Deerskinners

Liz, Rachel and Brooke are now helping Mike Flowers with his deer-processing operation. First lessons in skinning on Saturday afternoon.

First lesson: experienced people are really, really fast...

Second lesson: deerskinning is really, really hard work...

They came home with some small deer antlers for Eric to use for knapping flint. Brooke says she's going to tan her first hide to make a skirt. We'll see.

Another number to add to our growing stash of Scottsboro statistics (thirty pounds of garlic plants out to about 600 linear feet, 200 tons of compost, 8000 pounds of summer squash, 16 quarts of pesto, and so on): neighborhood deer-processing results in 140,000 pounds of bones each year.

Third lesson: sometimes there is nothing more to say.