Boo! Time To Butcher a Bull!

Warning: Dead animal photos ahead.

 

Yesterday, A. made a real grocery run for the first time since August. He went because we had an appointment to get the dogs neutered first thing in the morning. So he left at 6:30 a.m. and returned home around 3 p.m. with a van full of animal feed, groceries, and two very unhappy dogs.

I was still putting those groceries away when our elderly neighbors about five miles away called to ask A. to help them with a bull they had found with a broken leg. It was going to have to be killed--large animals like that are done for if they break a leg, unfortunately-- and the vet they called had told them that if the bull wasn't running a temperature, they could butcher it. 

So they had to take the bull's temperature. And you don't do that for a bull with one of those handy forehead thermometers. No, you have to shove the thermometer into its rectum. 

A. thought this might be a dicey proposition for two eighty-something people and a large bull, so he offered to go help with that. And off he went.

Ten minutes later, the FedEx guy showed up with two big boxes of pantry things I had ordered from Walmart. I was still putting those away when A. called from the neighbors' house to tell me he was on his way home to pick up coolers and all of the family so we could all help butcher the bull.

This is what being married to A. is like, yes.

As soon as A. got here and we had loaded the coolers and made sure everyone was wearing coats and boots, we slithered our way up the muddy road to the neighbors' house.

The bull had been killed near their house, thankfully near the driveway. A. was in such a rush because by this time it was 4:15 and we were going to be out of daylight to work by in just a couple of hours. So A. dropped to his knees in the mud and snow and started skinning.

The neighbor helped some, but given that he's got more than 40 years on A., A. tried to spare him as much as possible.

A. has butchered a lot of animals, but this was significantly different because of the size of this particular animal. There's no way to hang something this big without a tractor to lift it. He couldn't hang it and gut it, as he would with a sheep or a deer. 

So he butchered it the way the Plains Indians butchered buffalo: on the ground.

First he peeled the hide off on one side and cut away the meat on that side. He started to put the meat into the coolers, but it was still steaming hot, which is definitely no good. We needed to get the meat cooled down. And how would we do that without a walk-in cooler?

I know!

The neighbor supplied some very large trash bags, which we spread in the snow so we could lay the meat on them and let the snow chill the meat.

Just chillin'. (Why yes, I do crack myself up.)

Somewhat disturbingly, some of the pieces actually twitched once they were on the snow, as the muscles cooled and contracted a bit. The children thought this was the coolest thing ever, and monitored the meat to see if they could find one that was twitching. 

Little ghouls.

My job was mostly to arrange the meat on those bags as A. tossed it on there. I spread it out and kept flipping the chunks over to cool both sides. I also pulled the bags onto fresh snow as the snow underneath melted. 

A. was cutting as fast as he could this whole time, while our neighbors continuously sharpened knives to keep him supplied with a sharp blade at all times. They have a lot more experience sharpening knives than I do, so I was happy enough just to do the meat flipping.

After A. got as much meat off the one side as he could, we needed to flip the animal. It was still hundreds of pounds, though, so the neighbor got his winch puller and put it on the bull's hind feet. Cubby cranked the winch while A. heaved on the front of the bull to flip it.

Heave ho!

Then more cut cut cutting as fast as possible as the sun set and the light faded. The last bit had to be done with some handy solar lights the neighbors had.

Spotlight on the bull.

When the light was completely gone, A. called it quits so he wouldn't hurt himself. We loaded all the meat into both our coolers and the neighbors' coolers and headed home. 

A. skinned and cut up almost that entire animal in just a little over two hours, which is a pretty impressive feat. 

We just left the coolers of meat in the car overnight, because it was cool enough to do that, but it was too warm today to leave them there. We needed to get them in the freezer. But in what? I didn't have enough plastic wrap or ziptop bags on hand to store all this meat. 

We thought A. would have to take a trip to the closest grocery store (120 miles roundtrip) to get supplies, but I decided to call the guy who runs the tiny store in the village first. I asked him if he had any gallon ziptop bags and he said sure. I asked how many, and he said he buys them by the thousand.

Oh. Okay then. 

So A. only had to drive 20 miles roundtrip to buy 200 bags. Sweet.

We hauled the coolers out and spread the meat out on top of one of the freezers to dry out a bit as we started the butchering and packaging.

Welcome to the meat market.

At this point, it was just standard butchering procedure for us. I set up the dining room table with the cutting boards, knives, bags, and large pots for stew meat pieces, along with a bucket for the dog scraps, and we got to work.

Three hours later, all that meat was trimmed, cut, packaged, and in the extra freezer we brought over just last week from the abandoned house next door. That freezer must be at least forty years old. I was sure it wouldn't work, but A. plugged it in and it started right up. So we brought it over here, thinking we might need it if Cubby gets an elk on his hunt in December.

Instead, we filled it a third full of approximately 250 pounds of grass-fed beef that we got for free. A happy Halloween indeed.