vituperation

Did you know you can have the hams just cut into fresh steaks or roasts too?

Yep, one of the hams is getting cut into roasts; one of the shoulders is being cut into steaks. Also, there are no mobile butchers here; I checked way back when you first mentioned one.

Are you going to smoke the hams yourself?

Yep. I’m a meat-smoking fool.

Fred, how much meat will you get from the pig? I admit I’m imagining you two in a pile of ham, ribs, and bacon right now, which isn’t a bad thing! Are you concerned about ending up with a new pig ready for processing before you have a chance to finish up the meat from pig number one?

See below.

Abreva.

…is the shit, indeed.

I’m going to have to google how a chicken plucker works! and Does it tumble the chicken and the feathers get caught on something? Just curious, are there any valuable uses for the feathers?

Pretty much, ours works just like this one. To my knowledge, the only use for the feathers might be for people who tie their own flies for fishing, and even then I doubt they use common yardbird feathers.

Last Sunday morning, as you know, Robyn and I loaded up Big Pig and Little Pig and took them to the butcher. By Sunday afternoon, we were really missing them. Well, not missing those pigs in particular, just pigs in general.

We had nothing to feed all our meal and cooking scraps to. The chickens can eat plenty, but not like pigs. On a grosser note, there was nothing to feed the chicken guts (and feathers!) left over from cleaning a chicken to. Nothing to eat the weeds I pulled from the garden. Nothing to eat any moles I might whack with the shovel, or any of those Amish chicks that might die during the hatch. Or, now that I think about it, nothing to eat any dud eggs that have rotted.

All Sunday afternoon, I caught myself looking out to the pig yard to see what they were doing, only to be surprised when they weren’t there. Sunday evening was different than the days before. Every day at dusk, we’d go out together to put up the chickens, then walk out to see the pigs with a couple of doughnuts or some homemade cookies.

Only now the pigs were gone.

We knew we’d get more pigs once Big Pig was mostly eaten, but hell, he processed out to 230 pounds of meat. There are only two of us; God knows how long it will take us to eat that much meat. Again, TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS OF MEAT for two people. More pigs were far in the future, even though we both realized we needed more now because we’d become so dependent on their appetites.

By Monday, I was scheming.

“I could see if Lottie wants to buy some of Big Pig,” I said to my wife. Lottie is one of our egg customers, and had expressed interest in getting pork from us because she knew how well-treated our animals were. Factory farmers, take note: I’ve found that most people are willing to pay more for well-treated animals.

My wife was originally a little reticent at selling part of Big Pig, since we haven’t even gotten the meat back from the processor yet and don’t know how it will look or taste, or even really what 230 pounds of meat looks like. As the days passed, I convinced her that if we sold some of Big Pig, we could get more pigs now instead of later.

“We could find people to buy the second one,” I said. “I could charge them a per-pound price to raise it and take it to the processor, then they could have it cut up and packaged however they want. We might even be able to get back some of the cost of our pig.”

She agreed, and when I called Lottie to tell her I had eggs, I mentioned the possibility of her buying some pork. Before I could even finish, she said she’d buy half of Big Pig at whatever price I wanted to sell him. Even better, when I mentioned the prospect of getting more pigs, she wanted to buy a whole one for her family and her son’s family to split. Still better, what she’s paying for her pig will cover a good part of the food for ours. It’s like free meat for doing something I enjoy.

With everything in place, we took off this morning for a giant flea market in Ardmore, Tennesee, called “Dog Days.” The Labor Day weekend is a special one for the flea market, and it runs all day for four straight days. Hundreds of vendors, and thousands of buyers cram into a 100 acre lot, and the wheeling and dealing goes nonstop.

I didn’t expect to find any small pigs, because it’s not really, um, pig season right now. Usually, pigs give birth in the spring and the fall.

We wandered through all the junk being sold, until we got to the part of Dog Days that’s both the best and worst. The best, because of all the animals. The worst, because of all the animals. Cage upon cage of chickens, ducks, turkeys, pheasants, quail, and geese lined the thoroughfare, baking in the hot August sun. Kittens mewed and puppies whined. Pot-bellied pigs squealed. We love animals a lot, and really enjoyed seeing them all there, but it’s heartbreaking to see them crammed into tiny cages in this weather.

At the very end of the market, we spotted a cage with three little pigs in it, two girls and a boy. Even better, they were Yorkshires, like Big Pig and Little Pig were. I spoke with the seller about getting the boy, but the boy pig wasn’t cut — he still had balls.

“I kin cut ‘im if you want ‘im,” the man said with a smile. “We kin take him down there to the crick with a sharp knife and I’ll fix ‘im right up.”

Part of me wanted to say yes to that, because I knew I’d be able to get a good story out of it, but I declined. Despite the innate fish-out-of-water humor in the situation, I didn’t want to hold a little pig while someone cut his balls out. I need to do the farming thing a little longer first.

A few minutes and $50 later, we had the two girls loaded in the back of the pickup for the drive back to Alabama.

They sure do make the homestead feel complete again.

My name is Fred, and I reckon I’m a pig farmer.

Update: The jam has all been spoken for. Hopefully, I’ll get the get-up-and-go to make some more here soon.

I have six pints of fresh raspberry-habanero jam to sell. They’re made by me, using habaneros from this year’s batch (five plants, which are making about 30 habs every other day), and they’re $6.50 each plus whatever the post office charges for shipping.

As with the strawberry jam, it’s hard for me to say whether they’re hot or not, because that’s subjective. There’s a little mild heat if you eat a spoonful plain, maybe a little hotter than Tabasco sauce. Habaneros have a different kind of burn than tabasco peppers, so that may not be an apt comparison. There are 25 seeded whole habaneros in the 8-pint batch I made, if that helps.

Ingredients: sugar, raspberries, habanero peppers, pectin, distilled white vinegar, water.

I used dry pectin this time instead of Certo, so the jam isn’t set completely solid. It’s not runny, but it will slowly flow if you turn the jar on its side. The taste is fantabulous.

Just email me if you’re interested.

The first time I heard this song — one afternoon on the way home from work — I was so enamored I called Robyn while it was still playing and got her to Google part of the lyrics so I’d know the name. It sure is purty.