Mutton on the menu

Well we finally got around to killing 2 of our ewes today. We chose No19 and No 55 because they were the wildest ones who always hung back when I fed them every day. They are the most difficult sheep to yard and given that we do need to get the sheep in for a check regularly, it was fair enough that we should cull out those ewes that were least cooperative.
The starter plan was to get all the sheep up to the yard and then pop the 2 chosen ones in the race. It all started off well as they were the only 2 that headed up to the race. the other 4 stayed in a tight flock under the totara tree. So mike and I steered them up the hill very gently towards the race. Our race is set at quite an obtuse angle that apparently does not encourage entry and the 2 girls decided to make a break for it after all.
Plan 2 was to drop them in the field. Using the bins to read the ear tags and with Mike using the .22, the ewes were shot cleanly in the head from 20 feet away whilst they stood next to their mates.
The living sheep only ran off when we started to approach the carcases. Their throats were cut to drain the blood and we left them for a bit.
The next job was to gut them. The boys took a keen interest in this, especially Stuart, who did his best to identify the internal organs. We found that each ewe had 8 teeth the 4th pair of which were fairly small relative to the others.
We kept the heart and lungs for school dissections and the liver and kidneys for our own consumption.
We took the carcases up to the garden to be skinned. This was quite fiddly and time consuming but working as a team we got the job done - just like Bob the Builder!
We had thought about butchering ourselves, but decided to use a professional for this first time.
Stuart and eric have commandeered the fleeces and Stuart has been trying to spin some of the wool.
Tea was liver and fried bread - very tasty. We have asked the butcher to turn the rest into roasts, chops, mince and sausages.

The other pictures are of a trip Eric and I took last week to the gumfields above Ahipara. They used to dig up Kauri gum here many years ago, now it is a vast expanse of low growing bush and scrub.