Caribou!

Our freezer was definitely getting on the empty side in the meat department. So, Michael was out at camp a few weeks ago and he came back with a caribou! Now, those of you who are hunters in the lower 48, keep in mind that we have no meat processors here, other than yours truly. We have also come to, in a way, rely on the meat that we get from here. In fact, we don't bring and hamburger or chicken up with us, we just eat whatever meat Michael brings home. (That's my man, being the provider!)
So, Michael goes out to camp and shoots the caribou... that's the fun part. Then has to huff the meat back to the boat, bring it home, unload it from the boat, and get it into our place. Then, the real work begins. For a caribou, it usually takes us about 4 hours of cutting, grinding, and packaging to process to whole thing. We have a handy meat-grinder attachment that goes onto my KitchenAid mixer, and we have our own vacuum-packer. Michael usually cuts the meat off of the caribou, and then I work on grinding and packaging. (My, how far I've come.) We end up grinding about half the meat into burger, and the rest of it becomes roasts and stew meats.

Burger on the left, meat ready to come burger on the right.

Packaging it up.

Having the time of my life... can't you tell?!

We have definitely become better at this process in the 2+ years that we've been here. Plus, the smell of raw meat doesn't really make me want to vomit anymore, which is a perk. Organic caribou, straight from the tundra to our freezer!