Tag: butchery

Here are some pics of our students as they waited for class to start, which started with a bang. 3 bangs actually as I had trouble with the killing shot. There’s lessons in everything, especially when things go wrong. Turns out my shot was a bit low, too close to the eyes and not far enough up the head. It still bothers me but at least everyone learned what not to do.

We were pleased to have Thomas Locke from CFSA attend our class. He wasn’t just a pretty face, he was elbow deep in bloody work and earned his keep.

We had a great turnout and fantastic weather for our hog class. I’m going to post some of the beautiful pics every few days for the next week or so, along with some comments on pics where appropriate. MANY, MANY thanks to Diane McKinney for spending her entire Saturday at our house working for carnitas and not much else to get all the great pics. Dianne is an AWESOME photographer if any of you need high end photography work.

Overall the class went well. In fact, we are not only planning on doing it again, we are going to have Brandon from Farmstead meat smith come out from Washington next year and teach. We’ll butcher another hog and also get more into charcuterie. I’ve already talked to him about coming and it looks like all we need to do is pick a date. We’ll share more details as things firm up. In the mean time, how about what happened at our first class.

The star of our show. This pink pig weighed about 340 pounds. We kept our Ossabaw boar, Lemont, in the pen with this pig so he wouldn’t be lonely or upset. We also made sure they had some yummy food to enjoy the morning.

Getting the scalding tank up to temperature. We had time for a walking tour of the farm while the water came up to 145 degrees. 

After the tour, we spent some time on the history of the farm and why each of our attendees had taken our class.