"One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present." - Golda Meir

In a vein similar to that quote from Golda Meir (fascinating lady):
"The past cannot be cured." - Elizabeth I

I filled in for Brett and preached at the Oregon State Penitentiary last night, my second time at that gig. I felt much more at ease this time knowing what to expect in what is a very different setting from the normal preaching opportunity. The guys were attentive and responsive, and I felt good about how it went. I enjoyed this experience even more than the first.
I also really enjoyed conversations before and after. Before the service I talked to Steve, who has been there a long time (I didn't ask how long, but he said that when he came in cell phones were the size of suitcases). He has a tentative release date next February but isn't getting his hopes up so that if the parole board rejects him at his October meeting the disappointment isn't too great.
Afterward I talked with Martin ("mar-TEEN") who's from Jalisco, Mexico. He's been in OSP for 16 years and misses his mother and home town.

OK, you might want to stop reading now. It's up to you, but don't say you weren't warned.

We couldn't weigh him because he was too big to hold while I stepped on the scale, and bathroom scales weren't made for 4-legged beasts. He weighed 94 lbs. a month ago so I'm guessing Itzhak was something in the area of 110-115 lbs. this morning.







A shot from my 9mm to the back of his head dropped him instantly; he felt nothing. Then I hung him from the gambrel I put up and spent the next 1+ hours skinning him. That's something I'll get better at, but it went OK.

The next step is to get his innards out, and that also went smoothly except for his trachea which didn't want to pull out via his chest cavity. All internal organs stayed intact with no contents spilling onto the meat, which is the biggest concern with that part of the process. (This pic is obviously before that step. I was too messy afterward to handle my camera.)

I now know we waited way too long to butcher. He was only 9 months old but had way too much fat on his carcass. I trimmed off as much as I could, but wasted some meat in the process. Next time I'll butcher at 80-90 lbs., no matter what age that is.

The plan was to put the carcass up on the table I built next to the gambrel but it weighed too much to pick up. So I put plastic down on the ground and cut the four legs off there and then could lift the rest onto the table for the rest of that part of the process.

From there I took the parts inside to cool, then washed them and wrapped them in butcher paper (waxy on one side). I labeled and took pictures of each piece so Pam can have an idea what's inside. The total came out to 54.5 lbs. of wrapped meat, or about 50% of live weight.

It's now all in the freezer. I'm not at all confident that I did a decent job of the butcher part so I'm hoping Pam can fix things when she cooks the meat. Some pieces, like the 8" sections of the backbone with the meat attached, will be easy enough to roast. Other pieces, like the side of ribs, may need to be cut in half; they're really big. And the hind legs.... We don't have a pot big enough.

I'm exhausted. I did 4 miles and it felt like 40. Between Saturday's 8 miles, preaching last night, and today's work I'm whooped. The pizza joint is calling my name, but only after I clean up my mess in the kitchen and take a shower.

Tomorrow I start enlarging what will be the pen for AJ and Burrito when they hit weaning age in 10 days.
Uff-dah.