Friday December 10, 2010
All I’m going to say is that I am SO GLAD that tomorrow is December 11th instead of December 4th.
Because on December 4th there were two beef cut up in our basement. I’m not going to say butchered since the men did the deadly and dirty work the Saturday prior and hung them in the cooler.
I am the girl who doesn’t like to cut up chicken in my kitchen sink. I am the girl who would happily be banished from the kitchen forever. I am married to the man who would like to raise pigs and Angus cows and chickens and create a self-sustaining farm. We are a match made in heaven, can’t you tell? 
We butchered our first batch of chickens when Liam was four weeks old. Durlin and David did the very bad work, Emily gutted them, and I cleaned. I was fine until Emily got behind and I stuck my hand in a still warm chicken. And I screamed. Give it to me very cold and very dead and I can disassociate. Warm and squishy? Not on my watch.
I was sure I’d need emotional therapy til we got done with the beef. I mean, chickens are at least little. Beef, yikes. But again, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. For one thing, the meat was very cold. And it had been hanging for a week so it wasn’t messy anymore. But let’s just say it was a good thing I had the job of making hamburger as opposed to cutting chunks of meat off the bone. I’m not going to lie. I am a sissy. Give me frogs in the lab any day over butchering. At least they don’t smell like animal.
Because I have a dreadful time finding MSG free beef broth for Liam, we kept some of the bones and I cooked my own beef broth on Tuesday. Or, I guess I should say, “we.” David put the bones in the roasters and added water. I dumped in some onions and celery and later some seasonings and in general tried very hard not to think about the smell in my kitchen. When David got home I told him I felt like I was living back in the pioneer days. Seriously. He helped me scoop some of the fat off the top and looked at me, way too dead serious, “Do you want to render this for anything?”
We both howled with laughter. I’d like to say I will never, ever butcher pork. But three years ago I’d have told you I will never, ever butcher chicken and look what happened. I don’t think I’m quite willing to take that risk.
I’ll just say I am SO GLAD tomorrow is December 11th.
Tomorrow I get to be girly and scrapbook with friends from church. Now that’s my kind of Saturday.
you sure look cute doing it. =)
@mlt10202002 –
snicker. Don’t you love my trashbag apron? 😛
I took notice to the trash bag you’re sporting and also the well organized operation you seem to be running.
Impressive!
I’m glad you get to go do the girly things tomorrow!
I would like to butcher our own stuff… in small amounts. 🙂 Dana would not. 🙂 But definately not anything warm … or with weird colored fat.
ga-ross!!! done my share of butchering and putting away meat, and i don’t mind the fact that it’s been years in the past. =)
have a GREAT saturday doing fun stuff!!
It’s good to learn. Lol, I will do it if I have to because I grew up doing it. I never ever liked to watch the killing part. Isn’t it nice to have all that put away though?
That was funny. We raise beef but usually just plunk them at the butcher shop to do the dirty work. I can only imagine the circus if we would try to cut them up ourselves.
Yech….sounds nasty! Glad you survived and have meat in the freezer now. 🙂
Now, now, it’s not that bad! ;)And every time you eat it, you get to remember with satisfaction, all that hard work and family time. I won’t gut a chicken, or anything either, but I love the ‘old-fashioned’ part of it and teaching it to our kids! Not to mention the kazoodles of money you save doing it yourself!
I have never had to help cut up beef so I will not judge. But the broth sounds so so good. We recetly bought half a beef and I asked for a bunch of bones. It was a little wierd that they sent a bunch that are too big for my roaster. I have to send them to work with Mike to cut in the saw so I can cook them. eek.
I really wat to raise some fryers next year. But the butchering… double eek.
Happy scrapping. Sounds perfect.
butchering cows, that sounds like a lot of work, but I’m sure it will be nice you have your own meat in the freezer!
Oh this makes me laugh! Lovin’ the aprons.
Good for you. 🙂 I never helped butcher much either until after I was married. I just recently learned how to render fat and was very happy with the jar of lard I got from it. But that’s probably because it’s impossible to find lard or shortening here, so I was extra grateful for it.
I am totally the same way!! But the difference is, I don’t do the butchering at all. I helped with deer a few times and said That’s enough of That! I told my family just a week or two ago that I just prefer to think that meat comes from somewhere other than an animal. I like meat, I just don’t like to think of where it comes from. For all I know, maybe it grows on trees!
@lwstutz –
Beef does save money. Steaks and roasts at 1.50 / lb is unbelievable. And at least our hamburger didn’t get washed in ammonia like it does at the factory. Chicken doesn’t save money; but I will say the homegrown tastes a hundred times better and isn’t nearly as fatty.
@appalolly –
That’s exactly right. It’s an angus tree. 😉
i have thee hardest time handling poultry in my kitchen sink. ugh. so gross.
i even felt a bit queasy just reading about your chicken gag butchering gag experience gag.
we have beef cattle and our meat is ummm. the best. 🙂
i shudder to think of what processing means for meat at say, Walmart or wherever.
course then i’ll gobble down a bag of chips or some kind of twinky with a shelf life of 15 years
so…i’m real inconsistent that way! 🙂
hope that today was way fun!
I’m with you too! I would have D-I-E DIED touching it all warm! My husband will go hunting and bring back his game and for some reason I just have trouble eating it. I don’t even have to clean it. He doesn’t even make me look at it till after it’s been cooked. The other day I actually did eat some of the turkey he shot but not before praying, “Please, Lord don’t let this kill me!” lol.
SO funny. This is a good dose of reality for me. I’m one of those people too who dreams of creating a self-sustaining farm, and growing all our own food, and raising our own animals for meat. But do you think I’ve every actually butchered? Not for a very long time, and certainly not since I have had my own family. When I was in Bangladesh, a friend and I tried to cook a meal for the families we were staying with. The chickens came to us with heads and feet still intact. By the time we got done mangling the first one, the cook looked at us, sighed, and showed us how to cut up chickens! I used to go deer hunting, but I’ve changed and become so soft-hearted toward animals that I don’t think I could do it anymore. How is that supposed to fit with me wanting to raise chickens next summer? Oh dear.
I still can’t believe you butcher!!!! The pictures aren’t showing up for me on this computer, but if they’re of the butchering I think I’m glad. I would be impressed that the meat is so healthy, but I still can’t imagine eating it having seen it live. You know me and my issues. 🙂
@down_onthefarm –
So someday David may just have to pick the farmer’s brain about how to raise the best meat …. cuz, yep, you guessed it. By next Spring he hopes to be raising the stuff himself, not just butchering it. 🙂 And yesterday was way fun!!
@myall4christ81 –
I LOVED your comment. I sat here re-reading it and just shaking with laughter again. You are funny!
@lazonya75 –
At least you own the vision. 🙂 It does help. Darina Allen from Ireland first piqued my interest in slow food international a few years ago. Then along came Liam’s allergies and well, the rest is history. And now I’m butchering chickens. Never mind that I still struggle to wash the eggs that come in from the layers we have currently. I get along best with stuffed animals.
@twofus_1 –
Don’t try another computer. 😉
This post made me laugh… I grew up doing all of the above, butchering beef, pigs, chickens, turkeys, everything! Even worked in a butcher shop for a long time. You really do get used to it, usually didn’t even think about what I was working with till I had to wrap up some squiggly liver or a cow tongue! (do you know how long those are?) 😀 — But back to you, isn’t it amazing what all we end up doing because of or for our husbands?? 🙂
Scrapbooking over Butchering – definitely! Looks like quite the operation – you go you Pioneer woman!
I would become a vegetarian. HA!