Starts with "A" and rhymes with "ffection"
I recently had the revelatory experience of working alongside another mobile slaughter crew. While I played in the sandbox with my Tonka truck, they slaughtered eight pigs.
Father and son worked off the back of grandpa's semi-tractor truck, shooting the pigs with a .223, skinning them and splitting with an electric saw and dizzying efficiency. I was in the middle of pig number two when they were packing up.
There was a time in my youth when I would have looked down upon those slaughtermen and their wasteful use of pigs, taking pride in my more strenuous and intentional approach. But over the years, the cost on my family and farm of the longer and harder work day has made itself felt. My motives of thrift, artistry, nutrition and culinary inspiration are frequently exhausted. Besides, these do nothing to prevent the living pig from being reduced to an object simply to be used and controlled.
So why keep doing it the hard way? Whether with the Tonka or the semi-tractor, the pig is offered on the alter of consumerism all the same. The relative quality of the harvest is summarized by legal tender, which can only cheapen the dignity of the work and the pig's intrinsic worth.
I think the answer to this situation (the dumpy nihilism of which I did not anticipate when I started writing) must precede our use of the pig. It is actually the single solitary same thing that obliterates my erstwhile condescension towards other slaughtermen.
The inefficiency of the Tonka truck all but forces intimacy anyway.
To join me in the sandbox and other like minded insane people with reckless disregard for personal peace, comfort and cat turds, I invite you to the following Winter harvests: |
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Christmas Pigs!
Speaking of affection, a dear friend has offered his first sounder of pigs for your further development in porcine abundance. The hands-on slaughter in Woodinville will be followed by two days of butchery and curing here on Vashon. This one is coming soon, so click here to get tickets. |
Gift Certificates...and February in Aberdeen
Heading into Christmas, we are offering gifts certificates redeemable for class tickets. These can even be open-ended for the recipient to use at her or his convenience. Click here for more.
Please also consider our final class offered for the winter before we go into hibernation (Sheardlet number 5 on the way now). If the soul of wit is brevity, this two day class will impart our slaughter and butchery/curing methods as soulfully as a song. Come and partake in this family farm harvest. |
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January Spots
We will be harvesting my four Old Spots in our most extensive class offering. We will dedicate three days to two pigs with up to eight hands-on students, including a full charcuterie day with stuffing sausage, loafing pates, funneling blood pudding and other goodies involving strange verbs. Lunch will be derived from our labor as well. See here. I will put up one of these pigs for my own larder, so this series will also cover the freezer-free approach. |
The Folio
It is with uncharacteristic and slightly embarrassing excitement that I am not quite introducing to you the best knife and cleaver transportation device in the cosmos. The Folio has been in the works for over a year now with Vashon based teranishstudio.com. The first batch will be released very soon for your holiday gifting pleasure. Keep in touch for the release.
Please accept the apology and gratitude of your ex-nihilist friend,
Brandon |
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