Day 50-55: Life is good!

Not a whole lot out of the ordinary has happened over the last five days!

We switched from 13 CSA members to 20 so now we have bigger harvests and longer Saturdays which is when we bag everything into nice packages for them to pick up at Sunday market.

Some clouds rolled in on the morning of 10/24 which marked the end of the record highs for the month of October and started us more towards fall weather. But it still was in the lower 90's for a couple days.

Stubbs has lost his sleep over privileges because a few nights back he mistook my duffle bag for a litter box and left me an abnormally large "present" for a cat his size. It stank something awful and we couldn't find it for about 5 hours. All we knew was that He had either throw up or pooped somewhere in our room. Eventually the smell got strong enough that I was able to follow it with my nose back to it's source, which was my bag.

I disced six fields with the tractor, which is just a step of breaking up the earth before we plant winter forage crops for the cattle. The discing took two full days of bumping a long on the tractor in 4 hour segments. I have grown to like it a lot though! :) maybe I'll start a business where I allow people to drive a tractor for 4 hours straight and then pay me, I'll call it "tractor therapy" or something like that!

Yesterday was kind of a big day, we butchered two goats for some friends of Jim and Tina. It was my first experience with killing and skinning and butchering up the meat into certain cuts. Although Sundog was the one who pulled the trigger on both goats it was pretty intense to be three feet from the goat when it was shot. Because then I hoisted it up by a rope flung over a rafter so it was hanging up side down and then we cut it's throat to bleed it dry. The first introduction to killing was rough because the first goat took three bullets to the head before it died and it was making a racket and bleeding everywhere the whole while that it had the first two bullets in its head. It was kinda hard to watch, but the second goat died immediately and it just felt like a much cleaner kill.

So Sundog showed me how to gut it, skin it and then cut all the meat off the body into usable portions. It was pretty straight forward and it is something I have wanted to learn how to do for a while so I was happy to have the information in my head. He also showed me a "sure fire way to get the ladies" as he took one of the lungs after we had eviscerated the goat and blew into it from the esophagus end causing it to inflate the lungs. It was pretty funny.

After we finished the first goat he killed the second one but I did everything else, it was fairly easy once I had the proper instruction. It made me think of the time in college when I tried skinning a road kill deer that I found, just for practice not really intending to use the hide or any meat. I ended up giving up after 2 hours because I had no idea what I really should be doing and it smelled awful. It was a much more pleasant experience with a proper mentor and a fresh animal.

Sundog put both hides into a freezer bag and stuck them in the freezer so hopefully he will show me how to tan the hides at some point in the future!

All in all despite the first goat killing where it took three bullets, the whole experience was really interesting and I am really glad that I have some more practical knowledge. It may sound morbid or grotesque to some of my readers but I think that it is far from morbid or grotesque. It may be an unfortunate reminder to all of us meat eaters out there that for us to live, other living breathing creatures must die but I think that rather then swearing off meat or anything like that I will probably continue to eat meat, but I definitely have a better mind set about it and be as grateful to the animal that I am eating even if I was not the one to kill it and butcher it. I think the Native Americans were pretty spot on with the way they would say thanks and prayers for animal as they hunted and killed it, as well as while they were eating it.

It is Thursday morning and I am on my "day off" but in an hour I will be heading to another couples house where I will be doing some work and raising some money for Thailand adventures!


If you are curious about the finer details of the goat butcher, or anything, feel free to email me or leave a comment with questions!