We've done goats before, but this was the first time with a pig. Slaughter day is always a little mournful (and squick: every time you reevaluate if you really want to keep eating meat)... but the worst part is done.
Anyhow.. it leads to some observations. Those of you who are hunters already know this I'm sure. But for those who aren't...
1. Nothing dies easy.
The kill was perfect, she dropped like a bag of rocks. The "there" in there was gone immediately.
But unlike the movies, bodies don't just switch off and lay still. A three hundred pound hog taken down perfectly, in calm conditions while she's at peace and unsuspecting - the body can still kick fierce even when there's nothing left inside.
But an orc filled instead with with adrenaline and rage? Dying not of a controlled kill but instead bleeding out through the best puncture or slash a harried ranger managed to sneak past armor?
I think if anyone tried to put what a real rangers - vs - orc battle would look like to screen, we'd all be having nightmares for a month.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
2. It's a lot of work!
There's an incredible amount of time and amount of work involved in turning a live animal to a carcass ready for butchering. Not even thinking about getting it to the plate or preserved for the winter: just getting as far as a cleaned carcass is enough to keep two people busy for a good long while. Granted we're not practiced hands doing this every day, and we're going out of our way to save and preserve everything we can.
On the other hand we're working in fairly ideal circumstances with specialized tools - in field conditions with just a knife an hatchet we'd take I think longer to produce far worse results.
What does that imply for a lone Ranger on the move? Either he's stuck on location for the better part of a morning (at least), even if he's not letting meat hang... or he's sticking to small game, or he's just pulling out a few of the easiest/best cuts, perhaps wrapping them in the hide as a packet, and leaving the bulk of the carcass to the wolves.
Aragorn's not dropping a whole whitetail at the campfire I don't think.
3. Eating the icky bits.
Living on a 21st century diet with the comparative luxury a 21st century lifestyle provides, I can afford to turn up my nose at the offal spilling out, or get a little queasy at saving the blood for sausage. Take away that luxury though - say "these three animals are what you'll have to make it through winter: them and nothing else" - all of a sudden you bet I'm thinking of ways to fry those kidneys and serve that liver. Heck: the shear amount of fat and mineral wealth in the organ meats probably smells and feels entirely different to a body warmed only by fire and wool, struggling through harsh winters. I imagine I'd be looking at that liver with deep-in-my-bones craving, not the squick-tinged childhood memories of dinner at gramma's place.
The world we reenact is a very, very different place.