Mom peels a goat in Canada - Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:54 pm

Mum's Canadian adventure continues. She went out this morning with Miss Knowlton and one of the baby goats was missing. They found it with its mother bleating over its dying body.

It had been mauled by a fisher. A fisher is like a cross between a polecat and a weasel. It's got a long pointy snout with teeth as big as a dogs, only sharper. A fisher een afraid of anything. It hurt the baby goat real bad.

Now Miss Knowlton used to be a veterinarian, but even she didn't have enough powers to restore the creature to life. The young thing gave up the ghost. Mum is a fairly urban creature, and it was kind of nice to see her petting the thing, talking to it, trying to comfort it as it died. After it had expired, Mum was all for giving the thing a Christian burial. Not Miss Knowlton. There was no way that she was going to waste the meat.

They brought the carcass into my kitchen, and Mum spread newspapers out on the table. Miss Knowlton ran home for the carving implements and the next thing that you know, she is laying out scalpels and such from her veterinary surgery. Scalpels are good things, but skinning and butchering this baby goat with those tools, was like trimming a hedge with a pair of scissors.

Miss Knowlton knew animal anatomy, but she didn't know anything about butchering. Of course, Mum thinks that she is a regular fount of knowledge, but everything she knows about meat came from talking to Clayton Powell, the manager of Winn-Dixie #2834 in Harbour West, Freeport. Miss Knowlton takes up the scalpel and start making little exploratory cuts, hoping to find the one magic spot where you cut it, and the skin drops off. Mum is offering her advice gleaned from many years as a woodsman in the Bahamian wilderness, like: "Maybe you find the seam just like on a banana, and then you peel it off".

Miss Knowlton decides to try and skin it starting at the hooves. She cut around for a bit, and the sumbitch skin wouldn't come off. Mum says that maybe they should shave the skin first and it might come off easier, but there was no damn way that I was volunteering my Mach III razor. Miss Knowlton gin up the skinning, and wasn't making any headway. Finally in desperation, Mum says to me "Son, it's your turn. You try taking off the skin.

I look it up on the internet and there isn't any handy dandy sites on goat skinning. I did find a forum on taxidermy on how to skin a goat head. They gave a one liner on slitting between the back legs to start. So I took down the copper pot off its hook on the kitchen, and using a bit of twine, I hung the goat up. I slit the skin and then both Mum and Miss Knowlton start giving me advice. Miss Knowlton is telling me to make sure that I don't cut into its intestine, and Mum is telling me not to cut its "thing" which is her euphemism for genitals. I finally get a little flap of skin separated from the goat, and I start pulling and yanking. There is a tough membrane holding the skin on, and I'm yanking and sweating. Mum pipes up with "Careful, you'll hurt it" and that made me bust up with laughter because the damn goat is already dead.

I finally got the skin off. There is a real gamey smell all through the kitchen. The dog is awful interested, and looks at me with a look sayin' "Once your done with that thing, I'll have a go at it." I get a big garbage bag, and toss the skin out, along with the bottoms of the legs attached and all. But no, Miss Knowlton says that she is going to salt the hide and take it home tan it.

Without the skin, the little goat looks like it is mostly bone, and there is probably more meat on a good poultry fryer. We still have the little matter of the guts and the head. I'm a little worried that if we do the Taliban thing and behead the little sucker, it will bleed like a stuck pig all over my kitchen. I couldn't get over my sweet lil Mum's enthusiasm for beheading. This was after she wanted to give the goat a decent burial.

The head did come off and there wasn't a lot of blood involved. What litle did spill was quickly licked up by the dog, and I think that I spoiled her for kibbles from now on. That left the guts. Miss Knowlton did know about guts, and they all came out in one piece in a gut sac, which fortunately I didn't puncture. I was ready to throw that out too, and Miss Knowlton says that she is going to dry that out, and use it for fertiliser for her garden. I make a future mental note not to eat any unidentifiable meat or mince meat while visiting Miss Knowlton.

Well Mum has gone off to Miss Knowlton's for the evening. They are going to salt the hide, render the bones and preserve the meat, whatever that means. Mum said not to hold dinner for her. In the meantime, I javexed the floors with a strong bleach, and sprayed Febreeze all over the place, trying to get rid of the gamey smell in the kitchen.

I can't believe Mum's enthusiasm for all of this sort of stuff. I can just imagine her letters back home to the pastor and to her friends. They sure as shooting are going to get the wrong impression of Canada. They are going to think that Mum stepped back in time and Canada is awfully backwards. Before you have your supper, you have to go out kill yer goat, peel it and then cook it. Then you boil down the soap, tap the trees for the syrup, and chop wood for the fire. The Bahamians back home are going to start feeling awfully sorry that Mum has to work so hard just for the basic necessities, and her having a touch of arthritis and all.

Comments

Add New

Search

Only registered users can write comments!