025 – Animal Harvest, Bees, LGD

What this episode covers

The Podcast begins with much lament about the loss of great video footage in the Pacific Northwest and they go on to talk about taking an animal harvest class with Alexia Allen of Hawthorn Farm. This was a new experience for Jocelyn and largely a new one for Paul who had previously slaughter birds on production scale only. Paul compares the methods he has used previously, including the use of cones and loppers with Alexia’s methods of slitting the jugular. They discuss scalding, hand plucking , and gutting, and remembering to slice out the oil gland in the tail. Jocelyn was struck by the vividness of the organ color and the rich yellowness of the fat, particularly in comparison to the pallid white grey of the chicken general found in the super market. There is a brief discussion on the merits of harvesting meat as one needs it vs. having batch harvest days coupled with freezing or preserving it otherwise. They agree that both are viable and depending on particular circumstance. They also both agree that they felt comfortable with the chicken harvest as taught by Alexa in which the animal was unstressed and even give a simple recipe for battered dandelions fried in rendered chicken fat. For those interested in learning more here is part one of Paul’s

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