NH Homesteader's journal

[baymule]

I hope you have a very happy 7th anniversary and get a dead pig out of the deal! Yes, it is normal for THIS group, anybody else would think you are a wacko nut. Wanna know what goes through my mind when I get told not so nice things about slaughtering my own meat? As I smile sweetly at the nincompoop in front of me, my mind is telling them, In a SHTF situation, you'll be the first to die.

 

[NH Homesteader]

DH is working on the pig now, mostly skinned. I have some pics to upload, but not doing it tonight.

I might be getting a couple of sheep. Our friends are getting rid of them so waiting to hear pricing...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sheep????!!!!!! How cool! Are they hair sheep or woolies?

 

[NH Homesteader]

Wool sheep. I know the ram is an Icelandic, which is probably my favorite breed. DD is going to learn how to spin, might as well have some sheep! I want to learn how to spin and knit also. They're electric fence trained so we could get a fence up cheaply (just need more wire probably, we have 2 fence chargers). I won't let them share the barn with the goats but we have two currently unused outbuildings so not much work to get them set up. So we'll see...

 

[NH Homesteader]

Side note- people tell you not nice things about butchering your own meat? Yeah I've never had anyone do that. How rude. I mean people look freaked out but no one has ever said anything negative towards us.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Awesome! Totally fits in to the spinning plans! Exciting stuff!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

people tell you not nice things about butchering your own meat?

That's just rude!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Yeah exactly, and we would have lambs to butcher next year also! I don't want a ton of sheep, just would be fun to have a few. Just have to be careful to keep them away from the goats because no one (ok maybe someone but no one I know) tests their sheep for all the diseases my goats have been tested for and they can pass on. Not to mention soremouth is more of a concern with sheep than dairy goats. So we'll just be careful to keep them on separate spots (we do that with the pigs anyway).

 

[baymule]

Side note- people tell you not nice things about butchering your own meat? Yeah I've never had anyone do that. How rude. I mean people look freaked out but no one has ever said anything negative towards us.

That's just rude!

I've been told to my face that I am cruel. I've been told "remind me not to eat at your house". Or Ugh! That's gross! I have lowered the boom on a few people when I tell them the living hell industrial food animals live in and how they are treated. I tell these same morons that MY animals live outside in sunshine, are well treated and fed, they have a HAPPY life, doing what animals do. They just have one bad day, actually one bad instant, because they don't know what's coming and it is over quickly.

The meat they eat, beef animals stand in a feed lot in their own feces in crowded conditions. They never see a blade of grass. The pork chops they eat comes from pigs raised on a slatted floor over a lagoon of their own waste. They never see the light of day. The chicken they eat is mass produced with upwards of 20,000 chickens packed in a barn, they never see daylight either. And YOU call ME cruel??

 

[NH Homesteader]

Yup I'm with you. Every time I get tired of feeding animals and all the work that comes along with it, I go watch Food Inc or one of the many documentaries that are so sickening. Then I happily go out and shovel poop.

Most people who find out we butcher our own animals ask to buy meat from us, lol. But it's a fairly rural area, right near an Ivy League college where people are educated in sustainably raised food and know to appreciate it. My midwife thought it was amazing I have milk goats, because she can't eat cheese from cows, only goats.