HIDE TANNING, RATTLESNAKES, EDIBLE FALL MUSHROOMS, AND TRENCH DIGGING.... HOMESTEAD UPDATES... because I'm behind on that🤭🤭😂

in #homestead3 years ago

DEER SEASONS IN

ANd while some may throw away the deers hides,this year I am in high gear attempting to tan the ones I have. One is done, one is mostly done, and yet another I still have to begin. It has been salted and rolled up, but that's it.

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*The finished one that now makes its place as our doormat. It replaced a couple of black ones that NEEDED to go!

RATTLESNAKES HEAD FOR THE HILLS

This time of year, the timber rattlers are headed back to their dens to sleep through winter. We made it all this year at the homestead without seeing a single one. Then on a trip to town, we saw one. He was quite a ways from our place sunbathing in the middle of the road. So I helped him off the road so he wouldn't get hit and we were on our way.

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*He was a youngin as you see he only had a few rattles on his tail. They get more as they get older.

FALL MUSHROOM SEASON

I missed the last few years of hunting mushrooms in fall, but not this year. We found a lot of puffball mushrooms(and ate the too.🤤🤤😍) Red resin polyspores and a couple that looked neat but I wasn't sure they were edible. We still haven't found any Lions mane either. I've never had that one and I really want to try it.

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*Puffball heaven! We cooked up a bunch of them. If you want to try them just find some and make sure they are PURE WHITE inside(you can't eat them once they start to make spores). If off colored at all don't eat them.

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*Here they all are, cooked up and sandwich ready. They really are delicious! Evan and I both agree they are better then morels.


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*Red resin polyspore. These I just ate raw. They we musky and sweet. Almost like a slightly rotted banana...but different.😁😁 You have to eat them young, because the older they get, the more wood like the get and are very tough..

CONCERNING FUNGI...

The internet says you have to cook all these fungi to eat them, but I eat them regularly raw(along with morals and snow fungus) and have never suffered any ill effects. But you should make your own choices after doing your own research.



UNIDENTIFIED FUNGI

The pictures below are just more mushrooms I found. I did not eat any because I'm not sure what they are.

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DIGGING A TRENCH

So I need to bury the water line coming from the spring to the house, and so I rented a trenching machine to make quick work of it...or so I thought.😁

Upon arrival, I unloaded the machine...it was pretty heavy.😁 I got it maneuvered to where I needed to dig and took a picture to commemorate the moment.

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*Look at this thing. Looks like it could dig a trench in a heartbeat right?

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*It was a nice machine but....

About 20 minutes into the job, the bar bearing blew apart and the blade locked up. So that was it for trying to dig the trench.

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*How far I got...about ten feet out of three hundred total.😂😂

No worries, I thought... obviously it just wasn't meant to be for me to dig that trench that day...must be meant to go hunting. But after no success at hunting, I realized...it must have just been a great day to watch squirrels and chipmunks act crazy in the forest because that is all I accomplished....what an amazing day!