Killing Babe

So after spending several years of my life being nice to animals and forcing my parents to use humane mouse traps, I've reached a new low. A month or so ago, I went to a going away party for a fellow volunteer from my intake group who has to go home to get some shoulder surgery. The party was at a white South African farmer's near Hunter's (the volunteer) site. Because Hunter was friends with this family they decided to donate a hog to feed the 25 or so of us who attended this 2 day gala event. With a donated hog comes the requirement for someone to kill said swine.

I've never killed anything other than mice and birds, but for some reason I decided to volunteer to do the deed. It could be due to a change in personality since coming here, or the fact that I was 8 beers deep by noon that day, I'm not sure which. Anyways, we brought the pig in a little 5x5 foot pen. I had backup from three other volunteers so there were four of us and a pig in this pen. Apparently, as directed by the farmer, the best way to go about killing a pig is to hit it between the eyes with a hammer, immediately followed by taking a knife and cutting both of its carotid arteries (throat). So I did just that. Following protocol to name your pig pre-killing, I donned him Billy Baldwin. After getting acquainted with him and apologizing to him, I straddled Billy facing his head, took a couple slow practice swings to line up the shot with the hammer, then came down with a stroke of thunder. That stunned poor Billy so then I took the knife and proceeded to saw through his neck to enable him to bleed out.

The whole event was pretty crazy. I have many pictures, but I won't be posting them on my website due to the graphic nature. But now I feel like a changed man, and more of a bush man if I may.