It’s been a cold and wet weekend on the farm. This sort of weather always makes moving the animals less fun than normal, and there’s already been so much rain this month that the garden and pastures aren’t even desperate for water. But one silver lining is that the storm has brought cold weather with it.
Normally I would prefer the daytime temperature to break 60 at this time of year, but a few days ago I realized how little meat we had in our freezers, which necessitated butchering a pig. This is usually something I wouldn’t risk in the summer heat, but thanks to the unseasonable chill I hardly saw a fly throughout the process, and it was surprisingly easy to get the carcass down to a safe temperature.
I often think it would be ideal to be able to do some portion of the slaughtering on the farm, but every time I process an animal I am reminded of how much infrastructure would be required to do it efficiently and safely on a large scale, and I mentally push that particular plan a couple years farther into the future.
-Garth