Meat!

We did a lot of butchering in June. The first weekend, while more than half the family were in Dunedin, a neighbor gave us a deer. Those of us who were at home got it boned out and minced, and then I made it all into hamburger patties.

A couple of weeks later, Simon killed a deer, and we made that one into mince, and froze it for later use.

We also got some nice pieces of backstrap from it.

The last weekend of the month we killed a beef heifer we raised for almost two years. She was the biggest beast we’ve ever processed ourselves, and when we weighed all the packages of meat while we were putting them in the freezer, we calculated that the hanging weight would have been about 275 kg (over 600 pounds). This was the quarters hanging in the carport, where they stayed for two days before we broke them down.

We made everything possible into roasts and steaks, and turned the trim into sausages.

The kitchen was a very busy, messy place that evening!

A few days later, I cut up the steaks, which we had put in the fridge in big bags, and the children helped to get them wrapped.

After a month, my hand has finally recovered from all that knife work!