Terrabyte Farm

Today was to-the-butcher day for our pigs.  We’ve enjoyed their presence, but as Fall sets in and Winter approaches, their time was near.  We’ve hear horror stories about loading animals onto trailers for their trip to the butcher.  Last spring, when we brought out first set of pigs in, we parked the trailer in the pig’s pen for the week before they were to go and fed them in the trailer for all their meals.  This time, we did the same thing and our luck (or technique) held.  We got them on the trailer in about 19 seconds.  On the other end (at Salem Prime Cuts, our butcher for this set), we had an equal measure of good fortune.  There was no line at the loading docks and the fellows got off easily and walked into the holding areas briskly.  Our cut date (when we go back to get the un-smoked meats) is next Thursday and we can’t wait.  Our steer’s cut date is that Friday, so we’ve got quite a lot of meat coming our way.

The other thing is that after the boss was slaughtered last week, we went by to get some of the offal.  We picked up about 25 pounds of liver, heart and tongue.  We’re dividing the liver into thirds and freezing one third, cooking/freezing another third and making a beef liver pate from the last third.  We’re going to throw the heart into the mix for our hotdogs.  We had special plans for the tongue.  Jamie had come across a recipe entitled “Corned Beef (And Pickled Tongue)” in HFW’s Meat Book.  We’ve both had corned beef–who’s afraid of that?  Replacing the brisket with tongue seemed like a reasonable substitution (after all corning beef was a solution for tough, cheap meat).  Our pickled tongue is in the brine.  We’ll leave it there for about a week, after which it will be rinsed and boiled until tender and delicious.  If you’re at our Harvest Potluck Party next week, be sure to try some.