Full Freezers

We picked up the remains of our pig last week. Love the look of these sweetly wrapped morsels of goodness.
We run three freezers and they are completely full. Actually I did not have enough room for all the pig fat. If any of you locals are interested in some to make lard with and/or for bird treats come on over.

With the price of gas steadily rising I have heard that the price of food will double in price.

I cannot even imagine as there are so many in this country that are going without.

Maybe it will eventually be less expensive to raise your own and more people will go back to it?

That would be nice!

P.S. The picture on my header is a dish I made after getting the idea from a fellow blogger, Amaranthian. Love her blog, lots of great culinary ideas! Besides being tasty it only required one pan. Cook up the bacon, set aside, cook up grated potatoes in the grease, then cook your eggs atop. Note to others: don't take a shower while your taters are cooking :)

Making Treats for our Feathered Friends

Last year for the first time I made some tasty treats for the birds. I posted recipes here.

The other night my girl & I made some without following a recipe.

*We cooked up some pig fat in the oven in my cast iron kettle, the remaining was liquid fat and crackles, I believe that is what they are called. (little pieces of fat)

*Threw the crackles in the processor.*Dug deep into my fridge to find the bacon grease and such I had been saving for the last year or so, against Maine Man's will. Melted it down. He's a bit of a throw away kinda guy and I am a save it kinda gal. I just know I will find a use for it someday! Hence why I do the recycling, as painful as it can be.

*Threw in some bird seed, a bit of cracked corn, a few tablespoons of peanut butter. Mixed it all together and dished it out into pans and plastic containers of all sizes.

I was wishing I had saved a bunch of those plastic containers you get when you buy suet blocks in the store. I only had 1 and it was perfect for this project. Maybe I will put something on Facebook and see if my bird feeding friends will save some for me.

*Set the containers in the barn overnight

*Perfectly hardened! Popped the suet blocks out of the containers. Placed one outside for the birds and the rest in the freezer.

Little Messy but FUN!

Birds of a Feather Flock Together ~ day 16

Maine Man has his Ducks in a Row! ;)

Ha.....the morning after MM processed all the drakes but 1 he found this sight in the barn.

All the Muscovies were high up on a beam out of reach from MM.

They wanted NO part of the Merry-Go-Round aka Chicken Plucker.

Couple FUN facts about MM's Chicken Plucker Post

• It is the #1 visited post of this blog
• Yesterday out of 339 visitors to this site 75 of them were checking out that post
• Since he posted that in Jun 09' it has been viewed 9,409 times

Impressive, huh? I give him the spotlight just twice and he steals the show.....lol. His other post that is quite popular is a how to skin a pig.

Stolen picture from a friend that I gave a duck too, too pretty not to post. MM processed 11 ducks, we gave 2 away and we've eaten 1 so far. We all enjoyed, I think it tastes similar to roast beef. Not something you'd eat every week but good for a change.

The Furry & The Feathered

Our newest addition Basil or Bullet, depends who your asking.

Above is Louie and one of his gals. All together we have 3 Khaki Cambells. They spend 3/4 of the year at the pond and winters in the barn. The only nice thing about keeping them cooped up is their delicious eggs which I LOVE to bake with!

I adore our Muscovies although at the moment we have too darn many of them. We will keep three hens & a drake through the winter. They forage so much food for themselves, they are pleasant to watch as the free roam throughout the barnyard. On a few occassions I've see people pulled watching them and not long ago a lady stopped and was taking pictures. They are SUPER Mommas. Remember that post I did about the hen that hatched out 26 ducklings.

Their eggs are great for baking with too. We ate one of the Muscovies this summer. I thought it tasted similar to roastbeef, tasting nothing like any duck I've had in the past.

H1 & N1 out to pasture. They have are surrounded by electric fencing that is about 4-6 inches up from the ground and have yet to escape. By the beginning of January they will be replaced with 2 more piglets. Only one of these is ours and the other we are raising for a friend. We like to keep at least two of every animal here on our small farm.

Sir Loin is to the left and we are raising T-bone for another friend. He is actual going to be given to our old neighbors as a token of appreciation for saving for our childrens college funds since they were born.

In addition to the animals shown above we have 2 other cats, 2 dogs, and a dozen laying hens, and a mean rooster named Bob.

Wordless Weekend

Newest Additions

HELP....... Need some names folks! (1 male, 1 female)

If you have been a long time reader you know we've had some naughty pigs named Obama & McCain who are looooong gone.

We also had pigs called Ham & Pumpkin. Ham delivered the first piggies here on the farm last summer. (hot looking picture of Maine Man on that link too)

We raised 2 of her piglets, one for our family and one for a friend. They were called Barbie & Q. Barbie went to market a while back but Q just went last week with a hanging weight of 340 lbs. As it has been SUPER warm here in Maine as of lately MM did not want to attempt processing the meat. He has processed the last few pigs and even posted about it here. Instead we gave half to a friend and they paid the processing fees, we both made out!

That pig processing post of MM's is the 2nd most visited post on this blog. You know what that #1 most visited post on this blog? MM's "how to build a chicken plucker ".

That man writes 2 posts in 3 years and I post weekly. Something is wrong with this picture ;)

Upcoming posts (of his) will too be popular if he ever gets a chance to make a wind turbine which he has talked of and/or build a hot water solar tank. If anyone can do it, he CAN!

K, folks I'm counting on you here. My friend that owns one of these piggies wants to name them H1 & N1 but I just can't do it.

Suggestions?

The Piggy Named "Iggy"

These pigs belong to my old man farmer friend. We currently have one pig named Q, we raised her and her sister Barbie from piglets, they were born here on the farm. We raised Barbie for a friend but she has since left the farm to go to higher grounds;) Q is ready to head to higher grounds as well but Maine Man has been so busy with the gardens and he is concerned that is just too warm to process the meat, plus we also still have pork in the freezer.
A couple weeks ago Q broke out. I get a call from my neighbor when I was out of town with the old man getting his chemotherapy treatment. She says"a lady just stopped and said your pig is loose." Yikes, slight panic moment!!! I had visions of her strutting up the road where the average car goes approximately 50mph. Long story short she had to awaken MM, he was working a stretch of nights. Q was captured thanks to my neighbor "Biker Stacy" and MM. Q would no longer be with us if MM didn't have to work that night.

There will be future posts about "Biker Stacy". She is my super cool neighbor that I have lots to post about. We hang out often and have SO much fun! She calls me "farmer Kim" hence her nickname. So much more to say about her but she deserves a post or two for herself!

Regardless I am down to the old farmer's house on a daily basis and can't refrain from taking pictures of his happenings from time to time. BTW, the Guinea Hen above on my header is from his farm too.


The kids have come home with lots of school work as the school year is finishing up. This is one of Flower Girl's poems I came across while browsing through her papers. Love it! Is is interesting to look through their projects, farming always seems to be their main theme.

The Piggy Named "Iggy"

There once was a fat, blue piggy named Iggy

Iggy knew a lot of red, blue, yellow, tall, fat piggies named Iggy.

One day, Iggy ate a piggy.

Iggy was still hungry, so Iggy ate another piggy.

Now his tummy was full of piggies.

He went to cross the piggy highway because he wanted to visit grandma.

He got hit by a piggy truck

and that was the end of the piggy, Iggy

by Flower Girl

Weekly Summary

Maine Man suggested I do a weekly post summarizing the chaos of our lives. Not sure this will be a regular thing but this was a perfect week to do.

* Kitten takes ride to school with MM to pick up kids......under suburban. Amazingly unharmed.

* Rabbits get loose for 282nd time this summer. MM open fires and guess what we have for dinner.

* Boxer injures 1 duck and kills 2. Last week she killed a rabbit.

* Pumpkin & Ham don't go well together! Pigs.....Pumpkin some how gets into Ham's pen and Ham nearly shred her to pieces. Never seen anything like it! THANK GOD MM had not left for work yet!

* Flower Girl & I were struck with a horid gastroenteritis.

* MM was down with a nasty respiratory illness.

Those were just a few of our finer moments so far this week, still have 4 days left.

You had to hear MM narrate of the kitten story, I laughed until tears. Glad the little man was safe.

As for rabbit meat, we all love it. I think it tastes better then chicken. The first time MM cooked it he used a slow cooker. It was ok. Along with it he cooked a duck. FG's exact words were "I liked the bunny better!" I had to agree. I really did not care for the duck. Second time around he coated it and baked it in the oven, yummy!

P.S. BOXER FREE FOR THE TAKING!

Another First here on the homestead

Isn't he sweet? Not Maine Man THE PIG! (ok he don't look so bad either)

Ham just a few hours before she delivered.

Just after 9pm Sunday night I went out to check on her and I found her delivering piglet #1
This is just a few moments later.

I ran in the house grabbed my camera and yelled for the kids & MM to join me .

In their pj's in the rain with owls hooting overhead they watched with much excitement.

Luke said, "I bet no one else I know is out this time of night watching a pig have babies."

About 30 minutes later piglet #2 was born.


(The yellow glow was from a flashlight MM was holding. )
Queenie mentioned in a comment on a previous post that piglets are born in a sac and sneeze their way out. She was right! As you see above the piglet has a coating and soon after they come out of the canal you hear some sneezing going on.


MM was up a few times throughout the night and only 1 other pig was born.

Total count thus far is #3. I was thinking more like 8 , 10 or more?
I have heard they can have more then 1 placenta. We are now wondering if one got stuck in the canal. She is in no distress and was up and about today. MM is out further inspecting her as I type. The problem with doing things for the first time is the mistakes that are made, there are bound to be screw ups.

Time will tell!

What is your guess?

We are sure they are pregnant but by our estimations they should have piglets by now. The borrowed boar, "Romeo" came to stay with us for a little over a month starting April 1st.

They are suppose to carry for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. Hmmmm, any day. Maine Man consulted with the old farmer just down the road. He came up to check them out and he guessed 1-2 weeks. What is your guess, how many piglets do you think Ham will have?

P.S. I have yet to respond to the comments in my last post but plan to in my next post.

Making Sausage - processing pig part 2

One of the perks of making your own sausage is that can determine the amount of fat you want to add. We made ours on the lean side. A few days before I picked up some casings from a local butcher. I knew what they were made of but I was not sure what animal they came from.... anyone know or want to take a guess? My kids were a little grossed out but quickly got over it when I told them, "that is what hot dog casings are made of" and reassured them they were cleaned out really good.

We used our electric grinder that we have had for years. It has a sausage attachment that goes out the side. Some time soon we will need to upgrade to a heavy duty grinder. My ultimate goal is to have a meat cutting area/canning kitchen in the shed.....maybe someday. John will be building a chicken plucker in the near future. He will use the book that Angie gave us to guide him. Her husband Eric built one last year. I have attached a link to you tube if you have any interested in seeing how a whiz bang chicken plucker works.

Ha, gotta love the bud light Luke got in the picture below. If you noticed in the picture of my watch (2 pictures back) the time was 19:54, which is 7:54 pm in standard time. I still have my watch set at military time from when I worked nights. He started this project at 5 am and a couple bud lights helped to ease the pain.

We let the sausage sit for a few days before freezing. I made a sweet & a breakfast sausage mix,

below is the later of the two. We made enough for 2 - 10lb batches.

Breakfast Sausage
2 pounds pork butt (2 1/2 pounds with bone), diced into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 pound fat back, diced into 1/4-inch pieces
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Making the sausage was certainly the highlight event for the kids. They were fascinated by the process. The final post will be "Making Bacon". We did not make hams this time around but plan to in the future!

P.S. We have the greenhouse! It took us 5 hours to disassemble and move. Thankfully my brother showed up with a tool we needed and helped us with the big stuff. Big THANKS to Steve once again!!! I will post on it when we get it up. I am afraid it may not be up until late summer with all we have (GARDENS, animals) going.

Skinning A Pig by Maine Man - processing part 1

Some say you can't skin a pig you must scrape it. Around here we reserve the C word for special occasions. I have found by letting the carcass cool for a few hours the loose greasy fat hardens and the hide takes on a leathery quality. Today's 40 degree temps were just perfect for cooling your hog. After skinning the animal down just past the tail I placed a small rock about 1/2 the size a baseball under the hide and wrapped it tightly with a slip loop. I then let off the clutch on the tractor in super low range. One could do the same thing by hanging the animal from a large branch and pulling with a truck. One word of caution this process requires a great deal of pressure and if your knot slips or the branch breaks there's 200lb of meat coming your way at 100 mph (pigs can fly). I used double slip loops on each hind leg, one set carried the load. The second set carried little to no pressure and acted as a safety lanyard in case the first rope slips or brakes. A high quality 5/16 rope will snug up tighter than 1/2 inch and is far less likely to slip. Guide the intestines out of the way with your knuckles this method will open them like a zipper and more importantly it'll keep the poop off the bacon.

Happiness comes from a large stack of meat ( you betcha). Here's a ham, 2 sides of bacon, and the fat back (or back fat which ever your prefer). We have a book called Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game that is written by a DR of Veterinary Medicine, John Mettler. It's a good reference for all you weekend warriors and backyard butchers like ourselves and has some great recipes as well.

Pork chop!!! ( the other white meat) although it kinda pink isn't it.

Oh yes, lovely bacon. Here I am slapping on a mixture of salt, brown sugar, and maple syrup. This is our first time making bacon, we'll let your know how it comes out. It needs to set for 7 days in fridge with this solution and then a few hours of smoking to be complete. As of now we have no brilliant plan for the smoking but, necessity is the mother of invention.

Some fine fat indeed the kidneys are encased in this pure snow white fat which is the consistency of Crisco.



Ok, back to me. It was nice to have Maine Man do a post, don't you think? Since he does not regularly follow my blog (he says he lives it) I told him about the responses I received on to post or not to post the pictures and he said "they are not gory pictures and it is for educational purposes." I hate to admit but he is RIGHT. Hope I do not have to say those words again anytime soon. ;)

Back to the fat. Some of was packaged up and put into the freezer for future soap making. I plan to combine it with cow fat. I previously read over at Throwback at Trapper Creek

this method is the way to go because if you used only pig lard it would be to soft or exclusively cow to hard. I look forward to making this recipe!

Some of the lard will be made into salt pork for my dad. The lard in the above kettle can be used like you would use Crisco. I cut it up into chunks, placed it in my cast iron kettle with approx 3/4 cup of water and cooked it in the oven for 2 hours at 225 degrees. I used a strainer and a piece of cheesecloth to strain it when it was done and below is the end result. The water was drained after it hardened. It is said to be healthier than the traditional fats we buy at the grocery store. I found this post this morning but I cannot find the site I used as a reference that night. :(
Meat total: 38lbs bacon

10lbs sausage

36lbs boneless chops & roasts

14lbs ground pork

gave away a front shoulder (approx 15 lbs of pork)

= 113 lbs of meat

Getting Dirty & Loving it!

Despite the picture above things are starting to dry up around here. Yesterday I was able to walk our trail with the dogs to the back of our land without getting soaked. I still had to wear my hiking boots but not my knee highs. I did not come back clean by any means but that would be NO fun!

A couple days ago the ice went out in the ponds and the peepers started peeping. Such a wonderful thing! My boy was right out there knee deep for the first time this season.

The kids caught a few critters.

Tonight I was looking through my pictures of the pig processing and I was thinking about how to break it up into posts. Should I start from the beginning with a few pictures of Maine Man skinning it? (which is not the traditional way to deal with a pigs hide) Then have him explain his technique etc and go on from there? Or should I skip the gory details and just go to the the meat processing? What do you think?