Welcome Scarlet to my follower bar and to Linda and Victoria of the Glorious Angelsey Allsorts, on Blog Lovin.
We picked up the lamb yesterday. I asked my friend C. if she would help me with them and she looked a little nervous, not sure she could do it. However, once they were home she was able to see them as joints of meat, not named woolly creatures! We had struggled to finish the lambs as they should have gone before the grass stopped going and for some reason neither of them would eat hay. They had been small lambs in the first place so it was with some trepidation that I collected them. "Bet they are a bit poor" I said to the butcher "Look alright to me " he said.. and indeed they were, both weighing in at 32 kgs without the pluck.
Here is C in her new career as butcher's assistant !
I hope that you are not upset at the thought of us growing our own meat. Be assured that the meat we eat had a good life with plenty of care and their end was the best we could organise - at a small butchers in a room that looks exactly like our barn and within a very short time of their arrival after only a 10 minute journey.
While I am really busy outside at the moment I just had to have a fix with my sewing today. I set up the large spare bedroom to accommodate the quilt I am making for EGD. I cleared the floor, laid out the patchwork and then measured the padding. I had to add an extra strip of padding to make it the correct size. I folded the fabrics and placed them on the bed prior to sewing the padding and ran downstairs to answer the phone.
When I returned guess who had arrived to "help" ?
For those of you new to my rambling blog. Adam, Bob and Colin ( not their real names) are three guys who come to us for either day or respite care. This is organised by Social Services through the "Shared Lives" scheme. Adam has been coming here for respite for over 20 years now and Bob and Colin for nearly five. They are all part of our life and members of our extended family. As we live on a smallholding there is always much to do with many "proper" jobs that help us and support a real feeling of worth in the guys.
Just about to settle down to Michael Portillo's Great Train Journeys (Bradshaw) I really didn't like him as a politician, but he's an extremely good commentator.
Good night dear Frugal Friends and thank you for reading
Gillx
I bet Adam, Bob and Colin have a great time with you. I hope the weather improves this weekend for any jobs that need doing outside x
ReplyDeleteIt's not looking too good at the moment. If it gets too bad, D. disappears into his workshop, which has an old army field kitchen. Adam loves to feed the fire and they make cups of oxo or coffee. While they are in there I pass in all sorts of mending jobs that have been waiting for D's attention!
DeleteOoo do enjoy your lamb. I always think its the smell of the meat that is hard to get rid of .. but the worth the good feeling of freezers full of food .. you know where its come from and how it was reared. Great.
ReplyDeleteThanks for my welcome to Bloglovin although I dont know what I am doing with it ... can seem to access it or get a badge linky thing like you have got ..
x
it IS good to fill the freezers.
DeleteI'm asfraid that I can't help you re. the Blog Lovin thingy. My daughter set me up with it and I did't pay attention to what she did.
Hopefully someone else will come up with info.
Gill
I honestly think the way you do it is the best ands most natural way. And I bet it tastes wonderful.
ReplyDeleteJ x
We think that it taste better. I don't suppose it does really, but we know it has been "happy" meat, which influences our taste buds I think !
DeleteGill
how adorable, "calico" cats are my favourite!
ReplyDeleteI had to look that up as I have never heard of Calico cat before!
DeleteShe really is the most beautiful cat with a BIG personality.
Gill
Mmmmmmm Roast Lamb! When we kept sheep and sent lambs off we had them cut and packed at the butchers into half lamb packs 2 for us and the rest to sell. Miss that lamb!
ReplyDeleteWe used to have it cut up by the butcher when we first grew lamb, 30 years ago. However, I found that the cuts were either too big or too small for our family, so decided to have a go myself.
DeleteIncidentally, it costs £6 per lamb less to butcher myself.
We would miss lamb if we didn't rear it and each year think we won't bother again, but always do!
Wonderful lamb! Cats always want to be on the bit you are working onor sit on the newspaper uou have spread out to read! I think its wonderful that you have the Shared Lives people to your smallholding and to be part of your family life. X
ReplyDeleteSo true! Our magazine, letters and notebooks are covered in paw prints!
DeleteI don't want to sound noble about the shared lives guys. Living where we do it is not difficult to find things to do and keep the guys interested.
Gill
I would find it difficult to eat animals I had reared but I applaud you for doing so. I wish I had the guts. In my opinion we meat eaters owe it to the animals to give them a good quality of life and a quick, unstressed, painfree death. So well done you, I wish more of us did the same. It is far too easy to disassociate ourselves from the actual animal if we just buy anonymous lumps of meat wrapped in plastic, leading to thoughtless cruelty. At least I can make sure that I buy from local suppliers who raise and kill their animals with integrity and compassion.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, it is easy to disassociates ourselves with the origin of the meat products. Carla Emery's "Old Fashioned Recipe Book" talks about the honesty of rearing your own. The book is very useful for smallholders, I don't know if you know it.
DeleteGill
Thanks for that, I don't know it but am about to rectify that omission""
DeleteAnd did you make Haggis with the pluck? I admire you both for butchering the whole carcasses; did you consult a book, or just cut what joints you thought you'd need. Well done.
ReplyDeleteNo I didn't make haggis, though my husband would have loved me to! I turned the livers into slices and froze them. The rest I cut into quite small pieces for my daughter's dog, who is on a special raw meat diet for his skin at the moment.
Delete30 years ago when I first started doing my own butchering, I used to have a book stood up in front of me. Now I am more confident and cut it how I want it to be - Really large joints for when the whole family are here and small ones for when there is just D. and I. Some rib I leave as a joint and sometimes as individual chops.
Gill
Some of our lambs will never eat hay - they just prefer grass. Grass fed meat is supposed to taste better, so you should benefit there.
ReplyDeleteIt is the first time that we have had lambs that won't eat hay. The difficulty was that there was little grass, so we gave them pellets. Not ideal and makes them more expensive.
DeleteGill