This week was exciting because I had a lot of firsts, and
they got way more awesome as the week went on. I was starving after posting my
last blog entry (on my day off in Austin), so I looked up a few good places to
eat in downtown. I went to check one place out, but a lack of street parking
and a sketchy entrance had me do a drive-by instead. I went a couple blocks
when I passed a Turkish food truck (which I had also seen online). I’ve been
told many times that food trucks have delicious food, so I figured there was no
better time to eat at one. I didn’t know what to get, so the woman ordered me a
falafel kebab with roasted red pepper hummus. It was BEYOND DELICIOUS. I can’t
even explain how happy that food made me. It was so good that I think I’m going
back sometime this week and bringing other people to enjoy the deliciousness of
it. First #1: eating at a food truck.
While I was in Austin I went to South Congress Avenue,
which is where they have lots of little shops to wander in (vintage clothing,
candy/ice cream, cowboy boots, etc.) and the famous “Bat Bridge”, where
thousands (millions?) of bats pour out from under the bridge at dusk. This
street also only has back-in parking (WHAT?). I don’t think I’ve ever seen so
many messed up parking jobs (including my own) in that short a stretch before.
I went into a couple of vintage shops but quickly learned to avoid them like
the plague when I realized that $150 for a top was cheap.
I (obviously) made a
stop at the candy shop – it was absolutely filled with anything from classic
candy bars to gourmet chocolates. I spent more on a few pieces of chocolate
than I did on lunch. Further down the street an animal shelter put out several
pens of puppies just off the sidewalk! They were adorable little roly-polies
just playing with each other. I hung out with those guys for a little while
before moseying back to my car (2 hour parking limit). I was going to try and
stick around to watch the bats come out, but that wasn’t for another couple
hours and I didn’t have anything else to do in the area. Plus I still had to go
grocery shopping and get my data together for the next day of work.
On Tuesday we went over to the bunkhouse (where the
refuge interns live) for dinner. They made chili, one of them offered up some
delicious beers, Chelsea made salad, Michaela made cornbread, and I made a key
lime pie. That was such a delicious dinner, and nice to get out of our place
now and then. I have serious porch-envy because their porch seems way cooler
than ours. I think that’s only because they have actual seating and a lot of
shade, whereas we have crappy chairs and no shade depending on the time of day.
We do have the pond and a really awesome view, so that’s always nice. At the
end of the night, one of the interns whipped out some Midnight Moon apple pie
moonshine and poured a round of shots. That was surprisingly smooth, delicious,
and like some kind of liquid dessert (despite the fact that we already had both
apple and key lime pies). First #2:
drinking moonshine!
We had to work on the Fourth of July, but it was a “half
day” (we got back around 11:30, so it was definitely a short day but not an
actual half day). One of the refuge interns, Andrew, wanted to go with Chelsea
and me to Cedar Park to watch fireworks, so he came over around 5:30. He and
the other interns had recommended this Cajun place called Parrain’s, so I
suggested we go there for dinner. I got a po’boy with Andouille which was
amazing! Spicy and delicious, plus I split cornbread with Chelsea, which also
had a kick to it. Definitely need to go back there before the summer is over
(which I’m horrified to realize is in less than three weeks). First #3: Cajun food (I think that’s a
first…?)
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| Fourth of July baby! |
Chelsea’s boyfriend came to visit her on Friday, so she
decided to cook dinner for everyone. She made chicken-fried-steak, a potato
casserole, and corn, and Michaela made an apple-fig-crumble for dessert. First #4: Chicken-fried-steak. To be
fair the apple-fig-crumble was a first, but I feel like chicken-fried-steak is
a more standard option.
I thought that Saturday was a good day when I got an
awesome, up-close picture of newly fledged BCVI, but it got a thousand time
better in a very short amount of time. After finishing up all of our work,
Michaela and I headed back home, but stopped at the bunkhouse along the way to
give some of her apple-fig-crumble to the interns. She headed home but I stuck
around, and long story short – we came into some hogs.
Each of the interns got a hog, and I helped them gut and
skin them! Andrew has a lot of experience with hunting and field dressing
things, so I stuck by him and he explained every step of the process. Liz had a
piglet and was doing what Andrew did, and Joey had a medium-sized hog (35 lbs,
same as Andrew) and was doing what Liz did. Andrew started by cutting from the
breastbone all the way to the pelvis, through at least an inch of fat (these
were healthy hogs). He was careful to not cut too deep too quickly, because the
goal was to cut through all of the layers of skin, fat, and connective tissue
without going too far and puncturing an organ. Once he cut through the last
layer, the intestines just started ballooning out of the hog. It was super
weird to watch! I didn’t realize how tightly-packed everything is inside a
body, so you give it some extra space and it just expands outward. Neat! Then
he started cutting things that were connected to other parts of the body (cut
the esophagus, removed the heart (I held a warm hog’s heart in my hand… wild!),
bagged the liver, etc. I got to stick my hands in a few times, but Andrew
mostly handled the gutting. Then we dumped the guts out and hung the carcass
from a tree. We didn’t have any proper equipment for hanging a hog carcass –
just a rope – so we took turns spreading the legs apart while the other person
worked on skinning it. I totally owned that hog for my first time skinning an
animal! It was also kind of tricky to do because it was warm out and the fat
started to sweat, so we were trying to get a grip on a greasy hunk of hog.
Andrew started bagging cuts of meat while I cut out the
ribs. When everyone finished, we froze the meat, dumped the carcasses and
intestines as a present for the vultures, and enjoyed some of Michaela’s
apple-fig-crumble. Field dressing a hog works up an appetite! Liz and Joey
offered to wash my clothes in their “pig’s blood” load of laundry, but I
figured I should probably head home so I could eat dinner and do data from that
day. Some people separate their whites from their darks, but we separate
regular clothes from field clothes from clothes covered in hog’s blood.
Unfortunately, the next morning I realized that – despite a thorough washing –
my sleeves still smelled like hog fat. That’s not exactly a smell I can
describe, but when I went to wipe my face on my sleeve I knew that’s what I was smelling. Delicious. First #5: GUTTING AND SKINNING A HOG!
Sunday I went to the beach with Andrew after work. It was
the same beach I went to with the interns before – soft sand, warm water, and
no one else around! We swam, tanned (or more accurately, fried), and listened
to country music, and then headed back to the bunkhouse for quick showers
before heading into Austin. Andrew had told me of this great bar called Craft
Pride that also had a bacon food truck parked behind it. Beer and bacon? Yes
please! However, we were horrified to discover that the guys with the truck had
decided to “move on” in search of different venues. They’d been there for
months and I finally make my way down after they leave?? What a bunch of
hoo-hah. The beer was still delicious and totally worth it (Pearl Snap Pilsner
(amazing), Austin Amber, El Hefe Weizen, and Sisyphus Barlywine Ale).
After
that we walked to the food truck courtyard (hoping that the bacon truck just
moved over there), but then we walked down the street to get dinner at a place
called Bangers, which has beer and specialty sausages. I got a bratwurst and
Andrew got a South Texas Antelope & Venison Merguez. I feel like I’ve been
saying this a lot during this post, but both of them were delicious! My brat
came covered in sour kraut – so good. We also got another round of beers – 512
Pale Ale for me – and some kind of Snickers Jar for dessert (roasted peanuts,
caramel, ice cream, and chocolate all served up in a jar. YUM. It was an hour
and a half from downtown to my house (with a stop to drop Andrew off), so I
didn’t get home until 3am. An eight-day week followed by a nine-day week with
one day off in between? Yeah, any day that I get off work early is
automatically considered a “weekend” in my mind.
All in all this was a fantastic week! Never would’ve dreamed
I’d learn to field dress a hog, but DANG was that awesome!
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