My job today was to control the weighing machine (yeh tough huh). They pushed the sheep through into the weight, they tell me the number of the sheep, I push a button and write down the weight of said sheep. The lamb rams over 40kg were sent to the "death row" part of the sheep shed, whilst the females and skinnier rams were sent out to do some more eating.
How can you think that these poor little darlings will taste good on a dinner table - trust me they do. But they are sweet aren´t they?
We weighed 725 lambs today in around 6 hours. I think my uncle was pleased, he said I could come back for the next weighing. I really can´t describe how nice it feels for me to be of use to them. The life of a farmer is not an easy one, particularly a sheep farmer, the price they get for the "raw material" is ofcourse nothing compared to what we pay in the supermarket. The cost of production is high, getting higher each year due to the cost of fertiliser and oil, the processing cost is also high because most of the labour in the slaughter house is imported - most of the workers here come from New Zealand (yes all the way from NZ), Poland and Sweden. Icelanders consider the work "beneath" them. Here at the slaughterhouse the Icelandic workers are mainly farmers, like my uncle, who works in the "reception". By the way Maja, I met Eymundur today - he has happy memories of working with you!!! He said "Það var alltaf gaman að vinna með Mæju - fín stelpa"
Well, time to rest my weary bones, I still find it hard to use my leg muscles to stand up, I also discovered a lovely bruise on the back of my leg that I got when one of the horse that I was leading down a hill accidently hit it... well I believe it was an accident!
PS guess what I had for dinner - yep a lamb roast - tonight was my uncle Bjössi's turn to host the family feast - his wife Rúna turned 80 last week so it was a sort of birthday celebration. Again, a great night with a wonderful family.... Have I said how much I love my life here in Iceland????
pps talking of which - families that is - yesterday was my sister Unnurs birthday - whom I blogged about a few weeks back. Her daughter Olga has written a beautiful post about her which sums up how we all feel about her. Read it and weep - I did
4 comments:
Go Sig!! I really, really, truly miss your lamb roast!! Just not the same here. Where do they export the lamb to?? amanda
Great post. I guess working in a slaughter house there isn't much different that working in one here... most of the workers here are from Mexico. My relatives always invited us back to work during the roundups (cattle) or the Mountain Oyster Frys. Probably because I was given the job of cleaning the mountain oysters.
Good old Eymundur. He is pretty amazing at his job. I have fond memories of working in the slaughterhouse, too. It was always fun working with the characters that worked down that end and they really made me feel welcome like I belonged. Good times.
nice place
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