Bringin' home the bacon

The long awaited Thanksgiving finally arrived this passed weekend.  Why was it long awaited you ask?  Beyond the fact that it is usually filled to brimming with roast turkey and all the fixings, pumpkin pie and many reasons to be thankful?  Well for me, it was the agreed on weekend in which my three pigs that I have been growing with pasture, grain and everything I could scrounge from my and my parents' compost were set to meet their maker.  Their last breakfast on Sunday was a lovely blend of whole wheat, whole barley and Granny Smith apples my mom had picked from her tree for the occasion. 

Sunday night after a big turkey dinner that I cooked for the family, I locked the three little pigs in the barn where they made their last nest of wood chips and hay and snuggled into their pig pile.  At this point, I felt kinda sad.  They're awfully cute when they're pig piling.  Even when they fart.  I said thank you to them for the meat they would provide for my kids and me and closed up the barn knowing they might be dispatched before I got home from work the next day.

I got home from work on Monday and Ryan, the super awesome!! guy who agreed to slaughter and butcher my pigs for me, had already shot and bled the first pig.  I sent the kids in the house, threw on my coveralls and went out to help while the kids watched from the window.  He shot and bled the second pig shortly after that and I helped him and another friend Dan drag her out of the field.  Pig #3 wasn't interested in cooperating.  He smelled the blood, he'd heard the shots and unfortunately saw his sisters through the fence.  I won't go into details over his dispatch.  It wasn't pleasant for myself or Ryan and certainly not the boy pig either.  Sometimes things just don't go as planned and this was one of those times.

Shortly thereafter, all three pigs were dragged into the barn and Ryan set to work skinning.  We decided on skinning rather than the scalding and scraping of the hide because for 1.) I had nothing in which to bathe a 300ish pound pig in hot water and 2.)  its a helluva lot of work!  Skinning was labor intensive as the pigs were lean and their skin was thin but less work than scalding and scraping.

Indi guarding the boy pig from the other dogs(If I can't eat it, no one can!) while Ryan skins pig #2. 

Pig #1 hung, skinned and gutted.  Ryan finishing the skinning of pig #2.

Fairah watched the whole process from the shooting of pig #2, and the skinning and gutting of the first two before she got too cold and went inside to warm up.  My aim has been to raise kids who aren't afraid to humanely raise animals for food and if they still get excited about the meat on the table after watching 50 lbs of guts come out of a pig into a wheel barrow then I must have succeeded in that aim!  Her and I dug around in the guts to identify all the organs and made guesses as to how they compare in size to our organs.  Science at its finest, people!

All three pigs hung, washed and ready to be covered for the night.

Yesterday afternoon was butchering day!  Ryan was back and brought Ken and they quickly went to work cutting bellies, roasts, chops, ribs and everything in between!


The dogs helped themselves to the bone bucket dragging out more than they could possibly chew on.

Only the mother/son team can tolerate being near each other with their treats.  Indi turned into a snarling, growling, teeth baring, hackled beast chasing off dogs and chickens alike.

The butchering team cutting chops and ribs and stir fry meat.  I was super helpful with taping the packages and writing on them!  Yay me!

Part of pig #1 in the freezer.  Yum yum yum!  Didn't I do a good job with taping and writing??!

So there it is from start to finish.  We have yet to try some but I think the fruits of our labor will be on the menu tomorrow night!  And after all the complaining I did(which was totally justified) I think I'll definitely raise pigs again next year.  Ryan is already on board and we are both brainstorming to come up with better more efficient ways to process.  Although I took a backseat role this year in the processing end of things; observing and learning, I definitely plan to get up to my elbows in guts next year! 

Goats: Day 4

Today they broke out of their stall in the barn and discovered the hay loft. 

And had a very nice time tap dancing on top of my tool cabinet.

 

 

At least I don't have to worry about them trying to eat me but I'm going to give myself a time out as punishment for getting goats. 

Welcome to crazy town

Lets talk about goats, shall we?  As you may or may not know, we now have a pair of goats to add to our flock of miscellaneous farm creatures.  I guess I figured that I had conquered pigs(erm...sortuv...)

so why not move onto goats?  Seems reasonable?  *Insert CRAZY here*

Rewind to two days ago.  Awww they're so cute!!!

Then yesterday was a shit day.  I worked, then came home and got that phone call.  You know, the we-regret-to-inform-you-that-you-didn't-get-the-job phone call.  I really wanted the job!  I'm usually a total pessimist when it comes to stuff like that.  Oh, you know, I'm probably not qualified anyway.  But everyone kept telling me they couldn't imagine a better person for the job!  And how I was totally going to get it.  So, when I didn't get the job, it sucked.  A lot.  I maybe cried.  I maybe tried to seek support from someone who no longer supports me.   I maybe had to have a friend peel me off the ceiling a bit.  Shit.  Day.

Today was Town Day.  Eyes still puffy from maybe crying yesterday--  Lets buy school supplies and shoes for me and go to Costco and visit the in-laws...erm no scratch that, forget visiting the effing in-laws!  And do some more grocery shopping and visit my brother and then come home and have a hot dog roast!!

Can you see the excitement on their faces?  Super excited.  Blarg.

 

Note to self:  no hot dog roasts after an epically long day in town.  We only lost two hot dogs in the fire so that's pretty good, I guess.

Then I discovered the pigs had busted the electric wire.  The goats were out with the sheep but their gate was still closed.  And a certain boy child was yelling at me to rescue the cat from the other side of the fence.  I spent the next 20 minutes fixing the electric fence with a pitch fork at the ready in case the pigs decided to turn on the hand that feeds them and leave my children motherless.  Then chased the goats in circles while they jumped over five foot high gates and the sheep moved in to eat the goats' hay.  I maybe swore a lot.  And maybe considered loading the goats into my car and returning them to where they came from.  Sometimes I take on too much.  Or maybe it just seems like too much when everything seems like too much.  Maybe I have some booze in my tea while I type this post.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is the life I've created.  There will be shit days and  then there will be awesome days like the day I created the rad fire pit area you see in the picture above.   Its crazy but its fun and exciting too.   And if all else fails, I know this much is true:  the pigs will be bacon at the end of the month so I won't have to deal with their shenanigans for much longer!

Pork, the MOST annoying white meat

First off can I just say that even more annoying than pork is accidentally deleting a blog post you wrote on your Blogger iPhone app.  Because I'm not just writing it once, I had to write it in my head while I did farm chores, then I wrote in on my phone and now I'm writing it again.  Blarg.  Anyway, Pork, the most annoying white meat...

I haven't been a 'farmer' for a long time but in my combined years of 'farming' here and in Alberta I haven't come across a more difficult type of livestock than pigs.  Not even Sir Loin, my Dexter Bull getting loose and using my newly planted orchard as his personal back scratcher compares to the headaches these three oinkers have given me.

Can I mention at this time that I also hate weed whacking?  I don't even own a weed whacker because I would rather have the grass growing around the foundation of my house; around my fruit trees; around the boulders in my yard, than have to get out another tool to deal with it.  Anyway, I hate weed whacking.  I know, doesn't seem relevant.  Well it is.  Back to the pork...

One of the Miss Piggies has been getting out of the electrified pig field for the last two days.  She could have been flying out for all I could see there wasn't a bloody breach in the fence anywhere.  Last night I came home to find her having a nice time digging in the radishes after she had wandered all over the yard tipping over things and digging holes with her nose.  It was also a nice time finding a puff of feathers that earlier in the day had been a chicken.  That will be a mystery of course because puffs of chicken feathers only show up when I'm not at home; unless its the ravens teaching their baby devil spawn how to rip my chicken's heads off because they have no problem doing that while I am at home.

So this evening rather than kicking back and enjoying a cold one after another successful Burger Night fundraiser I set out to figure out what the hell was wrong with the pig field.  There I was, kitchen scissors in hand trimming the grass that could possibly be tripping the electric wire.  Kitchen scissors.  Because remember, I don't like weed whackers.  I'm an idiot.  Its like a make work project.  If only I had a weed whacker I wouldn't be trimming grass with scissors! Blarg.  In the end, it wasn't grass that had done the deed allowing the bacon factory on legs to walk through the fence, it was the fact that one of them had flipped a 50 pound rock over on the wire.  The rock was removed(a snake was sleeping underneath), the wire was re tightened and the fence was plugged back in.  I haven't heard any electrifying squeals yet but morning will tell whether I fixed the problem(for now) or not.

A face only a mother could love.

And while we are on the topic of annoying animals, this darling, Indi, my second 'child'; garbage picker extraordinaire; chocolate birthday cake eater; steal the food right out of the kid's hand kind of dog struck again this afternoon eating an entire batch of brownies off the kitchen table that my mom had baked for Burger Night.  I love her but after that I want to hug her until she sleeps forever.  Plus she's filling my entire house with stinky ate-an-entire-batch-of-brownie farts.  Dogs are gross.

Pigs.  Blarg. 

Dogs.  Blarg. 

I just love baby ducklings and that's all.

A Wee Blond Moment

Yesterday was a super productive day!  No seriously, it was.  I went for a run in the morning, got my kids on the bus and then spent most of the day helping a friend paint her house.  I got home around 4:30pm and seeing it was still a bit early to start cooking dinner, I decided to put up the new clothes line I had bought a kit for when in town last.  That was my first mistake.  I should have stopped when it took me half an hour up on the ladder to screw the hook into the side of my wood shed.  I should have taken that as a sign that I was tired and maybe needed to leave it for another day.  Nope, it served to piss me off that it took a bloody half an hour to screw in a bloody hook(because I don't have a drill at the moment) and therefore, screw you clothes line kit, you're getting set up!  

Measure twice, cut once.  Yeah...how many times have I heard my mom say that?  There I stood with the clothes line in my hands thinking hmmm I should double check this and yet I cut it anyway.  Sigh.  It ended up being about six inches too short.  So I had to cut another piece, tie it together and reattach it.  Problem solved.  Erm...

Notice anything wrong with this next picture?  Yeah, that's right, my ladder is now part of my clothesline.
 
Blond.  Moment. 

 

 I'll deal with it when I need my ladder next.  For now it can stay put to remind me that I can't be good at everything.  (Just almost everything.)

Farm Update

So, I've been busy.  Not quite sure what I have been busy with but it's been over a month since I posted.  High time for an update! 

The pigs are growing by the day.  They became a real nuisance; escaping their field to wreak havoc in my gardens, yard and chicken coop.  This in turn made the need for an electric fence a top priority(I may have giggled uncontrollably for a minute or two when they zapped themselves repeatedly the first day.  Can I also say that it has stopped the dogs from escaping the property and I may have giggled when they zapped themselves as well?)

Is it wrong that I see bacon when I look at them?  And smoked ham.  And pork chops...

I had my first chicken casualty by Raven last week.  That happened thanks to the pigs putting a hole right through the chicken yard netting prior to electric fence installation.  My dogs slept through it.  Obviously.  I came home to a pair of Ravens defeathering a chicken.  Not impressed.

Peking Duck and his gang

The not so little lamb anymore.  She is the cutest.  I especially like it when she plays with the dogs. 

One of our Barn Swallow parents.  There are two pairs sitting on eggs in the barn right now. 

My garden is an effing disaster.  More weeds than anything.  I can't seem to find time to get out there and do something with it.  Procrastination at its finest.  Growing in there somewhere are peas, onions, broccoli, gai lan, bok choi, carrots and kale.  I keep thinking, 'next year will be better.' 

And lastly, we have a Killdeer family living in and out of our yard.  They have 3 of the cutest little fluffy babies that run around on their little stick legs that I have to dodge when I drive to my gate.  This picture shows one of the parents and a baby in the back.  They weren't interested in a family portrait.

 

And just like my garden, my house is also an effing disaster.  This will hopefully change before Saturday as it is the boy's 7th birthday and I have 10 kids coming to my house for gluten free pizza and fun on the farm!  Please please PLEASE let there be sunshine that day!! 

An Easter Lamb!

My kids spent Saturday night at their Grandparents' house in town and I spent much of my evening sitting in the barn watching and waiting for imminent signs of labor in my ewe, Lavender.  The barn was quiet with only the sounds of the pigs snoring and farting in their pig pile to my left and the sound of the sheep breathing and burping while they chewed their cud.  High above a spider was making a web on the light bulb and I half expected to come out in the morning to see 'SOME PIG' written in spider silk. 



Last night, I called it quits at midnight.  I knew Lavender was going to lamb any time but I couldn't stay up any longer.  If you ever thought you were the size of a house when you were pregnant, well you've never been a sheep...

I was not surprised to see a wee baby lamb when I went out to the barn this morning!  Lavender probably had it the second I turned my back!  Its pretty stinkin' cute if you ask me!

Lavender and her lamb, who we have named Lamb Chop after a lamb we hand raised in Alberta, are both doing great!  They will be ready for visitors next weekend ;)

Hunting in the Moonlight Hours

There has been this rat in the barn evading me for days.  I first saw it a week or so ago eating some scraps my aunt had given me for the pigs.  A trap was set with peanut butter... to no avail.  Next, the trap was set with chocolate cake.  The dirty bugger managed to eat the cake, set off the trap and not get caught! Every time the dogs are in the barn, they run up and down the stairs sniffing all the corners, digging here and there and turning up nothing.  My dogs are all experienced mousers.  Much more adept than my 17 pound cat who at this moment lays on my bed licking his arse instead of doing what cats are supposed to do.

Anyway.  After coming home from our Monday Town Day, I donned my headlamp and headed to the barn to close everything up.  Two beady little eyes flashed at me from the rafters above the pigs' pen.  I grabbed my pitch fork(I don't screw around!) and lunged at it.  It scrabbled away along the wall with me and three dogs on its tail.  It was perched above my head on a ledge and I swung at it with my fork.  All I could see were its flashing eyes sailing through the bloody air at my face!  I might have let out a girly scream at that point before yelling, "GET THE MOUSE!" (These are Alberta dogs, they don't know the word 'rat' so the command is 'mouse.')

The rat in question managed to disappear and the dogs proceeded to spend the next half hour digging like maniacs under one of the feeder boxes.

Indi did most of the digging while Zama did a lot of listening and Bjorn did a lot of standing around.

Zama taking a turn at digging

Thinking there was no chance they would catch the devious rodent, I called them off to head in the house.  Indi headed into the opposite corner of the barn and started frantically sniffing under some wood.  I managed to get my fork underneath and lift it up(no way was I using my hands lest a rodent fly at my face again!) and Indi flushed the bloody creature out!  There was a great commotion as all three dogs went after it and who do you think got the trophy?  Bjorn.  He who stood around doing nothing!  He trotted off into the darkness with his squeaking prize and two furious hard working dogs trailing after him.

Zama brought it to me to show me what she'd done after it was thoroughly dead.  One very slobbery bedraggled rat.

Super gross.

What the hell is being productive anyway?

Recently it was brought to my attention that I am lazy and unproductive.  I know, don't all gasp at once!  So it made me think about what it actually means to be NOT lazy and unproductive.  How is one person's productivity better than another's?  I'm a stay at home mom, I raise my kids on my own and I run a hobby farm.  My house isn't always clean but my kids are fed, my animals are fed, everyone is happy and there's toilet paper on the roll.  Does that mean I'm less productive than another stay at home mom who spends her whole day cleaning her house?  I don't think so.  We're productive in different ways.

So needless to say this lazy and unproductive thing has become a joke as hurtful things sometimes do to make them less hurtful.  On Tuesday the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.  I chose to be lazy and unproductive(after getting up a 5:45 to meet my running buddy for a run at 6:15, got my kids fed and to the bus, fed my animals, tidied my barn... You know, all that unproductive stuff)  This was how Zama and I did the afternoon.

Yesterday was also a beautiful sunshiney day but I decided it was a productive day.  I went for a run with friends then got home and built this rock garden.  Four wheel barrows of rocks, Four wheel barrows of sheep shit, and six wheel barrows of top soil later and the garden was finished. 

I'm pretty pleased with it and I hope my future roses will be too.

So, why not keep the productivity rolling?  I dug out all the strawberry plants in this bed, three wheel barrows of sheep shit and three wheel barrows of top soil later then replanted all the strawberry plants. 

 

Fed my kids, fed my animals then went to a two hour class on dealing with Change.  Was it a productive day?  I certainly think so.  Am I happy with my life?  Mostly.  When I'm not happy, I generally strive towards the direction of happiness.  Its an ongoing learning process.   If I were to die tomorrow would I look back and wish I had been more productive?  No, I'll wish I'd taken my kids to Europe.  

Happy Thursday!

Spring Break is:

Spring Break is quickly coming to an end.  We didn't go anywhere as we had planned and we didn't do anything terribly exciting but it was a nice break from our usual routine.  Here is a summary of what we were up to around the Farm :)

Spring Break is:

Daffodils

Baby Ducks!

Messenger chats with far off friends

Sneaking out for early morning runs before the kids wake up

Soaking up the sunshine in the ferry lineup

Playing outside until dark

Putting on my 'Blue Job' suit and putting out a chimney fire

New pets- Mo Willems and Antonio Banderas

Watching the grass grow

Catching frogs

Wearing t shirts

Checking in with your personal trainer and discovering all your hard work really is paying off!

Snuggly dogs

Pigs in the pasture

Laundry hanging out to dry

Doctoring a sick chicken

Eating PB&J and Jam&Nutella sandwiches for dinner with the pigs

 

 Happy Spring!

Out to Pasture

Well jeez, talk about a productive day!  My day started around 7:00 and considering its Sunday and I was out until nearly midnight last night I'll count that as a pretty good start.  Fed all the creatures including the kids before dropping them at my mom's house for the morning.  10:30am found me getting my ass kicked in Brett's HIIT class.  You can check out Brett and Saltwild Fitness and Nutrition here.  Then off to meet friends to help move the last of Mandy's stuff into her new place.  A quick break for lunch and then home again. 

Worked on some fencing because I decided to take a chance and let the pigs out into the pasture.  I had thought up all these plans for electric pig enclosures but when it came down to it I didn't want to spend the money so I'm going to try to use what I have.  Plus the pigs' stall in the barn desperately needed a thorough cleaning and I can't doing it while they're in there.

Indi and the pigs having a nice time saying hello.

The pigs doing an excellent job rooting up the swamp grass.  Keep up the good work!

The sheep wanted to get in on the fun

 

The only complaint I have with productive days is when its all said and done, I still have to make dinner.  Luckily the kids had already decided on breakfast for dinner so it was a lovely meal of Paleo pancakes, sausages and eggs.  

Oh good, its almost bedtime!