I'm Piggy-whipped!

You ever have that fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, you're off your rocker, and everyone but you has known it all along?  In the middle of the night Sunday, I got a frantic phone call from a friend of mine that her dog, who is lean, likes to lay on her side, and when she gets up, the dog acts like it's feet have fallen asleep.  I told her that it sounded like pressure on the hip joint on the hard floor was pinching a nerve and she could try some mild anti-inflamatories from her vet.  In casual conversation, it came up that I had gone to bed early because we had gotten back late from making an epic road trip to Indiana, then Illinois, then Missouri and back.

Naturally, the question that lept to her mind and inevitably launched itself from her lips...  "Why, Taz?"

Speaking to someone who has known me for the majority of my life, from adolescence on, I caught myself feeling a twinge of guilt for the honesty I was about to share.  Guilt, shame, something akin to both of those.  I knew what I was going to say was going to sound crazy.  The entire trip felt crazy by the time we got home, with all of the trials and tribulations.  There was no way to really minimize the shock factor, so I just said, "Pigs."

"Pigs?"  she replied, incredulously.

"Yeah, had to go out there to do some pig stuff."

I don't know what was worse.  The fact that Em didn't seem surprised by this, or the fact that I had an entire defense worked up that I had thought and mulled over during the 15 hour drive back home, on how I was going to justify travelling all the way to Missouri for pig business.  Even Grandma inquired to my mother if I was aware that we had pigs in West Virginia.

Yes.  I am aware.  But the grass is always greener on the other side... of the country.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  We started off leaving later than we wanted to because someone worked later than he was supposed to.  I had been planning this trip for weeks.  AccuWeather was advertising what I feel comfortable deeming 'Perfect Weather' for the weekend out in the midwest.  

I figured we'd run out Saturday, come back Sunday, it'd be hunky dory.  First stop was to check out poultry farming, free range style, in Evansville, Indiana.  I must have been clairvoyant, because as we were out there checking out someone else's 'chicks', one of our hens was prolapsing back home.  More on that later.

It was, in all aspects except smell, exactly what I would have expected to see.  Soggy fields, rotting brown grass, all being scratched and shredded by dozens and dozens and dozens of hens, clucking merrily as they carefully each step closer to what I'm sure they thought was a pupa lying in wait for spring.  But, with that many birds comes that much more poop, and with that much more poop, we're talking mad heinous stink.  I scolded myself for thinking the poop killed the grass, knowing full well it was the winter.  Still, it reassured me that we could make a successful poultry concern back on our farm.  

Then, we were off to Illinois.  Greenville to be precise.  Now what, if anything, is in Greenville, IL you might be wondering.  You'd be surprised.  It's like Lewisburg, really.  And, in the middle of that little city is an amazing little wonderland called "Country Depot."

I came here because I had decided that this year, we were going to do a mixed feed for the show pigs instead of buying it premixed.  The food we had settled on was not distributed in our area, or even close.  To purchase the base mix, these folks were able to get it for the day we were scheduled to come through Illinois, and even better, the wonderful gentleman on the phone gave us his cell number to call if we were coming through late, and he'd keep the store open for us.  Service with a smile.

When we stepped into the little store, we were flabbergasted.  

While there wasn't a ton of space, they made up for it with content.  Want to feed your wildlife?  Want to build bigger and better racks?  If there was such a thing as a Deer Show or Chickadee Show, would you have what it took?  They do.  How about dogs?  Got one? Want to show it?  Have to have the gear, right?  But you don't know what kind of gear you need!  They do at Country Depot.  And... the center aisles... anything and everything you could possibly ever need to show cattle, lambs, goats, swine and poultry.  They had everything, from top dresses to conditioners, show sticks to electrolytes.  They had it all.  You could never have shown a pig before in your life, walk into that store, and Mark Goodson would hook you up with the goods you needed, tell you how to use it, tips and tricks of the trade that only experience can teach, and leave you in awe in just 5 minutes of conversation.

He was exactly how we hoped he would be after talking so many times with him on the phone.  Nothing but smiles and generosity.  The information we learned in our visit with him enlightened us so much.  We had been overthinking so many things, and the K.I.S.S. method has made more winners in every industry than all the high dollar fancy goops and gucks.  A veritable genius when it came to explaining to us layfolk in simple terms what the feeds do and how, we left with our bags of basemix feeling exuberant.  The visit with Mark alone made the entire trip worth it.  

When we made it to Missouri, we were happy to get a room in Kingdom City.  The weather seemed nice.  But while we were eating at the restaurant, we noticed first one plow truck drive by... then another... then another.  Before we knew it, the entire fleet it seemed of MDot had mobilized to the roads.  After asking our waitress what was going on, we were informed that a massive ice storm was coming our way...

Of course, right?  But... it gets better.  Settling into our hotel for the night, Kevin kindly says, "Honey.  I don't want to worry you, but we don't have any four wheel drive."  *facepalm* I had hit the 4wd button while going 70 the other day, accidentally mind you, while putting the cell phone back in the cubby while Kevin was driving.  There was mad panic at the time it happened, but I knew, and so did Kevin, that the bangbangclakclunkathunk was bad when it happened.  I don't know.  Maybe I thought it would fix itself.  But, for crying out loud, the weather was supposed to be gorgeous!  Again, leave it to me to glibly believe those stupid meteorologists.

And, for the record, it's not that hard to accidentally hit that button.  Chevrolet put it in the most stupid place EVER.  

Anyway, Kevin insisted it wasn't my fault, but I knew it was.  We needed to figure out which component failed, so naturally, we went to a dealership.  The dealership, while well meaning, misdiagnosed the problem, while Kevin patiently tried to explain the symptoms of the failure.  Kevin kept saying, "I believe it's the encoder, but I need you to hook up and check."  The tech, however, insisted that it was not the encoder because his fancy uber savvy flowchart was pointing to the computer module, that conveniently cost 500 bucks, but inconveniently was located in Indiana.  One hundred and fifty dollars later, and no closer to a repair, we thanked them and left.  On a Saturday, I'm calling junkyards who are closed for the holidays until I'm able to find one that lets us go yank a computer out of a truck to test it on ours to see if, by some strange coinkydink, the dealership was right... they weren't.  A wasted half hour later, still no 4wd.  

Our parts company's closest sister store was near Saint Louis, which was the better part of two hours away. So, reluctantly, we called O'reilly Auto Parts, and found that not only did they have the part we needed, but they were a scant 5 minutes from where we were currently at.  We made a beeline for their store.  They watched, amused, as I confessed to being the culprit destroying the 4wd, and Kevin yanks the truck apart in their parking lot.  He pulls the TC, then the TC motor, does basically surgery on the truck, running into the store every few minutes for a part or a seal.  The guys at O'reilly's really hooked us up.  Twenty minutes later, and a full 6 hours after this entire thing started from the hotel, we have 4wd.  O'reilly's, DJ, all you guys in Macon, MO are great.  Thank you. 

In the dark, we arrived at our destination.  Now, Farming in the midwest is different than here back East.  Corn is king.  Yards are no bigger than a postage stamp, and if you're raising livestock, chances are they're in little pens, in barns, never see the light of day, because every last scrap of land you have is going to be devoted to grain.

When you ask a farmer out here, 'Hey, what do you farm?'  You're likely to hear in response, "Oh, a few hundred head of cattle, sheep, chickens, hogs, y'know, just a little of everything."  The eastern farmer is usually a diversified farmer that lives by the adage, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."  This is partially because the volatile market that all farming plays party to, but also because our land varies in quality so much.  You're going to have property that is in no way suitable for crops, due to rocks and crazy grades, which is well suited to livestock.  It's just the way things are.

Out there in the land of flatness, however, you'd be crazy not to capitalize on the flatness.  During WWII, the British Ministry of Agriculture determined that grains were of greater importance than livestock.  They practically wiped out all livestock production to repurpose pasture for grain production.  At the beginning of WWII, the UK imported 20 million tons of food a year (70%), including more than half of its meat, 70 percent of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80 percent of fruits and veggies and more than two thirds of its cereals and fats.  Germany determined that by cutting off the supply ships to England, they would essentially starve them into submission. What followed was considered one of the greatest feats in world history, as the little island of Great Britain went into massive rationing mode, leading campaigns like Digging for Victory, and Food Will Win The War.  By the end of WWII, the face of agriculture had changed from jacks of all trades to specialized agriculture.  Domestic grain production increased to almost 10 ton annually, and has steadily increased since then as new farming methods have encouraged greater growth.

But, sadly, as a result of this, most breeds of English livestock are now threatened and in danger of extinction.  I think that were it not for the differing regions within the United States, our own domestic livestock would be at risk for loss.  

But, moving on... We visited a pig farm.  Buildings filled with feed, filled with pigs, with fields sitting dormant until spring would allow them to raise another year of corn. We had a grand time talking 'pig', and it was no surprise to anyone when we hit the road that we had a new member to our family.  Calysse.  Named for the daughter of Andraste, a Gaul warrior goddess.  Haven't had a chance to take any decent pictures of her, but did get these couple.  She's bred, and due to farrow in January.  Most of her babies will not stick around here, have to recoup on our investment of course, but we might keep one or two.  Who knows.  It will be fun!

She's very very very sweet.  More details to follow on her, as she settles in to be part of our family.  

Oh, and regarding the chicken prolapse that we discovered when we returned home.  By the time we made it back from the land of Ice and Snow, she had been pretty abused by the rest of the chickens in the coop.  I could have tried to reset the oviduct and done a purse suture, but after talking to the vet, they agreed that putting her down was the best thing.  Plus, I had nothing thawed for dinner. So, she was appreciated up until the end.  By the by... farm raised chicken is waaaay better than store bought.   Peace out, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz.

PORKSICLES!!!!

Brrrrrrrr!  Talk about a frigid holiday season!   Thanksgiving went off without a hitch, but was decidedly void of pork, given it's going to be the centerpiece to our Christmas dinner.  We had the usual Sage Roasted Turkey... but then also had a Fig Glazed Turkey and a Brined Turkey.  I was hesitant about the brined turkey as everyone had said they had tried it, and were not impressed.  Well, the trick apparently is not to brine it for 8 hours... but for 4 days.  It made all the difference in the world, and of the turkey recipes, that is one we'll be repeating.   Got it out of the November Food Network Magazine. 

Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Three turkeys!?? What do have, a huge family?"  Nope.  Normal size.  7 of us.  But, you have 3 men in that 7, which means 3 heavy desirers of dark meat.  This way, everyone got ample gobble gobble. 

For sides, we had glazed roasted carrots, corn from the garden, garlic and cream cheese mashed red potatoes, green beans and pearl onions, cranberry sauce, rolls, and something new that I had never made before.  I was anxious to try it, and was pleasantly surprised.   Asparagus Forced in a French Roll.  The recipe came from Jas. Townsend and Sons blog titled Savoring the Past.  It's a great read on 18th century cuisine. 

For dessert, we had Pumpkin Roll that I did not make, but bought.  That's right.  I BOUGHT IT.  Why, you might ask?  Because I was too daggum tired to make dessert after I cooked multiple turkeys!  That, and the fact that anything that I have ever tried to make in rolled form has turned out looking more like a squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich than a roll.  I just don't have the roll gene in me.  I CAN roll.  I as a person rotund in shape roll very well.  I just lack the dexterity to take layered foods and roll them neatly. 

I've tried seran wraps and bamboo mats.
I've tried various homogenized oils and natural fats. 
I've tried tying them to the tail of my cats...

I just cannot make a pumpkin roll, simple as that.

*cough* *ahem*  Pardon the rhyme.  I don't know what came over me.  After dinner was all said and done, we were hit with some seriously cold temperatures in the following weeks.  We bedded all of the livestock extra well with straw.  The chickens got shavings and straw.  It was just bitterly cold, with snow and sleet, and all that those come with.

The pigs probably were the most uncomfortable.  I thought I was going to have frozen pork for sale much sooner than I had anticipated with this swine venture. 

Kevin almost tried to slap me when he caught me looking for a measuring tape to get their sizes for piggy coats.  I'm still considering making them at night, with my sewing machine set on slow so as to be nice and quiet, hidden away in my closet while he snores.  I mean, come on.  They're cold!!!

If they make sweaters for chickens, why not jackets for pigs?  DON'T ANY OF YOU SUGGEST BLANKETS!

Schnicklefritz went to a new home last weekend, as he sadly just couldn't seem to get the job done with our girls.  I don't think it was any fault of his, so much as maybe just an old injury that resulted in an unfortunate outcome.  I like to think of him as Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) from the film Rumor Has It, who had an unfortunate soccer accident.  *snicker*

Oh well... moving on.  We still managed to get some Uterine Hitch Hikers through other methods and have some pretty exciting babies due in January.  Can't tell you any more than that.  It's a secret! 

Levi's chickens are laying like mad, and we have some eggs in the incubator after we saw that his roosters are doing they're jobs!  We're going to be doing some fun little eggspiraments on egg preservation, and will be posting the results online!

Tiffany's chickens are doing very well.  Have some pictures, and will try to upload in the next week.  They're 5 weeks old and fully feathered.  If I could just get them to learn their names, we'd be all set!

P to the I to the Double G-Y, I say PIGGY, word.

 

Nothing like a little farming rap to set your day off right.  We had a good day today.  For a fun little field trip, we ventured to the slaughterhouse to see another facet of that trip from 'farm to table' that so many foods take, that many people have no idea what goes on behind the scenes.   Sadly, a lot of people really believe that their food grows naturally in those prepackaged cellophane trays, and are so removed from the process that there is no respect for the animal, or the person who raised it.

Tiffany and Levi, thankfully, will grow up knowing every aspect of their food production, with home raised meats, vegetables, grains, sweeteners, and the like.  There are so many wonderful things that come from raising your children in an area where being locavores is a real option. 

The big thing we wanted to learn from this trip today was the anatomy of the hind quarters of pigs.  Now, why would we want to know that?  Well, there is more than one way to cure a ham.  The way that many people think of is the Country Dry Sugar Cure method, where a ham is rubbed with a salt/sugar mix, and allowed to dehydrate slowly over the course of 105 days.  They're then trimmed to remove the salt burnt face, and then smoked to add flavor.

Fewer than 10 percent of hams are cured that way.  It takes a long time, which makes them very expensive.  Think about it.  You have to have a facility to store those hams that are curing for 105 days, from day one, and if you slaughter pigs every day for 30 days, that means at one point, you're going to have over three thousand hams curing in your controlled temperature facility.   Smithfield, hats off to you.

So... what about those awesome spiral cut, juicy, honey glazed things in the store?  Glad you asked.  Those, my friends, are typically cured using a Sweet Pickle Cure.  EWWWW!!! PICKLES!?  PICKLED MEAT!?  Calm down.  We're not talking dill here, or really even Kosher, because duh, pork, right?

Pickle derives from the Dutch word pekel which means to brine.  Pickling is the act of preservation through anaerobic fermentation.  That's fancy talk for 'rotting under water' but it's a good sort of rot.   The brine allows the good bacteria to kill the bad bacteria, and essentially, you get a salty sweet food product.  Mmm... zombie flesh.

There are a couple of different methods of pickle curing.  One is the cover method which submerges the goods completely.  The ingredients are pretty mundane, and what you'd expect to find in any cure, except the copious amounts of water, naturally.  You have salt, brown sugar, garlic, pickling spice, pepper, and the miracle pink stuff, which is Prague Cure (a combination of Sodium Nitrate and Red Dye).

Mix it all together, add water, fill pot until full.  And then you just...wait.

Now, what's the downside to this?  Space, nonreactive pot, smell... It adds up, really.  But, it is one method, and it only takes 7 days.  That's much more economical time-wise than the Country Sugar Dry cure method.

Then... there's the pumping method.  . o O (Pumping method?)  Yes, I said pumping method.  This is how 90 percent of hams you buy are done.  The beauty of it is that the cure process is reduced to 3 days.  There are two different types of pumping.  There's spray pumping, in which a needle that has a half dozen holes in it is shoved in various points around the ham, and a brine is then injected into the ham.  Then there is ARTERIAL pumping.  This is where the cure is pumped through the femoral artery, which shoots down along the shank bone, and distributes the cure that way. 

Does that distribute the cure?  The X-rays speak for themselves.  The reduced time, increased flavor and increased weight (as dry cure hams lose up to 30 percent of their weight in the process), has made this method the most preferred amongst meat packers.

So, how does one go about artery pumping their ham?  Well, finding the artery may not seem as simple as one would think.  There's a lot of muscle and fat there, and if you don't know where to look, you'd never find it.

Once you saw your piggy in half, you will then remove the hide quarter, just infront of the pelvis.  This will give you your sirloin section, and your ham, all in one.  You'll then cut between the bones, which gives you your basic ham shape.

 

As you can see, the chunk up top, being held in place is your sirloin.  That would be cut into chops.  The bottom half is the ham.  What we're looking for is the femoral artery.  It's just like on humans, it starts in the groin and goes down the leg.  You put your injector needle in the artery and pump 20 percent of the ham's weight in cure down that sucker.

 

And that delivers the cure throughout our ham.  Total time from kill to cure is 3 days.  This will turn into that juicy, succulent, awesome ham that you have on Christmas day.  At least, that's the theory, and that's what we're trying.  We'll be sure to post pictures of our success or failure.  Wish us luck!

Squealing from the feeling! Squeaking from the freaking! Oinking from the boinking!

Before anyone spazzes, that's a quote from a PG-13 movie called Down Periscope.  We watched it this past week, and were surprised at how this quote seemed to sum up last weekend.   The flu has us all under the weather, and we can't seem to win for losing when it comes to breeding Porkchop again.  She came into season, yet again.  Not too late for Ham Bacon pigs, but too late for show pigs.  Thankfully her daughter was bred to a York boar very similar and did not come back into season, so we'll still be able to get our show pigs.  Disappointing though. 

People have said that when a sow skips a cycle or two, it is harder to get them to be bred.  I don't want to think it's a problem with the boar, so we may end up doing a little piggy douche to make her 'feelin' fresh' again.  We'll see.  I hope this time, she takes.

But, speaking of this time.  Over the weekend, mom casually mentioned to us that Porkchop wasn't eating, and was acting like a lunatic in her pen. 

 

Pigs are not unlike humans when it comes to PMS.  They get crampy, don't feel like eating much more than something sweet and not good for them, and they turn into royal, hateful pains.  They carry on, pissing and moaning, mnyah mnyah mnyah mnyahing nagging like there's nothing you can ever do right, and they're so abused simply by being in your company.  Underlying all of this is an insane hormonal shift that ultimately results in only one thing being able to shut her up...

 

 

Problem is, Porkchop doesn't like trailers... and Schnicklefritz ALSO doesn't like trailers.  They were half a mile apart.   It might as well have been half a world apart, honestly. 

 

 

 

 

None of us were relishing the idea of having to load either of them up to get them to each other.  We contemplated borrowing a boar again, but then scolded ourselves for thinking of that idea.  We had spent good money on Schnicklefritz.  We had to use him, else it was a waste.  Then... it hit us. 

 

 

All that time spent training your pig how to walk with a stick, for what purpose?  Just to show them?  Not all pigs are sold at fair.  Not all boars are sold at shows.  Some pigs are kept, like Porkchop.  So... the question was, did she remember the stick?  We decided to take a risk, and let her out of her pen.

 

 

I'll admit, the immediate results were not encouraging.  Like a rocket, she flew out of that pen and through the gate to the driveway.  At first, I thought this was going to be easy, but as quickly as she had exited, she ricocheted off of a teensy pebble, off the driveway, running along the hillside like a freaking mountain goat, behind the barns, in the opposite direction.  Frantically, I told Kevin to run across the lot, open the gate on the OTHER side, and see if she was dumb enough to come back in. 

 

She was.

 

 

Whew.  So, now we knew she could possibly go through any opening that a cow would go through, and we set up appropriate human barricades aka. children.  Porkchop went out the gate for the driveway, yet again, in a perfect loop, but this time, she started down the long gravel driveway to the road up ahead.  So far, so good.

 

 

 

When we got up to the top of the driveway, Kevin opened the gate, and Porkchop exited into the road.  This was the first moment we actually had fear that we might not be able to control her.  I explained to Tiffany and Kevin that for centuries, drovers in England moved their livestock from one pasture to another by driving them.  If they can do whole herds of sheep, cattle and pigs, we can do one sow.  One very big, very long, very hormonal sow.

 

Ok, so maybe it was a moment of insanity, fueled by the flu delirium that we were all experiencing.  But by God, we were going to try it.  Slowly, a tap here, and a tap there, Porkchop began to traverse Williamsburg Road, plid plodding along, stopping for a second here or there to nibble on an errant corn husk that had flew out of the back of Arnold's trailer on his way to Rem's dairy farm. 

 

Everything was going well, it was about an hour before sunset, we figured we'd have plenty of time.  Then a car could be heard coming down the road, way too fast of course on these country roads, and we ushered Porkchop into the ditch.  Waving the stick in front of her snoot, she just sort of stopped, confused.  She was walking like a good girl, and now we wanted her to stop?

 

When the car came down the straight stretch, they slowed to an almost terminable pace.  The people in the car couldn't believe what they were seeing, and they stopped, rolling down the window.  Inside my head, I groaned.  For crying out loud.  We were trying to move an animal here.  "What?" I snarled.  They were all laughing, and the man chortled out the window, "That's some pig!"

 

We thanked him, and he moved on.  Moving Porkchop back out of the ditch, she happily continued on, not minding one bit the vehicles moving around her.  Another person stopped to say that we were walking the bacon off of her, and then some idiot thought it'd be a good idea to park at an intersection and flick a strobe light on.  Yes.  Because flashing lights and animals always have gone well together since the dawn of the LED...

 

 

 

 

For my friends who are not livestock people, let me explain.  Lights are to pigs what fire was to cavemen.  They don't know if it's God, or fire, or some sorcery, but like most things in this world that have lived to evolve, they have an innate fight or flight instinct.  It is better to run away, and fight another day, than to stay and be eaten by the crazy flashing light.   Porkchop had decided halfway there, after seeing this flashing strobe, that she wasn't sticking around, and began to turn back. 

 

Normally, you can't stop a 600 pound sow from doing something she really wants to do, and this includes fleeing.  However, Tiffany thinking rather quickly, jumped up on her back and she immediately locked up.  Kevin ran ahead and asked the infernal idiot to turn off his light.  We didn't have a wild animal loose, we meant to have her out, and we were moving her, and he wasn't helping matters!

 

By the time Kevin got back, and Tiffany slipped off Porkchop's back, she had forgotten the light, and was able to be turned back in the right direction, and began walking again as if nothing had happened.  By a quarter mile, she had learned that the sound of cars meant we were going to be asking her to go in the ditch, and she did so without us having to ask her from that point on.  Cars that had already passed had begun to pass us again, filled with people and their camera phones.   I have a feeling we'll see her on YouTube one of these days. 

 

 

It was getting dark, and we were turning in the gate of the Camp.  As soon as those squishy toes felt the gravel of the driveway, she knew where she was, and like a mad pig, ran down the 300 yard driveway to where Schnicklefritz was waiting for her.  She locked up when he grunted before we could get her in the pen, so we had to let him out.  They made their greetings... *cough* and then she went willingly in the pen.  High fives were had all around, and a feeling of accomplishment was had by all.  It was awesome.  





A-well-a-Bird Bird Bird, Bird's The Word...

Sorry for the delay in posting, but as most parents know, kids have an uncanny knack for roping us into projects.  I really believe that children are some of the best salesmen in the world.  It's like they pop out of the womb a bald, slimy, used car salesman, and through intensive parenting, we manage to instill ethics, morals and a dash of conscience.   It then takes about another ten years after they leave home to regain those traits that they came by naturally that help them get by in the world.  Boy, we sure do make it hard for them.

 

So, to recap from previous postings, I'm not exactly the most 'with-it' 4-H mom.  I try, I really do.  I just have a lot on my plate, and I keep losing the stupid planner books that EVERYONE keeps buying for me.  I get the hint.  I just can't follow through.  And before anyone suggests that I have ADHD, I don't.  What I have is There-is-just-too-many-fun-things-to-do-and-not-enough-time-to-do-them-all-itis.  Biiig difference.   I try to handle it gracefully.  I see on Facebook all of these perfect moms, and I'm just not one of them.  Whether it be only reading half a message when it comes to a schedule change (as in, I knew the meeting had been moved to 3pm, just didn't notice that it had also moved the day as well), or realizing too late that 90 percent of the pictures I was posting had my son photo-bombing them while picking his nose or having his fly down, I'm just not the parent that focuses that closely on the minutiae of life. 

Somehow in conversation with a friend, I had found out that our last 4-H group that kicked us out a month before the year was up when we told them we wouldn't be renewing the next year neglected to inform us that everyone who was doing eggs for the Ham-Bacon-Egg purchased their chicks in September.  Why September?  Because, and don't feel bad, I didn't know this either, chickens need at least 16-18 weeks to grow before they'll lay their first egg.   So, if you take the End-of-March or thereabouts, which is when the Ham-Bacon-Egg sale is, subtract 16-18 weeks, you land first week in November.   That's not a big deal, right? WRONG.  Because apparently, hatcheries don't sell chicks in November.  Too hard to keep them alive, I guess.  They pretty much stop selling chicks at the end of September. 

What do you mean, end of September!??  It was already October when we were asking these questions!  Frantically, I searched on hatchery websites.  Every single one of them were advertising that their next hatch date was going to be in January, at the earliest.  In bright red letters under the next three months were 'Not Available'.  We had already agreed to letting the kids do chickens.  Someone, somewhere had to be hatching these things out!  We finally found some chicks all the way in California, and quickly ordered twenty White Leghorns.  If calculations hold true, they should be laying by the beginning of March... should. 

Levi also managed to round up a dozen Blue Lace Red Wyandottes.  One lays white.  The other lays Brown.  One chicken is white. The other is all crazy colors.   There should be no arguing in the chicken coop over who's chicken did what.  That's my theory, anyway.

And the chicken coop.  What about a chicken coop?  Well, a great little coop built in the earlier part of 1900's sat on a hill side up from the house which was built in 1921.  Grandpa, who was awesome, always made sure that if it was a building, it had the roof maintained.  Why were roofs so important?  Well, if rain could get in, then the building would rot, and eventually fall down.  So tin roofs were maintained, repaired, painted on a regular basis.  As a result, the chicken coop on the hillside was practically new inside, even though it hadn't held chickens in more than fifty years.  The white wash interior was peeling a little, but it was still remarkably bright inside when we opened the door.  The kids shoveled out dust which I'm sure was at one time chicken poop, and Kevin and Steve set to working on the new nest boxes. 

Roosting poles were needed.  The original ones were gone.  Levi grabbed a handsaw and went out to cut roosting poles with help from Uncle Mo.  Tiffany, his sister... um... she's supervising. Yeah. That's it!

He needed three so they could be staggered.  The first one, Uncle Mo helped.  The second one, I helped.  The third one, he was on his own.  About five minutes into sawing, he breathlessly said to me, "Lizbet, it's true what they say."  I asked him what he meant, and he responded, "The last one is always the hardest."  He was exhausted by the time he finished limbing them, and removing the thorns from the trunk (Hawthorne). 

Helping us was Danny the Lamb.  He loved running in the door and out the clean-out of the coop.  As you can see in the picture, the interior was still whitewashed.  It really was a brilliant solution to the darkness before there was electricity for light.  Common during the early 20th century, buildings were whitewashed inside to make it brighter with the little bits of light that came in.  With an outhouse, for example, you didn't want a lot of windows, for obvious reasons.  With a chicken coop, you didn't want a ton of drafts, so you had like one screened window that would be shut up during winter time, leaving only the light from the door and the cracks between the boards to illuminate the inside.  White was brighter, and the white wash also helped to sanitize the walls. 

See, in the 1930's, while more than 90 percent of people who lived in cities had electricity, there were fewer than 10 percent in the farming and rural areas that had it.  Those that did, had it in their homes, not their outbuildings.  The electric companies argued that it was simply too expensive to string wire out to the farms, so they charged a mint for it.  Only the wealthiest farmers could afford the exorbitant fees, and back then, there weren't as many wealthy farmers as there are today.   So... enter the government. 

Now, I'm not anti-government.  I am anti-government-involvement-in-private-enterprise.  Eventually, electric companies would have caved to their greed, installed electric when it got cheaper to run poles and wires, and gathered up several new electricity contracts, because as it turns out, the rural contracts actually spent more on electricity (production, duh) than urban contracts.  But, FDR wasn't going to wait for that to happen.  Instead, in 1935 the Rural Electric Administration was formed to bring electricity to the farming (and voting) public.  Just like today, everyone freaked out about the president meddling with private enterprise.  They felt it was one step closer to socialism.  And, just like today, the government didn't give a rat's patootie what the public felt about it, and did it anyway.

In more than 25 percent of homes by 1939, the farms were electrified.

Ok, ok... more like:

Anyway, on most farms, they were still doing the tried and true whitewash method in their barns and outbuildings, and continued well into the '60's.  It was at that point when most farms and outbuildings were outfitted with both electricity and telephones.  Written on the walls of the lambing shed are 113 with a mark through it, and beneath it 411 next to a telephone jack. 

So, best as I can figure, our farm had phones and electric as early as 1940.  Anywho, it'll be two months before the baby chicks can go in the coop, and until then, they'll be occupying someone's kitchen. 

In other farm-related news, Porkchop came into season again.  That was a disappointment, as we had hoped that she would have taken with Diesel babies for a January litter.  Regretfully the infection and fever were too much, and like Dr. Farnum had suggested, she missed.  Frantically, we searched the countryside (A lot of frantic searching goes on when you're farming, I'm discovering.) for a quality boar to breed her to.  After a wonderful effort from some friends making phone calls, we located a very nice boar just across the road... from our house.  Go figure.  *sigh*  He was bargain basement priced, and I felt like the farming equivalent of going to Filene's!  I almost decked a farmer to get the boar.  It was not my finest moment.  By the end of the day, Schnicklefritz as he would become known, was at our farm, and had already serviced Porkchop. 

 

So, we'll have February Porkchop babies.  We're going to keep him for a little while and breed back to him in April for our summer litters, before we decide what to do with him.  He's a doll baby, and such a snuggle bug.  Lucy was ultrasounded at 21 days and toned (got piglets).  We'll ultrasound again at 35 days to make sure she hasn't reabsorbed (which can happen apparently with first parity).  Cross your fingers that we'll have January Herefords.

 

Whew, and that's pretty much it for our update.   Will try not to let it go so far in between next time!

Green Eggs and Ham: 4-H raised goodness.

So, last Saturday, every one who was participating in the Ham and Bacon end of things this year had to meet at the school to pick up their pork that was coming in on a refrigerated truck.  Me, being the super savvy and ultra cool parent that I am, had the great idea that I would go 20 minutes early to get a good parking space and be first in line to pay.

Well....

I pulled up to find that I was the proverbial tail over the fence.  The last one to arrive.  The parking lot behind the school was filled with parents that were way more 'with it' than I was.  They had chairs, snacks, canopies, and had already divided up amongst groups who had all the information already.  One boy even had time to build furniture out of cinderblocks.   It was abundantly clear to me that not only was I not early, I was practically late!  I wanted to hide in the bushes.

"Hi, Elizabeth." AAAAAAGHH!!!  I had been spotted.  It was too late! I had to engage in conversation with the many parents who were far superior!   Begrudgingly, I responded, "Hello."  Not hi, not howdy, hello.  I said it in as low and defeated a voice I could muster.  I felt low.  It only got worse from there.  I found what was the line.  We waited and waited.  I finally made it to the table, only to be asked, "Do you know your amount?"

Amount?  AMOUNT?  *panic* I didn't know my amount.  I had just braved and survived an epic line to get to this table.  Options.  I needed options.  The answer is C!!!!  No, no that's not right.  I had only two choices.  I hated both of them.  Make up an amount, give them money, and play the price is right with my pig meat, or... be stuck sitting in the green chair of shame on the sidelines because I had failed again, and did not think to call and get my amount.

I shuffled over to the chair and sat, stewing in my frustration.  At that point, several parents were kind enough to tell me that they had called ahead to get their amounts.  I didn't think to call.  In fact, I had thought that they would tell me what I owed when I got here.  I brought extra money for that reason.  They asked for cash.  The Green Goodness.  As I watched one parent after another rip checks from their hatefully cute bound little checkbooks, I had a growing troll inside me banging on my insides, demanding to be let loose so it could cause troll-y havoc.

When the papers finally arrived for those of us rejects who didn't call, and I really think I was the only one, I got back in line and paid for our pork.  Kevin had already loaded it into the car, and since everyone was working their hams on the very same day, we opted to go do some things while we left Tiffany behind to work the hams.

That troll got loose, by the way, when we got to the shop and I discovered our order was not how we had placed it.  Thankfully, the shop is made of cinderblocks and concrete, and the damage was minimal.

Fast forward to yesterday.  We were all hungry.  Starving.  Starving like Chris-Farley's-hair-is-prettier-than-mine starving. 

The fridge was empty, the freezer was not.  We thawed some sausage, and some short ribs.  I fired up the grille, trying very hard not to think about what I was going to do.  I grabbed some eggs that I had gotten from the Tuckwillers.  I made little cups out of the sausage, and cracked an egg into each one.  I seasoned the ribs and oiled them, tossing them on the same grille.  20 minutes later, we took our first bites, and we had crossed the hump.  We made it.  The circle was complete, and everyone felt better.  Did we feel better because we had done our farmer-ly duty, or because we were no longer famished?  Not sure.  But, it had been done, and we were all talking about the beginning of the cycle all over again. 

"Onions Are The Only Food That Make You Cry." - Liars.

This past weekend, we had to say goodbye to Rootin' Tootin'.  Every time, it gets a little harder.  I know to be a farmer, you have to steel yourself when it comes time to send the animals off to slaughter, but I swear, he knew.  He knew we were saying goodbye.  He knew we were leaving him and not coming back.  What's worse, the kids knew.  What's worst, I knew. 

I think, had we bought him as an 8 week old piglet, it might not have been so hard.  But we held Rootin' when he was born.  He was the runt.  The smallest pig in the litter, and all of the literature that we had read said that fuzzy piglets, in other words piglets who had hair that stood on end, were never going to be good growers, and would likely die early in life. 

As time went on, we just couldn't help but fall in love with the littlest piglet.  We always knew there would be a chance he would not make weight for the State Fair.  It didn't matter.  He was a favorite, and we just told ourselves that he could be our Ham/Bacon pig, without really weighing the ramifications of such a declaration. 

When the day rolled around to haul him to Valley View Farm for the grand haul to the western part of the state for processing, there weren't many words spoken.  We all just got in the truck, and went down to the barn to get him.  I think he knew something wasn't right.  Animals can sense it.  We opened the gate, and as usual, he didn't want to go into the trailer.  Lucy, Marigold and Petunia all ran into the trailer where they ate the food that was waiting inside.  After a minute, Rootin' Tootin' went in.  We ushered the girls out, and he was alone in the trailer, eating the food. 

When we got there, and he walked slowly out of the trailer into the pen, he turned around.  He wasn't interested in the other pigs.  He was interested in saying goodbye.  It wouldn't be such a big deal if he was a jerk, but he wasn't.  He was a doll.  A real sweet pig.

Now, I know it will get better.  I know that two weeks from now, we'll be okay with it.  Working the hams will be therapeutic in a cauterizing way.  And when we butcher Marigold and Petunia, it won't be that big of a deal, because they're meat hogs. 

There's a huge difference between meat hogs and a pig you've developed a relationship with.  To show them,  you have to develop a relationship with the animal.  They have to trust you, and you them.  You're asking an animal that is almost 300 pounds of pure muscle to do things just because you ask it to, and not run you over or hurt you, and that animal has to trust that you're telling it to do something that violates its instinct to fight or flee.  You are concerned when it gets a sniffle or has a limp.  You'll do almost anything to make sure it gets the best food and is in best condition.  You'll experiment with a hundred different treats desperate to find out what your pig likes from peanut butter to marshmallows with a touch of jam.  Meat hogs, you just show up, dump some feed in a bin, and walk away. 

Show pigs take a little bit of your heart with them when they go.  You see, onions aren't the only food that make you cry.  Whoever said that was a liar.  Pork makes you cry, too.

When nothing goes right... go left.

Have you ever had that fleeting thought, when everything was going exactly how it was planned, that it's too good to be true?  And then, as fast as the thought entered your mind, it all goes to pot?

I've had a few moments like that this week.  Between breeding pigs, planned trips gone awry, and Grandma spending several luxurious nights in a resort called Greenbrier Valley Medical Center, I managed to scold myself for getting cocky, and thinking that for one second, just one second, things were going to go as planned.

A quote often attributed to Woody Allen goes something like, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."  I really think that I've kept God in stitches this week, so much that his side is hurting, and that's probably contributing to the large amount of rain we've been having.  Sorry, all you hay farmers.  My bad.  I just hope they're tears of laughter, and not the other moisture often attributed to extreme hilarity.

With regards to the pigs, since this is a  piggy blog, not all is going well.  Diesel, that hunka gorgeous Hampshire boar that is visiting, has been doing very well.  He's really quite the stud.  And just, just when we think all is well, Porkchop develops a limp.  We check her out, and sure enough, she's got a bad infection on one of her hocks.  The culprit?  A piece of old metal fencing that she managed to kick up that we did not know was there.  Puss, naturally, was an indicator that all was not well, and a temperature of 104.something because I can't see that well, resulted in a good dose of LA200, followed with plenty of Blu-Kote. 

What's worse, Dr. Farnum says that there's a good chance that Porkchop won't take, because of the stress and fever of the injury, and we're going to have to likely breed her next go around.  I guess, in the grand scheme of things, that's not terrible, since that will give us early February pigs, but just disappointing.  I wanted to have all my piglets at the same time.  The whole having your cake and eating it too, I guess I was being greedy.

And Tiffany ordered semen for Lucy, but won't let us tell anyone who the daddy is until they're born.  It's her decision, but it's very Maury to me.  What are we going to do?  Sit the boar down in front of a live studio audience, dramatically open the envelope and say, "Cottonwood.... You are NOT the father!"  Gasps from the pigs in the seats, Lucy starts squealing and crying, and Cottonwood storms off the stage in a fit of anger.  Hussy. 

 

 

And in other piggy news, this will be the last week that Rootin' Tootin' will be with us.  Rootin' Tootin' is the product of Porkchop and Big League.  He started off very promising, winning first in his class at the County Fair, but missed weight by just a few pounds at State, and did not get the opportunity to show there.  It was very disappointing, and he was retained as Tiffany and Levi's shared Ham Bacon pig.  

 

 

 

He's probably one of the sweetest pigs we've ever known.  Of course, everyone we've talked to says barrows are like that.  A friend of mine told me that she used to tell her children when the pigs were being castrated that they were taking the 'meanness' out of them.  Clever.  I had a typing teacher in Middle School that I'd have liked to take the meanness out of, but pretty sure she lacked the equipment to perform the same surgical procedure... of course, I could be wrong.

 





 

 

For all you piggy fans, cross your fingers that Porkchop took, and that Lucy will take when bred tomorrow.  And, if she doesn't take, cross your fingers that the Chop heals up enough to try again in 21 days.