So I’ve spent the last… six(?) hours working on a post for an upcoming blog carnival (there will be links as well as the post in question – stay tuned) but I wanted to throw a quick link up here today.
Sofya writes about killing and butchering your own food – among other things – with great enthusiasm and a practical approach (and lots of pictures).
Even though most of the pics are in sepia, I was watching my reactions to reading about (and seeing, albeit quite second-hand) the process of butchering a dead deer, and I was interested to note both (a) my initial squeemishness over the idea of cutting through joints (in spite of the fact that I do this all the time with cooked dead animals…), and (b) my growing interest and comfort with the subject.
I’m definitely not at the point where I can seriously start working on Going Hunting. I haven’t even killed a fish yet, after all. But I wanted to read this, to SEE this, even at a distance, just to see where I’m at with it. Taking my temperature, so to speak. If my long-term goal is to be able to competantly hunt and kill my own food, the first tiny micro-step in that is to be able to look at what comes after – the process, with all its blood and smells and mess, of dressing and butchering a carcass – with open eyes.
It’s a tiny step. But it’s a step.
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
Urban Meliad 
Ooh, fresh venison. ❤
Having hunted for, and field-dressed, deer, I have to say that it isn't as messy and unpleasant as people usually make it sound. The one exception is if you manage to nick the intestines; that's pretty awful. As for the rest of it, if you've got a good sharp knife and someone to show you where to cut, it's not actually too difficult (physically). There are visible lines where you want to cut, and an even-a-little experienced person ought to be able to show you how to follow those lines.
That said, the emotional and spiritual aspects of hunting – at least for me – are Not Easy. The way I figure it, if it ever stops making me cry to kill an animal, I need to stop hunting.