Butchering Experiment

It having now been a sufficient length of time that anyone who had heard about this trip has lost any slight interest they might have once felt, and those who were involved have forgotten it ever even happened, I will now proceed to write about our trip to Virginia in December to butcher a cow belonging to Becky and Edward.

** WARNING: Before viewing blog, be advised that many of the pictures may contain bloody and/or gory images, and should not be viewed by young children, decrepit elderly folks prone to heart attacks, or squeamish wimps. Some of the subject matter may be objectionable to vegetarians or cow lovers.

DISCLAIMER: We will not, in any way, be held responsible for negative side effects incurred by any of the aforementioned personnel who disregarded the previous warning and viewed the post.

DISCLAIMER: We will also not be held accountable for any misspellings, grammatical errors, or misuse of weird words that the average citizen can't understand anyway.**

We arrived in the morning, only about 3 hours behind schedule, after driving through the night.We brought a van load of coolers, a hose, electric lights, saws and construction materials, winches and pulleys, and 4 people squished into nooks and crannies.

The first order of the day was to build a scaffold on which to hang the cow, so we could skin it and cut it up. There were quite a few willing hands, and it was accomplished quite handily in the first afternoon.

We thought it looked rather like a gallows when it was done, Mark only needed the black bag over his head and an ax, to be a very convincing hangman. When it was finished it was perfect. . .almost. While trying to make sure the meat wasn't going to hang in the dirt, we forgot to measure the height of the barn we were bringing it into. . .we were a foot too tall. No problem, we all just lifted a corner and chopped off some wood. . .
and dragged it into the shed/barn/lean-t0. I took a few pictures of the actual killing, but thought it might be in bad taste to post them. Poor Timid should be entitled to some privacy. Suffice to say he was shot with a .22 which stunned him, then had his jugular slit. His head removed, he fit on the scaffold. If Stefan thought he was asked along just for the fun of it, he was sadly mistaken. His knowledge of butchering was quickly put to the test. Good thing cows and deer are pretty similar.

*Take note of the stylish waterproof canvas aprons that kept every-one's clothes clean; courtesy of my sewing machine.* Mark and Stefan gutted it.


. . .And removed all non-edible appendages. Apparently entrails are quite warm when first removed. We did most of the work at night - when it was about 40 below*, instead of during the day when it was only -20 degrees. We actually might have been able to feel our fingers and toes then.

On the up side, with it being that cold, the smell wasn't that bad.Among the paraphernalia we brought down with us was a propane heater, which worked pretty well after we stapled black plastic over all the cracks and exits. How healthy the fumes were is still a matter of debate.

We only had a few instances of workers lighting themselves on fire.
Sandra headed up the skinning crew, though we all lent a hand; I got about 3 square inches done before someone lost patience and stole my knife from me. Then I went back to photography duty.


After the skin was gone, it started to look a lot more appetizing.
We all helped with the chopping. . .




I got to do a little cutting, but my primary occupation (after my apprentice photographer, Samuel, took over) was wrapping and marking the meat. Also, I got the privilege of getting water for rinsing the meat. Have you ever tried to repair a split hose with a grocery bag and Scotch tape? It doesn't work. Fortunately, 5 galleon buckets filled in the bathtub clean almost as well.

It only took two afternoons (and most of the nights) to finish the job. Then after a little relaxation time, we packed up, and drove off into the sunset (well actually it was closer to sunrise be the time we left, but you get the idea.)

No doubt I'll think of some very clever things I could have said about this situation after I publish this post, but my brain seems to be shorted out right now, so just imagine some very funny sayings for me.

*I am NOT a literalist.

Comparison

Grocery shopping is a lot like driving, only with better visibility, better maneuverability, and the traffic jams don't last as long.

One would also be safe to assume that there are less fatalities, I would imagine.

Millbrook Days, as far as I can remember

So, after waiting months to write this post, I really haven't anything of great import to say. All I can do is relate the most memorable points. (That, because I've forgotten everything that wasn't the most memorable. )

In the days preceding Millbrook, the thoughts consuming my mind was why the heck I, who has an inherent, irrational dislike and fear of speaking to strange people, had agreed to 2 days of public speaking to hundreds of people. Of course, my common sense kept chiming in and say it wouldn't be that bad, I'd probably enjoy it, it would be good for business,... but my un-common sense did it's best to drown that out.

And of course, once I got started, it wasn't that bad. I found the most comfortable way to get through the 'speechifying' was to erase from my mind the fact that they were people, and the easiest way to do that, was to speak to their foreheads or chins, instead of their eyes.

There aren't so many forehead designs as you might think.

By the end of the 'Days, I could have sworn I had seen some foreheads multiple times, but as they didn't appear to recognize me, I fancied I must be wrong.

There are only 2 points I clearly remember from that weekend, and neither of them are related to the monotonous torrent of rehearsed words, repeated thousands of millions of times, that I poured forth on the ears of the poor unsuspecting, uninterested victims who were so foolish as to stop by my table. They are:

1:My table was facing sideways to the afternoon sun, so after 2 days, one side of my face was roasted to perfection, while the other side was still marshmallow white. I had a few epitaphs given me by well-meaning dingle hoppers, including 'two-face', ( in the context of the Dark Knight), and the 'Phantom' of the Opera.

2. How much I aged that second day. I must have! In the morning I was accused of being Sandra (generally thought to be in her early 20's) daughter; in the evening, of being Mark's (usually assumed to be about 30) wife.

I Can't Believe. . .

I don't know how I can bear it! I have a working stove/oven for the first time in 10 months, and Mark fixed his car so I don't have to drive the air-craft carrier (van) anymore, both in the same day! Hallelujah!

Rain

Whoever first said that the world smells fresh and sweet after it rains must have been recovering from a head cold, or should have had their head examined. When it rains around here, it smells as if something died last week.

Millbrook Days Pics

This weekend was Millbrook Days, up near the Delaware Water Gap. Here are a few pictures from the first day. Maybe I'll post something about it a little later, but right now I'm too tired, my face is too burnt, and my voice is too hoarse to be able to think clearly.

Just to explain the pictures, though: Sandra was in her garden, Timothy is the apprentice blacksmith, and Virgina, Alissa and I demonstrated bookbinding in front of the garden. (Alissa also finished sewing my apron, and Virginia spent some time keeping Sandra company in the garden).

An experiance that I'll never have to go through again

Although I have been under the impression that 2 o'clock in the morning isn't a common time to write posts, I don't really have anything to do right now, and I'm not tired yet, and I can't go to bed with a steaming hot cup of tea undrunk, so I figured I'd try to get a little caught up on here.

I know this is practically dragging up ancient history, but I want to recount my drivers licence experience before it fades to shadows, hidden in the mists of memory. That way I'll be able to read this post when I'm old and senile, and tell it to my children and grandchildren until they can repeat it verbatim.

So, I spent the 2 hours before my test trying to learn how to parallel park. My only previous experience backing up had been - working the pedals while Mark steered. Periodically parents and siblings would pop out and share their wise, knowledgeable, but all equally unhelpful advise (unhelpful, that is, to someone who really has no idea what they're doing, and is about to spaz out.) Not feeling terribly confident in my ability to park within the legal limit about 1 out of every 5 times, we left late, arrived at the wrong DMV, and luckily arrived at the correct DMV a mile up the road with 2 minutes left on the clock. After going throughout the preliminary check-out: insurance, registration, brakes, seat belts, stupid little red sticker-thing for the license plate... I was then deserted by Sandra, and left on my own with a highly frightening little Spanish woman with a sweet voice behind a kind smile. (When my adrenaline is high, I frighten easily.) So first was the parallel parking. After checking all mirrors and seat belts a zillion times, and using the proper signals, and resisting the strong impulse to close my eyes and just hope for the best, I parked perfectly, first try! The instructor glanced out the window, and told me to move on, apparently oblivious to my burning desire to do a back-flip-flop (if I had known how to do one, that is). I moved on, still trying to remember all the little details I had been reminded of, checking all the mirrors every couple of seconds, glancing at the speedometer, and see that I'm going...35 in a 15!
{Great. You probably just blew it. You parked perfectly, which was just a freak chance, of course, and you'll never be able to do it again, and how do you blow it? Not by an understandable overlook, but by speeding! The most obvious thing to avoid. If you pass now, it'll be amazing. You can't get much more ridiculous then SPEEDING ON A ROAD TEST!!!! What could possible be worse? Maybe you could just crash and be done with it. Maybe you could...oh.my.goodness. Maybe you could roll through 2 STOP SIGNS while yelling at yourself for your stupidity!}

At that point I was finally able to snap out of it, and make no more mistakes, probably because I no longer really cared if I made any more mistakes, because I figured it was all over. I did manage to forget to use my blinker when I pulled over to pull my K-turn, (good thing K-turns are easy, because I had forgotten they were going to test me on it, so I had never done one before.) I finally made it back to the parking lot, fully prepared and fearing the worst, but with just enough hope left to make it a painful few minutes. She finally quit writing on her little pad... and gave a very unclamactic ending to this story.

She passed me!


(As I just took a sip of freezing cold tea, I have come to the conclusion that this post has taken me too long to write, which means I am either an extraordinarily slow typist, or write posts that are far too long to keep anyone's attention, neither of which is even a tolerably attractive thought.)