting only three months; but on the other hand, the fall of my life is permanent never to return.  Once I move out of the fall in my life and into winter there is no going back. Spring, to me is let's say from birth to around twenty-five years of age. Summer is twenty-five to around forty. Fall, the season that I now occupy is forty to say, sixty-five. The cold of winter starts up slow and you have some nice days, but you soon know that it was just a ruse.  In the woods the agility and brashness of youth is made up by experience of years of hunting. The quiet hours that I spend in the woods with my bow are used to contemplate my existence on this planet. Sometimes I think hunting is only an excuse to enjoy the company of solitude. There is something to be said for silence. If you stand still long enough the birds, squirrels, and other animals will soon forget that you exist. The same as it is in life. You become a part of the greenery, a part of the scenery, a part of their world. Squirrels, black, red, fox, and gray will start to chatter and complain to each other. Birds with sing with abandon and woodpeckers will peck like tiny Teamsters on jackhammers. Hawks will scream and geese will honk and if you take one step it will vanish as if the sound never was in the first place. Magical.  The woods are now empty of sound after that first step. Sometimes, it is better to be still and just listen.