Since we have our sons coming here from the west coast, we decided that we needed to give them a sampling of local fare for the Christmas feast, yes a haunch of venison sounded just the thing.
On the way to the Mennonite outpost “Grandma’s Home Style Jams” where we buy our inn gift shop jams and honey we pass an establishment that does the processing and butchering for all the deer and bear hunters in the area, and that is where we stopped to ask if they knew someone who could sell us our desired yule haunch.
We drew into the compound and were faced with two options, “Office – Drop Off” and “Office – Pick Up”. When we went inside it was evident that the processing business happens somewhere in the middle. No one was behind the counter, so Richard knocked on the inside door. Two seconds later a mountain of a man opened the door. He had fresh blood running up to his elbows and dripping down the jaunty mound of his stomach that was covered by a wax cloth apron. “We’d like to find out where we can buy some venison,” we asked. “Weeell’” he drawled. “Its illegal to buy wild deer meat, alls you can do is pay fer processin’ on a do-nated carcass.” I had visions of roadkill being hauled in by ol’ Grannie. He scratched his immense beard with a bloody finger and announced that he thought they might have such a beast for us. He returned a few minutes later with a positive somewhat unnerving smile on his face. “Yesir, we got us a do-nate, an we’ll only charge you fer half the processin’ since one of the shoulders is too messed up.” We feigned happiness at this pronouncement and after very tidily printing up our receipt he said we could pick up the meat in a few days, when they had done their work.
After our summoning call we expertly chose “Office – Pick Up” and rang the buzzer. CJ Junior (younger, smaller beard but just as huge as his dad) came to wait on us. His hands were caked with ingrained dried blood. Junior had our meat brought out from the freezer by Miz Juliet whose homemade Mennonite frock would have fitted the prize Highland bull standing outside in the snowy pasture. She gave us a sweet, broad smile and handed over the goods all marked efficiently with our name. In the middle of running the debit charge Junior’s cell phone rang. He listened to the caller then said, “Nope, I caint git down six feet, its too hard.” Another pause and then, “Nope, we gonna need a back hoe to git in, I’ll think on it Mom, an call ya back.” Without hesitaion Junior explained that his cousin had been hit by a car and killed the day before and that they were in the process of burying him. At this crushing news we made our sincere condolences to him while he completed our business. He brightly answered, “Naw, it don’t matter, ya know bad thangs happen.” We were unsure if he meant something to the effect, “plenty more cousins where he came from” or perhaps it was just that he needed to show a valiant face despite the sadness in his giant heart.
We threw the bag of venison on top of the heap of snow in our truck bed and marveled at the things we daily learn.
