Riley's hunting successes

 Here is the nilgai from Thanksgiving morning.  The nilgain is native to Africa, but is an invasive species in south Texas.  This was taken from a wildlife refuge.  The meat is lean and similar to elk, but has more sinew.  I didn't dare to cook it up, but decided to give it a try about two weeks ago.  It makes a fine chili or stew.  The longer you cook it, the more tender it becomes.

 Here is a deer that he shot last Fall.  The season is something like 5 months long and deer can be a problem.  One major difference in the deer down here is that these are tiny.  This deer didn't yield much meat.  On one of Riley's scout campouts, he taught the boys how to cut up a deer and to properly take care of the kill.   A few days later at mutual, the boys were excited to BBQ it up.  Of course, Riley was expecting that they'd cut steaks and he brought along baked potatoes....but it wasn't long before the boys were doing fajitas and pulling out tortillas for the meat!

 He got two wild hogs in early March.  He has been hunting for these destructive, dangerous hogs several times, but finally ran into a herd.  Luckily for me, and for our freezer still loaded with nilgai, he only saved one rack of ribs.  He gave the rest of the meat to his friend who brought him on the hunt.

 In case you're wondering, there is no recipe booklet readily available for Riley's wild game cooking.  I put these ribs in the oven at 250 for 7+ hours and then turned the BBQ as hot it as it would go to sear the sauce.  Riley did the grilling.  We fed this to our missionaries, along with baked potato fries and grilled pineapple.

 This creature was spinning a web right outside our front door.  It took about 24 hours to get the web ready.  It was so cool to watch the progression.  Sadly for the spider though, it could not stay....

 Lizard season is approaching.  These little things are just inches long, but they are everywhere.

We went to "Smokin on the  Rio" a couple of weeks ago and checked out BBQ smokers.  This one was featured at the county fairgrounds tonight.  Riley really, really wants a sweet one!