Wednesday, November 16, 2005

disposing of the body

we butchered some of that deer yesterday. what a primal experience. i kept having flashes of some steve buchemi movie where he was trying to dispose of the body. what a gruesome task butchering is. i can see why people pay $80 to have it processed. we simply cannot to afford that luxury. anyway what is the point of hunting if most of your experience is just like buying the prepackaged product from the store? we have to butcher the white chickens this weekend. they are huge and their dinosaur ancestry is very apparent. i told tabitha that after this weekend we'll be able to open our own butcher shop.

it seems as though this web work is starting to move along. i'll probably try and do that most of the day today.

tabitha has had a bit of a tiff with one of her veggie friends. it is, of all things, over my killing a deer. that is not really a big deal--except for some reason tabitha has to test her arguing prowess on me. it was the worst day ever.

i guess there was some sort of make-up yester eve. things should be better today--hopefully.

mike and nancy closed on their new house and mike was busy painting the ceiling most of the day. their new house is great but it needs a bit of work. it has bad 70's deco and wood paneling everywhere. they will make it very cool. the old owners died and their relatives left most of the invaluable stuff there. mike and i rummaged through drawers and closets. it was weird like snooping through someone’s life. as i rummaged, i kept thinking what a great beginning scene for a teenage horror thriller--creepy stuff. i got uncomfortable after a while and had to leave.

we got over three inches of rain lately. the cold weather is finally here. our wood stove cranks this little house to sauna temperatures pretty easily. there is nothing like a wood heated house in the cold winter. it is always a little too warm but cozy because you can always step out into the blustery weather.

i also started building the laying boxes for the chickens yesterday but my hand gave out. what a fiasco this stupid infected thorn is. i have them mostly built and mounted on the coop. now i need to attach the doors and cut the little entrances from the main coop area. i guess there needs to be some sort of perch at the entry to keep non-laying interlopers from sleeping there. i'm going to make a watershed for them from some old corrugated steel. i'll post pictures later it'll make better sense to see them.

our neighbor, pam, brought some cool furniture. normally we'd decline but they have great taste and gave us some very nice stuff.

8 comments:

Danielle said...

Sorry to hear that the veggie friend is intolerant of you carnivores!!! Hopefully things will smooth between them. I'm telling you what, you are in for some long hours killing your chickens. My husband and I killed 5 one day and we don't have a whizbang or any type of plucker so it was all by hand and it was some work. We have taken to just skinning them because it is easier to just rip off the skin and feathers all atatched. My husbands hands were too big to fit into the chickens cavity to get out the guts, so I had to do it and it was all hot and slimy.

Our chickens were all purpose so they were overly huge and they were tough. So even if your birds are meat birds, I'd like to suggest that you soak them in a brine (salt, sugar and water) for a couple hours before you cook them. The best meals we had were when we pressure cooked the meat with some celery and poultry seasonsing. I'm excited to hear how it goes.

Danielle said...

I meant to say they "were not" overly huge, your birds are much bigger. Were is the edit button when you need it...

Phoebe said...

I do that to Sean too.

I hope your hand feels better soon.

Anonymous said...

so how many points was the deer? Are yougoing to get the head mounted?

BeanMama said...

I do, too -- it helps so much to vent/process with someone safe who loves and supports you. Think of it as providing a valuable service to Tabitha that will keep her from getting a brain tumor and exploding later in life. :)

Abigail said...

I don't even butcher my own chickens and I vote for brining them. Brining makes the meat stay so juicy and delicious, especially if you're going to use a dry cooking method like grilling or roasting.

My grandmother raised my father and his siblings on a chicken farm. 50 or so years later, she still laments that she can't get good "stewing hens" any more. I'll bet she has good recipes for stewing chicken if you'd like me to ask her. I think she really wants them for stock though.

Omelay said...

gimpy, our first butchered chicken, was delicious. for those who have never had them, free range, home-grown, organic chicken is really better. although we haven't bothered to become certified organic they really are...

even not-fully-to-size my hand fit inside gimpy. tabitha plucked & i gutted. my hands are XL as far as gloves go.

i'm sure that a brine soaked chicken is in our near future.

pablo, the buck was only a spike-buck which translates to a year-and-a-half to two-years old. this is allegedly lucky since the buck is very large but not old and testosterone filled. i hunted only for the meat to feed the family. no trophies necessary. the hide would have been nice to tan (not to be wasteful) but i'll have to do that next time. although, after a time i might make buttons for sweaters from the antlers.

as far as the veggie stuff goes. both tabitha and i respect and admire vegetarians and vegans, to the point that we initially aspired to raise tristan as one. but, meat (organically/sustainably raised) and animal protein were obviously necessary in his (and kassi's) diet. our choices about meat are different than most peoples. we don't eat corn fed beef. that deer was obviously free range. anyway.....

abagail,
does your mother-in-law live here in the US? if so, when we put-up some chicken stock we could send you some to share with her.

as far as arguing with tabitha. it sucks--whatever the reason. it is never obvious at the time what the true meaning is behind the issue. this time there were so many contributing factors (including many astrological phenomenon) that the true meaning was clouded and obscured until tempers had risen too far. it doesn't happen often and it never is mean-spirited so we never have a problem getting over it.

Abigail said...

My grandmother lives out here, in California. That's a sweet offer, but I think part of what she wants to do is make the stock herself, not just have it, you know? She's big into the process. :)

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