This Sustainable House

Posts Tagged ‘death’

Well it has now been a couple of months since the pigs first arrived at TSH (see Making a Pig of Oneself) but today the day finally came when it was time for them to move on.

They have done a stirling job digging and cleaning that garden area as the video below attests. The next step, after processing the pigs, will be to erect some temporary irrigation and then sow the area to green manure. This will grow for another couple of months, before another 5 piglets are brought in the to do the job for us again. The garden area should then be ready for planting in early spring.

The video below shows the wonderful work the pigs have done for us, and the end result of the last few months. I would like to warn those who find animal carcasses disturbing that there are images of the carcasses in this video. However there is a warning page allowing to you exit the video prior to the scene of the carcasses. There is no footage of the slaughter… that’s a private, and definitely unpleasant, moment.

The pigs were all slaughtered and dressed on-site, the advantage of which is that there was no transport stress whatsoever. It was just a normal day for the pigs until that rapid killing blow (by bullet). The downside of dressing them at home was that we had a few technical issues with the hot water production, leading to the animals having to be skinned… no crackling from our pigs. Not the end of the world, and will probably do our health a world of good anyhoo…

For me, one of the downsides of the ‘country life’ is that death is always so near. When we live in a city we don’t see a lot of death, at least overtly, but in the country you come face to face with it daily.

Everything from possum carcasses left by foxes, to kangaroos killed by cars, to the gruesome scene to greet me this morning… My whole flock of chickens dead.

It appears that the pen had a spot where the wire wasn’t as securely tied as elsewhere. Something, presumably a dog due to the strength required, has torn the wire at this location and used the hole to enter the run.

At that point my girls, and a couple of boys, didn’t stand a chance. Of the 16 birds, 15 bodies were recovered suggesting that one was taken or made it out itself. There was no sign of this bird this morning.

The real loss of this is that not only have we lost production capability, but that I have also broken my promise to protect them. They were totally reliant on me to keep them safe.

So the next step is to rebuild. First the pen, to make it like wormwood scrubs, then the flock.

The guilt however might take longer to disappear…