Thoughts While Butchering Quarters of Venison
Follow the meat. Look at how the leg is put together, and disassemble the muscles. Cut the connective tissue between the muscles, and keep the muscles whole as much as possible.
A corollary to the above precept: the last thing to cut is the meat itself.
I can't get it all, but I have to try. The scraps and small muscles can be ground. It does get tedious, however, scraping tendon off of the calf muscles.
Be thankful. Deer are gentle beasts, even if they eat plants I wish they would leave alone. The deer I am taking apart would surely much rather be in the forest than in my freezer.
Be aware that my act has an impact on the world. And, it might be a healthy one. There are few predators here other than humans, and our forest is overpopulated with deer. There are few young trees except for beech and striped maple in our woods because the deer have eaten the black cherry, red maple, ash, and sugar maple saplings - nature is out of balance. I do not hold the life of a mammal to be superior to the life of a tree, so I commit an ecological act as I cut up and eat this deer. It's the least I can do, after all the firewood I have burned.
A corollary to the above precept: the last thing to cut is the meat itself.
I can't get it all, but I have to try. The scraps and small muscles can be ground. It does get tedious, however, scraping tendon off of the calf muscles.
Be thankful. Deer are gentle beasts, even if they eat plants I wish they would leave alone. The deer I am taking apart would surely much rather be in the forest than in my freezer.
Be aware that my act has an impact on the world. And, it might be a healthy one. There are few predators here other than humans, and our forest is overpopulated with deer. There are few young trees except for beech and striped maple in our woods because the deer have eaten the black cherry, red maple, ash, and sugar maple saplings - nature is out of balance. I do not hold the life of a mammal to be superior to the life of a tree, so I commit an ecological act as I cut up and eat this deer. It's the least I can do, after all the firewood I have burned.
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