Workbench top progress & odds and ends

I picked up some of my deer from the butcher!

I got a call from the butcher Thursday telling me that the bulk of my deer was ready for pickup!  I stopped by the butcher on Friday afternoon and got my meat!  The bologna will take a bit longer he said.  Processing was $55 which seemed a bit high compared to what my neighbors told me, but they might get discounts and I don't know if how I had mine processed was the same as what neighbors had done.

Doesn't look like much

I had a lot of it ground up - since that's how I use it most often.

"cubed" or "canning" type - good for canning (duh) and for stews I figure!

I got a few steaks done too

Closeup of canning 

I repacked the canning meat into vacuum sealed 2 lbs packs for convience

Of course, I had to do a taste test!  Delicious!

Moonshine recipe

A friend of mine at work gave me a sample of his friends "Apple Pie Moonshine" drink.  It was so good!  I decided to make my own!  I found a recipe that got good ratings on Allrecipies "apple pie moonshine "  I had to go buy the ingredients Friday night because they were calling for bad weather overnight at the farm.   They didn't have any cloves and I only had ground cloves - so that would have to do.  I brought all the stuff to a boil and found that the cider had enough solids in it that I would have to filter through a cheesecloth anyway, so the cheesecloth caught all the clove powder as well.

Its good stuff, but it doesnt have the buttery flavor of my friends blend

Winter is here

Well, its been cold for a while - on and off, but the typical wintery "ugh" is here now.  

Workbench top progress

The weather was bad fr doing stuff outside, but it was ok to be doing stuff in the shop!  So I got around to jointing the hickory slats that I cut last weekend.  Once jointed I then thickness planed them.    I measured their thickness and marked the pieces, but I did not get a chance to do the "final" planing for glue up purposes.  When i plane for the glue-up I match the thickness of all the slats in a row and mark them so that I know to glue matched slats in the same row.  I could see that I need more slats - there is not enough to make an 11 inch wide glue-up.  I am scrounging around for more hickory.

I also got some oak slats ready for the center oak bench top glue-up.  I examined the slats and found many were infested with "powderpost beetles".  I was going to toss those slats but there were so many and I don't want to waste all of that wood!  So I thought about whether the finish for the workbench may kill the bugs.  I looked it up and there is some indication that it will!  So I am going to use the buggy oak boards anyway.  I will be sure to soak the finish into the wood good and deep to kill the bugs!.  Technically i could have done this with the buggy hickory too, however, the bugs in the hickory made much bigger holes - like .25-.5 inch in diameter, whereas the powderpost beetles only drill about 0.03125-.125 inches.  I still may have to toss some of the oak if the infestation is too bad.  I didn't get around to jointing the oak yet.  In fact i know I will need more oak slats so I might as well wait until I am on vacation and can dedicate some time to it.

Another buck?

While I was looking at the game camera collection for the week I saw some interesting things!

7!  Seven deer right there where I got my buck just 4 days earlier!  I can't discern a buck in this group but...

This one sure looks like it has antlers!  I compared it to other pictures and that is NOT a tree branch!  Also, the timing is just about right.  Bucks usually come out a bit earlier (or later - depending how you look at it).