Smelly Swiss Dilettante

[guitarplayer]

Good to know! As it is with plans, if you say 2 years I give it 4 to 6 years

2-3 years is my current ballpark time for changes happening on our end. At the very least, both DW and I can take career breaks to explore this. I think for DW it currently is up to 6 months, for me up to 3 years.

We can chat again next time we see each other.

[chenda]

That comment would certainly place in a backhanded compliment competition.

I probably should have phrased it something like 'Your practical skills and characterful personality would make you ideally suited for working with vulnerable adults' but I sometimes think I'm borderline myself...

[Jean]

I didn't take it as backhanded, my self confidence is way too high.

[Henry]

That's good. Because I would have taken it personally being that it's in the vein of "I bet you have really good lip synching skills" or "have you considered incarcerated women."

[Jean]

I killed a marmot.
I emptied it on the mountain, and now i'm taking a train back home.
I'll try to render its fat, get as much meat cuts as possible, and process its skin.

[guitarplayer]

Well done!

I was going to check

Estimates suggest there are more than 750,000 deer in Scotland. The native red and roe deer are by far the most common but there are also smaller populations of Sika and fallow deer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-26025523

Scotland’s land area is

77,901 km2 (30,078 sq mi)[3]

They must be all over the place in remote Scotland. Once I saw a herd of 30 grazing around a bothy I’d stayed in, I guess this is common around there.

[chenda]

Congratulations, I look forward to a culinary report.

I think I should like to give hunting a try someday.

@guitarplayer - The Southdowns are also overrun with deer. A friend of mind was cycling in a local forest and collided with a deer, knocking himself unconsciousness and the bike was a write off. Herds (?) of them roaming about. Its a shame I don't like venison.

[Jean]

I was able to get a small mason jar of fat. Due to marmot hibernating, its fat stays liquid in the fridge.
I put the meat in the freezer, it's about the size of a rabbit. The last happy moment of the marmot are too fresh in my mind to eat its corpse.
I ate the ophals with onion and butter with a side of rösti. It was good.
I couldn't treat the skin quickly enough, i had to throw it away. Next time, i'll freeze the skin to handle it when hunting is closed.
First half of red deer season is over. I haven't seen any deer, but i had a very good time in the mountains. Red deer reopens after mating in mid october.
I have 8 hunted day left to catch a chamois, of which i should be able to go out 7.
I can either shoot a kidless goat, or a yearling (beetween 1 and 2 years old).
I'll see what happens.

[chenda]

I think I should like to learn to hunt.

Remember Jean, eating the marmot is the best way to commemorate it's joyous little life.

Best of luck finding a chamois. There heads would make for an interesting wall decoration. Once stuffed and sealed.

[Jean]

I don't really like trophies nor the idea of it. I know that for many hunters, it's also a way to remember a particularly nice hunt, but i can recall memories just by looking at a map.
I already found someone who'de want the chamois skin, so it's one less stress. Also, there is no chamois that I cannot carry on my back, this is also one stress less when compared to red deer.
We were at a good spot this morning. We saw 7 chamois, but my friend who tried the approach failled it. I have to go to another spot tomorow, because i promised someone to take him with me.

[Jean]

Hunting this morning was great. We saw 5 chamois. One of them was a yearling that i was allowed to shot. I had no good angle to shoot. We made a very long eye contact. I feel a bit bad that they aren't more scared of me despite my plan to kill one of them.
I'de have no chance otherwise, because they have good ears, and more than twice my vo2max.

[guitarplayer]

We saw 5 chamois.

I just looked it up, I think I wouldn't have the guts to kill it, too close to human species.

How's it going with applying for job working with autistic folk?

On doing something completely different to stuff from the past*: I think this is one of the biggest features of the lifestyle people talk about here on the forum. That it works okay to switch to something new after a decade of something old, e.g. a decade of studying in engineering and then years of doing something different.

*this is from a separate exchange.

[Jean]

@seppia
I forgot to thank you for the addresses in belgrade. The tripe place was amazing, we went there twice.
@guitarplayed
Despite the litlle success i have, i am kinda hunting full time. I'll aply as soon as i can't hunt chamois anymore.
I foubd another institution close by, whose management as a better reputation than the first one i found

Also, we roasted a pig yesterday, i made lard with its fat, while there was a punk rock concert downstairs. It was very satisfying to turn trashbound leftovers into a valuable ressource. I got about 5 or 6 litters.
I also have about 2kg of milled greubons.
It's probably a good filling for venison sausages.
I need to learn to make saussages, i probably need a meat grinder now

Life is good.

I'm on my way to the chamois to be on site a dawn.

[jacob]

Also, we roasted a pig yesterday, i made lard with its fat,

In that case, you should try to make soap with its lard. All you need is lye (NaOH). You can look up the chemistry online. In terms of DIY soap, rendered fat created the longest lasting soap bar DW has ever made. (Something related to the length of the fat molecules compared to commercial lard which is probably the weakest kind available.)

[Jean]

I'de rather cook with it, I don't want to have to change my journal name.

But I'm really curious about how self-rendered lard makes better soap than bougth lard. The lard i made seem very similar to the lard i usually buy. Except of course that this pig was fed by one of my room mate.

[bos]

Great to read you are enjoying your hunting days @jean. You are getting closer and closer to your Ötzi transformation. We talked about it at the meetup. The content of Ötzi stomach was "Fresh or dried game meat from ibex and red deer". My guess is that once you’ve hunted both and eaten them in the same meal, your evolution to Ötzi will be complete."

[Jean]

Ibex are protected, so i'll never turn into ötzi.

[Frita]

Ooo , lard rendering is an activity that I enjoy. And the crispy little fat/meat bits (chicharrones) are delicious.

Commercial lard in the US contains hydrogenated lard, BHT, and BHA. It tastes awful and doesn’t seem to produce equivalent results in recipes either. It sounds like the chemical difference affects the properties of handmade soap.

[Jean]

That the kind of information that makes me appreciate european food regulation.
The cheap lard I buy only contains lard, and e306, which is basicaly vitamin E, as an antioxidation agent.
It is probably slightly more expensive than BHT and BHA.
And then, they can sell expensive lard without those thing for 3 times more expensive

[Jean]

Tomorow is the last day of chamois hunting.
I'm bivouaquing at a site i found several years ago, but i never had an occasion to sleep there.
It is a natural shelter at cliff foot, with a view on a big part of the swiss plateau. It's a few hundred meters away from where i saw the chamois 9 days ago.
Also, i realise how much instinct that fuel addictive behavior are good for hunting.
It is only natural that something will apear to exploit anything there is a lot of, and there are a lot of human.
I've noticed one interesting youtube short creatir. Which is very annoying, because when i watch one short, i take a risk to lose some tine doomscrolling afterward. I always closed the short bar when it appeared, but it aint possible anymore.
Scrolling down after an interesting short is basicaly a gamble that you'll be given an other interestibg short. It's a cheap gamble, so you easily end up watchin tens of useless shorts.
I will continue to watch shorts from thor halle, but i'll try to never scroll down after i watched one.
I'm glad my mobile internet is to cheap to watch videos from my phone.