Halloo all you phantom and prospective blog readers. A little upfront warning, I'm a sporadic poster when it comes to blogs. For me to write, I have to have a purpose. However, as my kids have gotten older, and have become more involved in things, I've found that I've had a lot more to share.
A little bit about us. My husband, Kevin, and our two kids, Tiffany (16) and Levi (10) live in West Virginia, where we have a farm and an auto garage. On our farm, we have cattle, sheep, and pigs. We have show dogs, and will be adding chickens in the near future.
Two years ago, my daughter came home from school and said, quite candidly, "In order to pass Agriculture I, I need to have a project." I thought, simply enough, "Ok. What do you want to do? Erosion? GMO? What?" She responded, "No... it has to be -alive-."
This was halfway through the school year, and we entered panic mode. A live project!? How did they not mention this in the syllabus or course catalog??? After quickly canvassing the neighborhood, we discovered that the general consensus was that the easiest project to do for FFA was a pig.
Enter the Tuckwillers. Kindly, they sold us two of their piglets, which we affectionately named Porkchop and Bacon. Now, before my bleeding heart readers (I'm sure you'll exist, someday) begin to cry foul, it is a generally accepted notion that naming your livestock after food will reduce your bond with them, and keep 'reality' within your scope. However, this was not the case with us.
As they grew, we grew more and more fond of them. When Tiffany proceeded to show them, fairly successfully I might add, it certainly didn't help. We were used to showing dogs. If your dog didn't win, you still kept it. If your dog attained it's championship, you didn't sell it especially. Pigs were a new frontier for all of us. Until then, our only experience with pigs was my father catching the occasional one in a Greased Pig Contest, which we later ate (a story for another time).
So, at fair, we didn't sell them. We knew one of them would have to be a ham/bacon hog, and naturally, that was going to be Bacon since without testicles and ovaries, he had no purpose on the farm. After we dropped him off at the slaughter house, we made it to the end of the road before Kevin wanted to go back and save him. It took a lot for us not to turn back.
Porkchop, however, got bred to Big League from Cain Super Sires, resulting in our own litter of rather successful little class winning show pigs. And, with a new year came new interest in expanding our little venture to include Purebred Hogs.
After much research on rare breeds, as there's some interest in improving and saving rare breeds, we settled on the Hereford breed of hog. After calling around, we discovered they were not cheap. Rarity=expensive. We managed to find a boar (not a gilt, like we were wanting), in Virginia, for the right price, and went and got him. He was a singleton baby, spoiled rotten, and too cute for words. However, shortly after having him, we realized he had a problem with his little jumbly bits. We had to regretfully return him, and continue our quest for a purebred for Tiffany to show.
That led us to Cook Farms in Ohio, and to the purchase of Lucy (Desilu 8-6). While Lucy didn't do very well at the State Fair, as there was some confusion on what a Hereford hog actually should look like, her sister did VERY WELL at the 2013 National Hereford Hog Association show and sale. It reassured us as to her quality, and we have selected to breed her to Hershel from Shipley Swine Genetics.
As for Porkchop, she too will be bred for January exotics (Crossbred), to a very nice Bushhog purebred boar owned by Nathan Sears, so we should get some very hamp-looking crossbreds.
In addition to pigs, our 10 year old son decided he wanted to do bees. He has two hives, one Italian and one Russian. Between the bees, hogs, sheep, cattle, and dogs, the kids registered their business and now operate under the moniker Honey Bee Hill Performance.
We eat well. With winter, and Christmas right around the corner, I imagine nothing will taste much better than Honey Ham, made with our own honey, and our own ham, right here at home, washed down with some seasonal egg nog! Stay tuned!
