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The butcher came yesterday. He slaughtered five pigs, one of which was a foundation herd sow Rapunzel, another of which was Friendly, and then three littler ones. When he came originally a couple months ago the pigs were mostly smaller; I hadn't considered that the delay in finishing the job would result in a lot more meat.
Well, it did.
I was running flat out from 6am until 8 or so. Meat comes off the body hot and you can't dump a lot of it right into a freezer that way: it will bring down the temperature of the freezer fast, and it is also super insulative so where it lies against itself it won't cool down. The temperature of the meat needs to be brought down pretty quick after slaughter, though. Long story short, I was slamming a lot of meat through the vacuum sealer -- both vacuum sealers, since my good chamber sealer is too small to take the primals -- and dumping them in the bathtub. First I ran cold well water through them several times to dump a bunch of heat, then Josh arrived and we tossed a ton of ice on it.
Tomorrow (I guess today, I woke up to write this and add ice to the bathtub and will be going back to bed shortly) the goal is to get the stuff in the bathtub cut down further -- basically take out bones and go from primals or subprimals to actual cuts. Once it's in actual cuts it can go into the freezer slowly, a layer at a time so it freezes. Then the primals loosely set into the freezer and wrapped in garbage bags (from the point in the butcher when I didn't have time to cut everything down small enough for even the larger vacuum sealer) can come into coolers, thaw, and be processed.
During this whole time the house smells like a ramen restaurant: lard will be rendering in crock pots, bones will be cooking down into stock.
I traded some layer ducks for part of the butcher fee, and I'm trading some meat away for some laying chickens. It was a solid day. It was really nice to have Josh show up a couple hours after the butcher left and help-- my side was acting up, and the moral/decision support is always huge. There were no big emergencies that has to be handled, it was just a lot of plugging away at the work. I really appreciated that.
The weather has shifted to a gentle rain that was due yesterday. It didn't materialize during the slaughter, which is excellent, and it also is now keeping it nice and cool out so that when the stove and crock pots are running I'll be grateful for their heat.
( The Daily Breakup )
And the time with Josh is already fun. You can make him eggs hollandaise in the morning and talk through butchery strategies. Good call on keeping the Danforth butchery book out of boxes when the chimney got packed up. Also there's some tomato trial-testing, some apple leather making (thanks yarrowkat!), maybe some box flattening, some experimental cooking (dan dan noodles and mapo tofu at least), maybe moving the birdsheds, likely harvesting grain and spreading it to dry, likely pickling.
These things are my world and I like sharing them. I like the dynamic where I know not to expect from him so I can relax into the joy instead of having to protect myself.
Well, it did.
I was running flat out from 6am until 8 or so. Meat comes off the body hot and you can't dump a lot of it right into a freezer that way: it will bring down the temperature of the freezer fast, and it is also super insulative so where it lies against itself it won't cool down. The temperature of the meat needs to be brought down pretty quick after slaughter, though. Long story short, I was slamming a lot of meat through the vacuum sealer -- both vacuum sealers, since my good chamber sealer is too small to take the primals -- and dumping them in the bathtub. First I ran cold well water through them several times to dump a bunch of heat, then Josh arrived and we tossed a ton of ice on it.
Tomorrow (I guess today, I woke up to write this and add ice to the bathtub and will be going back to bed shortly) the goal is to get the stuff in the bathtub cut down further -- basically take out bones and go from primals or subprimals to actual cuts. Once it's in actual cuts it can go into the freezer slowly, a layer at a time so it freezes. Then the primals loosely set into the freezer and wrapped in garbage bags (from the point in the butcher when I didn't have time to cut everything down small enough for even the larger vacuum sealer) can come into coolers, thaw, and be processed.
During this whole time the house smells like a ramen restaurant: lard will be rendering in crock pots, bones will be cooking down into stock.
I traded some layer ducks for part of the butcher fee, and I'm trading some meat away for some laying chickens. It was a solid day. It was really nice to have Josh show up a couple hours after the butcher left and help-- my side was acting up, and the moral/decision support is always huge. There were no big emergencies that has to be handled, it was just a lot of plugging away at the work. I really appreciated that.
The weather has shifted to a gentle rain that was due yesterday. It didn't materialize during the slaughter, which is excellent, and it also is now keeping it nice and cool out so that when the stove and crock pots are running I'll be grateful for their heat.
( The Daily Breakup )
And the time with Josh is already fun. You can make him eggs hollandaise in the morning and talk through butchery strategies. Good call on keeping the Danforth butchery book out of boxes when the chimney got packed up. Also there's some tomato trial-testing, some apple leather making (thanks yarrowkat!), maybe some box flattening, some experimental cooking (dan dan noodles and mapo tofu at least), maybe moving the birdsheds, likely harvesting grain and spreading it to dry, likely pickling.
These things are my world and I like sharing them. I like the dynamic where I know not to expect from him so I can relax into the joy instead of having to protect myself.
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