Greenstorm's Journal

Today was butcher day. I'd wanted him to come roughly three months ago, to do the little boars before they got big and annoying and hormonal -- my lines get a bad taste in post-puberty uncastrated males so they aren't really edible by humans. The boars had been starting to fight, harassing the females when they tried to eat, and generally behaving like ill-mannered teenagers.

So it was a relief to have the butcher come by, because I've been way overstocked on pigs for awhile and it's been stressful and a lot of work, but. Six nearly hundred-seventy-ish pound liveweight pigs, plus a three hundred some odd pounder for me and to can as carnitas and trade for a trailer. My butcher takes them down to primals but definitely needs help hauling the intact carcasses from the pig field to the butcher site; then I haul the primals in buckets into the house and work at breakneck speed to get everything packaged enough to fit into whatever cool spaces (fridge, freezer) I have fast enough to empty the buckets to get them back down while he breaks down the next one.

I also need to transfer the gut pile into something, today it was feed bags (I've tried rubbermaid bins in the past and it's too heavy and breaks them, I've tried garbage bags and it tends to rip those too, so feed bags are the best so far) and get them loaded into the truck and, ideally, to the dump before predators come looking. If you're counting everything needs to be lifted at least twice, there's a lot of knife work, my vaccuum sealer gets a workout.

Bcause there was so, so much meat I called the head of the sled dog club and he came and got a whole bunch of the boarlets. Feed prices and gas prices are both astronomical right now so hopefully it helps some folks with lots of working dogs out. Normally he takes my extra grocery store meat, I think he was pretty happy to get this.

Then things have to be skillfully layered into the freezers since if you dump a bunch of hot meat into a cube that only chills along the outside it can take a week or two to freeze all the way. Fat needs to be rendered - Kelsey will make me doughnuts with a bunch of it, she says. Bones need to be simmered then boiled into stock. Meat needs to be demoned and chunked and packaged, since I don't have time to can it tonight. Stock will need to be canned.

I'm partway through the process now; a bunch of the dog meat is still in primals set outside to chill, I'll move it to the safety of the shipping container when the temperature has dropped a little more. The bones are piled on the stove to be washed and then boiled overnight (thank goodness for glass-topped stoves that can act as counter space) and I have a 5-gallon bucker and a pile of scraps that I should put on to simmer tonight. I can almost shower and go to bed.

A bunch of things happened today that were interpersonally challenging -- Tucker went to see a movie we wanted to see together with a friend, Josh is making some relationship decisions -- and I also felt like I was bearing a lot of weight (I guess I was literally, but also figuratively) and lonely in the midst of all this. But here's the thing. I was running flat out for about fourteen hours so far today, and now when I sit down I can set the phone down, set the computer down, and my mind is quiet. It isn't bored, it isn't stormy, it isn't dissociated, it's simply very present and peaceful.

This feeling is good, and I only really get it from heavy manual labour. I lost it when I transitioned to desk work. That's... not great. But also, I have that feeling right now. Right now! And it's good. And I know how to get it, I just need to move roughly a ton of something and jog around a bunch in a day.

Bed is going to feel really good tonight.

Hope all is as well for you.

Actually, typing that makes me realize I need to get up and water everyone pretty soon, but I wanted to capture this last little while.

Josh came up with a meat slicer he'd found for me on craigslist, which is a lovely machine and makes both bacon and charcuterie much better. We had a fun bacon taste-off, since I sent a bunch of bacon down with Kelsey the next day and my labels had not made it through the smoker.

Generally: 2.0% salt is too much without sugar, heavy applewood plus something with Ossabaw fat makes for a cheddar (?) taste, japapeno fermented stuff in bacon is The Best, and a 4ish setting is good.

Then we ground a ton of meat and salted it, and made up: andouille, merguez (sorta, it's pork), kielbasa, spicy maple breakfast, nduja, hot dog, and lap cheong (with sichuan peppercorns) and packaged that into vacuum bags. Then we ran out of time to case them last night so they're in my fridge waiting for me to handle (the hot dogs aren't emulsified yet though). They've all been fried and tasted for spices, though, and they all seem good. I wouldn't necessarily case them for myself but Josh wants some cased.

Then we loaded everyone up and sorted the ducks (keeper or to abattoir) and scooped out the geese that were going (more about that later) and collected the spare roosters. Everyone got tetrised into the truck and then the next morning at 6 we set off. Roads were good, everyone was delivered ok, and we hung around Smithers until the birds were done at 7.

Smithers is a nice little town. It has dramatic looming snowy mountains, a walkable little downtown, and some nice shops and restaurants. Due to the covid surge we stayed out of most of those, though we made it into the sausage shop (dutch peppernuts! salted black licorice! frankfurter casings! concentrated tomato paste in a tube! two walls of sausage for inspiration, though I think I'm doing pretty well in that department, and some frozen ducks and geese for me to price-check (I'm under theirs on geese and over theirs for ducklings, no one has free range ducks) and the bakery (I got a nice light sourdough rye, and was sad that so few people make sourdough dark rye; an almond danish was consumed). I picked up tire chains for the truck so I can access the pigpen and the back in winter, and I found the little fiber optic Christmas Tree I've been looking for, plus luckily stumbled on this excellent brand of bread flour that I'd run out of and didn't know could be got there (our grocery store brought it in on an emergency basis dyring covid but didn't continue to stock it).

However, it was roughly -8C/-10C and that kind of bone-chilling coastal humid, we were tired, and we were anxious about the four-hour drive back in what started as a snowfall warning (luckily cancelled before the drive back). It would have been nice to get a hotel and nap, or even sleep there, but we ran the truck a lot and sought out a very empty microbrewery for an hour until people trickled in.

The drive back was brutal, I was too tired to drive most of it so Josh did, and at one point an hour from home we stopped and napped for half an hour. Luckily that truck cab retains heat with two bodies in it. Anyhow, we got back, laid the fresh birds out (they hadn't had time to freeze) and put a fan on them-- the -18C and moving air froze them very solid overnight. Yay for natural blast chillers!

Then yesterday was sorting out folks' orders and prices, trying to mess with sausage, fixing my dryer vent (turns out the house was cold because the vent had come loose and there was a big hole in the wall leading directly outside, who knew? Does this happen to other people's houses when folks come over?), snuggling a little, and making oyster sliders with some oysters Josh brought up. Turns out (ha) the business part of farming is still pretty time-consuming what with organizing orders, spreadsheets, invoicing, and that sort of thing. It's a kind of work I enjoy periodically, though it would be no fun doing it everyday.

It was a good visit -- it's fun to do things with Josh, and as our communication evolves a lot of the frustrations of working together are gone and it really is just fun. There was a little emotional distance there, but a lot of caring and support. I really needed that; I needed someone who felt safe to hold me when I cried. An additional week would have been great but that won't happen, and I definitely am feeling that if I'm going to see him just a couple times a year I need to keep scaling back the projects I assign to "want to do this with Josh" in my mind, just as I need to scale back my physical stuff I allocate to "want to do with Tucker" after he moves.

Tucker closed on his new condo in Vancouver, though he kindasorta plans to live up here till March. But that's done, and he seems really happy in a way that I haven't seen in him for a long time. To be honest, he seems really happy for the first time since going to see his other partner last.

I know the road of being with someone who wants to not miss you, but who doesn't actually still experience joy in the relationship. Josh isn't that person and I don't have to guard against it. Tucker? He might be. We'll see.

I've had continuous company on the weekends for the last two months: mom, the As, Kelsey, and then Josh, with a weekend or two with Tucker between one or another of those. Social has been good for me, but being alone a bit will also be good for me. It'll be nice to just go do a thing without stopping to see where folks are at, and it'll be extra nice to put things somewhere and have them stay there, including: scissors, dishcloths, the kitchen markers for labeling food, doors, drink glasses, and the dryer vent.

Now nap, feeding animals, and casing hot dogs. I'm excited for the hot dogs, emulsified sausages are top of the list in terms of challenge.