I’ve been terrible at keeping up with the blog and April was super full. I figure I’ll just do a month-in-review post to catch up on everything. We did a heap of smaller stuff with the pigs and fences etc., but I’ll stick to the big stuff. Here goes…
We got our new cool room trailer and it’s a beast! It should be big enough for any of our future meat delivery needs, and hopefully we have many of those needs.
Our beastly cool room trailer.
Clarisse was still hugely pregnant.
A very pregnant Clarisse.
Yes, that’s two cows eating the lawn in my back garden. No, they’re not supposed to be there.
Stumpy had a litter of piglets!
A very pregnant Stumpy.
She had 7, and we were lucky enough to be there for most of them. She was really quite large, and I’d been guessing she’d have more. She also struggled a little. While she got through them all with no assistance, it did take a while. Still, all 7 survived and she’s a great mum.
Baby number 1!
Gemma loving up on the new babies.
Early morning piglet dining on day 1.
The babies loving the heat lamp.
We spoke to the vet about Stumpy and her struggles. Apparently it’s just the way it is with some sows, and we’ll just have to keep a closer eye on her during farrowing. We can do that.
We got a baconer done in the middle of the month.
Our baconer getting portioned up – legs for prosciutto, loin and belly for bacon, shoulder for sausages.
Separating belly and loin.
We did brawn again, and it was freaking amazing! The trick is heavier seasoning. We also go to use some legit terrines that Farmer John gave us. Those things are awesome!
The fixings for brawn. I used a beef heart this time, and think it adds some nice depth to the flavour.
The terrine from Farmer John. It has a press with ratchet sides. Seriously, worked a treat!
A brick ‘o brawn! This was 6kg, which represents 10 to 12kg of the animal when you take bone into account. That’s meat that is normally thrown away.
Look at that delicious cross-section!
We also did about 30kg of bacon, 20kg of sausage, and 18kg total of prosciutto.
This is 30kg of bacon baconing.
Legs ready to be made into prosciutto. I messed up a little with the one on the left and trimmed it down a little low.
Look at the colour and marbling. You will *never* get meat like this from intensively-farmed pork.
20kg of sausages.
We got one of the black angus done before the wedding too. We supplied all of the meat for the big day, and that included big roast cuts of beef. That was 10kg of beef and the cow dressed out to 193kg. That did leave a lot for us… 🙂
193kg of black angus goodness.
Best. Rib Eyes. EVER!
The biggest thing we did, of course, was get married! We thought it’d go pretty well, but it ended up better than we ever expected. Seriously, it was the best wedding we’ve ever had.
Naaaawwww, aren’t we cute?!
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