I think about the past year and the experiences that I have had, and it strikes me that I am privileged. Privileged to have struggled and to have laughed and to have seen wonderful things. I have also wrestled with doing "hard things", things I don't want to do and things I am afraid to do (ironic, I know in light of the recent 6 part series on fear). Butchering two extra boars in my herd of pigs fell into the don't want/afraid category for sure. In the first place, I hate taking life (period-full stop) I don't even like pulling up extra tomato seedlings. On the other hand, I am fully aware that life and death go hand in hand, if I never kill my pigs they will still die. Nothing I do can stop the movement from life to death. Finding a place where I can with good conscience harvest my own livestock and do it well has been a process.
Back in high school I read a book by John Vivian about homesteading. Vivian wrote back in the early 70's about his own family's experience of living on the land, and wow, did that book have an impact on me! In the chapter on home butchering Vivian began with a challenge that if you could not be a part of the process from animal on the hoof to meat on the table then maybe you shouldn't be eating meat. There are many great arguments to go vegetarian that revolve around human health, animal welfare, and ecological balance for our world. For myself, I recognize, as Barbara Kingsolver points out in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, even being vegetarian does not guarantee that no animal dies in the process of bringing me my food. Life subsists on life in this broken world.
Which brings me back to the last two weeks that have been extra full with the responsibility of harvesting the two boars well. What I mean by that is, I strive to give my pigs sun, fresh pasture, excellent hay, straw bedding in cold weather, shelter from wind and rain, mud to wallow in and dirt to root in, in short I try to give my herd the best "pig life" they can possibly have. I feel that a "great life followed by one bad day" is a faithful way to provide food for my family and fertilizer for my fields. I approached the hardest part, killing the pigs, with a knowledge that I needed help. My neighbor Larry, his son Darrin, and Father-in-law Leonard stepped up to help me. They were kind, humble and respectful of the pig and my desire to do this with minimum stress to the pig. The two boars in question were never named, they were called "the big boars". Boar #1 went down fairly quickly but I was not happy with stun shot, Boar #2 a week later went down perfectly, he never felt a thing and for that I am grateful. I warned the guys that I would apologize to my pigs and I possibly cry, to which they kindly nodded and then got on with things. Knowing that we can do this well has given my greater courage and peace about the moment of moving the pig from life to death.
The next challenge was the skinning and gutting of the carcass. We are not set up to scald and scrape the pigs, so we skin them for now. I have helped Mike skin and prep his deer from hunting and have helped at our friend's farm with pig butchering in the past so this part is much more familiar to me. Last November, our friend and neighbor, Rich, helped me butcher a sow. He stayed to help me skin it and I felt I had a handle on what I was doing, so I told the guys after we got the first boar hung, I could take it from here. They left and I spent the next six hours prepping that boar! I discovered that skin did not want to come off, the fat on the back was so hard that it dulled my knife on every stroke. I kept thinking, "It was not this bad when we did the sow, what am I doing wrong!" I was in tears by 4pm and stopped of at Larry's the next day to say, I am going to need help when do the other boar next week. So Larry and Leonard stayed to give me a hand with prepping the second boar. It was a revelation, Leonard has helped butcher dozens of pigs, and he said he had never seen anything like our Guinea Hog. It was the hardest skinning he ad ever done and he and Larry were astounded at how long it took and how hard it was!
I am not incompetent! It's the breed and likely the fact that these were two year old boars! I need to track down other breeders of American Guinea Hogs to find out if this is just how Guinea Hog boars develop, with an incredibly tough armor like layer of fat on their backs and shoulders. I went from feeling like I was a poor excuse for a farmer to being reminded that farming is about the unexpected. No one farming is ready for everything, because you are dealing with living things and the weather, there is nothing more unpredictable.
I needed to know that the difficulty I faced was not because I was ignorant, but because what I was doing was hard. I can't tell you how that heartened me. I am privileged to have excellent neighbors, a supportive family, and the opportunity to keep growing, even when it hurts.