Home at last!

After 2 weeks of cooking at the hunting lodge for deer hunters I am back home to the organized chaos here at home. I did enjoy cooking for the guys and they seemed to enjoy the homemade meals as well. But we didn't have hunters scheduled for the last weekend of the hunting season so I decided to head on home. I left my aunts on Wednesday morning and intended to stop off and see my friend Rosie and her family. I called several times and didn't get an answer so I had to assume they maybe were away for the day. So I will go back sometime in December and visit with them for a day or so. I made it to my house about 5:30 last evening. I was worn out from driving 350 miles straight. Long trips are really hard on my body with all this arthritis. It is nice to be home. I vaguely remember laying down in bed last night till I was out like a light.
We had Thanksgiving dinner with Rodgers family today. I took homemade rolls to dinner. I talked to Rob yesterday and he and Amoy were cooking a turkey today too. This evening he said it was great, the first one they had cooked at their house on their own. Sure would have been nice to have them here with us for the holiday. Miss my kids a bunch.
When I got home Rodger and Jason had already processed the deer they had and all the meat was in the freezer. So I didn't have to do that when I got here. Next weekend we are killing hogs and some of that meat goes in the freezer. Then I think in mid December we get half a beef for the freezer. So we should be pretty well set for meat for the year. When I was at deer camp a fellow from North Carolina gave me a nice big deer. He just wanted the horns and not the meat and gave it to me. I am salt curing the hams or hind quarters off the deer. It should end up very much like country ham. I just mixed equal parts Kosher salt and brown sugar and lots of black pepper, cayenne pepper and rubbed it liberally into the deer meat while it still had some body heat left. It looks like it is curing well. So will let you know how it tastes. I sliced the back strap and froze that for steaks for us.
Rodger is hoping to get our corn picked this weekend. He was planning on doing that last weekend but we got tons of rain here. But it should be dry enough by Saturday to get it in. I am hoping. Then after the hog killing next weekend I can hibernate for the winter.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella