All kinds of stuff

Ok ... tons has happened since the trial, but I haven't had time to sit and blog it all. There's a new dog here ... and I'll tell you about "Rob" in another post soon. Today, though, was very very cool. A little graphic, but no photos, so no worries.

Katy came over to support me today. A Bosnian gentleman, his wife and their lovely, young daughter contacted me last week to see if they could come out, pick out a lamb and slaughter it on my property. They live in an apartment and have no place to dress it out. Not having any idea what it entailed, I said, "Sure, that would be fine." I immediately was asking my rancher friends what, if anything, I needed to know. A couple of tips and I was good to go. So we set the date for today.

So the family comes out. What nice people! Zip and I held the lambs while they picked one out. I caught it and handed it over to him, and then moved all the rest of my lambs out of the round pen and set them out to pasture. He needed some twine to tie the legs together, so I gave him some and quickly skedaddled out of there. Not being able to stand not watching, and being the big weenie that I am, I watched the slaughter from the window. It was very unremarkable. He cut what I am guessing would be the jugular, and then quickly cut the twine and freed the legs. He'd obviously done this before. I helped him carry the lamb to the spot under the tree, and watched him peel back the skin off the hocks, and hang the lamb up by the "ankles." He allowed me to hang out and watch him and ask all kinds of questions. He explained himself as well as he could in his broken English, and his daughter would occasionally translate. He skinned it all out, took all the intestines out, showed me what's good and what isn't with the intestines, emptied the stomach, etc. Apparently they also use the head, so he cut the head off and then sawed the entire lamb right down the middle. Bagged it all up and put it in his truck.

When I gave him the lamb for free for allowing me to watch and learn, you could see that his wife was very touched by the gesture. The man offered to come back tomorrow morning and slaughter and butcher a lamb for a friend of mine who showed up right as he was finishing. I think it will take a few times of me watching to build up the hootzpah to try it myself. Tomorrow, though, now that I am more comfortable with him, I will stick right by him as he does the slaughter and have him show me how. Simply fascinating.

Happy tails,
J.D.