Our Most Disgusting Experience EVER

In retrospect, we should have known better. We know the story of Lazarus, and how, when Jesus instructed the folks to roll the stone away so he could raise the man, Martha said, in the incomparable King James, "Lord, by this time he stinketh."

But, despite our biblical knowledge, after we killed and skinned Chrystal, we wrapped her in gardening cloth and left her to hang, for a more congenial hour (as 1am was really pushing it). Phil had an idea that it would be good to have a table for the actual butchering process: trying to cut up meat when the carcass is hanging, and swinging, is not terribly pleasant.

The first day was a fairly cool day, too. The second day was not. But Phil wasn't feeling well, and we had other things to do.

Even today, when we noticed a smell, we didn't immediately connect it with the hanging carcass.

I know: what were we thinking? Maybe we were remembering the good times, when the temperature was in the 30s? The extra 70 degrees makes a big difference!

To spare you all the horrific details, Chrystal ended up being a total loss, and our compost pile is one animal richer.

But we are richer in experience, I suppose!

I gathered the remaining guts out of the pig pen; they were gross enough I, with a fairly strong stomach, almost disgorged. My most disgusting moment ever. (I now know that I could try cooking the innards, thanks to helpful comments on the blog.)

Phil, standing in the compost pile in order to create a good burial spot, unwrapped the body. He realized that gardening cloth will not be sufficient to keep the flies—and their offspring—away from meat. That was his most disgusting moment of all time.

So we know that whatever butchering we do, from now on, must be start to finish in one long stretch.

I keep mentioning "sale barn, sale barn," but we aren't quite that desperate yet. We shall see.

About a year ago, we realized that all the top quality beef we'd frozen and brought with us for our first few weeks here had gone bad. It was a devastating day.

A year later, we are still, apparently, not quite aware of how quickly heat deteriorates meat, but at least our spirits are high and we can even laugh about it ... on the same day.

In other news, we moved the 14 chicks and their two surrogate mothers into the main chicken pen. All 14 chicks went with one mother, and the other chicken has been wandering freely, pleased to be freed of her brood, it appears. Her maternal instincts stopped with hatching, I suppose.

Phil, after a day of much paperwork, had made it down to the lower pasture, working to fence off the final stretch before we move the cows down, when he noticed a very dark cloud. He scrambled to put his tools into the truck, but before he was quite done, sheets of water poured from heaven and thoroughly soaked him. That's the second time in two freak thunderstorms that he's been soaked like that. He wrung the water out of his socks and went and sat in the office.

I remember last year when we were still in the tent and the incredible rain fell. How to keep dry, when all the housing for six people is a tent? And all the sleeping bags are all around? It was really challenging! And I could hardly write about it, because we had no electricity, and no internet, and my computer had almost no battery! What great, great strides this year.

Finally, a brief (it's a pun, as you'll soon see) brag on my son Joe. I had thought to potty train him a few months back, but he refused to sit on the wooden toilet in the trailer. I tried to run him over to the motor home, but that was, well, a lot of running for me. And he ended up liking the motor home bathroom a bit too much. He would sit, with me, on the toilet and wave and smile at himself in the mirror, totally hamming it up and not getting down to business. For forty-five minutes! Argh!

After two days of deep breathing and reminding myself that patience IS a virtue, I gave it up until I could find a good potty chair.

But we just don't go to stores that sell potty chairs very often. Amazon came to the rescue, and Joe got his potty chair yesterday afternoon.

Since last night, he has been completely and perfectly dry. If he needs to go to the potty, he lets me know, sits happily in his little chair, does what he needs to do, then VERY proudly stands up and just beams from ear to ear.

What a guy!