Sheep Slaughter

Today was sheep slaughter day. I was pretty nervous, knowing I was going to watch something die. I got hardly any sleep. When I watched the sheep twitch and yank itself around with blood coming out his neck, I was surprisingly calm and quiet. I expected to be disturbed or disgusted, but I wasn't. I definitely felt some big emotions though, it's hard to pinpoint what they were. Solemn, content, religious, poetic perhaps. Maybe it wasn't even an emotion, but an action in my soul. I surrendered to how unfair life is. 

"One must eat the other, who runs free before him. While fantasizing the beauty of each movement. A sensation not unlike slapping yourself in the face." -Jane's Addiction 

The teachers at this communal farm are lovely, Raye held the front legs down while Shelby straddled the sheep. My classmate Blaine held the back legs down, and my other classmate Billy stirred the blood in a bowl to keep it from clotting. Raye's gonna make blood pudding in the morning. 

Shelby held a very sharp kitchen knife in her right hand, held the sheep's head to her chest with her left, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she quickly sliced the throat open, digging back and forth until both arteries and the trachea were severed. It maybe took her 3 seconds to cut all the way to the spine. Shelby is incredible, I wonder if she had mixed feelings about taking a life, she seemed to have no hesitation, she just killed the sheep.

The sheep struggled a little bit, but really not much. Raye and Shelby said sheep can tell when they're about to die and they surrender. It has something to do with being a prey animal or destiny or something. I don't know if I believe that, I mean, we're killing this thing for our own gain. Are we telling ourselves it's destiny that this sheep has to die to absolve our guilt? It's not destiny, I just paid for the class. But the sheep didn't scream or try to wriggle away. Just accepted the knife and convulsed a few times.

During my time at this class I've been taking videos & pictures all the time because it's so cool to see all the parts of the animal that we can use. But I didn't take a video of the slaughter, that felt wrong for some reason. This particular sheep had an injury on its right horn from a fight, so that's why this sheep was chosen to die.

Shelby and Raye are teaching us how to process roadkill and sheep and use all the parts of the animals we can. They've been absolutely amazing I wish I were as cool as these women. I spent the last week making buckskin out of a roadkill deer. It takes days. Lots of pulling, stretching, rubbing in the dressing, peeling off the membrane, dipping it in the dressing again and wringing it out. On my last time wringing it out, a giant hole popped open in the middle of my hide. That was pretty disappointing, I should have been more careful. I could have seen that as a week of labor wasted. Maybe a week of labor only to get a buckskin is a waste either way. Despite the big hole in the middle I'm still happy with it, and I hope to still use it so hopefully it'll all turn out okay. I gotta get started on my second buckskin soon, I only have a week here left. Raye lives here and has tons of tanned hides, feels like I'm behind only having one. haha. 

I didn't hold the sheep down, or slit his throat, but I was watching it happen 2 feet in front of me. I wonder if I'm allowed to wax all poetic about it? Should I be feeling these big emotions? Like, I didn't do anything, I just witnessed it. I did cut off one of the legs and made some cuts in the hide to take it off the carcass. Shelby gutted the sheep and told me to take a bite out of the liver. I said "ew no way!" then Shelby took a bite out of the liver. So then I had to. haha. Pretty cool to eat a raw liver that was still warm from the sheep's internal temperature. 

I've eaten more meat here than I have in my entire life. It's honestly insane how much meat we're eating. There's so much roadkill here, and the communal farm has a goal to cause minimal harm to the earth, and to spend very little money. We went dumpster diving this morning too. You'd think dumpster diving, roadkill, sleeping in a mud hut and communal living would make resources feel scarce. But all this meat and how slowly the work goes, it feels like abundance.

Raye and Shelby sang a song to the sheep as he was dying. In the moment the lyrics seemed to cut right to my gut. If I knew the song I would have sang along.

Thank you for giving life, all of your meat and hide, 

your bones, and your insides are soon becoming mine.

Let your spirit fly free, I am you and you are me, 

like the setting of the sun, we come to a place where we all are one. 

Love you all.