November 8, 2008
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Off With Her Head
Today is the day that we butcher the sow that was not a good mother. Nature has a way of leveling things off. We cannot afford to feed all of the pigs all winter long and we need meat in the freezer to feed our family and anyone else who happens to come along who needs to be fed so…………… When the piglets came along nature provided us with a mother pig who just refused to mother her babies. No need for us to even make a decision, it was made for us.
Ian called the friend who has the experitise and all of the equipment and made all the arrangements. Last night they did the dirty deed and today Matthew, Mary-Kate and I have to go over and make decisions while he cuts her up and wrap all the meat. Then the freezers will be full and I can enjoy my yearly feeling of contentment that goes will full freezers and a full pantry.
I am never around when the shoot the pigs. Now you know my awful secret. I am not a sentimental person but I do raise them from piglethood and so I cannot be there when they shoot them. But once they don’t look like a pig anymore then I can help. Then Doug and Ian hang them from a tractor bucket. This helps so they can skin and remove all of the internal organs. The final decision about butchering is made when we get the chance to examine the liver. Although we raise them and feed them pigs eat anything and everything (even their own manure) so we have to see that they have a healthy looking liver before we make the final decision to eat the meat. This girl had a good looking liver (which is in the freezer now) so she is a definite go.
“You’re all heart” Mary-Kate, Matthew, and Ian divided up the heart to be eaten for breakfast. First they wash it inside and out to get all of the blood clots out then they cut it into two halves and remove all of the tough parts and then slice it up into meal size pieces and bag it up. She had a good looking heart. That is a measure of a healthy pig too.
“Stick out your tongue” Mary-Kate likes the tongue too and she is the only one who is willing to do the work that goes into preparing that. That needs to be peeled and the little bones at the back removed before it can be cooked. She cut that up and bagged it to take back to school with her so she can cook it for some meals while she is away from home.
We try to use just about everything but the squeal. Today we go over to our friends house and get to work cutting up the rest of the pig. We have cleaned out the freezer and all is in readiness for the pig.
Comments (12)
I used to be a meat cutter. Haven’t done it in years though! Do you make your own sausage and/or smoked sausage??
@Hecalmsthestorm - Yes I do make my own sausage. We don’t smoke anything though. We don’t have the facility to smoke things here and if we send things away the chemicals they use cause me to have severe migraines.
I’m sure glad you enjoy organ meats. I just can’t get past that weird texture! Ewww.
It is such a lovely feeling to have a full freezer, though, isn’t it?
Oh I am the same way, such a good feeling to have everything stocked. I also would not be too keen on observing the shooting part.
@homefire - I don’t eat the organ meats either. Not because of the texture or the flavor but because my body rebels when I eat too much meat of any kind. Seafood and chicken once in awhile is about all the protein of that kind that I can tolerate. I love having the freezer full. It is nice to be able to plan the menus for the week and only have to buy a few fresh things. The only part that bothers me is having to support National Grid but I’m trying to figure a way to get around them too.
Had to google to find out what in the world NG was!
Yeah, it’s sobering to consider the possibilites of a nation without electricity, isn’t it?
My husband got a kick out of seeing your pictures! That heart sure does look healthy, but the tongue, eww.
@whteroses - I’m with you on the tongue. Once it’s prepared it’s great but thinking about a pigs tongue and where it’s been is a sobering thought.
Tongue is great for the verbiage.
@P_Obrien - whose the pigs or the consumers?
That is sooo cool! Reminds me of the scene in Little House in the Big Woods were Pa kills the pig. Do you make you’re own bacon too? And ham? How do you make a ham? ~ L
@empress8411 - We don’t do any smoking of meat here because we don’t have the facilities. My oldest is having the bacon sent out to someone who (hopefully) makes naturally smoked bacon. The stuff that is injected with chemicals to preserve it, like in the store gives me terrible migraines. If we were to start smoking meat, which I would like to do someday, I think I would just look it up in a book and start doing it. Don’t really know how right now. That’s how we learned how to butcher and to raise pigs. Just looked it up in a book.