Our 1st Day.....in which Sarah learns about the wild & woolly ways of Maine.....

Before I tell you about our first full day here in Maine, I need to introduce you to Creepy Uncle Lance (and yes, we call him that to his face). If you look in the dictionary under "Mainer" you will see a picture of him. Native of the state, French-Canadian by ancestry, all-around crazy. He is married to my mother-in-law's sister and lives across the street from us. Here is a visual:

Back to the story. For some insane reason we woke up at the crack of dawn our first day here. It happened to be the first day of deer hunting season, and most of the neighborhood men were already out in their tree stands. John (Jason's dad) was out hunting with Charlie (who deserves a post of his own), Mary (his mom) was still sleeping, and we were enjoying a cup of coffee. Actually we weren't enjoying it because it was crappy boiled coffee full of grounds....but that is a story for later. Suddenly Lance busts in the door (yelling "knock-knock" as he always does) and says he needs Mary. He says he just shot 2 deer (ummm.....isn't there a limit??) and needs Mary to come out in the woods and gut them for him. Mary is not an early riser. At all. Yet she excitedly popped out of bed, threw on some flannel PJ pants and a blaze orange jacket and sped off on the 4-wheeler.

Less than an hour later, she was back. Covered in blood and triumphant. Now, since these deer came to an untimely end in a rather questionable fashion.....Lance couldn't just take them to a butcher. So they got strung up in his basement......and I asked: Lance, do you know how to butcher a deer? To which he replied, not really. I asked, What are you going to do, Google how to do it? I should have known better.....as he pointed me to a multi-page computer printout. Yes, yes he did Google it. See him in action HERE.

And so the next evening, with a wonderful fall chill in the air, we feasted on fresh venison:

No Jason, we don't eat the hooves. We're civilized. We have our deer with salad and beer:

The aroma of danger made it all the more tasty. Apparently one of the deer had a very identifying scar on it's side.....someone confirmed that a little neighborhood girl had been feeding a deer all summer in her backyard....with that same scar on his side. So thank you little girl, you fattened him up nicely. It was a wonderful welcome to Maine.