Warning: This post is not for the easily grossed out. If the abstract idea of slaughtering animals is repellent to you, do not read any further, because it's about to get a lot less abstract and a lot more visual.
The lambs have definitely been dispatched. And I know this because their hides are spread out in the barn at this very moment. It's a little bit gruesome, though not nearly as bloody as I had feared.
The MiL zoomed off early this morning before church to go pick up the hides at the slaughterhouse. We spread them out on a wooden pallet, slatted so the moisture can drain off. Then we salted them down on the flesh side, covering every tiny bit of exposed flesh with salt, so the hides will dry out and can then be shipped to a place that will tan them professionally. The idea is to eventually have rugs.
Lamb pelts, with a cameo by A.'s butt.*
I'm not sure how much the pelts will shrink in the drying process, but they're surprisingly big at the moment. The lambs in general turned out to be bigger than we had thought. The butcher said they dressed out at 60 pounds each. Even I, with my wretched math skills, can figure out that that means we will shortly have 180 pounds of lamb. That's a LOT of lamb.
Send recipes.
* Seriously, how did a nice suburban girl end up with a barn? And not just ANY barn, but a barn with raw lamb pelts in residence.
11 comments:
Uh, is A. out there salting down lamb hides in his church clothes?
No, he's wearing Dickies work pants and a flannel shirt. A. and I are heathens--only the MiL is a regular church goer.
I'm somewhat surprised that the MiL isn't stripping and grinding oak bark to do the tanning herself, using the early 19th century methods of her ancestors. Hopefully, she won't regard this comment as a challenge or you may be up to your elbows in various vats of soaking sheepskins.
Only three of them? I thought there would be 5 for some reason. I'm not a fan of lamb meat but I'm glad to see that you use every part of them - the rug idea is great.
I'm pretty sure that hemlock bark is preferred for tanning. Do you have a source on that oak bark, Roger?
Dude, I hope you've got a big freezer.
MiL, you have several choices among trees for obtaining bark. Here is what Wikipedia says: "Vegetable tanning uses tannin (this is where the name tanning comes from). Tannin occurs naturally in bark. The primary barks used in modern times are chestnut, oak, tanoak, hemlock, quebracho, mangrove, wattle and myrobalan." You can probably rule out mangrove bark in your location :-)
You mean you don't want to brain tan?
That's Mr. Mom's goal -- brain tanning. Yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
Funnily enough, M.M., you're the SECOND PERSON to ask us why we're not doing the brain thing. Though it's not technically tanning, because there aren't any tannins in brains.
For those of you who are appalled and yet wondering what the hell brains have to do with tanning, there is apparently a (relatively) widely known method of curing a hide using the brain of the animal. We are not doing that. Because I am very tolerant and not easily disgusted, but that? GROSS.
And TEE DAH you don't have to worry about the EW dirty floors anymore because look at all the rugs you'll have.
Problem solved.
One might note that urine has been used to cure hides. However, this was to remove hair, which you don't want to do for rugs. Dung also was used in the tanning process, if brains weren't bad enough. It's all described under "Ancient Methods of Tanning" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning
I do seem to remember the somewhat strong smell of a Native-tanned pair of sealskin mukluks worn by a classmate in college.
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