Out of respect for him, I am using as much of him as possible. We fed his heart, testicles, liver and kidneys to the dogs, the rest will go to my parents. Only his head, lungs and guts were disposed of. So that leaves his skin.
One of the slaughtering guys from the fall had said that it is easy to cure your own skin. He gave me brief instructions. I got part way with Oregano and Tarragon and then put the skins in the freezer where they remain. I don't really have room for another skin in my freezer so I have been learning how to do this on Paprika. Let me tell you, 'easy' is not a word I would use to decribe this process....
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Then I put the skin in the washing machine and ran it through a cycle.
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Then I stretched it out on a piece of teak plywood my old neighbours gave me for this purpose. I used my staple gun to attach it. See all that stuff? I am supposed to scrape all that off... The kids were in bed and I turned on CBC and started working. After 2 hours and little improvement, I started to wonder what I was thinking... This is what it looked like after 2 hours. And lambskin/sheepskin is very thin - one of the thinnest hides, actually. I kept making holes in it. My dreams of having a beautiful lambskin to give my dad when he got here, started to slip away.... I started to think about putting the whole skin in the compost... I went and looked up stuff on the internet - it seems there are many ways to cure a hide. In the end, I worked on it for another hour and then put a layer of salt over it and went to bed.
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Last night I brought it in and worked on the scraping part - so many little bits of fat stuck to it but they are getting easier to take off as it gets drier and I haven't made any new holes... Again I covered it in a lyer of salt. I'm about to take it outside and give it another salt water rinse and scrub. In some places it is looking like the most gorgeous, fine leather.... Although I am only going for rawhide, I think. And once I have this side done, then I have to finish cleaning the wool on the other side. I am debating on whether I should cut it all down to 2 inches long. I'll have to wait and see how it looks...