Turtle Bend Farm Winter Workshop Series

Autumn is a season of harvest – of plants and animals alike. If you’re a meat eater and haven’t participated in an animal slaughter, you are invited to partake in this intimate, empowering and transformative rite that awakens us to the circle of life. Join Turtle Bend Farm, in Montgomery MA, for a number of educational butchering workshops this fall.  Attendees will be expected to roll their sleeves and participate at whatever distances feels comfortable.  This work will be done in the respectful and open-hearted context of interdependence with a focus on gratitude, interconnection, home/farm economics and safety.

For more info and to register: www.turtlebend.farm

Chicken Processing Class (10/22)

Meat birds are a fast-growing group of chicken breeds that rapidly grow from chicks to full size in just a few months. This workshop will cover chicken and other poultry kosher style slaughter, processing and butchering, as we work with this fall’s flock of meat birds. We will explore their care, diet, anatomy and ecology, and how to make traditional use of all parts, including the blood, bones, head, feet and organs – as well as the tools needed for this work.

Participants will process and take home 2 FREE, 100% organic, pastured chickens, working with them from live to packaged. We will make a chicken soup on the spot to share, and discuss nutritious recipes.

Price: $85-110 sliding scale
Time: 10-2pm

Cow Share and Beef Intensive (11/5 & 11/19, 2 days)

Learn how to slaughter, dress, quarter and butcher a cow using traditional methods, with a pastured, grass-fed beef meat-share option!

In this workshop, we’ll take apart TWO gentle Jersey/Angus crosses at Turtle Bend Farm in Montgomery, MA. We’ll learn about processing, butchering, anatomy and meat curing as we transform a whole, majestic creature into food for us humans. Reconnect with these skills, food, the land, and the long lost experience of making meat in community! All parts of the cow will be used, including hide, hooves, organ meats, bones and blood. We will explore sausage and traditional meat curing like drying and smoking – as well as using the sinew for string, hooves for glue and how to prepare the hide into a finished leather.

This workshop covers two Saturdays, two weeks apart. The first, 3/11 will cover cow care, slaughter, skinning, dressing, organ meats and quartering. The second, 3/25 will cover primal and subprimal, packaged cuts, and allows the carcass to properly age.

Saturday: 11/5 and 11/19
Time: 10-4pm
Attendance price: $115-180. Beef share additional.