September 22, 2009
Mabon Roadkill Dinner
Filed under: Life
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I just spent twenty effing minutes trying to figure out what sort of pheasant this is because its markings didn't match anything on Google. ("OH MY GOD I'VE DISCOVERED A NEW SPECIES OF PHEASANT!") And then, after a moment of genius, I plugged in "juvenile pheasant" and all was revealed. (STUPID JUVENILE MALE PHEASANT NOT MOLTING ENOUGH FOR THIS NOVICE ROADKILL SCAVENGER TO EASILY ID YOU.)
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My only experience with processing a pheasant was watching my father hand over a brace of birds to my mother that he and our family dog (a German short-haired pointer) caught earlier in the day. I remember bits of downy plumage drifting aimlessly in the air, and my mother sitting on a lawn chair, outside, enveloped in a blizzard of fluff and feathers. (Neither of the memories helped me much when it came to butchering the bird earlier this evening. <- THANKS MOM.)
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I mean, really, the copper feathers should've been the big giveaway (along with the red ring around the eyes), but because I didn't see the all-familiar black-green-purple iridescence I naturally assumed the most ridiculous hypothesis. (NATURALLY!)
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I know I got burned by the rabbit, but lightening, surely, can't strike twice - right? (I MEAN, IT'S NOT LIKE PHEASANTS ARE KNOWN CARRIERS OF ZOMBIE DISEASES, RIGHT? AND THE BODY WAS STILL HOT AND PERFECTLY FLOPPY AND THERE WAS NO OPEN WOUNDS AND SCAVENGERS AND CARRION HADN'T EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO SNIFF IT OUT. SO IT SHOULD BE A-OKAY, RIGHT? I MEAN, ESPECIALLY SLOW COOKED WITH VENISON AND TOMATOES AND FRESH HERBS FROM OUTSIDE AND BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND WINE AND PANCETTA*.)
(* THE PANCETTA TOTALLY, TOTALLY MAKES IT A-OKAY. HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLE GET SICK EATING SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE ROADKILL IF YOU COOK IT IN A DECENT WINE?)
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Last night, when falling asleep, my last thought was "OH, GOD, TRY AND REMEMBER TO OPEN UP THE CROP TO SEE IF THERE'S ANY VIABLE WHEAT KERNELS TUCKED AWAY" and I totally, totally forgot about it until I accidentally decapitated the bird a little too high and cut into the crop. (AND THE CROP, IT SPILLETH.)
And there were viable seeds, and it smelled rank, disgusting and sick but I scooped the lubricated kernels out with a spoon and tossed them into a dish and managed to only mentally dry heave. (I'm going to dry them out and then plant them next spring. MY WHEAT? COMES FROM THE BODY OF A DEAD PHEASANT WE ROASTED FOR OUR RITUAL HARVEST MEAL. <- MY WHEAT IS MORE MAGIC THAN YOUR WHEAT.)
Normally I save internal organs for FUTURE WITCHCRAFT but I decided to offer the offal to the crows and the Old Woman (Cailleach), so I spilled the bloody contents of my innards bowl at the base of the sycamore tree outside our office/computer room window. The feathers were binned, but the head and legs were cleanly hacked off with my ritual scissors and sneakily slipped into the freezer.
(OH, GOD, ONE OF THESE DAYS I'LL GET A WOODEN BOARD, SOME NAILS AND A BOX OF BORAX. UNTIL THEN MY SACRED ANIMAL PARTS WILL REMAIN COMMITTED TO THEIR LONELY FREEZER GRAVE.)
