Pig to Pork

..........and then there were four.

Well today is the day that we process our first pigs. I say process because it sounds so much better than the word slaughter but really, I'm sending two pigs to slaughter. Might as well be straight about it. I was on the proper mental path, reminding myself that they have had a wonderful life of tummy scratches, 6 acres to roam and loads of apples. That was until I did a trial run the other day of getting them on the trailer (no food, trailer sitting in the middle of the field) and they jumped right on like "yes mummy where are we going?!?!". I have to say, that wasn't the easiest. And yes, loading them for the not so trial run was just as problem free. Taking a positive spin on it (I must be feeling negative) it's a good thing that they jump right on, it takes away a lot of the stress they would endure being pushed and corraled. 

I know it is not realistic to think that I could just keep the boys for ever. They would just be big money pits and also I would not be making an impact on keeping people off a commercial pork diet. Herein is the heart of the problem and how commercial industries keep a hold of people to this day. Nobody WANTS to feel how I feel today, but you are just fooling yourself. Everytime you pick pork off the shelf at metro or zehrs or wal mart you are actually doing something much much less humane. You are buying something that likely never saw the light of day, never felt safe around people, only ever ate a bland mash diet, only lived likely around 4 months, never played, never ate grass. The only reason you don't have to feel the way I do is because you ignore it.

I am now back from dropping the boys off at Pine Ridge Packers in Port Perry. They were suppose to go last night but I didn't feel comfortable with them spending the night there. I requested this morning that they be the first ones processed to minimize their time at the facility. To say I didn't shed a few tears on the way home would be untrue. Sometimes I feel silly about this but really their lives were important to me and valuable, they deserve somebody being sad they are gone.

Tomorrow my mum is going to go to the butchers to get a grasp on what area of the pig is what cuts, thank goodness for her. I had to send in my preferences on what I want for cuts but it's hard to do it when you don't really understand. She will be bringing everything to my place where we will vacuum seal it (a present from my parents for my birthday, again, thank god for them), weigh and label it all . I'm thinking a ball park of about 500lbs of pork.