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Grilled Venison
Nov. 28th, 2010 04:04 pm
After work I walked out with a Carl. He said "We're having a barbecue at my house. Fresh venison."
"Grilled venison?"
He nodded. "You'll notice one of the F-150s is missing from the motor pool row."
I groaned. "One of the new ones?" Brand new, and bright red too; the perfect color for a Ford pickup truck, ever since the bright red Tonka toy Ford pickup my grandmother had for me to play with every time I visited. I wonder whatever happened to that thing? But it's OK; I have my own red toy 1950s Ford pickup on my desk. Some of the things of our childhood we never do outgrow.
Carl nodded. "Only six thousand miles on the thing. I was driving it over near Mio and a spikehorn buck ran out right in front of me. PRANG! Smashed the whole front end."
I frowned. "They try to make them look like they're milled out of a solid block of steel, but the front end's nothing but flimsy plastic. I bet it smashed the hell out of it."
"Sure did. Smashed the grill, the bumper cover, messed up the hood latch. She was leaking coolant too, so we're looking at a new radiator. It'll probably be two, three thousand dollars worth of damage-- or if it isn't, they'll be sure to charge the State that much to fix it, anyway. Honest Businessmen."
"Cheap plastic grill, but you can bet Ford will charge hundreds for that alone."
"Probably cost 'em six bucks to make."
I snorted. "More like six cents. Bob hit a deer the other day too. I heard him talking about it. But he's not going to spend any three thousand dollars to repair the damage."
Bob drives junk cars. That's wise, actually; I'd do it myself, if I had any sense. His minivan wouldn't cost three thousand dollars, and it's too rusted to stand extensive body work anyway. He said he'd picked up the shattered bits of his grill and glued them back together. The front edge of the hood was munged up, but one of those acrylic bug deflector spoilers glued on there covers most of that, and then a twist of wire will keep the hood tied down in place of the busted latch. Done.
"That's different," Carl said. "I was just driving along minding my own business. Bob was half in the bag, coming home from the bar."
"Maybe. It makes a better story if he says he was drunk, and you know how Bob is about stretching a story."
"Yeah. Almost as bad as you are."
"I represent that remark... but anyway, I don't think it matters whether you're drunk or sober, when a whitetail decides to do a kamikaze on ya."
"Yeah. My girlfriend hit one last week, too. Or it hit her. Ran out of the woods and right into the side of her car. Thousand bucks damage, and the deer didn't even stop; it just turned around and ran back into the woods."
Most of the people I know have hit deer. One person I know has hit six. Another ran into an elk- American Elk, that is, also known as wapiti, not moose, which is our equivalent of the European elk. She hit the elk, got out of there, and went back later to pick up the dead elk, because when you grill a critter around here you get to keep it. But someone else had already taken it away. Venison is an acquired taste, but elk tastes just like beef, or so THEY say. Whoever THEY are.
You think hitting a hundred-fifty pound deer's going to mess you up, try a thousand pound elk.
It's just a fact of life around here, and aside from drunkenness on snowmobiles it has to be the number one cause of accidents. There are two kinds of drivers; those who have hit a deer, and those who will some day.
I remember when I worked on a survey crew up here, many years ago now. For a few days we worked along a gravel road that provided a shortcut between two "major" paved roads, or as major as any in that area.
This particular road was only a mile long, and it wasn't even in the woods; just empty potato fields on both sides. As I was walking along that road at sunset, ending my day, I wondered what all the litter in the ditch was. Where had it come from? There wasn't even a fast food place in that county. And what was it? The shapes were kind of strange.
And then, with horror, I realized what it was. The litter was a layer of deer bones, skulls, antlers, of all the deer that had been road-killed along that mile of road. Mouldering with scraps of hide, moss growing on them. I could have walked the mile on them and never have touched the ground.
"Grilled venison?"
He nodded. "You'll notice one of the F-150s is missing from the motor pool row."
I groaned. "One of the new ones?" Brand new, and bright red too; the perfect color for a Ford pickup truck, ever since the bright red Tonka toy Ford pickup my grandmother had for me to play with every time I visited. I wonder whatever happened to that thing? But it's OK; I have my own red toy 1950s Ford pickup on my desk. Some of the things of our childhood we never do outgrow.
Carl nodded. "Only six thousand miles on the thing. I was driving it over near Mio and a spikehorn buck ran out right in front of me. PRANG! Smashed the whole front end."
I frowned. "They try to make them look like they're milled out of a solid block of steel, but the front end's nothing but flimsy plastic. I bet it smashed the hell out of it."
"Sure did. Smashed the grill, the bumper cover, messed up the hood latch. She was leaking coolant too, so we're looking at a new radiator. It'll probably be two, three thousand dollars worth of damage-- or if it isn't, they'll be sure to charge the State that much to fix it, anyway. Honest Businessmen."
"Cheap plastic grill, but you can bet Ford will charge hundreds for that alone."
"Probably cost 'em six bucks to make."
I snorted. "More like six cents. Bob hit a deer the other day too. I heard him talking about it. But he's not going to spend any three thousand dollars to repair the damage."
Bob drives junk cars. That's wise, actually; I'd do it myself, if I had any sense. His minivan wouldn't cost three thousand dollars, and it's too rusted to stand extensive body work anyway. He said he'd picked up the shattered bits of his grill and glued them back together. The front edge of the hood was munged up, but one of those acrylic bug deflector spoilers glued on there covers most of that, and then a twist of wire will keep the hood tied down in place of the busted latch. Done.
"That's different," Carl said. "I was just driving along minding my own business. Bob was half in the bag, coming home from the bar."
"Maybe. It makes a better story if he says he was drunk, and you know how Bob is about stretching a story."
"Yeah. Almost as bad as you are."
"I represent that remark... but anyway, I don't think it matters whether you're drunk or sober, when a whitetail decides to do a kamikaze on ya."
"Yeah. My girlfriend hit one last week, too. Or it hit her. Ran out of the woods and right into the side of her car. Thousand bucks damage, and the deer didn't even stop; it just turned around and ran back into the woods."
Most of the people I know have hit deer. One person I know has hit six. Another ran into an elk- American Elk, that is, also known as wapiti, not moose, which is our equivalent of the European elk. She hit the elk, got out of there, and went back later to pick up the dead elk, because when you grill a critter around here you get to keep it. But someone else had already taken it away. Venison is an acquired taste, but elk tastes just like beef, or so THEY say. Whoever THEY are.
You think hitting a hundred-fifty pound deer's going to mess you up, try a thousand pound elk.
It's just a fact of life around here, and aside from drunkenness on snowmobiles it has to be the number one cause of accidents. There are two kinds of drivers; those who have hit a deer, and those who will some day.
I remember when I worked on a survey crew up here, many years ago now. For a few days we worked along a gravel road that provided a shortcut between two "major" paved roads, or as major as any in that area.
This particular road was only a mile long, and it wasn't even in the woods; just empty potato fields on both sides. As I was walking along that road at sunset, ending my day, I wondered what all the litter in the ditch was. Where had it come from? There wasn't even a fast food place in that county. And what was it? The shapes were kind of strange.
And then, with horror, I realized what it was. The litter was a layer of deer bones, skulls, antlers, of all the deer that had been road-killed along that mile of road. Mouldering with scraps of hide, moss growing on them. I could have walked the mile on them and never have touched the ground.
