Meat packing day

We spent the afternoon a few weeks ago packing freshly butchered lamb and pork.  Three ram lambs who were born last spring went to the butcher Monday in our new used livestock trailer.  Our pig joined them.  All had to be packed in vacuum bags, labeled and stuck in the freezer.   We have another freezer practically full of meat including liver, heart, and some pigs ears and feet.  Jason is still working on the last of it that he wanted to butcher himself.   He cut up these ribs himself - don't they look lovely!

fresh cut lamb ribs

After coming home, my last task was to figure out what to do with the tallow that we took from the butcher.  I'm thinking of using it to make soap but after some online research have realized that it is good for many things including cooking, candles, and even skincare.  Who Knew?!

After reading some how to's, I decided to use my crock pot.  I took out the tallow and chopped it up in small pieces and put it in the crockpot on low.  We will see how it comes out.  I have more but figured I'd start with a small batch.   Our lambs were primarily grass-fed with a supplement of spent beer grain from the local brewery.   Hopefully that means the tallow is good quality.   I had no idea that our sheep would give us so many things - and we're just getting started.

Once the meat is all taken care of, the next project is to deal with the 30 fleeces we have bagged from sheering day.  They'll need to be skirted and sent off for carding.