Not as bad as I thought...

I have had a busy week, an exhausting week and so I decided to go home and crash on the couch with a good book. I have been rereading the Earth Children series and I am halfway through the third book. I had just taken off my shoes, stretched out on my comfortable leather couch, when there was a knock on the door. Carlos was, apologetically, holding a fully grown lamb with a broken leg. We are slaughtering all this years lambs this fall and the break was right in the joint, the decision was a, relatively, easy one.

I have had to put down other animals and so I knew that I could do the killing, the hardest part, is worrying that they are suffering. I have yet to see any of them just be dead, immediately dead. There is always twitching or something. I hate that part, that and the smell of the blood. Even the gut smells are tolerable, but the blood is tough.

Now, if I had had some time to prepare, I think I could have done a better job but Ayla was my guide. We hung the sheep upside down after slitting its' throat and then cut around the rectum and then lightly down the belly, around the hocks and skinned the sheep. I should have gutted it first but I didn't know how deep to cut across the belly. So the skin was completely removed before we cut down the belly and the stomach was already expanding and I caught all the insides in a bag for Gabriel to dissect. He loves that stuff. You have to do that cut carefully so that you don't puncture the bowel and contaminate your meat.

I found that I used two knives and kept sharpening them as I went along. It took about 30 minutes and was fascinating. I also did the Bushman thing. I thanked the lamb for feeding us, for giving its' life to feed our family. I am also grateful for the skill, a step closer to feeling that we can be self sufficient, not only eating meat that we raise and have processed for us, but that we can take the additional step and eat meat that we raise and then process for ourselves.