Bacon Time is Nigh

Our trio of piglets, Baykin, Proscuitto and Porkchop (aka Chopz), are rapidly approaching their date with the abattoir. I find myself eager, relieved and a little sad too, but mostly, relieved.

Back when they were still cuteish.

These three little piggies joined the Boggy Hollow crew back in mid-March, just eight weeks old and weighing in at about 30 pounds each. Ever since that moment, it seems to have been their primary mission in life to eat us out of house and home. We have no real way of knowing what they weigh now until the deed is done and their hanging weight is pronounced, but if they're not at least 200-pounds each, I'm a monkey's uncle. Specifically, a sad, angry, idiot-who-spent-her-last-dime-on-pig-food, variety of monkey's uncle.

The ideal weight and age for harvesting a hog is 225-270 pounds, more or less, and at around 6 months of age. These three are nearly 8 months old, and hopefully 225 or better each, so the time has most definitely arrived for them to move on.

Even if they're short on weight, there are others issues in play that make this the right time to harvest. At the top of our list is that Winter is coming.

Can I get a what-what for my Game of Thrones peeps?

More specifically, mud season is on it's way back, and slogging 40+ pounds of feed per day through shin-deep liquid clay mud has limited appeal.

Secondly, the pigs are eating an outrageous amount of food these days. Their rations have been increased to one 40# bag of rolled barley per day, all of our (and our friends') windfall apples (5ish pounds more or less per day?) and anything coming out of the garden that is past it's prime/less than perfect, such as blimp-sized zucchini, mouse-nibbled cantaloupe, corn stovers and aphid-ravaged kale, plus their daily ration of our fresh, raw, goats milk. In the past, we've supplemented their rations with bakery outlet bread products, but the failure of many grain crops this year and last has made laying hands on previously unwanted leftovers nearly impossible most months. 

I'm competing with cattle ranchers, chicken farmers and food banks for the day-old and otherwise not-fit-for-sale (often utterly perfect), increasingly scarce calories, and so, with "terminal" stock that is near harvest anyway, I gladly bow out of the fray. 

Lastly - flavorful, clean, humanely raised pork (and all meat for that matter) is expensive. Our family of four eats about one pound of meat/protein per evening meal, at an average cost of $8 per pound. That figure factors in that we've been eating a fair amount of grass-finished ground beef (at around 5.99/lb) and occasionally a nicer cut of beef, lamb or pork (up to 10.99/lb or so) with our own wild-caught seafood (salmon, crab) sprinkled in the mix to spread things out. Conservatively, that puts our monthly meat budget at around $240 per month, for just a single 4-ounce serving per person, per day. The pigs are presently eating one $13 bag of barley per day. Alas, the time to pay the piper has arrived.

At 7 1/2 months old, they still look kinda cute, right? After you nearly lose a few fingers to their eager maws, maybe not so much. Their charm fades pretty quickly after that...

The bottom line is, it's time for us to stop feeding the pigs, and time for them to start feeding us.

With any luck, our 1 piggy (the other 2 are going to our Mamas) will yield us enough pork to put beautiful, high quality meat on our table until this time next year. Whether or not we'll find ourselves raising and harvesting our own pigs at this time next year depends completely on how this pork tastes, and how the numbers shake out when all is said and done.

I do offer my thanks to these odd little (huge) critters for the nutrition and sustenance that they will provide for my family, and for the experience that we've had with them this Spring and Summer. Our critters help us grow as farmers and as people. They teach us so much. 

Many thanks, mis puercos.

Update 9/21/13 - The butcher shop called, the piggies' hanging weights were 170, 170 & 207 pounds. Using my marginal math skills, at a total cost of about $1300 (initial purchase price, feed, kill fee), divided by the estimated final "wrapped" weight (70% of hanging weight - 547 x .7= 383lbs) equals roughly 3.39/pound. Not a huge win, financially, but when compared to the average cost of the cheapest cut per pound of organic/non-CAFO pork that is commercially available, (which is usually the ground, unseasoned pork), we'll enjoy a savings of about $3.40 per pound. On the "nicer" cuts, the savings go up.

Speaking strictly financially, this was a worthwhile endeavor for us. We'll be keeping just one of the pigs for ourselves, the 207-pounder. The other two are destined for the freezers of our parental units.

So, based upon my voodoo math - 207lbs x .7 = 144.9 (the "wrapped weight"), times our cost of $3.39/lb = $491.21. Our year's supply of pork will have cost us $491 instead of $983 - a $492 savings. :)

To Market, to Market

I've been running around today trying to put the finishing touches on my crafts, produce and what-not before getting up bright and early tomorrow to sell my wares at the annual Love our Local Fest here in Olympia.

I somehow got the bright idea to make a bunch of my homemade egg noodles, using our eggs and our produce, as if I wasn't busy enough. Now I'm looking at pulling late-nighter/all-nighter #3 in order to get all of this pasta rolled, cut, dried and packaged. Oof! But on the up side, isn't it pretty?

Egg noodles made with our Cylindra beets

As much as I look forward to going to and spending the day at the market, I gotta admit, I'll be a little relieved (and probably sleep for 24 hours straight) once it's done. August is already so busy around here, it'll be nice to get in quick breather before the school year starts up again.

Come and see me tomorrow if you're a local-yokel. ;) Olympia's Love our Local Fest

August Exhaustion

This morning I woke up to a fiery-hot pain in my shoulder. In fact, my entire right arm feels fit to fall right off. I think I've managed to figure out why...

...I've been knitting. A LOT.

...picking, washing chopping, slicing and grating dozens of pounds of squash.

...cutting and trimming up fifty-bajillion bars of soap.

...hand wrapping and labeling those same fifty-bajillion bars of soap.

Yes, my house is in ruins right now, but aren't my knits and soaps purty?! That 40ish pounds of squash that I put into the freezer last night is a different kind of purty. I feel very pleased with my level of productivity, but madre, my arm! :\

The Fearsome Protectors of the Hollow

At this time of year, Rexy, our Great Pyrenees, likes to spend his nights in the yard rather than in the house. Occasionally he can be lured in with the promise of a treat, but for the most part, he likes to stay at his post and bark at mystery critters who dare venture on or near his territory.

Aside from the barking, which, believe it or not, you eventually learn to tune out 90% of the time, his nighttime patrols have been nothing but good for our plants and critters, protecting them from coyotes, raccoons, possums, deer (the plants), etc. And, just like a baby's cry, you can tell the broadcast woe to ye who trespasses in MY yard bark from the rapid, snarly, I've got a predator cornered and I could use some backup bark. Last night featured the "got him!" bark, and so Bill went to investigate.

Imagine, if you will, a giant white dog snarling and doing a very fine Cujo impression, while looking straight up in the air. You need to look, but you're pretty nervous about what could be up there too... because it's mostly big things like wildcats and bears that scale telephone poles.

Bill shined his headlamp beam in the direction if Rex's frantic barking and saw... a ginormous grey owl sitting up on the power lines.

Yes indeedy, our Livestock Guardian is 24/7 and dead serious about his job. Luckily, all of our fowl were put up for the night (except the turkeys, who refuse to roost in the coop) and everybody was present and accounted for as of this morning.

Just when I think I can't love my pooch anymore, he kicks butt in a brand new way and I'm in awe of him all over again.

Not to be outdone, Penny also earned her farmdog-in-training stripes this morning at breakfast.

Just as I was walking onto the dining room, I see her playfully batting at something, then pick it up in her mouth and fling it, then chase it down and bat it some more. Figuring that it was something she shouldn't be eating, as per usual, I move to take it away from her just as she looks ready to chow down on a mammoth Wolf Spider. EEK!

Between Scarlet and I, we managed to distract her from her kill long enough to gingerly scoop it up with a paper towel and dispose of it, meanwhile lavishing the intrepid huntress with praise and offering her a biscuit in place of her venom-y snack. 

These two, I tell ya... Rescued pets rock!

The mighty beasts themselves.

Get Ready, Get Set...

...commence freak-out about whether or not I'll manage to get my stuff ready in time for market day. :\

Either way, I'm all signed up to be a crafter/farm vendor, so whether I have 2 tomatoes or 200, I'll be there! Come on down and see me!

Timing is Everything

Blueberry season has finally arrived, coinciding with King and Pink salmon seasons, and our family's perennial favorite, crabbing season. That's a whole lot of seasoning.

Because we live at the base of a peninsula that is home to umpteen blueberry farms and salt-water boat launches, we get quite a bit of traffic whizzing past the house each day. And we're looking to capitalize on that. :)

We had a very quiet little grand opening for our bitty little Farm Stand this past Sunday. We didn't make a killing - by a long shot - but we did send some of our beautiful eggs and blackberries off to new homes, and hopefully got our name out there just a little as well. We intend to do the Farm Stand at least a few days per week, as long as the garden and chickens do their bit to supply us.

I'm also plotting a mega-grande garage sale to purge the odds and ends that we just don't need or use anymore. My girls have decided to let their Care Bear sheets and American Girl dolls go to some other lucky little girls. : \ So now it's up to me and Bill to do our bit, which entails sorting through bookshelves, drawers and closets, and those two dozen or so pesky boxes that have sat in the basement waiting patiently to be unpacked for, oh, three years. *gulp*

But I figure that if we can get our crizzap together quick enough to get this garage sale put together in time to take advantage of the blueberry and fishing traffic, and we manage to have the farm stand open for the day as well, we could do a fair bit of business. The staggering amount of sorting, and shifting and re-folding and moving... uhg. I'd rather not dwell too heavily on that aspect of the run-up to the sale of the century.

I'll post our plans for the sale/stand-a-palooza just as soon as we figure it all out. In the meantime, if you find yourself in North Olympia and in need of zucchinis or beets....

My monkeys can hook you up! 

The Hidden Perks of Honeybee Ownership

I really need to weed our front yard. Seriously - it's looking rough. I mentioned my plans to head out there and start pulling the hawksbeard that is running riot through my pitiful flower beds to Billy, our resident bee-man, to which he said said "Awww... leave it for the bees!"

Well, dang. If you insist... 

Bill's "buzzers", coming and going

By chance, would forgoing doing the laundry benefit the bees in any way? ;)