Tender Hearts Kill Her 1st Lamb

Happy day? Butchering day? It's going to be a very special day, especially for the smiley one. She's going to get to kill her very first lamb. There she is now. Sheep are the most intimate kill. Miley! Happy day!

Happy day!

How's the emotions this morning?

I don't know. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's going to be a hard day to be a smiley one. I've already mourned these lambs. And some of the thoughts that I have are, you know, it's really easy to walk into a clean grocery store in a sterile environment. And see meat laid out. What's not easy is watching this animal come to life, walking alongside of it, nurturing it, and then leading it to the blade. And it makes it— makes you appreciate your food and And the way that you can honor it is that you eat every bite.

Good reminder. Thank you, Annie. Good for us to hear that after we've been doing this for years upon years. The sheep are the most primal kill. We don't shoot them like we do the pigs or the cows, so there's— that's a disconnect. We slit their throat. We kill them with our hand, and then you hold them down as the life runs out of them. Annie's always had a more difficult time butchering the animals emotionally, but she does it. The other day when we were butchering chickens, there Annie was killing the chickens. I said, how do you, how do you do this being a tender soul? It's tough.

I make sure that I say thank you.

Yeah, just yesterday, I think it was yesterday, wasn't it, Annie?

2 days ago now.

You sent me a text, you sent me the text, or someone commented on the video.

26 years ago, we went to Joel Salatin's farm to learn to butcher chickens. Halfway through 500 chickens, we were discussing the process, and I said I could easily do everything but the throat slitting, to which Teresa, the farm wife of this productive farm, said, after all those years of butchering she too still struggles with that part, so she leaves it to the guys. It's just the way that it is that women who are the nurturers struggle with letting go of life, no matter the recipient. And you know, that's for anyone who has a nurturing soul, you know, it's not necessarily gender specific. I mean, because that— his wife still gets in there and does it, you know, but it still gets you, uh Like, taking life is never easy, and it should never be.

Are you not a tender soul? No, but actually there's some primal adrenaline rush, feel-good type of thing. Here we are taking something— this is the way it's designed— and taking a life and feeding ourselves and our family. There's something primal about it. We got a straggler. Start cutting them out. Probably get on the other side of the tent. Let him out, right? Are we good? Yeah, slow it down, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's let him fly.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Stop, everybody, stop. This is what I was afraid of. We do not have enough physical barriers. We have to get too close to try to shut it in, and they just get too spooked. They're gonna be mad at me, but I'm gonna get T-posts too. They always telling me, oh, he's doing too much, doing too much. T-posts to secure the cattle panels. I've been thinking about your question some more, Austin. The woman has a superpower. She has the ability to give birth to the world. Absolutely incredible. And I believe then with that comes this super— this superpower to be nurturing, because this is something that a man just can't do. You can't get pregnant and give birth to the world. She's gonna have superpowers as the result of that. I don't want to take that away from That's the woman's superpower. T-Post! Yeah!

Okay, this is the last one I'm holding.

All right, oh my gosh, take their legs away and it's over. There you go. Freaking big old piece. And cut the legs. But you circumcise this so you still have this to hold on to. You only do this once a year and you'd only do— what's the most we've ever done? I think last time we did 6, so we have a little more muscle memory on these because we do 6 instead of maybe 2 or 3 steers. See, sheep, they're so underrated as a homestead animal. You know, they're not gonna run over and kill your children— child on accident. You can maneuver them in butchering. You don't have to have a gun to kill them.

All you have to have is a kitchen knife.

Yeah. So then you got to be able to grab the hoof and pull this skin down. Yeah, see that? See this, Johnna? He's just grabbing it. I like that I'm remembering what to do. Oh boy, it's already 10. We're just hoping to be done by 12. We started at 7:30 and we've only got 2 and a half done.

Hey, we want to go play.

Don't be reticent. Go down hard and fast.

Tell him what the word reticent means.

I'm scared.

Yeah, I don't want to hurt it. Really strong. A really strong heart.

I doubt you're gonna have that problem. Excited or nervous or what?

Nervous.

Okay, one hand. I don't know. Okay, good. Perfect.

Good job.

Feel weird? No.

That one's dead.

You sad?

No.

I think it's pretty neat to have my kids along in this. They have a totally different experience than most of us adults talking about it. We tend to get wrapped around in an emotional experience. They just grab it and growl and see it from a totally different perspective. I imagine if, like, you were here with the Cherokee Native Americans, it was just their culture and what they did. You nervous? No.

Yes. Sort of. I don't want to mess up.

This is your first time?

Yeah.

Ready? Who's killing the next one? Austin? Yep.

I want to see how good Austin is.

Perfect.

Oh, that was the best one.

Good job. Hard for you, Austin? No, I think there's just no— it's not like I put in the work with these guys. Yeah, like deer is different because you're, you're at a distance. It's a wild animal. You didn't raise him. You didn't raise it.

I wanted to do this experience because, you know, it weighed on me whether or not to do it. You know, it's really easy to back away and say not to do it. But I think it really is an act of love for an animal that you've cared for, that you want it to suffer the least amount. And you want to do it right. And so yeah, it's an act of love, and I am a tender-hearted person. I am caring and nurturing, and it's just something that is part of this process. It does weigh heavy. You know, it seemed to get easier the further we went, but here's my turn with a blade in my hand, and I love that Not only Justin here, but the entire family is, the entire neighborhood is here. Support is more than just like the educational part of how to do this, but it's also like the relations and community that's also here as well.

Slicing cut. You did it.

Thank you for honoring me in this space, in my experience. Um, yeah, letting me be a part of this.

Thank you. Really upped our game and just got it done. Is it almost 1? It's 12:55. Heck yeah! 1, 2, 3. Everybody has a job on butchering day. Part of Lily's was make a taco soup. I'm excited, raring to go even though I'm tired. We've got to pack— what is it, 2,000 today? Books, homestead builds. There we go. How's that look? Yep. And for some lucky ones, we'll do a happy day. Signed a ton of books. Ashley's feeding me the books, and then they go over here. Who gets them over here? Austin. We had to get a pallet out. And then Lily, you're packaging.

Yeah.

Josiah's stuffing. Mama's stuffing. We were butchering sheep this morning, and now we're packing 2,000 bucks. It's an odd life we live, but fulfilling one. Are you feeding them to me? Thank you. He feeds them to me, I sign them, Gideon stacks them. Biting it, isn't he? He is biting it. This is— Pork turned out nicely. Millie made biscuits. Also, what's good with pork? Fried onions, fried apples, collards. Happy day.