A few weeks ago, our older boys found a dead bufflehead duck on the side of the road. They carried it home and for some strange reason we just kept it in a box in our screened-in-porch. When our bible study group came over, we showed some of the avid hunting guys our duck and asked for their opinion. They thought the duck was worth stuffing.
Now there is a girl in our group that is adventuresome and daring. I am not sure if it was Rachel's youthful zeal or my late-night thinking, but before I knew it, Rachel and I had made a date to get together and stuff this duck. How hard could it be to be a taxidermist?
Yesterday morning I took the duck out of the freezer (yes, he moved into the freezer) to thaw. By the afternoon, Bob the bufflehead duck was still frozen solid so last night he sat on top of the freezer in his box-coffin for the night.
Rachel came over this afternoon and we put our gloves on and got to work.
We had you-tubed duck taxidermy and it didn't look too hard.
What the video doesn't give you is the smell. The horrible, wretched smell when you make the first cut. Absolutely disgusting. The video doesn't give you the sound of the bones crunching when you have to cut the bones. The video also doesn't tell you how you will be scared when you cut near the jugular in case you nick it and blood squirts all over.
This was one of the most difficult afternoons I have ever endured. We have never skinned, or cut open any animals ever before so the cutting seemed to take forever.
And yet, we kept on sawing, chopping, and grossing ourselves out, because once you get started, you're not sure when to stop.
That is a forced smile you see. The smell; the blood. Brutal, brutal.
The next two images, I toned down the colour so that your stomachs won't squirm as much as ours did, but on the first one we were yanking on its tongue. It was never ending and we were afraid it would just pop out and hit us in the face or something.
On the other picture are its eyes. Gross, Gross.
Well, we have given up on our duck for now. He is all cleaned out and back in his coffin-box.
We got stuck on how to pin it's feet and what to do with the skull, so if any of you have suggestions, we're open to advice!
Taxidermy is expensive, but believe me, its worth the money!
I was waiting for this post! See? I have very exciting friends....at least you wore cute earrings during the deed! Very important!
ReplyDeleteChristine
I'm not even sure how to comment on this! But I can't just read it and leave. You are something else!! I can't even imagine wanting to try this . . .and if I had previously, I think you've done a good job of convincing everyone not to bother. I can't get the idea of the tongue flying back and hitting you in the face out of my mind. Yum. You'll have to share the end result. I assume the worst part is over??!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your deeds. (I also was impressed with how cute you surgeons were looking!)
Just. No.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why I read this. You even warned me. I agree with Denise; now I know that I never want to think about trying this. Hope the duck tongue is not haunting your dreams.
Kerri, you never cease to amaze me.
ReplyDeleteYou are a great mom of boys.... I love the shot of them watching.