Home Kill Day

Today worked out well for us. Well, for some of us. Great for the humans, not so great for 2 steers and the 2 ram lambs. It was home kill day. We had been thinking about this day, planning for this day, and agonizing over this day for literally months.

We came to these conclusions:

We were uneasy (hard to reconcile with our ‘do no harm’ philosophy) carnivores and it was hypocritical to eat other meat and not our own.

We wanted organic meat, mainly to avoid the toxins and hormones and chemicals that we pay for when we buy store meat. This then means that we eat our meat which has ingested pure water and grass. Nothing else.

We would not allow our animals to be frightened or in pain.

So we had moved the chosen animals to the paddock next to the road several days before D (dispatch) day. I had been wondering how we would avoid stressing the animals if they were loaded into a van and taken off to the slaughter house. “Not a problem” I was constantly reassured. I still fretted. But needlessly; a huge refrigerated truck pulled up to the driveway a few feet from where the stock was.

Dan led out the steers and as they approached the truck, the home kill guy shot them in the head and they dropped in their tracks. It was over; no pain, no stress but some conflicted feelings on all our parts. These steers had been a focus of our lives for months now.

So anyway, then the two butchers went to work separating the heads, skinning and quartering the caresses. They had some kind of honing instruments strapped to their thighs and constantly sharpened their knives as they went along. It was amazing to watch the speed and deftness with which they worked. They then carted off all the unusable parts to a special trailer behind the truck and hung the meat in the refrigerated sections of the van.

Then on to the two rams. The men’s friendly advice was to castrate the rams next time. It made the skinning much easier and lessened the chance of hormones in the meat. Good to know, I guess.

So all that meat is presently hung and will be packaged and ready for us in 10 days. The storage facility is beyond clean, we get to choose our cuts,and it is all very efficient and rather overwhelming.

 I have read that some kids today don’t even know what a cow looks like or that hamburger comes compliments of the mooers. This certainly won’t be the reality for my granddaughters. Dan came in tonight with the livers of the two steers and 1/3 of 1 liver fed all of us very comfortably. He sliced it thicker than you find in the supermarkets and it was excellent. Not really a ‘liver’ taste. I enjoyed it but I  confess I had to drive thoughts of our steers out of my head once or twice. But I ate it and I enjoyed it.