Pig Butchery Weekend

#####This post contains pictures of dead animals#####

I received a message the other day from a group I'm a member of asking me if I'd be interested in attending a butchery weekend.

The idea of the group is a great one, to share our skills and help each other learn to become more self reliant. 

The weekend would consist of butchering two pigs, one roe deer and some pheasants, we'd be shown how to do it by an ex butcher who grew up doing it, with lots of hands on experience for everyone as well. 

The amazing thing was that the only cost was for our share of the meat that we got to take home at the end. 

The pigs were some beautiful rare breed Berkshire pigs from the smallholding we were staying at and the deer from a local game dealer.

 It was amazing to get some hands on experience, I do a fair bit of butchery but to do it with someones guidance was so much better than a YouTube video.

 I particularly enjoyed the deboning of joints, such a handy skill and so hard to do to start with.

 I also managed to do the butchers knot. Something that I've never been able to do! I must make sure I practice it now and keep the skill in my mind!

There was such a lot of meat on the pigs and plenty of opportunity for us all to have a go. It was also with a great group of lads, lots of laughing and joking around.

We were set up in army style tents and did start to loose light. so we moved outside and then on to using a tilly lamp (I was impressed with how much light they give off!) Here we did the roe deer and the pheasants.

We had a feast that night of meat cooked over a BBQ and then Kevin (the host a different Kevin to me!) made two stews, one pheasant and one of deer as well as a huge tray of crackling! I was stuffed and went to bed full!

Our accommodation for the weekend was the same tents that we'd done the butchery in.
I was surprisingly warm the whole night, although I was the subject of much Micky taking when people realised that I had taken my pillow with me! I might be outside but I will have some comfort!

The next day we went on to sausage making, but I'll leave that for another post!
A great weekend though and I made lots of friends.

Eating A Frozen Chip

I had a moment of sheer revulsion this weekend.

And that's not easy, I'm not a squeamish person.

But watching my friend eat a FROZEN OVEN CHIP (fries to the Americans on here), straight from the bag, like it was the most normal thing in the world turned my stomach.

What's worst was he was surprised that we didn't all do it! He was convinced that his wife would think it was normal as well, but she was as disgusted as the rest of us.

Do you think it's normal?

What do you eat that everyone else finds disgusting?

Repairing The Shared Drive

We share our short drive with four other houses. For the last few months it's become a bit like the end of a 4x4 trail course. 

The ruts were so big that normal cars would just bottom out on it. So my one neighbour and me decided to just get on and sort it our. We used my dads digger, some hardcore and road planings. 

We scraped off the high spots then added 4 ton of stone to make a new surface. 

It's made coming in and out of our drive so much easier and better. The only downside was when my wife came home from work she didn't even notice! It was lovely to do the job with my neighbour and friend, it's nice to be able to work together like this. Here's to good neighbours!

Selecting Carrots For Seed Saving

So the seed saving bug was strong on Sunday after the swap!

Pulled up all my Heritage Seed Library carrots, Red Elephant, today for selection. Some are real beauties!

I laid out the 70 or so carrots and then selected the best 32 of the roots for growing on for seed. I could get away with about 20 but more gives them a bigger genetic pool and prevents inbreeding depression. I would have liked to have selected from a bigger group as well but we've eaten quite a few! 

These will get planted in a bed in the spring, quite close together, to flower and pollinate each other.

This will hopefully give me plenty of seed for next year's swap and to send back to the heritage seed library, as well as leaving me enough to feed our family next year. Believe me when i say we eat a lot of carrots!

Anyone else saving carrot seed this year?

Seed Swap Herefordshire 2018

I've had just the best day!

I've got to talk about trees, vegetables and seeds for the whole day and no one has told me to shut up!

I'm so grateful to be a tiny part of the amazing Seed Swap Herefordshire. It was great fun being behind the tables this year. Such a high level of knowledge in the group, each time we meet up I end up learning more and more about the amazing world of seed saving. I've made some great friends since I joined up to help over the last 12 months and I've loved growing more plants to save for seed.

I was so impressed with what some people had brought with them today. So much effort had gone into growing them and packing seeds up to bring to the swap.

I also picked up some really interesting seeds to grow in the spring.

If there's a seed swap by you make sure you go and get inspired for the next growing season and make sure you save some seeds!