Green Workshop - Natural Living. (pix galore)

No giant gold pirate rings!

nope. It's been an interesting and painful day. I found a nest of afrincanized (?) honey bees while pulling a client's irrigation pump for repairs and got stung once on the f-u finger. That one sting made my whole hand and arm swell up. Then I found a pot plant growing wild.

Ah, now I see the swollen hand. I thought it was about your dredging/gold mining operation

I tell you, I've never swollen up this bad from a bee sting before. I've been hit 8 times and not been in so much pain and swelling.
I put this in here, because pumps are just one of the things I repair to make a few bucks.
As for the mining, i haven't found where the storms last year dropped the color. I'm working my way downstream and haven't found the pile yet. I should have started downstream and worked my way up but I was anxious to clear what turned into a pretty neat hole first.

Your right hand looks normal. Your left looks like you got stung by a Cicada Killer...

The swelling nearly doubled by bedtime. Now it's gone down a bit. It was one bee that looked like any other honey bee. I've never ever swelled like that before. Maybe I'm building an allergy to them. I got stung by a yellow jacket the day before and swelled pretty badly from that but it hit me three times so I expected
an abnormal amount of swelling in that area.
In the second pic, someone upstream must have thrown some seed in the water

Man, I got nailed today.

I was standing in a driveway helping back the truck in when BAM! Without warning, or even seeing anything I got stung by a yellow jacket above my right eye. Hurt pretty bad for a minute, but I quickly forgot about it and didn't get any swelling...

First time I've been stung in a year or so, I kind of forgot what it felt like.

I've been hit a total of 9 times this last two months. The first 7 all at once in the same patch of mint on the canal bank that I pulled the pump out of yesterday.
I didn't swell anything like the yellow jacket day before yesterday or the honeybee that got me yesterday. Is it possible to develop an allergy to bee stings?
I've been stung many times before and not reacted like this.

Damn! I got nailed three more time yesterday. fuckin bees anyhow.

today, I yanked a few tobacco leaves. I got close to 6 hands worth with the first picking. It sure isn't doing as good as the Virginia Burley did last year. Not sure if it's the weather or the strain of Burley (this year its Tennessee Burley). Anyhow, everything including tobacco is at least 1 month late this season.

Well, the garden is almost done putting out veggies for this year. The pressure cooker/canner has been going none-stop for weeks now.
I got the apples and pears picked and am about to pluck the grapes. There's a years worth of food put up and even filled one of two deer tags today
so meat is going in the freezer too.

Small damn rack on this buck but it dressed out at 160 pounds:

Nice, I need to learn how to clean a deer, I'd like to get one next summer.

Nice one Wiskas!

One shot, one kill.
The nice thing about this buck, is that he's an interloper. He's migrated in and he wasn't anyone's pet in the area.
This one filled the wife's tag. I'm on the trail of a monster buck up on the ridge. The musk scent from this one will make that
bigger buck want to fight me as they are already close to starting the rut. About 1 month early this year.
I'm going to wipe some on an old rag and put it in my back pocket next time I climb the ridge looking for his ass.

Venison takes some getting used to. I don't like it but I'm not "country" either. Good score!

That one should net about 80 pounds of meat. I don't waste a thing and the smoker is getting cleaned and dusted off today .
If I can bag that monster four-point, it should net another 100 pounds of meat in the freezer. That's thirty more than I'd hoped for this season.

Venison is so routinely mistreated starting from the first few seconds after the shot. The best thing to do to insure a tasty plate of butterfly steaks is to
make the most accurate shot that'll take out the closest vertibrea just above the heart. the bone shatters and cuts all the aorta above the heart, killing the animal instantly and bleeding it thoroughly in one fell swoop. too many hunters get that animal all excited and running, thus full of hormones and adrenalin. That will spoil the flavor too. This one was totally at peace and died instantly before it even started it's drop.

That's a freebee craigslist computer I use in the workshop. I use it for parts look-ups, music and surfing while I'm
having a pipefull of tobacco in the wintertime as I haven't smoked in the house or anywhere indoors for better than ten years now.
In the workshop. I can control the humidity and temperature. The curing and drying of tobacco can tend to be tricky.
Self sufficiency was a lifestyle I decided upon when I got the opportunity to move out here. Tonight's dinner is 100%
provided for by the sweat of my brow and pain in my hands. As is most nights.
My kill, my heart..........Mmmmmmmmmmmmm



The stores have raised prices by 30% twice in the last year and a half and each time I was able to decrease my buying from them by 30+% each time. My spending at stores is at pre 1974 levels right now.

It's official, 79 pounds of meat in the freezer. One pound for the heart makes it exactly net weight of 80 pounds. Time to dust off the smoker and gather some apple wood chips. I came acrost an heirloom venison jerky recipe that was the one my dad used. In his honor, I'm going to whip up a batch.

Congrats... keep us posted on that other buck you've been stalking.

I'm starting my first batch of jerky tonight. The backstrap is all cut into butterfly steaks and I'm about to fry some up. :unibrow:
I plan on gorging on meat tonight. Still, there's going to be at least 50% veggies with it.
There's only one catch to hunting the bucks on that ridge. I not only have to watch all the thickets and clearings in front of me, but also, every tree, bush, stump and ditch for cougars. I've seen signs of at least three different cats up there. Last time I was up there i came acrost
a paw print bigger than my clenched fist. A cat that big could really put the hurt on you. It'd have to be around 6-7 feet long.

You dont marinade the deer meat to get the game taste out of it?

I have to. Deer is to "gamey" for me and I have been eating it since before I can remember.

Nope, strait up for me. I do chicken fry the best cuts though. A bit of flour coarse ground black pepper and garlic. I have also been known to marinate some stuff like ribs and sirloin in terriaki and/or BBQ sauce too. I may stuff some sausage this year even.

I've got a buddy that mixes the deer with some of the hog he raised to make some really delicious sausage.

I really don't get the complaints most people have about venison being "gamey" tasting. I've only had gamey venison a few times and that was because of the kill or the way it was treated after the kill. If they are shot on the run, they'll taste really strong because of adrenaline and panic hormones. If they aren't bled immediately and completely, they'll taste gamey, if they are gutshot or not dressed properly they can become tainted and nasty tasting. The easiest way to get a gamey flavor though, is during the skinning proccess. Any hair on the meat will result in the real gamey flavor that most people experience. It's real difficult to not get hair on the carcass because those damn hides shed like mad. Not to mention they are crawling with ticks. There must have been a thousand ticks in that game bag when I took it off to butcher that carcass.

update
2012 garden:
Thread update:



The garden is growing differently than previous years.
First off, the birds arived late this year, and bugs took out 1/3 of the green bean sprouts. good thing I planted 1/3 more than last year.
I planted tomatoes in "shifts" this year to not have a repeat of needing to plant them three times like last year due to late frosts.
I think this stradegy is paying off.
I increased the potatoes by two fold and expect a yield of 400 pounds compared to last season's 200 pounds. We have just about used up all from last year including seed spuds for this years crop.
The garden has already yielded lettuce, spinach, beets, artichokes and a mess of strawberries.
the squash, beans, peas, swiss chard and tomatoes look promising. As well as all the friut trees and grapes. fuckinay1 the grapes are loaded this year. i may have to take up wine making just to preserve the stuff. I don't drink alky-hol, but my mom does and I can give the rest away. I do have all the gear to make 25 gallons at a time.
We still have about a dozen quarts of canned veggies left from last year after gorging on them all winter. Zombie apocolyps? Bring it on!

Meat production looks primissing as well. The wife and I put in for antlerless deer tags this year and with our regular buck tags, that's a potential four deer this year, two for sure.
I was mowing the field yesterday and a doe that frequented last year with two twins, showed up this year. those two twins are now huge assed bucks and she had two more fawns with her.
Those two bucks and three other different bucks have been hanging out for the last three days. (insert unibrow here) Those damn critters are trying to eat me out of house and home
and it's turning into a full time problem just to keep them from getting into the orchard and garden.