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I got there a little before Richard, who did the kill,
and Clare led them over with the eggs, and basically
as she was feeding Don the eggs,
Roger came over to see what Richard was up to, and he just,
like, shot him right behind the ear.
Just right back here.
And he goes right to their brain,
and he was brain dead instantly.
He just flopped to the ground.
I knew it was Roger, and I was kind of watching,
and I didn't really feel shocked.
I felt a little separated from what was going on,
but I wasn't, like, you know.
Richard is very calm and very professional about what he does.
It's obvious that he knows what he's doing, and he does it
in a very kind and considerate way, in a very humane way.
Hello. Oh, OK.
She's here.
She's here.
Yeah. Why don't you just park here,
and we can bring it in this way.
Oh, they're together.
Yeah, they're -
Oh, my goodness.
I want to butcher the pig because I wanted
to be part of the whole process.
You can also carry him in just like this.
I don't have any problem -
Oh, as like a whole carcass -
Yeah -
Yeah.
OK. How strong are you, Kathleen -
I don't know.
We'll see.
You can each carry fifty pounds, right.
Yeah.
Yup.
Perfect.
I have a neighbor and a friend who has a cooking school
and teaches whole animal butchery
as part of their curriculum.
It was a really easy place to do it,
and I knew we wouldn't just be going in
and start whacking on a carcass.
You know, we would be able to get some instruction
and learn how to do it right and have some choices
about the way it was cut it and the pieces we would get
out that, and that was important to me
because I didn't want to waste anything.
This is your aerobic exercise for the morning.
I want to have as many pieces as I could because I wanted
to make sausage, I wanted to use the bones for soup and stock.
Yeah. That can go in the Roger bucket.
Using the fat for cooking later.
Roger. Roger.
Piece number one.
We'll probably want to take off some of these organ bits.
There's just little bit of organ bits left over.
We put that in the compost and -
OK -
So just that, just cut with a knife -
OK -
You're just going to cut the gel right off,
and then you're going to use the, you can score it
with a knife if you want to, but the majority of that,
you're going to go through with a hacksaw.
Why don't you come back when I'm starting on,
once I get this, once I'm starting on that just
to make sure I know where I'm doing it.
Do I basically just follow with a hacksaw follow this line -
Well, now it's not , it's not.
Well, you're not following the line
of the shoulder blade as much -
OK -
As you're just cutting it straight -
Straight across.
OK. Alright.
I can do that.
It's nice to have a sharp knife.
So, yeah, this is a little weird.
The whole animal butchery is kind of,
it's a little bit strange.
I mean. Just saying, you know, I knew this pig, this is Roger,
I'm cutting him up, it just feels a little odd.
I mean, not that generations of 4Hers haven't gone through this,
but if you've never done it,
and you're in your 50's, it's a little weird.
As a food writer, I think I need to know about the process
of what it takes to make food, and from a very basic level,
and I think it helps me to explain it to other people.
So where do I.
To do it. I mean, it I haven't done this,
how can I explain butchery or the importance of it
or what it takes to get food to your table
if I haven't actually done it.
I guess I'm the kind of writer that needs to experience things.
Voila, you have a ham.
To make it real to people.
It's, I can't just read a bunch of stuff
on the Internet and write about it.
I'm just saying.
Amazing, huh.
It is amazing.
As part of the project, as part of experiencing
from raising the pig through the butchering
and through the cooking,
I wanted to celebrate Roger's life, in essence,
and what he's given us.
You want me to hold it for you?