Life goes on - Winter 2024

To borrow from Arsenic & Old Lace; insanity doesn’t run in our government, it practically gallops!

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I saw a video where egg prices were supposedly 2 dollars in mexico, I can only imagine armed cartels opening up the tunnels they used to haul pot in to smuggle eggs in.

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Report from grandson.
Hard to beat doing no2 reading a book in the moonlight.

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:grinning::grinning:it was in the news here too. A truck full of egs was hyjacked? End left completely empty?

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Spoil him JO. What happened with time? It semed yesterday

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We slaughtered a bull today. We have a heat wave through here right now so we put it in an ice box to cool it for a couple weeks before we butcher it up.

Shrink wrapped and in the cooler




Harvesting the tongue

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Jakob, did you freeze the whole thing?

I bet those shanks wuld make a killer Golaž, the dish we made at your place.

You guys are so lucky to be able to do this… will you use the hide too?

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Hopefully not. We turned the thermostat up so hopefully it won’t freeze. Just put the in the cooler to cool for a week or two to tenderize. If it’s cold enough we let the hang before we skin them but it’s too hot right now.

I’m going to have to make some of that stuff it was good I’m going to have to attempt it one of these days.

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That’s a good size bull, Jakob. You won’t be hungry for a while :smile:

But, home slaughter is ok as long you don’t put the meat up for sale, right? Or is that different even within the EU?

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Nice work! Looks like you also have the horns for the makings of a Viking war horn or helmet! If you tan the hide too. If you want to sell it, you are in luck
the SCA gulf wars start in March.

I see… its the wrap that worries me… in my experiances with dry aging you realy want airflow with every bit of surface. If peaces touch or even where they are in contact with a mesh rack its where the bad anaerobic bacteria thrive. I found hanging is best, even if temps are higher thain optimal. Once all surface dryes it can preety much hang indefenetly.

JO, nope. Officialy all home slaughter is forbidden, but noone realy cares about pigs, birds and goats/sheep (yet). In other words, the law is there but never inforsed. Also pigslaughter is too big oc a tradition and banning that just wuldnt float.
But with cattle its a different story. Calfs must be tagged 10 days after birth, if not, they get euthanised. They then get a literal passport. Its the response to the mad cow disease, officialy, but in reality its just undercuting self sufficiancy wich is the only thing our government has been good at doing for decades. And the way l see it its preety much a global thing…

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I would tend to agree that hanging is better. We are having a warm month after the last really cold one . Right now it’s 75 f way to hot to hang meat. If we don’t wrap it in the cooler the fan in the cooler turns it into jerky almost. So it’s not optimal but the best I can do for now.

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I’m sorry K about all that regulation you have to deal with. That sounds like a terrible way to have to function. I like beef way to much to live in a place like that .

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Those bags that you hang and age game meat in to keep flies and other critters or crawlers away perhaps is something, or would that mesh be too open for draft?
Never owned one so I don’t know but I also feel hesitant about the clingfilm.

Or perhaps a fine mesh hanging in front of the fan to reduce and dissipate windspeed, aging hanging is also in my experience best for the same reasons Kristijan said

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There still are loopholes, horses and donkeys being one of them. You dont need to “tag” them till 7 months and a good foal from a big mare will have plenty of meat untill then. And horse thats about as good as meat gets. But l agree, a well aged beef steak is hard to beat.

But l think whenever l have been and whoever l talked to over the world, you guys from Alabama realy do have the most freedom. Cherish that.

Hmm what about hanging the meat for a few days for the surface to dry and then wrap it?

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I remembered i used to know an old guy working with taking care of sick/hurt animals (killing and transport to destruction)
He had been working for the military most of his life as a butcher / field butcher, as was common in older times (good way to store and transport meat is on it’s own legs)
I remember he told me once they had 8 cow/ beef hanging bodies, and cooling system in place due to misunderstanding. This was in middle of summer, 25°c, they saved the situation by hanging the meat in a tent, with some big ventilators fans, the forced air did not leave the flies a chance to land a “do their bussines”, it all went well and the meat tendered fast in the heat.
Important was, like Kristijan says: the meat surface dried fast.

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62 mph winds yesterday to blow our previous snow into big drifts to cover the road out of here, Well actually only one real bad spot where the drift went from over six feet tapering down to about three. Took me three and a half hours of shovel work to get that cleared away enough to drive past. Got another six inches of snow coming this week end. Previously I kept carving a path out to the wood pile. 'that got about three feet on each side. It filled up with blown snow as well. Something to do tomorrow. Only have to dig that out wide enough to get a wheel barrow through. Screw winter.

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How to burn books for heat:



Make a center of the box hot charcoal bed.
Covers and backs strip the books. Then add one book to the far left side wall. Another to the far right side wall.
They will burn tuning into fluffing out blacking pages flowers. Takes time to fully burn to complete black ash fluffed flowers.
Add more wood as needed in the center to maintain smoke cleaning open combustion, and an established charcoal bed.
Rod, or ash-shovel mash down the book fluffed ash flower made. Add another set of stripped books. Repeat. Repeat.
Paperbacks can be burnt as-is. Hardback books once covers and backs stripped, use a serrated knife to split down to 1/4 - 3/8 inch (5-10 mm) thick sections.

Tedious, but clean. Worn, aged books only bring 3 cents a pound. More value as in-house heating.
Not at all like the Nazi piles book burning.
Or the movie 2012 kids in the New York library, whole books trying to burn to surviving the sudden chilled down cold.

Jig saw puzzles also burn great. My wife winter-in, goes thru a puzzle every 3 days or so. Buys them thrift stores used. Any found to be missing pieces, then mine to burn. The complete ones exchange traded.
Steve Unruh

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Anyone have a guess what im up to?


:smiley:

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