Just Finished Butchering 5 pigs + a Steer (no vlog today)

Hey, if you're seeing this part, you're actually seeing a replay. We just hit live and we got a special announcement for everyone, so we'll just give them— we'll give people a few minutes to get on. It looks like we were live for a little bit there, Becky, so maybe some people are on here. Yeah, Emma, Jaylit, guys, we're gonna tell you about our day and why in the world is this the first time ever we haven't been able to put up a vlog.

No, I feel like it's happening because we actually ran out of time.

It happened once because somebody turned off the internet in the middle of the night. But oh yeah, uh, it's rare that we miss putting up a vlog and it's gonna happen. So we're gonna explain to you why and, uh, let a few, few more people get on here. We love you guys too. Isn't this fun to hang out with people a little bit before we go to bed? The Max Family Homestead, Linda, Joanne, Narrow Way Farm.

So fast, and we are right out again.

Everybody's saying hi. I bet it's early where everybody else is because this is crazy talk. It's 10 till 10 and we're doing a live. Wow, Super Chat, thank you for that, we appreciate. Dad is doing good, he's stable, he's at home, which is good. He's just kind of putzing around at home and getting better every day, hopefully. So, hey from the Philippines. So All right, should we jump into it, Rebecca? You think we got folks on here? Yeah, almost 600 folks here in our living room. What if you guys were here? Like, what if you were in this room? So I still have to tidy up in here a little bit before we go to bed. So today, you guys know— do you know, did I do a good job in the vlog telling this? Where we butchered 5 pigs and 1 steer. Today.

It was kind of crazy and hectic.

And when I was talking to Arthur a little earlier this week, I was like, we were thinking, oh yeah, we'll be, you know, we'd be done by 2 in the afternoon. We'll start at 7, we'll be done by 2, and we were done now and it's almost 10 o'clock.

Yeah.

Ben left at— Art had to leave earlier at 4. Hey, Randy's in the house. And Ben had to leave at, well, when it was done at 9-ish?

It was—

8:30-ish? So anyway, long story short, we put, we said, hey, you guys want to see it? You want to go to the cool room and see it? You got to tell me in the chat. Do you want to go see the, uh—

It was a really good time, Ben.

We filled up our cool room with meat. Did you guys know? I need to make a movie about this because it just kind of slipped on us. We are 100% meat sufficient. Did you know that?

Yeah, we don't buy any meat.

We don't buy any meat, and we're epic meat eaters. We eat it every meal.

People want to see the meat.

Oh, you do? You guys want to go see the— yes, the cool room? You've seen us build that cool room.

Well, I, I— in all the preparations, I forgot to buy a light bulb, so I'll bring my phone.

You got your phone to light it up? It's gonna look— it's gonna look janky, guys. It's not gonna look polished because And hopefully we won't lose the internet going out here. We have this— we have this low EMF internet. It doesn't— you can't get really too far from it. So anyway, uh-oh, it's buffering. Okay, so maybe I should show from here. Big yes, big yes. Okay, let's just turn it. I'm not gonna go any further, Becky. Oh, maybe I can go a little bit further. Can we try to go a little bit further, guys? Okay, okay, it's 39 in there, guys, and we have 5 pigs and 1 steer. So we'll tell you about this setup in a minute when we get back to the Wi-Fi.

We'll have to, we'll have to show it on the vlog.

So we'll show it in the vlog big time tomorrow because we'll, we'll film it tomorrow, us unloading it with this. We got us a truck. That's why we put those So we put those guys in barrels because we knew it was going to be big work, and thankfully we did because— hey, thanks for that, Ashley. Um, because, okay, if you're butchering 5 pigs now, I'm just talking about kill, stick, uh, I say pluck, scrape, and eviscerate. Um, we're going to take it to the butcher to do the rest, so Even with just doing that though, 5 pigs and a steer is a big deal. And I'm glad we did do your idea where we put them in food-grade barrels in the walk-in cooler. Yeah, overnight, because we didn't get done until way after hours. The butcher would have been closed. We would have been in trouble.

Yeah, so I don't know what you do if that happens. Yeah, I guess you just don't kill anymore.

Yeah, the steer was bare.

It is bare. It was—

that's why we steered him.

It was, it was sad. It was his whole purpose, but it's still hard.

Yeah.

And, um, we thank him for his meat, and we—

you had a hard time.

You cried. I did cry. I did cry. Hey, permaculture, uh, heirloom permaculture, heirloom permaculture in the house. John and Angela. So yeah, Bear was the steer and he is a cow, but his name was Bear. So—

Yeah, so we're gonna have fun when we have guests over, you know, you guys wanna have some Bear, you guys want Bear.

The bromance is over and Stud Muffin has noticed and it is sad, you know.

You know, Bear was special. I don't know if you were crying because you were attached to Bear or the story of Bear. Because Bear Guys was the first cow that had been born on our farm and harvested on our farm for us. My dad had done it plenty here with us growing up, but for us, that was the first time that we raised him from our land, harvested him on our land, and now ate him on our land.

I think that why I cry is because it's the taking of life and there's like a weight to that. Even with the pigs, like, I had no story with those pigs. I mean, we had a little bit of story, like our car broke down going to pick them up and things like that, but like, I— it's, it is, uh, it's a— it, it gets easier, but it never gets easy. Does that make sense? Like, it's still it's still doing, it's still taking a life. It's still that. And so it's, it puts a, just, it's a connection to your food. You know, I had the thought today, like, boy, it would just be easier if we bought our meat in the grocery store.

Or even just trailer them over there.

I know, but I feel like—

Get the farm kill. But it's much healthier to kill on farm and it's much more humane.

It's better for them and it connects us to the food more. It connects us. Like, I felt the weight of my meat eating today. I felt that. I felt, yeah, that. And the pigs, you know, it's their— it was, it was all their purposes.

Yeah.

Um, so it's not like we, you know, and, and it is like, and I like knowing how it all went down. Because if we took him to the butcher house, we wouldn't know.

No, and he'd be sitting there and wait for hours. But anyway, um, so that was a special moment, and that's what Bear was for. And guess what, guys? That's what Moose is for too. We haven't, we haven't hidden that from anybody. That's what we're doing. We, we're growing our own food, uh, all of our own meat, and this is what happens, guys. Two of the sheep are going at the end of the month. Yeah, uh, two of the withers, we bought them because they're, they're ready to go. And, uh, the ewes, uh, will have their kids. As, as beautiful as they are— do you call baby sheep kids?

Uh, I think so. I don't know.

As cute as they're gonna be, they're gonna be for me. The lambs, these are, these are, these are meat sheep. They're hair sheep. Yeah, there's no wool. We don't plan on milking them.

They're called lambs, not kids. Kids are good.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay, so yeah, I mean, it's— it, it felt, um, it feels heavy on, on it, on Butcher Day. It feels, it feels a lot, but it also feels good to know where our meat comes from.

It feels celebratory. You feel it when you bring them to the butcher. You have to feel it for the whole ride.

You do feel it. They said that you feel the the weight of the meat.

That's what Randy said.

Yeah.

Okay. So it was a really long day and I would have cried too, but I would smile at dinner. That's the truth. It's a bittersweet thing.

Yeah, it is. And it's going to be very tasty meat.

Yeah.

And I'm very thankful for it.

And somebody said I can't even butcher my own chickens. Okay. It's a bit harder to butcher a hairy animal.

It is.

And they've been on bed longer. It is even harder because they've been with you even longer.

The kids handled it. The kids are totally fine. Like, if this is totally normal for them, they've grown up this way.

See, many of us have not grown up this way. This is new to so many of us.

It is.

But our kids, this is just supper.

I mean, our kids—

I mean, don't get me wrong, they— Jonah can tear up every once in a while about it, but it's supper.

Yeah.

And not like they're cold-hearted about it, but it's like, oh, this is what we ate. Oh, this is what we're gonna eat in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, I think that— so with Bear, it was just me and Jonah and you and, and some of Art and Bree um, family. And then we all went and did the last pig together, just the 6 of us. And we all, you know, we all did it together as a family. And yeah, it was, that was kind of neat. It was, it was neat. And like, our children were not upset. I may be a little bit more upset with Bear than with the pigs, but, um, hanging weight 140-ish pounds per pigs per pig. We— did we get a— did we get a weight on Bear?

Didn't get a weight on Bear, so if you're asking about Bear, I don't know, but the pigs were about 140-ish pounds hanging weight, so generally they— that's about 60% of what they were. They lose about 40% of their weight before they're hung.

Yeah.

So anyway.

Oh, I will say this about the kids. They were all— You're welcome. All up in the guts today, checking it out.

Oh, they even cooked some stuff.

Yeah, they cooked the tail and they were getting— they did it all themselves. Like no adult help. They did it themselves. And also, what was the other thing that they did? Oh, the lungs. They were, they were just like touching them. They were touching the intestines and like really enjoying. So it was good. It was, it was good.

Yeah. Stud Muffin going to get a new friend? No, I think Moose will rise up to the occasion. For Stud Muffin. And he's— and, and did— and somebody said, this is good information to get out there. Somebody said, did you do this in front of them, like kill them in front of them? Yes. They don't, they don't, uh, register it like we would. And one reason we don't is because it's going to stress them more out because they're herd animals. You don't move them out from the herd. That's going to stress them more than anything. So it happens right there.

There was—

it happens right there in front.

The cows weren't The cows weren't around.

I mean, we did bear. Only some of the logistical problems— I hate to say this— is if you're harvesting pigs, you kind of got to guard off the other pigs from beating you to that pig, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So, uh, they're just— they're, they're not thinking like we think.

Yeah.

Okay.

A lot of times people will project our human emotions onto an animal. And well, it's not really that case, so.

But yep, all right, so tomorrow we're gonna wrap this up, guys. Yeah, because we got to get in the bed because we're getting up at 5 AM. This is like the climax of our year, Rebecca. This is the two busiest days. So hopefully I can get a vlog done tomorrow. I'll get the— we'll be two days behind the vlog, maybe get get 2 vlogs done tomorrow. We'll see. I'll try. So there's no vlog today.

Yeah, so this is it. This is it. Sorry, y'all.

But I did film and I had one to be edited. I thought we were going to be done earlier, so I need to add that, edit that tomorrow. But we gotta take— hey Nick! We gotta take, um, the, the animals in the morning. Yeah, be there at 7:30, so we'd be back by milking time. So then hopefully I'll, maybe I can squeeze in 2 edits I have before. So if it all goes well, I'll get 2 vlogs up. In worst case, we'll just be behind and we'll catch up Saturday. We'll post the vlog on Saturday. So make sense to everybody? The bromance is over, but Moose is on the rise.

Yeah, Moose is gonna be the new bromance boy.

Okay.

Alright guys.

We'll talk to you guys later. It was fun. Thanks everybody for getting on here. This was so much fun to hang out before bed. Let's go get some sleep.

I know, and I'm gonna go right now.

Get you guys, uh, a great vlog tomorrow. The first one won't be about the butchering because it's us prepping for the butchering. And then what we shot today, we're gonna shoot some in the morning taking— because guys, we're gonna haul— that's gonna be interesting— hauling 5 pigs in barrels and a steer to the butcher. So that's gonna make for a good story.

We have to fill out all the butcher paperwork too. Yeah, but huge thanks, huge thanks to Art and Bree and Holler Homestead Ben.

Yep.

For coming out and helping us. We could not have done it. Um, we couldn't have done it. We couldn't, we couldn't have done 5 pigs and, and bear.

You can't do it at this scale without community, without tapping into the—

So we, a huge thanks And they, they, they know that, that we were very thankful too. So, all right.

All right.

Have a good night.

All right. Good night. End.