Lambs to the slaughter

I was up at 4.30am to take two lambs to the abbatoir in Elgin but a glance out the window quickly changed my mind.

It was snowing hard with a couple of inches of snow lying on the ground and minimal visibility, so I didn’t need much persuasion to convince me to wait until daylight - even if that meant the lambs were late.

I had a look again just after 6am and while the snowplough hadn’t been through, the snow and wind had eased up so I decided to take a chance on getting through - especially as I would be driving the Defender with its snow and mud tyres.

Snow at last

The Big Lad feeds the chickens.

Three little piggies went to slaughter

Well, it was more like one big pig and two medium pigs went to the abbatoir today but that doesn’t sound as good!

I had an even earlier start than usual as it was the turn of Blossom, Babe and Honey, our three Gloucester Old Spot gilts, to be slaughtered and keep us in chops and cash for the next couple of months.

Bringing five of the six pigs inside on Saturday was relatively easy as the Berkshires and the smaller GOS (Babe and Honey) combine inquisitiveness with a readiness to be driven from one place to another.

A hard day at the office

Much as the Other Half would prefer things otherwise, weekends often involve as early a start as the rest of the week and today was no exception.

The first and most important job of the day was getting the recalcitrant gilt, Blossom, out of the pig pen and into the byre, but I’ll talk about this in another post.

With Blossom out of the way, we could turn our attention to the other big chores.