The Old Man's Bones

Today I went out to see how well the bones were being stripped by the bugs - and hopefully not the animals. Well, all the bones were there except one. Not happy about that. It was a nice big bone too - the right thigh bone. But at least all the others were there.


I spent a couple of hours in horrendous heat peeling of the skin so I can take the bones. Some of his teeth had fallen out so I quickly gathered those before they got lost. The skull still has some skin on it that will be a bit difficult to remove, but not impossible. I was able to get most of the rib bones and the spinal vertebrae. The pelvis had been chewed on a bit, but not too bad. Two of the legs still had too much skin on them to fight with in all that heat.


So, I have a large barrel full of bones to soak and strip of sinew & skin. A bit of lye in the water should do the trick. 


The skull will be placed on an altar to honor him. The rib bones will make a very cool windchime, and the top vertebrae that connects the neck to the head will be used as the clapper weight (or what ever its called).


The hooves will be trimmed, filed, and shined. They'll make interesting paperweights. I'm sure not too many people have those! LOL


Hubby calls me "gruesome". Yeah, I guess he's right (even after a shower my hands still stink a bit). But bones are just too cool to let just rot into the ground! Wish I could've saved The Old Man's hide as well. Might try a section anyway - need to do some research as to how to go about it though.


Other than horrendous heat, nothing else is new. It got up to 113 degrees with the heat index today! Not cool! Then it rained and instantly brought it down to 85 degrees with the heat index. Definitely more tolerable!


Time to join the dogs & hubby outside. 


Blessings!