Well yeah, so to follow up on Beaver Day...
That was a really neat experience, and I must say, quite out of my realm.
Earlyish on a Sunday Morning, I and a very small handful of interested individuals gathered, to pay a special kind of homage, to Our Lady, The Beaver, beautiful babe, who had found 'sun bathing' on the side of Hwy 87 North, several months ago.
To recapp, As you can learn from previous posts, I had found this gal on the way to band practice up at Blue Heron Farm, and thought her too precious of a find to leaver' for the vultures. So I threw her in the back seat, and off we went, to a land where I knew that they would know the value of a beaver...
And indeed, man of many resources Raymond Milosh, heeded my call to freeze her, in his personal freezer, (clearing a hulking beaver sized shelf for her) which I will be forever grateful and eternally impressed...
Recognizing the educational oppurtunity that such a fortuitous find provides, my good Father, Steve Cohn, who serves actively on the board of the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, as well as on regular creek clean ups and other important tasks, offered to sponsor her preservation for educational purposes of ECWA, and maybe other interested parties...
After consulting a few taxidermists, and discovering that 'mounting' a beaver costs about as much as mounting a deer (the darn thing weighed about 30 lbs), we decided to just settle for tanning her pelt, with the hope of preserving a few key features, namely her fabulous scaly, prehistoric taily-po, and just as magnificent, her back feet, giant furry webbed hands, really though.
And so it was that we gathered there in Ray's yard that morning, among the cool forests of Blue Heron Farm.
Lucky were we to have presiding over this momentus occassion, Dr. Perrin Heartway, the local Holistic Vetrinarian who had helped us to originally discern this was 'indeed a Beaver' (he thought this was pretty funny), and who is a good friend of mine. Dr. Heartway would be leading the skinning of the animal, a task which he has undertaken frequently in his own exlporations of salvaged animal resources (most notably for a beautiful and special sounding drum!).
Also in attendance was Artist, Longtime Friend, Student of Native American Animal Medicine, and co-organizer of this momentus event, Stacye Leanza. Stacy and I had sought to open this ritual to others, as sort of a ceremonial skill share. However, the response from key players was, well, not even tepid, which was really quite disappointing, but what can you do. So we persevered, and those few who were interested were treated to an experience out of the ordinary.
Those in attendance were: Dutch, Eric, Cedar (Perrrin's Son), and a nice young man and his son, who had Just moved to this community from NY, and who seemed psyched to get to partake in this out of their ordinary experience. I was grateful for all of these people's interest in this experience.
Perrin had unthawed the Beaver the night before, and so her skin was soft enough.
You know, its hard to prepare for something that you have never ever done before. Trying to imagine these steps from the dark of my bed the night before, I had packed a utility knife with a hooked lenoleum cutting blade for cutting hide (that I ussually use for cutting tire's hides), and a hack saw, for cutting bone, and a large tarp, to catch the ocean of blood that imagined might poor forth. I layed this over a slanted picnic table in Rays front yard (which has been used for similar tasks before, I was told), and assembled the tools, some rags, and a small fan 'upstream'.
We said a brief invocation for the Beaver, then had a moment of silence.
Then it was time dig in. Perrin was kind and generous enough to allow me the experience of piercing this beaver's flesh, and from what followed, I think its true to say, that I will never be the same.
We moved the shallow cut down her belly to her tail, carefull (Perrin) not to open up tight package of her valuables yet. We cut to the legs, found the broken bone of her hind leg that Perrin had discovered when we first met her, and Perrin disarticulated the other hind foot, and the tail bones, that held her beautiful tail to her skeleton. Pulling, and de'seaming' we undressed this carcass, little by little. Perrin did a Masterful job, and was able to salvage much more of her than have ever expected.
When it was finally through, she had not only her tail and hind legs still on her, but her front paws, and her perfectly preserved snout and ears. A real artist we had behind the knife on this task, and I am grateful both for Perrin's attention to detail, and that we had chosen for the task. For not only did he execute this with deft cunning and precision, but he then proceeded to walk us through the butchering of the entire animal, pointing out the various glands, tendons, and bone structures. We could not have been luckier!
Along the way, we encountered another special part of the beaver, her castor glands. We had been warned in the instruction that local soap maker and BHFits Hannah Shoemaker had shared, that we needed to look out for these, as they could taint the meat. The instructions went on to say that we should give these to some one who could process them for the perfume trade. One unfortunately got fed to Perrin's dog Ralph, who I must say does not have very discriminating tastes (as was proven in that moment...), but the other I kept.
And what a smell they had. We were reminded of the pungent, woody odor that we had all taken note of that day when we found her. It was a resinous, piney smell, a very special smell, scent, like no other...
Once the butchering work was through, Perrin and others had to go tend to families and what was left of their appitites...
Stacye and I then spent a couple hours cleaning the meat, and soaking it in a salty brine, per Stacye's good hygiene recommendation. (I did recognize the double rinse bucket method adopted from the aciduous paint-brush washing method that I have learned from her, in my work as her assistant over the years in Mural Painting!) Was funny to see, but effective, and a nice way to spend some time, gently handling an getting to know, this material, that was at once, both being, and food...
I hope this is not the last time that I will get to experience, this strange, yet completely natural dichotomy, of being, and food.
I feel grateful that I was able to experience this. Grateful to the beaver, to the pond, to the road, to Ray, Stacye, Perrin, Cedar, Dutch, Eric, new guys from NY, Steve, Hannah and Sage, for allowing this to happen.
It was a Beaver Day!
I rolled up the hide, and dropped it off at Circle Acres at around sunset that evening (last night). My friend Noel will work on tanning the hide. Noel is great tanner (as evidenced by his new fox pelt bag that he modeled in downtown Siler City last Friday Night!), and I sure that he will do a great job.
Hopefully, soon, other people will soon get to experience the special thing that is a beaver skin, with its many special 'feetchers'
Thanks All.
That was a really neat experience, and I must say, quite out of my realm.
Earlyish on a Sunday Morning, I and a very small handful of interested individuals gathered, to pay a special kind of homage, to Our Lady, The Beaver, beautiful babe, who had found 'sun bathing' on the side of Hwy 87 North, several months ago.
To recapp, As you can learn from previous posts, I had found this gal on the way to band practice up at Blue Heron Farm, and thought her too precious of a find to leaver' for the vultures. So I threw her in the back seat, and off we went, to a land where I knew that they would know the value of a beaver...
And indeed, man of many resources Raymond Milosh, heeded my call to freeze her, in his personal freezer, (clearing a hulking beaver sized shelf for her) which I will be forever grateful and eternally impressed...
Recognizing the educational oppurtunity that such a fortuitous find provides, my good Father, Steve Cohn, who serves actively on the board of the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, as well as on regular creek clean ups and other important tasks, offered to sponsor her preservation for educational purposes of ECWA, and maybe other interested parties...
After consulting a few taxidermists, and discovering that 'mounting' a beaver costs about as much as mounting a deer (the darn thing weighed about 30 lbs), we decided to just settle for tanning her pelt, with the hope of preserving a few key features, namely her fabulous scaly, prehistoric taily-po, and just as magnificent, her back feet, giant furry webbed hands, really though.
And so it was that we gathered there in Ray's yard that morning, among the cool forests of Blue Heron Farm.
Lucky were we to have presiding over this momentus occassion, Dr. Perrin Heartway, the local Holistic Vetrinarian who had helped us to originally discern this was 'indeed a Beaver' (he thought this was pretty funny), and who is a good friend of mine. Dr. Heartway would be leading the skinning of the animal, a task which he has undertaken frequently in his own exlporations of salvaged animal resources (most notably for a beautiful and special sounding drum!).
Also in attendance was Artist, Longtime Friend, Student of Native American Animal Medicine, and co-organizer of this momentus event, Stacye Leanza. Stacy and I had sought to open this ritual to others, as sort of a ceremonial skill share. However, the response from key players was, well, not even tepid, which was really quite disappointing, but what can you do. So we persevered, and those few who were interested were treated to an experience out of the ordinary.
Those in attendance were: Dutch, Eric, Cedar (Perrrin's Son), and a nice young man and his son, who had Just moved to this community from NY, and who seemed psyched to get to partake in this out of their ordinary experience. I was grateful for all of these people's interest in this experience.
Perrin had unthawed the Beaver the night before, and so her skin was soft enough.
You know, its hard to prepare for something that you have never ever done before. Trying to imagine these steps from the dark of my bed the night before, I had packed a utility knife with a hooked lenoleum cutting blade for cutting hide (that I ussually use for cutting tire's hides), and a hack saw, for cutting bone, and a large tarp, to catch the ocean of blood that imagined might poor forth. I layed this over a slanted picnic table in Rays front yard (which has been used for similar tasks before, I was told), and assembled the tools, some rags, and a small fan 'upstream'.
We said a brief invocation for the Beaver, then had a moment of silence.
Then it was time dig in. Perrin was kind and generous enough to allow me the experience of piercing this beaver's flesh, and from what followed, I think its true to say, that I will never be the same.
We moved the shallow cut down her belly to her tail, carefull (Perrin) not to open up tight package of her valuables yet. We cut to the legs, found the broken bone of her hind leg that Perrin had discovered when we first met her, and Perrin disarticulated the other hind foot, and the tail bones, that held her beautiful tail to her skeleton. Pulling, and de'seaming' we undressed this carcass, little by little. Perrin did a Masterful job, and was able to salvage much more of her than have ever expected.
When it was finally through, she had not only her tail and hind legs still on her, but her front paws, and her perfectly preserved snout and ears. A real artist we had behind the knife on this task, and I am grateful both for Perrin's attention to detail, and that we had chosen for the task. For not only did he execute this with deft cunning and precision, but he then proceeded to walk us through the butchering of the entire animal, pointing out the various glands, tendons, and bone structures. We could not have been luckier!
Along the way, we encountered another special part of the beaver, her castor glands. We had been warned in the instruction that local soap maker and BHFits Hannah Shoemaker had shared, that we needed to look out for these, as they could taint the meat. The instructions went on to say that we should give these to some one who could process them for the perfume trade. One unfortunately got fed to Perrin's dog Ralph, who I must say does not have very discriminating tastes (as was proven in that moment...), but the other I kept.
And what a smell they had. We were reminded of the pungent, woody odor that we had all taken note of that day when we found her. It was a resinous, piney smell, a very special smell, scent, like no other...
Once the butchering work was through, Perrin and others had to go tend to families and what was left of their appitites...
Stacye and I then spent a couple hours cleaning the meat, and soaking it in a salty brine, per Stacye's good hygiene recommendation. (I did recognize the double rinse bucket method adopted from the aciduous paint-brush washing method that I have learned from her, in my work as her assistant over the years in Mural Painting!) Was funny to see, but effective, and a nice way to spend some time, gently handling an getting to know, this material, that was at once, both being, and food...
I hope this is not the last time that I will get to experience, this strange, yet completely natural dichotomy, of being, and food.
I feel grateful that I was able to experience this. Grateful to the beaver, to the pond, to the road, to Ray, Stacye, Perrin, Cedar, Dutch, Eric, new guys from NY, Steve, Hannah and Sage, for allowing this to happen.
It was a Beaver Day!
I rolled up the hide, and dropped it off at Circle Acres at around sunset that evening (last night). My friend Noel will work on tanning the hide. Noel is great tanner (as evidenced by his new fox pelt bag that he modeled in downtown Siler City last Friday Night!), and I sure that he will do a great job.
Hopefully, soon, other people will soon get to experience the special thing that is a beaver skin, with its many special 'feetchers'
Thanks All.
