Christmas Eve

Last night, in preparation for today, we slaughtered the pig.  Gees, I spent the day formulating a plan, we would coax him into the pen with food, already set up was a rope with a loop, the loop would go over his back foot, whilst he was eating he would be shot, and then the gate to the pen would be opened (this requires a bit of 4"x4" timber as the catch is very tight. With the gate open, and the pig held by it's back leg to a bit of rope that is up a tree over a pully and then on to the back of the bike, the bike is driven off to hoist the pig up into the air, and then I can stick it and bleed it out..A well laid out plan, you know what that means...The pig wouldn't go in the pen, we ended up catching it in the pig paddock by trapping it, and then wheelbarrow walking it (or dragging) into the pen. Once there the plan worked a treat.

I caught the pig, Andy shot it, Jules was on the gate, and Alex was on the bike. Once the shot was taken, in about 15 seconds the pig was up in the air, and then I quickly stuck it (not a very tidy sticking, but effective).  We left it to hang for five minutes whilst we all had a beer (or some other beverage).  Thankfully Pete (Andy and Jule's friend who is out for Christmas) was looking after Connor.

Once we got him down, I carried the pig into the barn for scraping. I hope I never have to carry a pig out from the bush (well hopefully one day I will, but it was very heavy and he was small really)

To scrape, we boiled water, mixed it 8:2 with cold water, then pour it over the pig (using a towel to hold the hot water close to the skin).  It took about 10 minutes before the skin starting coming off, and then it was furious scraping. After many boiled kettles (and repeated tripping of the circuit overload protectors) we got most of the hair off (there is still some there, but since it's an open flame BBQ they will burn off). This took about 2ish hours.

Once the pig was scraped, the next bit was bringing the inside out! Following the instructions on the web, I made the typical incision, but instead of starting at the junction of the legs, I started at the pizzle and went down to the diapraghm. This was just big enough for my hand, and I started pulling bits out (and it stunk). After a few minutes of this, I decided on a change of tack, and made the cavity bigger by extending the cut all the way to the join (this made the bladder easy to get to).

Slowly and carefully ('cause I only had my big knifes) I cut the connective tissue from around the insides and let it fall into the bucket. Also the anus was tied off, and we had also cleaned (by squeezing) about a foot long section inside of the lower intestine, which we also tied off and cut. 

After getting the guts and the heart and lights out, we got photos etc  and measured it up for getting on the spit. I looks like we'll take the hams and up to rib 8.

After taking the photos, I realised that I had not removed either the testicles or the penis, whoops. So making Alex squeamish I removed the testicles (with a a sharp knife!), and then got him to hold the end of the other bit whilst I worked the knife down the side to remove it.

And finally one finished pig, just needs setting, so we moved it around to the fridge and hung it with all the ice we had.

Oh also today, I finished making the spit roaster, turned a few handles for it, and made a contraption that allows us to have the spit in a few positions, cleaned the barn, mended the tractor ( the exhaust needed welding again).

So now it Christmas day, and Connor wants to do something other than watch Dad type...So hopefully there will be some video shortly of him eating wrapping paper.

I'll do photos at the end.