It's what's for dinner...

There was a smiling cow here, but now this stupid blogger won't read it.

This cow wouldn't be smiling so much if he saw what I saw last week. Our ward was asked to fill 24 spots for working at the Church meat-packing plant in Spanish Fork. It is the only one that the Church has, if I am not mistaken, and therefore provides all the meat for all the Bishop's Storehouses. Anyway, a sign-up sheet was passed around in our ward a couple of weeks ago, and all the times were pretty inconvenient for me, so I didn't bother with it. Then the next Sunday it was passed around again because only four of the 24 slots had been filled. So I signed up for the only shift I could really make--the 6:00-9:00 am shift. As the day loomed closer and closer, I regretted my decision to serve more and more. But this blog isn't about that, it is about the process I witnessed. Read on (be warned, this entry is pretty lengthy).

When I arrived, I signed in to a service log, and then was shepherded to a little room where I was given a white butcher's coat, a hairnet (you wouldn't think I would need one of those), knit gloves, rubber gloves, and earplugs. I was about to take off my own jacket when I was reminded that the meat floor was a balmy 40 degrees. We were then moved out to the floor, after stepping into some kind of solution to clean our shoes. It turned out that there were almost too many volunteers, so we were putting three people on a job one person could normally do. Because there were so many people, there was plenty of time for a tour, and one of the full-time guys led us around. In order of entering the room, this is what we saw:

1. Right when you walk in, there are 8 or so butchers going to work. They are working on both sides of a 20 foot counter, that has a conveyor belt running down the middle. There is also a conveyor belt above their heads, and one below the counter. To the left, quarters of beef are hanging on hooks, waiting to be taken apart by the butchers. The butchers cut out the different cuts, and throw them on the middle, main conveyor belt, that takes them into a room where three guys are bagging them. The conveyor belt above their heads is for bones, so they just throw them up there and the bones are carted off to a truck or something. The conveyor belt below the counter is for scraps that will become hamburger and hotdogs.

2. The main conveyor belt takes the cuts to be bagged. The bagged meat is then grabbed by another couple of guys who line up the bags on a little conveyor belt that rolls under what looks like a heating hood, but is actually a vacuum sealer. The hood closes on them, and sucks out all the air, lifts back up, and the conveyor belt then dumps the sealed cuts into hot water (100 degrees C). I suppose that is to sanitize, but I don't know for sure. Or maybe to shrink the plastic bag. After awhile, the bags are grabbed and boxed by a guy, who hands them to another guy. He binds the box in this machine that wraps one of those things that came around the newspaper bundles around it. He slides it down to be weighed, and that is where I come in. I was the weigher/sticker putter onner. When it was weighed, a computer would print out a sticker with all the info on it, and I slapped it on the box. And did a dang good job, too. I then handed the box to a guy right next to me, who stacked the box on a pallet that was also right next to me. After 45 boxes were stacked, the pallet was taken somewhere else, and we started again. During my shift we were stacking roasts.

3. Across the way was the room that made sausage and hamburger. The little conveyor belt from the butcher's room went there, and there was one large machine for grinding, another for making those little rows you see in packaged ground beef, and one for putting it in little tubes. I didn't get a real good look at this room. Our guide told us that the hamburger they produce is 85/15 (lean/fat), and it turns out that they have to mix bull and cow meat, because the bull meat doesn't provide enough fat. The other rooms were not so busy, and they were processing some ham. We saw the hotdog room, but they weren't currently producing them. He said they are produced about once a month. He also said that, although one hears things about the gross things that go into hotdogs, they only put beef in theirs, and it is the same meat that goes into the hamburgers--no cow cheek or forehead meat. The difference is the hotdogs are 60/40 lean/fat. 60% lean+40% fat=100% deliciousness. All the hotdogs that are consumed by BYU come from this place.

4. Next was the killing floor. It actually wasn't where they killed the cows. I didn't see that. It was where the cows went right after they were killed, though. I questioned whether it was wise for me to venture into this room, considering my sensitivity to blood, but I decided to risk it. This is how it was: when you step into the room, the cows closest to you looked like meat. As you looked farther down through the room, the cows more resembled, well, cows. Starting at the back of the room, I saw two cows hanging there upside down. Besides that fact, they just looked like any cow, except they were clean. Moving closer to the front of the room, the cows were being skinned. The hides were cut/pulled off until they were hanging down over the cow's head (kind of like what a little kid looks like when he is hanging upside down and his shirt has fallen down around the head). The hides were then hooked to a machine that JERKED the hide off around the head. So now there is this big piece of meat, with no hair. A guy comes along and cuts off the head (I watched it) and then starts to cut the cow open so the guts can be pulled out. The head goes to a government inspector for checking over. After the guts are gone, the cow is cut in half, down the spine, with a giant chainsaw that hangs from the ceiling. It then passes through a lactic acid shower, evidently to kill any bacteria, and is ready to be moved to the butchers. While waiting for the shower, I saw one cow-half where the muscles were still twitching. I reckon the thing had been dead for maybe 15 minutes. Wild.

That is basically all, I guess. I helped move around some cow-halves that were hanging from the ceiling, too. Got a little bloody.

Birthdays and Halloween...among other things

This post is principally about my (Forrest's) birthday, but I decided to throw in some other pictures that were on the camera too. I had a wonderful birthday, and want to thank all those who contributed to the day to make it so. I especially appreciated the letters from family. And of course my greatest thanks goes to Elin, for arranging everything and working so hard on a perfect birthday dinner. The rest of this post will just be photo captions.

Some of the fruits of my (garden) labors. I wanted to take a picture of the garden itself, but never remembered.

Gross. If you can't tell, this is a blackwidow. The red hour glass is slightly blurred, but definitely there. Elin saw it as she was exercising, and I caught it in this jar. I then was sent on an errand to Smith's to buy some spider killer spray (at 9:30 PM). When I came home, I took the jar outside and tried to flick the spider out of it. As it fell out it made a web, which essentially turned the spider and web into a pendulum. Which meant that it swung away from me, and then right back at me. Some might know that I do not like spiders. I dodged the attack however, and managed to get the spider on the sidewalk. I then soaked it in spider killer spray. It staggered around for a second, and then just started to walk back towards our open door. I was then forced to step on it. See the big back part, where the hourglass is? Thing popped like a giant pimple. Gross.

As far as picture posting goes, I am retarded. I couldn't figure out how to make it flip right side up. Anyway, this is the birthday spread. It was delicious. Thanks to Tim for helping with the steaks. I had the Special plate (first time), Elin had seating cards for everyone (the little reddish card on my plate), and an "about Forrest" questionaire at each plate. I got all the questions right.

This is me sporting some birthday presents. The sunglasses are from Dad and Mom, and are specially made for sports, particularly fishing. I am a fisherman. They also gave me a creel, so I am basically outfitted. Too bad it's freezing outside. There was also a coupon in the box for a free pair of aviator sunglasses, which I sent for. I was going to post a picture of them, but forgot to take a picture. When they arrived, there was ANOTHER coupon for aviators, so I might end up with a lot of sunglasses. The jacket is courtesy of the siblings, and is much appreciated.

Birthday party guests. It is good to have family close by. I don't have pictures, but Laurel gave me the Scarlet Pimpernel music book, which is fantastic. Seth hooked me up with some delicious treats.

I don't think I need to explain this picture to anyone. I just want to give my heartfelt thanks to Momma J for a wonderful gift.

Elin made this beautiful (and delicious) German chocolate cake. It really was really good. She is such a sweetheart. She doesn't even like German chocolate cake.

In this picture I am getting a closer look at the candles (as well as trying to rid myself of a few pesky nose hairs) because the candles on the outside were special. See, the flame of the candle burned the same color as the candle. You can kind of see some variation on the ones closest to my face.

Master artisans at work.

For those who have carved pumpkins with me in the past, please note that I am not going with the standard jack-o'-lantern face.

Yeah, look at those bad boys! We didn't have candles, so I put two little flashlights in there. If you can't tell, mine is a witch's pot on a fire. The flames look a little like flower petals, but that was the best I could do. Maybe the flicker of a candle inside will make them look more like flames. Turns out we carved them a little early. To my dismay, I found my pot sagging into the pumpkin last night. I was able to secure it with some toothpicks, though.

A beautiful picture. Tim and Rach aren't looking too bad either.