A Hunting We Will Go

 

A huge part of our new-found ways of eating stems from the hubby's passion for hunting. He's always been pretty "into" hunting, but all it took was a green light signal from me to kick it up a notch, and he was on it.  As I began to unravel all the pieces to how our food gets from "farm" to our plate, grocery store meat did nothing but make my stomach want to run.  

I put "farm" in quotes, because you really can't call the places the majority of American meat comes from a farm.  There's no e-i-e-i-ooo's going on at any of these places.  They are more like factories, which is where the term "factory farm" came from.   Get yourself a free month of Netflix and watch "Food, Inc". I am putting off the Pantry Raid post on meat for a few more. I have to really get my brain right for that one.  So, I'm going to leave it at that for right now, and get back to a happy place.

Being that we don't have land to raise our own cows and pigs, aside from local sustainable farmers, one of the best ways to get organically raised meat is from the woods.  Some people get a little squeamish thinking about meat from the woods.  I know, because I was one of those "some people".  You see, my whole family are a bunch of city folk transplanted somehow right into the middle of redneck heaven.   I am still completely perplexed on how we ended up moving from Long Island to Inverness, FL.  Nonetheless, that's where I was raised.  Surrounded by what you could call rural folk, and still trying to cling to my NY roots.  It took until I was at least 17 to embrace my inner redneck.  Thank God, because if I hadn't, I would have never even given my husband a second glance.  'Cause let me tell you, he is what you would call southern by the grace of God.  Now, I could move back to old Inverness, and fit right in...I just think that is so funny, because I bucked it for so many years.



I will give Inverness credit for something.  I did try my first taste of hunted meat there. It had to be hilarious to lookers-on.   I don't know what I was expecting.  It was a piece of venison jerky...not dog doo!  To my surprise, I loved it and have been enjoying it ever since.


We eat 90% of our meat from my hubby's fishing and hunting excursions.  The kids have been in on the fishing for years now, and he's just been chomping at the bit to get them into the hunting scene.  So, this Christmas was a redneck Christmas, and the kids got a bb gun, bow and arrows and a double hunting stand.  Little man couldn't wait to get in the woods and set up "his" stand. 

This kid's not scared of a little hard work.

He couldn't wait to test it out.

Mommy even got in on the fun.

I think I may have even gotten talked into learning to shoot a rifle and hanging out in the stand while the kids are at school...this could be interesting :)  Look out world...I'm going to learn to hunt!

Happy Thursday!!