I woke yesterday to Rosemary sleeping peacefully in the garden, and all the collards eaten off to the ground. So now she’s back in the pasture—no more yard cow! Fionn, The Very Annoying Dog, keeps jumping the fence and breaking the electric wire, and then Rosemary goes wherever she wants. Unfortunately that’s usually how we find out the fence is down! I’m going to shave that dog…
Yesterday was dark. All day. Is it too early for cabin fever? I spent some time on my cheese kitchen plans, trying to put together a drawing to take to the county so that they can come out and talk to me about a septic tank, and DH spent the day bottling the last of his blackberry wine. Today I need to get the back porch fridge cleaned out so I can install my new temperature controller and get my latest batch of penicillium mold ripened cheese in there. The last one got fed to the pigs, to their great delight.
Speaking of pigs, ED has trained them to sit. And now they’re even rolling over to allow us to scratch their bellies. This is a challenging thing: enjoying them, even growing to love them, and knowing we’re going to eat them. The temptation is always there to remain emotionally disconnected—to not get close or attached—but I don’t want to do that. The truth is, something always dies so we can eat, and I would like to stay connected and grateful.
The girls and I moved the pigs yesterday; their old pen was thoroughly plowed (speaking of which, I read recently that the words pig and plow have the same origin. I believe it). Next time we move them, I’m going to try for before and after pictures of the new pen. They are doing a marvelous job of digging up the sod areas around the garden that I want to use for planting this spring, and digging sod is a loathsome, backbreaking job if you have to use a shovel to do it, but they get such a tremendous amount of pleasure from it. We’ve been working on taming them a little—when they first came they were little wild animals; now they’re eating from a spoon and letting us scratch their backs. I love them—they’ve exceeded all my expectations. They’re so much fun to watch. They’re very satisfying to feed (you’ve never seen such pleasure at mealtime). And they’re doing my gardening work for me.
I never reported back on the bear stew—it was delicious. Very, very dark meat, which seemed extremely rich, although there was no discernible fat; and very tender. We all enjoyed it, though I don’t think any of us could make a habit of it, for a few different reasons.
Our neighbor brought me a bear shoulder yesterday, and it’s been cooking all day on the wood cookstove, where it smells delicious, if a little overwhelming. We’ll dig some potatoes and pick some collards to go with it.
It’s hard to feel supportive of bear hunting. It seems rather juvenile, riding around in trucks, using radio antennae to track high-tech-collar-wearing dogs, and as often as not, having no use for the meat (“too gamy”). Our neighbor hunts everything except bears, but his cousin hunts them, and doesn’t like to eat them, so the neighbor goes in and brings them out of the woods, skins them, and eats them. I’m happy that he brought us this shoulder, and I’m working to overcome all my negative feelings about bear hunting, and be grateful for the gift.
