Yesterday we butchered two pigs at home. It was brilliant

[HumphreyCobbler]

We made sausages and salami. We had chops, tenderloin, ham, hocks,roasting joints - absolutely vast amounts of meat. We won't have to buy meat for at least six months.

We cure the bacon later and finish packing the sausages. The salami looks brilliant hanging in the shed.

I am so pleased

We do it all again on Sunday, two more pigs are being slaughtered and we butcher them on Friday.

I feel Hugh FW would be very proud

I think you have to cut squash either side of the vine in order to store them. So that you have a t shape and the actual stem isn't broken

they did it on Gardener's World the other day

well done for growing so many

I had loads but most just rotted and fell off

To Store Winter Squash:

Place whole winter squash on top of thick pads of newspapers in a cool, dry, well-ventilated location, preferably between 45 and 50 degrees F. Check on a regular basis for rot and use within three to six months depending on variety of squash.

newspaper trick?

I love pork and meat in general, but I do wish I could be a vegetarian in many respects too.
You are very brave OP, I couldn't do any of that ~ except eat it! so enjoy your pork dinners! :)

yummy and so lovely to hear of kind despatch when the time came

I can't decide if giving someone a side of pig for christmas is more or less passive-aggressive than an Oxfam Unwrapped goat.

wow i feel inspired - really you get that much meat from them - fab! hass it been cost effective - cost of piggys/ feeding/ killing etc? Can you get soemeon to kil them then just reappear at door with cling film wrapped sausages/ joints etc?

amazing. and very impressive. i'm a massive hypocrite and would probably be a veggie if i had to do the killing and butchering mslf. i am pretty about your lovely salami and sausages and bacon thoguh.

it is going to be chopped up, bagged, labelled, turned into sausages, salami and chorizo. Not to mention the black pudding, brawn and pate.

They will LOVE their christmas present

each pig probably cost about £200. The meat will work out very cheap.

We have infrastructure costs to take into account though, we have to keep on doing this now to pay for knives, fencing, mincing machine etc.

I wants some pigs now! As i live in a new build estate with a small garden and thousands of neighbours its not likely! Off too google right move!

Riven - I think you can preserve squash by bottling in Kilner/le parfait jars. Worth a 'google', think I've seen a thread about it on totalfrance website.

Impressive? Perverted more like.

what is peverted about rearing your own meat, and taking responsibility for how it is killed, and then butchering it yourself ?

Surely that is what most human societies have done through history (and the majority still do). It is only in the recent western world that we have become divorced from the reality of meat eating.

honestly - perverted?

how silly

Shineoncrazydiamond - that is perfectly reasonable - choose to not eat meat because you don't like what is involved. But eating meat and not understanding what that actually involves is just burying your head in the sand.

If we didn't eat them then pigs would probably not exist.

Are you allowed to butcher pigs on a Sunday? Isn't there some ancient law against it?

I think you are a mean horrid pig killer.

But I shall still enjoy my bacon and eggs tomorrow morning.

Oh groan that I saw this thread on 'active' and clicked. I am also veggie and read op's last thread re her being about to murder the pigs. Softie that I am I honestly thought of the pigs with sadness last sunday afternoon!

perverted?

1. deviating greatly from what is regarded as normal or right; distorted
2. of or practising sexual perversion
3. incorrectly interpreted

1. killing your own animals for meat is distorted or deviating greatly from what is normal or right? They should just be kept in tiny pens and then packed into a lorry and killed and chopped by someone else?
2. killing your own animals for meat turns you on?
3. killing your own animals for meat is an incorrect interpretation of how to eat meat?

Oh I love pork. Very that you have all of that to eat. Nobody else in my home likes pork, so I rarely have it.

and yes, I know the whole it was brilliant, so pleased, do it all again thing is probably what you are on about.

But perverted? Really?