Today was rabbit hunting day. Not very successful actually.

We met at Leroy's house at 8:30AM. Strange things are happening. Jeff was there with his friend Faff when I got there (Jeff is always late) and the others, Randy and Ken and Dennis and Vic were about 15 minutes later.

It was snowing when we got out to the woods. A very gentle snow and it was quite warm. Except for trying to avoid the swampy wet area it was an extremely pleasant day and the woods were heavenly. Each branch covered with a layer of snow. Copper, Dennis's dog did get a scent and chased a bunny for quite some time. Randy saw it but was too far away for a shot. After about an hour at this spot, we gave up and moved to a pine woods quite near the bar, the Wierl Wind where we always go after the hunt for the sausage tasting contest. We hunted for about an hour there also. Leroy got a couple of shots off at one and so did Vic. Copper did a bit of chasing but it was really a rather disappointing day game wise. Jeff has some squirrels and rabbits for the wild game dinner anyway so we will have our variety of dishes.

We went to the Wierl Wind next and Jeff and I cut up NINE different venison sausages for sharing and voting on. That is probably the biggest variety that we have had at least since I have been coming. I don't know who the winner was but we had sausages from Miesfeld, Roehrborn, Hickory Hill, School Hill, Troy, and a couple of others. Actually none of them were bad this year. Some years there are some real duds. This year it was very hard to choose.

I got home at about 2:15 and Dick was sleeping. So I could have stayed a bit longer I guess.

I had put a stew in the crock pot this morning so we had that for supper. It is the easiest stew in the world. I wish I had known about it years ago when I was making those pathetic, tasteless excuses for stew that I would try.

Years ago, my friend Ernie Schonert and some of his buddies decided that they were going to get themselves a steer. One night they went to a ranch area, at the time in Southern California there were still mini ranches, huge truck farms and orchards between the cities. Now it is all practically one big city.

They went out and shot themselves a steer. At that point they realized how BIG these things are. They managed to gut this thing out in the dark. At this point the drive in theatre which was right across the street let out so they sat leaning against the truck with a big tarp over the carcass until they traffic cleared. They got the thing home and butchered. They had a big huge barbecue to use up the meat and Ernie said that the thing was darn tough.

Have a good week.

Love

Mary