First Lamb!!!!

One of the merinos had a lamb last night.
Don't know if it's a boy or girl yet.

  ¶ 9:04 AM

  Our first completely home grown meal.

Although we've already had meals with all our own veggies, this is the first meal we've had with our own meat. When we ate rabbit before, the veggie garden wasn't set up.

The pork chops were interesting in that the meat wasn't as white as it has been when we've bought it from the shops in the past. I don't know if this is because of diet or the butchering process, but it was a noticable difference.

The potatoes and beans were home grown, the tomato puree was home grown and even the apple sauce were grown on existing trees already here on the property.

We'll have to wait until:
1) December before we have our freisen steer butchered
2) we get a bigger chest freezer
before we have our own beef.

We didn't get any bacon made as our pigs had too much fat on them and with pigs there isn't the same amount of trimmed meat as with cattle, so there was nothing to make sausages with unless we get a mincer and grind up some chops.

  ¶ 10:18 PM

  Pigs R(est) I(n) P(ieces)

The pigs are home again. This photo shows our new 300L freezer in the laundry, which is about 2 metres tall and is now STUFFED with pork chops, ribs and roasts. And the excess is in the original fridge/freezer.

T.K. is resting on top as it pours out heat trying to cool down all that meat.

  ¶ 9:59 PM

  Latest Pig sighting

The pigs are back at Walcha Prime Meats.
Linda went to see them and the butcher showed us how our diet had not improved them.
I'd read that giving the pigs corn helped solidify the fat and make better bacon. Unfortunately with the mobile butcher stuffing us around, they were on that diet for longer than expected and so they became fatter than planned.
So the bacon and chops will be fattier than planned, but we'll see how that affects the taste. Nowadays the average fat depth is usually 11 mm. Our boys were 26 and 34 mm. Their weights were 83.4KG and 79.2KG (My own weight is 67KG).

The photos below show the full bodies, and a cross section of one of our pigs and a cross section of a leaner (starved) pig. Just joking about the starved bit.

The boys with the butcher

Our pig

Lean pig

  ¶ 6:59 PM

  Exodus of the pigs

Well the pigs have left the building.
This morning Linda and I struggled and we finally got them aboard the trailer.
I then transported them to Tamworth where they will be sent to a place of execution.
Their remains will be then sent to Walcha Prime Meats where they will hang for a week before they are cut up into meal size portions.

Originally we wanted to have them killed on the farm, but the mobile butcher that we had organised was a repeat "no show". Even thought he was booked in to kill lambs for two of our neighbours, he didn't bother to come and never rang to explain why. He'd just promise to be there "next week" whenever we chased him.

Well we can't wait forever while we're buying feed for them, so we had to find another method.

And no photo yet. The batteries were flat after taking the photos of Polo yesterday.
I did take a photo of them in the trailer before I left for Tamworth, but that's on a film camera so you'll have to wait to see how big they became before they were reduced into portions.  ¶ 1:52 PM

  "Polo anyone?"

Well, when we first thought about farming, one of the first animals we fell for were alpacas. With their big eyes they're so easy to connect with emotionally.
But we can justify it on the basis of him guarding the sheep when they lamb as alpacas will attack dogs or foxes, and his fleece with very nice to spin.
He'll be a year old on the 14 March and his name is Polo and isn't he cute :)
(P.S. He had a father named Marco, so....)

  ¶ 5:35 PM