Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Murder

WARNING... Turn away now if you are unable to face the reality of where our food comes from, even when it is purchased from the shops.













The sheep have now completed their job. The paddock and vineyard are well mowed, we have even had to feed out for a month or so. We had also solved the freezer space problem with a loan of a freezer so it was time.


I had been dreading the day in ways but in others knew it had to come. We got the sheep for a reason. Well two reasons as they mow grass well but the main reason was a source of hopefully some very nice lamb. A friend of our neighbours was going to kill, skin and gut them for us.


We knew it was going to be Sunday but not when. He turned up around 10am in the end. I was just walking out of the front door and almost into him. We rounded up the sheep with the help of a neighbour. It took a few attempts to grab them but in the end we had both secure. It was over quickly.


I helped string them up into the tree and watched as they skinned and gutted. I have to say that when you know what you are doing it is a quick process. The skinning is mostly done by hand, you run the hand on the inside of the skin to separate from the carcase. We both found ourselves really absorbed in the whole process and Helen even helped remove the liver and kidneys.


By the time it reaches the gutting it is just process from then on. No buckets of blood, just neat tidy packets that just fall out without spilling their contents. We moved the carcases to the garage and strung them up and this is how you see them below.


From this point is it a quick trip to the butchers to be chopped up. A few days later and we have a freezer full of lamb. Legs, shoulders, flaps and lots of chops. It would have been nice to get some racks but the butcher just cut that all into chops.


Having been through the process the question is would we get sheep again...... Yes. The next two mowers turn up in December to start mowing duty.