butchering workshop: still some tickets left

Luke Dougherty, professional and homestead butcher, still has a few tickets left for the upcoming hog butchering workshop -- grab yours before they are gone!

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as Shawn's dad used to say, and there is more than one way to butcher a pig. For folks who are starting out to build an independent farmstead, it can be intimidating trying to get all the parts up and running at once, and more than intimidating -- discouraging! -- if we expect ourselves to do every job the way the master specialist in the craft would do it.

Give yourself time. The mortices and tenons on your knee braces may not come up to the standard of a master timber framer; the rate of decay in your compost pile might not satisfy a composting wizard. It's okay! For the farmer, who must be a jack of all trades, 'good enough is perfect'. If actual perfection is the only thing that will do, we're beaten before we start.

So with butchery. Aspire to the level of charcutery master someday if you like, but to start out it's enough to raise a good animal on good food, kill him humanely, and get him broken down and ready to cook. Our own Luke Dougherty is offering another pig butchering workshop February 24 & 25 -- come join us while we slaughter, break down, and wrap two farm-raised pigs. Learn the basics of respectful, efficient slaughter and whole-animal processing and use, from folks who have been doing it for more than 20 years. This is homestead slaughter, not haute cuisine. We hope you'll come out and join us.