Arwyn - it's you my dear.

Sunday evening and I'm shattered. Why are weekends so exhausting?

Killed a pig today. Well I didn't, Eric did but I was there! She paid me back though by kicking me seriously in the back of the thighs with her back legs as Eric and I were dragging her into a head-down position to facilitate exanguination. I hasten to add, if you are not familiar with slotting, that she was dead. Pigs do twitch quite seriously post-mortem. For those of you feeling very queasy now I will stop, well tone things down a little anyway. I think this pig was Arwyn according to the girls. Anyway, apart from being the biggest she had to go as she was a bully. I guess that is probably why she got to be the biggest. Once dead and bled, we loaded her into the trailer and took her over to Richard and Robyn's to scald her and get the hair off. They kindly offered us the use of their hot water at the dairy. It was a separate tank and accessible to a area to work in. If we had done it here we would have had to use the house water and by the time we carried buckets to were we could work it would have been too cold. Anyway it all went quite well with Richard, Eric and I scraping away. Things were not helped by Sarah however standing to the side going 'Ohhhh gross' and 'Ohhh disgusting'. Alice was not quite so negative and Harriette actually tried to help but quickly got bored.

After loading pig, or is it pork now it's bald (?), back into the trailer and having a coffee we headed back home. Robyn was conspicuous by her absence throughout. I'm sure she would have been vegetarian had she be born anywhere other than rural NZ. She doesn't do this slotting thing very well! She doesn't like handling meat but says she thoroughly enjoys it if someone else has cooked it.

Back at home I proceeded with normal weekend chores like lawn-mowing and gardening where Eric and Harriette gutted and hung the pork (definitely pork now). Do you know it went surprisingly well. Eric nearly always gets very stressed at slotting times and things always seem to go wrong (does anyone need referring to 'Come in 47, your time is up' on Carols blog!??). Mind you the butchery comes tomorrow so maybe I should be quiet until it is all safely tucked away in the freezer. Roast pork for dinner tomorrow - I can't wait!