Tag Archives: pork

5 little bunny babies, the new LTD project is working!

turkey hens we're keeping over winter to try our hand at turkey breeding in the spring. Are we crazy? yes.

Belle is growing into a teenager pup!

beautiful Rosie, a pig who we loved so much. She had a good life here.

Happy New Year to you all! Will you be reflecting on the year you just passed through? Full of celebrations and joy, or perhaps remembrances and tributes, 2011 has been another incredible year. We’re all so blessed to have each day, each year we pass through. Make every day count, or do something to make it count!

 A reflection on our year here, the first on our new farm. We met SO many amazing new people. We got to continue relationships with our customers who are now friends. We worked our butts off gardening in totally new soil, with some successes and much learning (failures.) We held some awesome workshops with fascinating people attending and visiting our farm. We grew so much sustanence for ourselves and others from our land. We fermented, pickled and canned our hearts out. We learned about the predators we have to deal with here, in a very hard way. We learned how priceless good farm dogs are. We got exhausted, wiped out, and there was no end in sight. We continued to dream and experiment and will continue to do so in 2012. We lost the covering on our hoophouse right after the tomatoes were planted in it. We fell in love with the community of amazing people all around us. We butchered 3 goat bucks and 4 pigs, 100 broiler chickens and 60 turkeys. We learned that death is really hard with animals you’ve tended and loved, but part of the circle of life and being able to provide an alternative to grocery store meat is very important to us. We learned why it is hard to be small scale farmers and make a living. We learned that diversification is essential to make it on a small scale farm, but you must not drive yourself crazy with too much diversification. We learned what we love to do, what we need to do to continue farming here, what we do well, and what we excel at together. We got married and every day is a blessing on our farm. We learned that money is essential to pay bills on the farm, but it will never bring happiness. We learned that food raised on a real small scale farm tastes better, is more nourishing, and that our customers love it. We learned that no small-scale farm can be an island….. Farming takes a community of farmers and eaters. Thank you for being part of our farm. We could not do this without your involvement!  Thank YOU!!! We have a limited number of CSA shares for 2012 and are reserving them now. See our “farm products” tab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

pig ponderings

Our pigs have been quite an adventure this year. We bumped it up from raising 3 piglets last winter, to 8 this spring.However, spring brought NO PIGLETS for sale ANYWHERE. It was a nightmare, but we finally located some south of our farm. We were about 4 months behind our planned piglet raising period, but finally we had our piglets and put them to work tilling in the center of our farm, where we’ll be gardening next year.We decided to keep one of the over-wintered piglets, named Rosie, as she is stellar in body type ( a real bacon type, fatty pig), a sweet, engaging personality and, yes, we just loved the idea of raising up our own piglets, especially since it was so hard to find piglets for sale this spring. Rosie had been the pig we were going to make into wedding bratwurst for our reception, but we changed the menu to Goat Curry, featuring our goat bucks, Cedar and Romeo.

Lance courting Rosie

Enter Lance, a Tamworth boar pig, who arrived in June to be Rosie’s boyfriend, and hopefully the father of her piglets. At first we were mighty concerned he was not able to get the job done properly, as he was quite a bit smaller than she. We saw attempts, but never witnessed what would count as success. They were joined in their big wooded pen over the summer.

Pigs’ gestation is funny- 3 months, three weeks and 3 days. If Lance got Rosie knocked up in June or July, that would have led to October or November piglets. November is not ideal, with out rustic farm set up (no barn, just a farrowing hut in the pasture.) After a couple months of blissful cohabitation, Lance was moved next to Rosie, but separate from her. No December babies, thank you.

Rosie........pregnant?

After realizing we really couldn’t keep him on the payroll all winter, and attempting to sell Lance for some time with no luck, he was humanely harvested on our farm. There’s alot of info out there about boars being unfit for human food, being “stanky” and the meat tasting like boar piss. We had some encouragement from a friend in Andalusia who said she’s harvested boars on their farm and never had problems with bad tasting meat, and she wholeheartedly agrees that animals who are not scared when they die do not pass on hormonal changes in their meat (making a bad taste). If we had trucked Lance to the butcher, even just 10 minutes away, it would have scared the crap out of him, and adrenaline most likely would have been surging through his muscles. Instead, he was being calmly talked to, adored and then he was gone.

look at the belly change-------Rosie!

We took his hams, several roasts and hocks and placed them in our charcuterie tub with a strong sea salt brine, in a fridge, for about a month. Most of this was cold smoked after the brining. Everything else from Lance went into our freezer and he tastes amazing, like a good pig does. He spent his last month eating organic apples, clover, oats, etc in company with the best lady pig ever. Good pigs are, unfortunately, delicious.

One of Lance's massive loin roasts, which was smoked after brining. We could have cut it into chops, if we were so inclined, but a nice big roast was so.........

After doing the numbers, we can’t really afford to raise pigs on the scale we did this year. Without machinery to do all the hauling of feed around for us, it has become back breaking to be hauling hundreds of pounds of grain all of the place, to keep up with their rooting frenzy and continually move them over and over and over…we love pigs, but we’re barely getting paid to do all the work it takes to raise them well. And we do raise them well, and love them up. Until we can figure out how to do it more efficiently, we decided the hassles and hauling are too much to continue next year.  Maybe………..

Farming small scale means you must choose your projects to suit your abilities and time frame. We’re focusing more energy on our ducks and their eggs, our CSA gardening, the goaties, as well as raising fantastic broiler chickens and the lovely turkeys.

That being said, after many nervous observation periods, we’re quite sure Rosie IS pregnant. The earliest she would be due with piglets is in about a week, but there’s no way that’s happening. Her body and appetite seem to be more in order with piglets due in a month. Oh boy, the dreaded November delivery. Our first too. What a crazy adventure. Pigs are amazing, wonderful creatures. They are recycling eating machines, and they till any turf you want tilled. And they are incredibly friendly, intelligent beings. It is a joy to play hide and seek with Rosie, watching her try to find you when you dart around the corner of the farrowing hut, or race through it, and she waits for you on the other side. I’d just say small equals better for anyone thinking about raising pigs, and don’t try breeding your own for a good long time.