(no subject)
Oct. 9th, 2020 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormToday was a slaughter day. It was harder for me than they've been before, and I suspect the sadness of it will linger: these are the first sows I've slaughtered, that is, the first ones who had babies for me. One of them, Sparky, was one of my original sows. They were both good girls.
The kill was clean, and the bleed out was very good: when I stuck I actually hit Sparky's heart. The shooter/helper today was a friend's husband who'd done a bunch of these in Newfoundland (?) where he's from; in addition to his excellent shot placement he also was very useful at dragging heavy stuff. We went from his arrival to gutted and halved by noon, then he headed home and we spent some time recovering. I am bringing a bunch of bacon to him (from a previous kill) tomorrow.
Then will be a very lot of butchering. Sparky's the heaviest pig I've done, so there's a lot of physical strength needed, but her size is welcome. It means I'll be able to do some good big chunks of cured meat. I didn't cure much if anything from the last couple slaughters, except maybe bacon, so I'm in need of new prosciutto stocks.
I feel better having it done
Yesterday both Josh and Tucker made it a point to call me in the evening and chat, which was nice.
And now I'm tired and wishing I was able to put myself into a good paper book for an hour before sleep. I used to read so much and now I can barely keep my attention on a page at all. It's such a loss, especially on nights like this.
The kill was clean, and the bleed out was very good: when I stuck I actually hit Sparky's heart. The shooter/helper today was a friend's husband who'd done a bunch of these in Newfoundland (?) where he's from; in addition to his excellent shot placement he also was very useful at dragging heavy stuff. We went from his arrival to gutted and halved by noon, then he headed home and we spent some time recovering. I am bringing a bunch of bacon to him (from a previous kill) tomorrow.
Then will be a very lot of butchering. Sparky's the heaviest pig I've done, so there's a lot of physical strength needed, but her size is welcome. It means I'll be able to do some good big chunks of cured meat. I didn't cure much if anything from the last couple slaughters, except maybe bacon, so I'm in need of new prosciutto stocks.
I feel better having it done
Yesterday both Josh and Tucker made it a point to call me in the evening and chat, which was nice.
And now I'm tired and wishing I was able to put myself into a good paper book for an hour before sleep. I used to read so much and now I can barely keep my attention on a page at all. It's such a loss, especially on nights like this.
