Dirty Dan Dawkins

We have whitetail deer. Not sure if hind or roe are much different. And sizes of roast will vary in cooking time. We process our own, so don’t grind as much as a processor would and don’t have a cuber, yet ( my whole life never needed one, but now the wife does). We age our meat. I won’t go into that too much , but everyone asks us what we do different to make our venison taste so much better than theirs. The only difference we find is we do our own processing and let the deer hang 1-2 weeks. 2 on a rutty buck. A yearling- 2-3 days is all you need. As a kid, my dad built a cooler and they’d hang for weeks. Primo meat! People want to argue with me over this aging point all the time. We have experience with hundreds of deer (I’d say 400 or more). I doubt the Meat Eater (Steve Rinella-which always gets brought up by naysayers. I like his show by the way ) can say that. We do what we do. There is no wrong other than don’t taint the meat with bile and don’t fail to gut and cool promptly. But remember venison is lean. Cooking to temp or til meat falls apart is our two primary methods. Vegetables and seasoning is your choice. Neck roasts, typically, depending on size, 6 hours in crock pot on medium heat or 8 on low. We either do bone-in but sometimes debone. Bone in takes longer. Comes out great. Cooked any less, it typically won’t be tender and the gristly parts won’t render out. Meat will fall apart when done. If you’re slicing, it’s not done and unrendered gristle affects flavor. Exponentially better than grinding it up if you have the patience and can cook a few to get the hang of it. Shanks- all day on low in crock pot. Good stuff, but if not left in long enough, gristle won’t render. Will fall apart when done. If your slicing, not dine. Unrendered gristle will affect flavor. Meat will slide clean off bone. Far better treat than ground. Shoulders- we generally take the roast portions off the shoulder and turn to stew meat. Grind the trimmings. Sirloin- steaks grilled. There are three primary sizable roasts in the hind quarter. Top round, bottom round, sirloin tip. You will hear different names depending on butcher. All can be roasted or cut into steaks. Cook each as such, remember it’s lean so cook to internal temperature you prefer. Eye of round is a fourth cut, but generally small, so we cook like back straps. The tri-tip is really small on deer, as such we grind. There’s also a rump portion, it’s generally small. We make it into steaks. Or, just cook whole hind quarter (or whole shoulder for that matter) in oven 350-375. In roasting pan covered in foil and onions. 16-20 oz water on large hind quarter. Baste occasionally. When meat slides of the bone, it’s pretty well done and everything that needs to render has. Add water as needed. Will take most of the day to render gristle. Save drippings for gravy. Smoking a shoulder or hind quarter whole is an excellent option, best on younger deer with smaller quarters. Back strap, we cook medium rare in skillet. Sometimes bacon wrapped. Sometimes not. Season to your taste. Sear in butter. Wrap in bacon if you like at this point. Finish in oven in same skillet. I think my wife does 400 til internally medium rare at thickest part. Tenderloin- salt pepper butter skillet Cook to preferred temp. There is also a very tiny tenderloin under the spine between the shoulders. This is very good, but most people fail to get it out. Im not a liver eater, nor kidney, but do like sliced heart cooked in salt pepper and butter.

Migrants my ass. What are they ducks?

Well, not all diesels have glow plugs. Some don’t even have block or intake heaters. I had an old CAT engine without anything. I never had an International with glow plugs, just block heaters and the Internationals would fire right up down to about 10-15 degrees, no problem, even with the block heater unplugged. I think that block heaters may have as much to do with oil flow as it does starting temperature. Not a mechanic so can’t say. But we only get a few days a year of sub freezing cold here in Georgia. So, that old CAT 3208 didn’t have glow plugs or block heater nor an intake heater. I’d have to stick a jet heater under the engine for 15-20 minutes if I absolutely needed it. That truck is long gone. I’ve got a crane I’m about to sell with a CAT 3126 in it. Real cold natured. It has a block heater and intake heater. It’s not cranking below freezing unless plugged in all night- even after the overhaul. If it wasn’t plugged in, and it won’t start, the jet heater comes out. My understanding is the intake heater is not for starting, per se. It will start without it, but I believe it’s a CAT thing to get the intake air temperature up pre start up whether the engine is cold or warm. But I don’t know. Hot or cold, it cycles on and off the same amount of time. I had an old GMC diesel from 96, If it got below 40 degrees it did not want to crank. Decent running engine. Not much power, but aside from fuel system o-rings, seals and electrical ran great once all that was resolved. But if it was cold, jet heater came out. Back to ether, you see the recurring jet heater theme- I don’t use ether as a crutch if it’s simply a matter of being cold and not wanting to start. Diesels are meant to run on diesel, not ether. However, I do keep it around to troubleshoot or get an engine to FIRE OFF ( and only that!), that may have lost it’s fuel prime. If it’s a cold issue, I use a jet heater, if I forgot to plug the block heater in. NOT ETHER. In the event I surmise that I have lost fuel prime (o-ring or fuel line seal failure somewhere letting air in the fuel system), more often than not it’s on a sub-freezing day where the contraction is most great. Quick shot of ether in air filter, truck fires off, keeps running once diesel reprimes and away I go. I know I have a small problem in a seal or oring somewhere. And it may be difficult to find. And likely will go away with warm temperatures. Ether will get the vehicle started if the fuel system only has a little air in the fuel lines and everything will generally reprime immediately . In an extreme case, ether will fire it off but engine won’t run on its own, and you end up bleeding the fuel lines and injectors individually- while looking for the seal or oring that failed. Older trucks with aged HUEI/HPOP systems seem to be the worst as there are a multitude of o-rings seals, etc that can fail. These can be time consuming to find and resolve. God bless the old mechanical diesels. Im not a diesel mechanic, so my knowledge and experience is limited. I’m not taking too many chances with ether on an expensive engine.

I lost two 270 Winchester rounds due to brush snagging the bolt , plus trash in the action, out in Colorado in October. Ill probably get a Kimber hunter or Ruger M77 for future elk hunts, in 30-06. For stand hunting around here I generally grab the 30-30, 375 or one of the multiple 270’s. My 30-06 is a 670A which is a push feed model 70 action with three position safety. It’s as good a shooter as anything we have , aside from my wife’s savage.

Only truly bad candidate I ever recall the Georgia Republicans putting up for a Senate race. Ignorance and too much baggage. Although, Kelly Loeffler should have never had that office when there was Doug Collins. The leaders that be figured his race would somehow help. Gimmicks generally don’t work out for Republicans, and I’m not talking Trump. The establishment did not want him, so he is his own gimmick. And I figured thought Walker would be good populist candidate since they’d equate a good candidate with football and a homespun rags to riches tale. They tried to link him to Donald Trump but he has little to real business acumen, doesn’t lie or exaggerate in the same way, he didn’t hurl insults liberally, or fall to pieces over every little thing said about him. So that brash approach wasn’t there for those looking for a circus to ensue. I won’t say Walker is unintelligent, but his intellect and ability to express himself wasn’t even in the ball park of his opponent. So, we just pinched our noses, voted for and expected the worst, knowing if he won, he probably didn’t have the capacity to do much more than follow directions.

My biggest ding on the Patriot (and many other rifles) is the bolts don't have a safety, like a three position Winchester, that locks the bolt closed. This is a problem for me, particularly walking through brush. Though fine for stand hunting, Ruger Americans are the absolute worst for bolt coming open unknowingly, but my Savage has done it too. Not yet with our lone Patriot, but it's a youth model, and kids aren't tromping around with it . Never an issue with a model 70 action.

You should visit now. It has exploded far beyond what I’ve ever seen. Not in the 80’s 90’s or early 2000’s. The 2010’s were a glut as there was a housing and commercial real estate surplus from foreclosures and bank failures. What we see now is hard to comprehend the scale and enormity of construction. Particularly those counties outside of 285, what you cant see from the interstate. The farms are being bought up and being filled with townhouses apartments and single family homes as fast as they can build them . It’s sickening. The storage companies put something up every mile or two in Gwinnett County. Barrow county is just plain sad to see as Gwinnett spills over.

It’s a 1911. That alone is enough to bring it up anywhere….

It’s not hard to change those grips to make it more presentable. .

If the steel they use on their own stuff is of the same quality they dump on American markets, there’s a little less to worry about.

That describes suburban Atlanta, and the Sunbelt states in general.

I’ve experienced axle seal failure with bearing buddies. And even blew out a seal on after installing new bearings and the buddy bearing. The concept is good but there’s nothing exact about it. If you have hard packed dried up grease, particularly on the spindle, it’ll block the grease so once a year a good clean out is imperative. I think this is worse on trailers that just sit and not get used, hub assemblies absorbing the cold on what really is a small mass of grease. The dexter design looks decent enough but any of these setups are prone to fail if not greased at regular intervals.

Henry Kissinger, go figure….

I really wonder what chance any navy has against our sub fleet

360 Buckhamr is better, to me But so is the 375…..

I welcome Remington to Georgia, but it’s a sad day for American history and heritage.

Lagrange ain’t the prettiest but Troup County is pretty with mighty fine hunting.

I’ve never watched the Titanic movie from the 90’s til this evening. Now, I know it just a movie, but I don’t think a legit recovery team would take a grinder and chain to that safe on the deck of the ship. Nor do I think they’d reach in raking all the”artifacts” out without any concern to their integrity. Highly undisciplined and unprofessional. And, not to be petty, and I know 70-80 years had passed, but Rose sure did let herself go.

That was sweet.

The function of government is to take money then dispense as seen fit; read as politically advantageous to elected officials. This group is simply trying to tap into that.

I need something a bit bigger. These are pricey but really opened my mind to possibilities https://intech.com/rv/models/flyer/discover/

And you can use it for other purposes

“Independence” was a step backwards for many of these “countries.” They operate their self-direction through despotism.

Heck, I think I’ll just build out a utility trailer……

Who decided to standardize this for public speakers and social media presentations? Once I started seeing virtually everyone do it, it became an annoyance.