If you have to buy your meat at the store....

I recently found the show Mountain Men on tv. I think it is on the History Channel or maybe Nat Geo. Anyways, one of the men said something that has had me thinking. He said ( and don't quote me) but something to the effect of " When you have to start buying your meat from the store, it's the beginning of the end"..... WOW.

This particular episode had the man above that lives in Alaska and he was taking his wife and young daughter on a caribou hunt. They needed meat. Their freezer needed meat to sustain them for the winter. So they hunt. Such a simple complex, yet it seems to be so foreign to so many people now a days.

If you follow my blog you know that our family only eats deer meat and fish that we catch.(We enjoy a wild turkey, pheasant, ducks, geese, rabbit and squirrel also, but those are special treats).   Also on rare occasions we eat seafood when we are fortunate enough to get some fresh from the coast. That was the case this week. We had the great opportunity to share the wonderful experience of oyster tonging, crabbing and some sea fishing with our daughters. They are used to fishing in lakes, but they have never harvested oysters or crabs fresh from the gulf.

Here is a picture of my oldest daughter pulling in a crab trap. You pull it in with a big hook.

Then you empty your yummy crabs from the trap, re bait and throw it back in. You can't see the crabs too well from this picture, but between about 6 traps we had an abundance of crabs for dinner.

Next were the oysters. If you have never seen anyone tong for oysters before it is pretty great. They use what look like post hole diggers with rakes on the end, and basically scoop them up.

You just dump them out and then go through them and kind of cull them. You don't want all the extra materials, only the good oysters .

The shells of the oysters can be sharp so it's important to wear gloves. You can sea the girls helping here which is kind of adorable in my opinion.

Next was fishing. Basically the same as fresh water fishing, just different types of fish. This was a kind of saltwater catfish we caught. We got 6 of these puppies on the day we were out.

We had a feast of crab, oysters and fried catfish for dinner and had plenty to share with our family.

I really want to encourage everyone to think of ways to harvest some of their own meat sources.

Of course not everyone can have herds of cattle, nor does everyone want that. I can't tell you the last time we had beef and we are okay. Not everyone can raise chickens to eat, and again even though we have chickens we don't eat them. But hunting and fishing is something that most can do. America has an abundance of these harvestables and to our family it is a real blessing. Hunting and fishing done humanly, respectfully and lawfully is one of the greatest lessons in sustainability we can leave our children .

What all do you hunt for your family??

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