Jess I just found out you guys have legal retail sales of raw dairy in Idaho, I almost rerouted my trip slightly to swing in to that state for some provisions on the way out to cali, but dairy is usually so expensive I don't think I will bother.
Anyway, we are wrapping up the farm here for the month and a half I will be gone to cali for work, I sold out cows yesterday
, and though I'm sad to see them go I know they will love the farm they're going to which is an all grassfed, raw milk farm with way better resources than we have here. (just found out I have less than 3 acres to graze on due to a forestry management program that was put in place a long time ago, and I was already struggling to keep enough green grass under our brown swiss, fuck that!)
So, with wrapping up the farm came a butchering day, which equaled 5 geese and about 6 chickens. Then today I have to do the ducks, another
, .
Even though I don't like to kill, it was ceremonious (not solemn, but grateful) and each death was accomplished quickly and cleanly. I felt spoiled though because I was able to gorge on all the organ meats I wanted as we cleaned these animals out, imagine big bright yellow gobs of free range, grain-free fat, hearts, livers, and organs I couldn't even identify but were delicious none the less. In some of the hens, the developing eggs were attached to their spinal cords, apparently and it looked like caviar, the eggs were in different states of development, some were just yolks with no whites and no shells, others had shells but very thin, I ate them fresh and it was one of the most decadent things I've ever had, a true delicacy and so grateful to the animals for this nourishment!
My uncle and a friend from the philippines came down for the day, I'll post pics of it some day here, took us the better part of the day because my philippino friend was teaching my uncle how to do this stuff since he's never gutted or plucked before.
That friend had never done geese though and they wanted to pluck the birds (I don't ever pluck, I skin only because it's faster and I have animals who will eat the skin so it doesn't go to waste) , But I processed two of them, and to give you an idea of how much longer it takes to pluck, even with scalding, I had skinned and gutted two geese before each of them had fully plucked one, and I've never butchered geese either. The meat from the geese is wonderful, very irony though and reminded me of the Mourning Dove I ate a week or two ago. These birds were born this spring, so not very old, but about as big as the adults and they were so tender, compared with the chickens (layers) who were tough as nails! lol
Thank you for birds!