tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66064634716712919172023-11-16T09:25:50.157-08:00My Farm YearSebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-58942959323676593322012-09-13T12:04:00.000-07:002012-09-13T12:04:12.694-07:00Kimchi<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">About 2 months ago, I made a a massive batch of Kimchi, which is quite possibly one of the greatest things on the face of this planet. Actually, anything fermented is quite possibly the greatest thing on earth! Where would we be without fermented foods? No beer, no bread, no kimchi, sauerkraut, sriracha, chocolate, coffee, the list goes on... It would be a sad world indeed.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Anyhoo, back to the kimchi. Amongst the many things that we planted this spring was a 50 foot row of napa cabbage, and all of this was planted for the sole purpose of making kimchi. Mid June rolled around and the Napa was just about perfect; nice tight heads that had lots of moisture and tasted great! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How do you make kimchi? Well its actually quite simple, the hardest part is sourcing the Korean ingredients, but with the magic of the internet, that’s not too hard these days. And for those of you living in big cities (suckers, kidding, sort of) you can go to your local Asian market and pick it up there...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Because there is no point in making this in small amounts, start with about 10 pounds of napa cabbage. Cut the cabbage into quarters length wise so that the root end is still holding the leaves together. Place this in a large bowl or some other container that will easily hold the cabbage and sprinkle with half a cup of kosher salt. toss the cabbage and spend a little time working the salt in between the leaves of the cabbage. Let this stand for one hour and then toss again, and then cover and let rest for a further 3 hours or even overnight. This process will start to soften the cabbage leaves.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While your cabbage is salting, make the spice mix. For this you will need:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 cup Korean chili powder, make sure its fine and meant for Kimchi</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 cup sweet rice flour</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 cups water</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 cup fish sauce</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Half cup of sugar</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10 cloves of garlic</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3-4 oz of fresh ginger</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10 or so green onions</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3 carrots, grated</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 medium size daikon radish, grated</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Whisk together the sweet rice flour and the water and bring to a simmer, whisking the whole time. This will create a glue of sorts that will make the spice mix “stick’ to the cabbage. Let cool once thickened.. (side note, this is a bitch to clean)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In a food processor, blend the garlic, green onions and the ginger into a paste with the fish sauce and the sugar. Mix in the spice mix, the carrots and daikon and once cool, the sweet rice “glue.” Taste to see where its at. Remember that this will be diluted once it gets added to the cabbage. It should be pretty spicy and a little salty.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Give the salted cabbage a quick rinse to remove excess water and squeeze, yes squeeze out any moisture and let drain. In a very clean container, add the drained cabbage and mix in the spice mixture, hands work best for this but do make sure you use gloves, as the chili can burn you hands. Once mixed well, over the container and let ferment at room temperature for at least 3 days, 5 is better and if you want it really sour, let it go for a week. After this time, pack it into smaller containers and enjoy over the next month. It will continue to ferment in the fridge, so after a month it will be really strong, but great to cook with. So are all the juices left over, but that’s for another time.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Please feel free to ask any questions in the comment box.</span></div>
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Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-62475913996868622962012-09-13T06:30:00.001-07:002012-09-13T06:30:52.443-07:00Porkepdo! <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Somehow we ended up with a slaughtered piglet that had nowhere to go, so we decided that the best thing to was to build a small pit and have an impromptu pig roast, not such a bad thing, if you ask me. I wanted to do this one a little different from the roast we had in the early spring, and because this was a much smaller pig, I decided to go it Porchetta style. This meant deboning the whole animal while leaving it in one piece and the skin intact. I’ve done this many times before in my last life as a rocking New York City chef. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Its quite a fun process, deboning a whole animal, especially cause this one was going to keep it’s head! I start by laying the piglet on its back and running a knife, very gently as you don’t want to pierce the skin anywhere, along both sides of the rib cage, slowly exposing the ribs and then the belly. (wow, thats sounds kinda naughty....) This gets pretty delicate because at some points there is only about a quarter inch of meat between the bone and the skin. I keep the knife pressed against the bone and follow the rib cage till I get to the spine. The tricky part is the hip bone, I separate the ball and sock joint, and then work my way around the hip bone. Once this is all free, I can then remove the whole ribcage/spine by pulling up at the neck and cutting along the top of the spine, being very careful to pot cut the skin. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One this whole piece is removed, it gets pretty easy, just boning out the two shoulders and the two legs. After this is done, you have a whole hog that has been deboned from the inside out. I then cut off about half the hams, both for infill purposes and for to square off the end. I butterfly the ham meat that I removed and lay it on the area of the belly that is the thinest so that every slice has a good meat to skin to fat ratio. I then season the whole inside with salt and pepper and then add a thin layer of pork sausage, to add fat and flavor. The real excitement comes when I roll the whole thing back up into a tube and presto, we have Porkpedo!! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We cooked this beats on a small cinder block pit that I built heated with charcoal and pieces of apple and oat wood. I kept the fire pretty low and let the Porkpedo cook for about 10 hours, basting it for the last few hours with garlic, maple syrup, mustard and vinegar wash. The result was epic!! Perfect tender meat encased in a shatter crisp skin...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My brother and my buddy Andy came up just for this and we had a good group of farm friend and volunteers to help it it. I was a truly fabulous meal and something we will be doing again, maybe for the October party! </span></div>
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Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-82839561196740925582012-09-12T09:51:00.001-07:002012-09-12T09:51:12.899-07:00Escape at the Slaughter House!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today was slaughter day, which actually happens almost every Wednesday, as thats the day the local slaughter house does pigs. We had put the trailer in place last night, had a plan for which pig was going to meet its maker and a plan for getting him on the trailer. Dan and I have done this many times before and have gotten pretty good at it, and our confidence ended up biting us in the ass this morning. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The load went great, this pig actually had a name, Socks, and was one of the first that I got to know when I got here. We have him some treats after we got him in the trailer and then drove him to the slaughter house. On the way I mentioned to Dan how smooth it went and that we never have any problems....I think you can see where this is going.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We get to the slaughter house, back the trailer up to the back door, (usually there are 55 gallon drums full of cow heads, but not today) open it up and start shooing the pig down the ramp and into the slaughter room. We had his nose in the room when he decided he wasn’t going in. They never really do, but today we had let our gaurd down just enough and ole Socks took full advantage of that. He spun around, and headed for the parking lot, I was able to hold him back for a second, but at 220 pounds or so, he pushed right by me. I grabbed his ear to try to steer him back the other way, but he just drug me along with him, scrapping the crap out of my knee in the process, and I had to let go.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He took off at a slow trot across the parking lot towards the woods and the river; Dan, myself and 3 guys from the slaughter house in tow. We tried one more time to get a hold of him, but to no avail, Socks had plans of his own. He made his way into the woods, which were thankfully really thick with brambles, so we were able to contain him while one of the butchers ran off to get the inspector and a .22 </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Socks was pretty calm though out this, I guess he wanted to go out on his own terms. We finally got him in somewhat cornered, and the butcher then shot him in the head, slashed his throat and let him bleed out. He was on a slope and bucking and kicking a lot, so I had to hold him down so he didn’t roll into the river, getting a lot of blood on me as a result. When his nervous system had stopped firing and he was totally gone, we drug him back on the trailer and then into the slaughter house.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This only goes to show that you always have to be on your toes around animals, they are smart and can get the better of you. We sure won’t make that mistake again...</span></div>
Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-31151952508108692332012-09-12T09:49:00.001-07:002012-09-12T09:49:54.173-07:00I'm back!!!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Holy moly, its been way too long since I put anything up on this site, embarrassingly long.... its just been so busy here, so now I will start bombarding you with lots of short posts. First, turkeys!! Its hard to believe its been this long, but in early may, we got a call from the Clearville Post Office saying that we had a box that was making peeping noises. So I drove down and picked up a box of 15 Bourbon Red turkeys. They were tiny and made a super cute peeping sound. We had a box ready for them with a layer of straw, water, feed and a heat light over them. Poultry hatchlings need a very hot environment for their first couple weeks, somewhere around 110 degrees F. They lived in this box for about a month at which time they outgrew it and they were ready to move outside and get some real sun. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We did loose one of them quite unexpectedly, it was sick in the morning and by the afternoon it was dead, so now we are down to 14, and they all look great.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I built a large pen for them out of PVC pipe, chicken wire and some mesh netting and moved the birds out to their new home. They get moved daily so that they have fresh grass, bugs and roots to eat and a clean area to poop and pee on. Let me tell you, they are messy birds! They are also really big right now, which is great and it means that they will be huge come Thanksgiving! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They are probably the dumbest animal we have on the farm. From what I can tell, they have two thoughts: “can I eat that?” or “that’s going to kill me!” Which must make for quite the dilemma for them come feeding time.....</span></div>
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Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-61775309023541998762012-06-24T08:27:00.000-07:002012-06-24T08:27:03.276-07:00The Garden<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The garden is looking great. The main reason that there has been such a gap in posts is that we have been crazy busy for the last month or so getting the garden planted, weeded, watered and maintained. My days have been easily 12 hours long and that at 7 days a week, so once I get done work, it’s dinner, a few beers, maybe some target practice with the .22 and then off to bed. This leaves little time and energy to write, that’s reserved for rainy days, like today...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lettuce field number one is in full swing, with field number 2 being a few weeks behind, meaning that we’ll be in lettuce for the rest of the summer, and there aren’t many things as tasty as fresh greens from the garden simply dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. The beets are looking amazing, as is the chard. Yesterday I picked an English pea which was so good! Unfortunately the pea patch had bad germination, so we will only have peas for house use, pea risotto anyone? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have plenty of potatoes now, with more on the way and our cabbages are looking great. We have a whole 50 foot row dedicated for Napa cabbage, which is destined for Kimchi, which I cant wait to make. The regular cabbage will be eaten fresh and turned into sauerkraut, another of my favorite things in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We now also have just over 300 tomato plants in the ground and over 500 pepper plants, both sweet and hot. I think it will look great in a few months when all the different shapes and colors of peppers and tomatoes hanging off the plants, not to mention the amount of tomato salads, and grilled peppers we’ll be eating!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The sweet potatoes, asparagus, carrots, onions, garlic and kale are all looking very good, and we will start to harvest some of them soon. We removed all the scapes, the flower shoot, from all of the garlic and have been making pesto and using them instead of garlic for weeks now. The garlic is starting to dry out and I think we are only a couple weeks away from getting it out of the ground. We have about 17 different varieties, and about that many 50’ rows, so we will have garlic galore....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-76290825115805623472012-06-18T08:21:00.000-07:002012-06-18T08:21:16.902-07:00First Harvest and a Recipe<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last week Thursday was out first harvest day! It wasn’t huge, but it was really great to pull some food out of the garden and to see some fruits to all of our labor. Friends and local farmers go to Cumberland every friday for the weekly farmers market, and they called us Wednesday morning asking us if we wanted to send some stuff along. It was a bit short notice, so we had to scramble to get potatoes, red and golden beets, spinach, chard, scapes, and lettuces pulled from the garden, cooled and packaged in time, but we made it happen. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Like I said, it was really cool to get some food pulled out of the garden for market. I remember planting the seed potatoes a few months ago, burying the plants in after they reached about 6 inches tall, checking them daily for Colorado potato beetles, and then finally pulling them out of the ground to find 5-6 beautiful potatoes per plant. I cooked up some for dinner that night using my favorite technique for roasted potatoes, and they were simply amazing...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Super Tasty Roasted Potatoes</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(serves 6)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Pre heat oven to 450. Put all the potatoes in a suitable pot and cover with water. Add a bit of salt and bring the water to a boil then turn down to a simmer, once simmering, cook the potatoes till they are about half cooked. Drain through a strainer and let cool for a little so you can handle them. Using a small pot, crush the potatoes a little, so they crack in a few places and have lots of rough edges. Toss the crushed potatoes with all the spices, salt, pepper and fat and place in a single layer on a roasting sheet. Roast in the oven for 45, turning them half way through, making sure they get really nice and crispy. Enjoy!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6_an7yEoSK3cIjdn5HNB_TWs4nAiAayVgvbJ3eHiCs7nuOsCFl-Pe19Xy-tRqcnE79dEsmL3jgcNl4mC3Kh6XX2ZE2oULHQlFRfp_Hs223lPVi-hRPcL5wlTBxkisCA4hc66wPNlscY/s1600/IMG_0744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6_an7yEoSK3cIjdn5HNB_TWs4nAiAayVgvbJ3eHiCs7nuOsCFl-Pe19Xy-tRqcnE79dEsmL3jgcNl4mC3Kh6XX2ZE2oULHQlFRfp_Hs223lPVi-hRPcL5wlTBxkisCA4hc66wPNlscY/s640/IMG_0744.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-75685759439572451282012-06-18T08:14:00.000-07:002012-06-18T08:14:18.124-07:00Pigdamonium<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have so many piglets! Both Fern and Willow have given birth in the last ten days, and we now have 22 piglets....plus, we have two more pregnant girls in the barn that are due by this weekend! We will be swimming in piglets, so much cuteness shouldn’t be allowed.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It hasn’t all been easy and fun however. Because we have four pigs pregnant at the same time, we decided that the two senior sows, Fern and Willow, who had already farrowed once before, were to give birth in the woods, while Juniper and Strawberry would be moved down to the barn to farrow. We prefer having the girls give birth in the barn as it’s close to the house and we can keep a good eye on the pigs and piglets, as well as start the socializing process of the piglets. Accidents do happen, the piglets are really small compared to their moms, and they like to hide under the hay and they run the risk of getting stepped on or squashed. This happened twice with the infamous Ruby farrowing, but because this happened in the barn, Dan and I were able to get there fast enough to save the pigs. Unfortunately with the pigs in the woods being so far away, we have had more piglet mortality than we would like. Willow lost five of her seventeen piglets and I found two dead piglets this morning in Ferns den, leaving her a total of ten.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s hard to see these tiny little dead bodies, and I think in the future we won’t be having pigs farrow in the woods. There are just too many variables and there is too much risk. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The surviving piglets are doing just great! They are super cute and soft and smell like babies...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-88744927216137614422012-06-12T07:56:00.000-07:002012-06-12T07:56:55.588-07:00Turkeys<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, after a long delay since my last post and weeks of really hard work, we finally have a rainy day which is giving me the time to write. Lots and lots has been happening here, so instead of a long post, i am going to divide all the excitement into a few shorter ones. First, we have turkeys! Just over a week ago we got a call from the Clearville Post Office saying that we had a box that was making peeping noises. So I drove down and picked up a box of 15 Narragansett turkeys. They were tiny and made a super cute peeping sound. We had a box ready for them with a layer of straw, water, feed and a heat light over them. Poultry hatchlings need a very hot environment for their first couple weeks, somewhere around 110 degrees F. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They are now just under 2 weeks old, and are at least twice the size. They are also getting bolder and whenever we open their box, they try to fly out. I think these birds are going to be a bit of a handful once they reach full size, but they will be oh so tasty come Thanksgiving time! </span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-27341119947414727922012-05-25T10:42:00.000-07:002012-05-25T10:42:42.829-07:00Tomatoes<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I briefly mentioned our tomato planting system in my previous post, but thought i would give a little more detail about the whole process.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We received the plants this week from Goodness Grows who did an amazing job with them and grew some very healthy and happy plants for us. We had them grow eleven varieties of tomatoes with such great names as Black Prince or Jeanne Flamme or Brandywine. We have a total of 325 plants to put in the ground, so we will be working on that for a while as each plants gets a lot of attention, so the process is a bit slow. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">First off, we have laid out lines in the market garden so that the plants are all planted in a straight line. This doesn’t just look good, but it makes watering, weeding and harvesting much easier. Plus, we are going to lay down drip irregation, and the straight lines will make that an easy job to accomplish. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We are planting the plants in rows of fifty plants, spaced at 4 feet apart, and the rows spaced at 15 feet apart. This might seem like a lot, but we are going to plant all of our peppers in between the rows of tomato plants, and we want plenty of space for the afore mentioned watering, weeding and harvesting. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once we had the lines all laid out, the planting process begins, and this starts with a hole. And its a pretty darn big hole for a plant that;s only about 8 inches tall. We go about 16 inches deep and 12 inches wide. We want this hole to be so big because we want to amend as much soil with nutrients as possible to give the tomatoes the optimal environment. But before we do that, we fill the hole with water and let it drain. This ensures that there is plenty of water deep into the ground so that the roots will grow down. If the soil deep down is dry, and we water the plats, the roots will curl and grow up to the surface, which is bad for the plant and therefore bad for us.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While the holes are draining, we transfer the soil that we removed to a large, shallow pan, and remove all the large rocks. We can’t get them all, as we would never be done with it, but we try to get the majority. We then add a custom fertilizer mix consisting of a 2-4-2 nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous mix, some more rock phosphate, kelp meal and oyster shells. This mix provides a wide spectrum of nutrients for the tomato plant. We mix this in very well, and then dump a small amount into the bottom of the drained hole. We then sprinkle a small amount of mycorrhizae fungus directly on the root ball. Mycorrhizae?? This is a naturally acuring fungus that lives on almost all plants roots. It works with the plant to increase it’s ability to absorb water and nutrients from the soil and through that help, it increases the health and the yield of the plant. So even though it takes quite a while to get one plant into the ground, it will be totally worth it when we are swimming in tomatoes come August! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once this is is all done, we give the plant a final watering and move on to the next. we have done 50 thus far, so there are a few more holes to dig yet, but we have new volunteers with more on the way, so we have plenty of hands to make this go quickly. If it would just stop raining....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-9648503539459270932012-05-21T09:15:00.000-07:002012-05-21T09:15:17.951-07:00Quick Update<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, its again been way too long since I posted anything, and for that I apologize. I tend towards long posts, and I think I need to just do more, and keep them short and sweet, as there is plenty happening here to write about. But there is so little time!! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Anyhoo, so things are happening!! Tons of stuff has germinated and we now have tiny lettuce, pea, chard, spinach and beet plants. I cant wait till they all get big enough and we can start eating them. The few kale plants that made it through that April cold snap are looking great and we should be able to eat some in a week or so. The Napa Cabbage is looking great and we are hopeful that they will get large enough to use before it gets to warm. As soon as it gets hot, the cabbages stop growing, that’s why we wanted to get them in so early and gambled with the weather, which only sorta worked out for us.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We also have apples! Well, they are marble sized growths that will eventually become apples, but it’s just nice to see that the bees did their work and that we didn’t loose it all to the cold days we had while the trees were in bloom. Another thing to be looking forward too! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our tomatoes have arrived on farm. I drove out to friends farm a few ridges over to pick them up. They have a greenhouse business and started all of our tomato and pepper plants, as we don’t have the space or the time to deal with 325 tomato and 325 pepper plants. But they’re here now, and we have been planting them. We have fifty in the ground now and a good system worked out, but it’s raining now, so we will have to wait till the weather improves before we can get back to it...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">More to come soon........</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-75549125032821306152012-05-09T11:51:00.003-07:002012-05-09T11:51:44.393-07:00Aaaaaah! Mange!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We are pretty vigilant here on the farm with checking the pigs overall health. This is easy to do because we spend so much time with them, so if there is something seriously wrong, or even slightly off, we notice it almost right away. There are a few things, however, that are only noticed through a more thorough inspection. Two of these issues are worms and mange. Worms are pretty easy to notice as they will be visible in and around the anus. Once we see this, the whole group will get some de-worming medication added to their feed and it goes away pretty quickly.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The beginning stages of mange are hard to find. It usually starts in the ears, and we therefore check the inside of the pigs ears on a regular basis. Upon one such inspection, Dan saw signs of mange in two of the eldest piglets. It appears as a white and flakey crust (if I were writing about pie, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing) rather deep inside the ear. The mange is caused my a small mite similar to scabies. It’s usually carried by one pig (or other animal) and spread to the rest. It’s relatively easy to get rid of; a medication called Ivermectin does the trick. But this is administered as inter-muscular injection, so we had to prepare ourselves to give the pigs a round of shots.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The piglets weren’t going to be the problem, they are small enough to wrangle, and Garnett hasn’t been given a shot before, so she doesn’t know what’s coming. But Ruby, poor poor Ruby. She still kinda hates Dan and myself, and she can tell when things aren’t right. Thus the chase began, and after 10 minutes of running around, trying to pin and tackle her, we finally got her into a corner and gave her the shot. Garnett, on the other hand, behaved like a champ! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Giving the piglets the shots was easy, catching them was very tiring. They are darn fast and there is a lot of room for them to run around in. But all you gotta do is get a good grip on one back leg, and you’re golden. Then you need to pick it up by both back legs and take it to the other side of the electric fence all the while trying to avoid to a pair of very angry mothers! I was a bit worried as Ruby had actually cut Dan’s leg yesterday when she got cranky with him, and I was thinking that this was the moment when she was going to get her revenge: get the guy with the screaming piglet in his arms!!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet we were successful and the medication should take care of the mange in a matter of days. We are off to the woods now to see if any of the larger pigs have mange, if so, we are in for an exhausting day, as none of those pigs are small enough to wrangle and there are almost no spots to pin them down in, so I have my fingers crossed...</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-62453464391963133172012-05-08T09:59:00.004-07:002012-05-08T09:59:56.402-07:00Back!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, if you were wondering why there hasn’t been a post in a while, it’s because I have been off farm for the last 5 days. I went down to DC to do some marketing, you see. I spent two days making sausage, pate and slow smoked pork shoulder, as well as packing up really nice pork chops and canning lard. We wanted to send down a very nice sample package so that any potential buyers could try as many parts of the pig as possible so they could get a really good idea of what our pigs are all about. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had appointments at seven different places across DC. Some were small, local spots and others were huge restaurants that are part of large restaurant groups. The majority of them seemed very excited about the product and the story behind it, so hopefully we will get some business out of it. If nothing else, we now have an outlet for all of our eggs, so that’s pretty fantastic.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I spent the rest of my time away in Riner Virginia at my friends square dance workshop weekend, which was more fun than should be allowed. It will energize me for months to come.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I got back to the farm sunday afternoon, I could immediately tell that things had changed quite a bit. The potatoes have sent up their greens, and once they are all a bit larger, we will start mounding the dirt up and over the greens. Potatoes grow upwards, so we want to mound the soil over the emerging plants to give them ample room to grow those tasty tubers. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The peas, chard, spinach and beets have all germinated and are looking great in their neat little rows. Dan and Ed also spent a day planting sweet potatoes. These grow in the opposite direction of regular potatoes, and are therefore planted in raised beds so that they have extra room to grow down. If all goes well, this planting could potentially yield a thousand pounds of sweet potatoes. Sweet potato pie anyone?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The onions and garlic are also looking great, and with the rain we are currently getting and the warm sunny days that are forecasted for later this week, hopefully we’ll have our first garlic scapes very soon. Once we do, I’ll let you know all about these tasty treats...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The piglets look great! They all grew a lot, especially out little runt, Tiny. His color has changed and he looks like he’ll catch up with his bigger siblings pretty quickly. They all came running over when I went to see them and I would like to think that they missed me, but in reality they probably just thought that I had food for them, and once they realized I didn’t, they proceeded to eat my shoelaces, as they are want to do....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-36868693600152425922012-04-27T07:50:00.000-07:002012-04-27T07:50:52.378-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Life has been plugging along very nicely here on the farm. Last weekend was very exciting, with the pig roast and all and lots of people coming out to eat copious amounts of pork and to support the farm. We had decent weather, with some rain, which was kind enough to come while we were all in the barn and stop in time for us to have a massive bonfire.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had been thinking and stressing about this roast for so long, that by then end of the night I wasn’t able to stay awake and I was exhausted the day after. I lost quite a bit of sleep thinking about all the things that could go wrong with the pig. Mostly the flipping of the pig, what if it had fallen apart over the ashes and coals?! But none of the things I was worried about happened, and the pig tasted so very very good!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Dan and I got up and four-thirty to get the pig started, we had built a square pit the day before, using cinder blocks staked two high. We made two racks from rebar tied together with wire. We need two so that we can flip the pig half way through the cooking process. The pig had also been prepped the day before, we used a hatchet to break the spine from the inside so we could flatten the pig out as much as possible. I made a marinade of citrus juice (orange, lemon, lime) lots and lots of garlic, black pepper, cilantro, basil and oregano. We let the pig marinate overnight and we reduced the marinade to a glaze for basting the skin. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We built a large fire from charcoal and once it was all hot and glowing, we moved it to the four corners of the pit. The idea is to cook the pig for a very long time over indirect heat. We had fashioned a lid out of ply-wood covered in a few layers of heavy duty tin-foil, and this was placed on top after the pig was placed over the pit. Then it was nap time, as we knew it would be a long day. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We added fresh coals to each corner every 90 minutes or so and supplemented the fire with apple wood scraps, to add a smokey flavor to the pig, and after 10 hours, it was done. I, for one, was very happy with the way it turned out; sweet, salty, crispy, fatty and tender as hell. I stood over the pig for a good half hour, picking meat with my fingers and relishing every morsel of porky goodness....</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The rest of this week has been full of the usual, seeding beets, carrots, spinach and chard. Getting row after row of onions into the ground, as well as planting cherry tress and strawberry plants. Hopefully we will have enough strawberries from our dozen plants to make a pie! But I’ll settle for enough to snack on, we’ll have to wait and see.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The piglets are also doing great, they spend their days sleeping, playing and scratching themselves on just about everything. They are also getting more and more social with us. I had two of them sleeping in my lap yesterday, which was pretty darn amazing, they are just so sweet! </span></div>
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<br />Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-67027511541992077042012-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:002012-04-19T11:42:50.936-07:00Slaughter Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzdIkWqhvTxj3TJLG1LbpUBc7xmEOMvGR_hvtDZsQeZ-EaCNwBwM6FtdvP8dZG-7mon3wiL5fanw4rnUPMG-hZ3NHcSsSzY7PF4Ftc3aNNpxdadMsDpSQ8ht-WuNd8x4eSKR7U_n0bqE/s1600/IMG_0607.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzdIkWqhvTxj3TJLG1LbpUBc7xmEOMvGR_hvtDZsQeZ-EaCNwBwM6FtdvP8dZG-7mon3wiL5fanw4rnUPMG-hZ3NHcSsSzY7PF4Ftc3aNNpxdadMsDpSQ8ht-WuNd8x4eSKR7U_n0bqE/s640/IMG_0607.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1uULCeCxQtXf_VrBuEttRYD4Oc5gZcGq-trfhKRR1hlZroZ840t0caGPt1HcmZ1-YMZ3yp1YJwU5wuyybQC267_VAo4fSWhX7r6YMY4K_cTSNWxeN4fxq3ujy7rHItb7iN9e6eEhC1c/s1600/IMG_0611.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1uULCeCxQtXf_VrBuEttRYD4Oc5gZcGq-trfhKRR1hlZroZ840t0caGPt1HcmZ1-YMZ3yp1YJwU5wuyybQC267_VAo4fSWhX7r6YMY4K_cTSNWxeN4fxq3ujy7rHItb7iN9e6eEhC1c/s640/IMG_0611.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_T8-AqaShwr5tHjd5sl7bYOMqnZk1VXucRqg6HDkKpg75-dnESVqoV4Uo9TRC4CVfJmf3wPWGBig7T-9rzvdh4Wg035Eu0ZCitQDBt2DPiF1jno-aP4o9NpiJSvwpvTXEG69oqh8C_c/s1600/IMG_0613.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_T8-AqaShwr5tHjd5sl7bYOMqnZk1VXucRqg6HDkKpg75-dnESVqoV4Uo9TRC4CVfJmf3wPWGBig7T-9rzvdh4Wg035Eu0ZCitQDBt2DPiF1jno-aP4o9NpiJSvwpvTXEG69oqh8C_c/s640/IMG_0613.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">If you have been following this blog from the start, then you know that one the experiences that I am most interested in is the slaughter and processing of a pig. I have butchered many whole animals at the restaurant, from pigs all the way down to quail, and many tasty creatures in between, but I have never killed anything warm blooded before, that was until yesterday. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">We are having a pig roast and season opening party this saturday, and the focus of this party is a whole roasted pig. We are building a cinderblock pit on the back field and we are going to slow roast the pig for about 10 hours till it is crispy on the outside, and fall off the bone tender and juicy on the inside. It’s going to be really freaking tasty, and if anybody wants to drive out on Saturday, please do, the pig will be ready around 4PM, message me for details.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">So how do you go from a live pig, running around the woods to a perfectly roasted pig? I’ll tell you.... We have had an eye on the group of fourteen for the last two weeks trying to see which one of the pigs would be a suitable candidate for this roast. We didn’t want one that was too big, nor did we want the smallest. Our aim was to pick a pig that was about 100-110 pounds live weight, giving us a pig that’s somewhere near 75 pounds hanging weight. We knew it would be a boy, there are only 5 girls in the group of 14, and they are all slated to become mothers once they reach maturity. Out of the nine boys, there were three that were the right size, so yesterday morning, Dan and I drove the truck out into the woods with the dog carrier and a bowl of food. What’s a pig’s death meal, you might ask? Well, freshly cooked oatmeal, lots of fruit and tons of weigh, of course.<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">Our plan was to lure one of the three chosen ones into the box with the food, close the door and walk off with him. This was going ok until all the other pigs caught on that there was food, and the plan went out the window, so we had to resort to wrangling him into the box, which went ok, not ideal, but ok. Into the back of the pickup he went, and we drove him back to the barn where we had everything set up and ready to go: A table for cleaning, a trough in which we could lay the pig after slaughter to do the gutting and de-hairing, knives, gloves, a bucket to catch blood and guts, something to hang him from and a 55 gallon bucket of hot water for scalding. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Scalding? Well, to get the hair off a pig, or chicken, turkey, or any other creature whose skin you would like to remain intact, you need to dip the whole animal into 150 degree F water for 5 min. This loosens the hair and a layer or two of skin enabling you to scrape the hair off with a sharp knife or razor blade. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With the water at proper temperature, all our tools set out and the .22 loaded, there was nothing left to do but proceed. We opted for the .22 over a .38 or .44 based on local advice. Our neighbor uses a .22 to kill his cattle, which seems small to me, but I guess it works. The optimal spot to shoot the pig is found by drawing imaginary diagonal lines from one ear to the opposite eye so you get an X, then shoot in the middle of the X. The pig was dead instantly after Dan shot it, but it’s nervous system went into overdrive and the pig kicked and twitched a lot, getting blood all over our pants and boots before he finally settled down and remained still. We wanted to get a clean bleed, and to do this, you need the help of the heart. So as his nervous system died, we tied his feet and hung him from the rafters in the barn and quickly cut his two main arteries on either side of his throat. We knew we would get a clean bleed when the blood came out under quite a bit of pressure, which was exactly what we wanted. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8ZEEI8v7LsxmNwRh0u1CgsdHX92nLInE1FhPRG3FD-EMIhFXqtoQOqosdk7v8tA3hPsrNmcBV447U-DHIYImXH0lBiGHIt_y_xp0AAvscEYyhYeJpOTdsib2M9cSPxbB7Wf4EXHsy54/s1600/IMG_0617.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8ZEEI8v7LsxmNwRh0u1CgsdHX92nLInE1FhPRG3FD-EMIhFXqtoQOqosdk7v8tA3hPsrNmcBV447U-DHIYImXH0lBiGHIt_y_xp0AAvscEYyhYeJpOTdsib2M9cSPxbB7Wf4EXHsy54/s640/IMG_0617.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwd7Lw43cWb2g09XwRkasQ6i3Q_0IZekUbCoGtEGlmy71G5iyE1DdtOKpBFqJ3-ipqDyjDCycHtPbEJpJtOmv2GZUM0feUf1omrmWCBelPgC1nl8CdtXXjhwvU0pOOSuB-tFsY7DhsOzw/s1600/IMG_0619.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwd7Lw43cWb2g09XwRkasQ6i3Q_0IZekUbCoGtEGlmy71G5iyE1DdtOKpBFqJ3-ipqDyjDCycHtPbEJpJtOmv2GZUM0feUf1omrmWCBelPgC1nl8CdtXXjhwvU0pOOSuB-tFsY7DhsOzw/s640/IMG_0619.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The bleeding doesn’t take too long, we let him hang about 20 minutes. Fresh blood acts in really cool ways, it sets into a gelatin seconds after it leaves the body, some cultures will even salt this blood and eat it fresh, but I don’t know enough about that to try it. Once bled, it was time to scald. The water was at 150 degrees F so in he went. We let him sit in there for a full 5 minutes and then hauled him out, which sounds easier than it was. Like I said, he weighed about 110 pounds, and dead lifting him straight up out of a 55 gallon drum set on a gas burner was no easy feat.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Lq958rMP6nY3j8BPBwmKst8LZSew9Kdnhw1JhoVPMMQwdgO_0JfmqQivK8s0Zw_HvVV2l6Of6z4lyr4WYrCrRk40ZnaCIJ_KqCNiXoy72BD9SuYYaHmNWwdoJ4qxfhfQoBBVmTe1Wzc/s1600/IMG_0615.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Lq958rMP6nY3j8BPBwmKst8LZSew9Kdnhw1JhoVPMMQwdgO_0JfmqQivK8s0Zw_HvVV2l6Of6z4lyr4WYrCrRk40ZnaCIJ_KqCNiXoy72BD9SuYYaHmNWwdoJ4qxfhfQoBBVmTe1Wzc/s640/IMG_0615.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When we got him out, into the trough cradle he went and the de-hairing started. This was the most tedious part of the whole process and it took us about 3 hours to complete. Gently scraping, shaving and cutting away the hair with a knife, taking the utmost care not to nick the skin. The elbows and faec were the hardest parts, lots of folds and loose skin. We had sore hands and backs at the end of the day. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once he was just about fully hairless, we moved on to gutting him. I had done a lot of reading about this, but never seen or done it myself. You start by cutting a circle around the anus, taking extreme care not to cut the intestine, you do not want any fecal matter to touch the meat. After the anus has been cut loose, you make an incision all the way along the length of the pig, again making sure to cut shallow, as the intestines and stomach are just under the surface. Once this cut has been made, and all the intestine are exposed, it’s time to remove them. Let me tell you, it was fascinating to see what’s inside these animals. Their intestine and stomach are massive! The whole package was about 20 pounds, which is a huge chunk of the 110 total pounds. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We got the intestine and stomach out, and dropped them into the same bucket that had the blood. Now we moved onto removing the other organs. We have plans on eating the liver, kidneys and heart on Saturday, so those were cut out gently and cooled down. The lungs can be eaten, but I don’t have the time to learn how to cook those at the moment, so they went into the scrap bucket. Once the lungs were out, we had an empty pig. All that was left to do was clean him and cool him down. We sprayed him down very well with the hose, then wrapped him in plastic and into a cooler with loads of ice. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUVBcQExQad13-HQB6cDoCjuyN0eugv31JwWs7A3fCuLPGk6Fn9GD94voPLEDvJ3mPV4ObjsmurkukZ_Gx_cQYmMpEdz4wSZ6jHsXi5oyRLNA4l_aqfageVfSjtRoJnj2vk2uzeeXG50s/s1600/IMG_0621.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUVBcQExQad13-HQB6cDoCjuyN0eugv31JwWs7A3fCuLPGk6Fn9GD94voPLEDvJ3mPV4ObjsmurkukZ_Gx_cQYmMpEdz4wSZ6jHsXi5oyRLNA4l_aqfageVfSjtRoJnj2vk2uzeeXG50s/s640/IMG_0621.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was exhausted when we were done. The act of taking a life and then concentrating very hard for 5 hours while processing the pig really takes it out of you, but I learnt so very much and I feel very good about having done it. Nothing of this pig will be waisted, we are eating almost all of it, and what we aren’t will be taken care of by the chickens and the critter that live in the woods. It was truly a fascinating and incredible experience and something I am sure I will be doing many times again. If anybody reading this would like to see something like this, let me know, and we can figure something out. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lastly, I am not one for new-age, hippy non sense, but we did thank the pig for giving his life so that we can eat him, and I assure you that from the moment he was born, till the last bite is eaten, he was, and will be, treated with the utmost respect....</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-78766117430676455142012-04-17T08:32:00.000-07:002012-04-17T08:32:31.333-07:00In defense of the Ramp<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For those who don’t know, ramps are a wild leek that is indigenous to the Appalachian region of the US. You can find them up and down the east coast starting in late March and early April and they are a very sought after vegetable for chefs and home cooks alike, especially chefs. They have a very unique flavor that has hints of garlic, sweet onion, leek and nuts. They really are very delicious and can be prepared in many different ways, the most popular being simply sautéed or pickled. I like eating them raw or pickling the bulbs and sautéing the greens as you would do spinach or chard.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is a problem, however. Between chefs, there is a bit of a friendly competition to see who will be the first to have ramps on their menu, and this means that people start harvesting ramps when they just start poking up out of the ground. They are still premature at this point and conventional wisdom form all the locals I have spoken to, is that you shouldn’t eat them before mothers day. By that time they have developed the best flavor, the bulbs have grown to a nice size and there will be plenty for the taking.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They problem with this obsession to get the very first ramp is that it is causing a rapid depletion of the wild ramp population. It takes six years or more for one ramp plant to propagate to where you can actually start harvesting them without setting the plant back or damaging it. So, if you start taking the plants too early, you will irradiate that particular ramp patch pretty quickly. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have some ramps that were planted 2 years ago, and this spring we got 16 ramps. We planted another 25 or so given to us by our neighbor who has a nice patch that he started over 25 years ago with ramps he brought from West Virginia. Its a very nice ramp patch, but one restaurant in NY could use up the entire patch in one weekend, and it would take another 25 years for the ramps to re-grow to the same amount they are now! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUOTKgNPxmF0SDAqA6tCOtXlSskwrlLHICszLGxDRHco5w80TXWrfdftH8iYh_vXhJ9cuxT6p-tDiJhKzOmkYE8GFaKuzpJUmzpdDgCmI-92TjhKN5Np-aOnohQ7P_CoanHiYwnt8Cspw/s1600/IMG_0448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUOTKgNPxmF0SDAqA6tCOtXlSskwrlLHICszLGxDRHco5w80TXWrfdftH8iYh_vXhJ9cuxT6p-tDiJhKzOmkYE8GFaKuzpJUmzpdDgCmI-92TjhKN5Np-aOnohQ7P_CoanHiYwnt8Cspw/s640/IMG_0448.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoTm1DQqkp_TI-eqru2wEHe2GZ1iKWYCK3WRv5RiVl9uuWXv_jT4h04gZ67VXgnbP5wkIWASk5HayIQzs5IhPJK8p5QpvIcr4wTdgpudLO1Css80Fcir2yT-ZpRRc39PNwmxBFilrcrBg/s1600/IMG_0450.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoTm1DQqkp_TI-eqru2wEHe2GZ1iKWYCK3WRv5RiVl9uuWXv_jT4h04gZ67VXgnbP5wkIWASk5HayIQzs5IhPJK8p5QpvIcr4wTdgpudLO1Css80Fcir2yT-ZpRRc39PNwmxBFilrcrBg/s640/IMG_0450.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dZ6sqK_PGhM9Gc23fXZInNKnNe0kcue9T4UsH1ofppAON2QW9BfQUYhTL02zJ0UOTgI7tfWmuZjEoupvzlQcaZQeu7uMyixrJ83bljhFunqdP6BofGxlufhYcdDHA8JM7R7I62nxRQM/s1600/IMG_0466.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dZ6sqK_PGhM9Gc23fXZInNKnNe0kcue9T4UsH1ofppAON2QW9BfQUYhTL02zJ0UOTgI7tfWmuZjEoupvzlQcaZQeu7uMyixrJ83bljhFunqdP6BofGxlufhYcdDHA8JM7R7I62nxRQM/s640/IMG_0466.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, chefs, lets try to serve ramps with the respect they deserve, not just because it’s spring and you HAVE to have ramps. The ramps will thank you..... </span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-13475048688065593372012-04-14T11:02:00.000-07:002012-04-14T11:02:16.753-07:00Piglet Update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, our little group of monsters, better known as the piglets, is growing up pretty darn fast. Ruby’s three have started eating solid food, stealing it from the two moms and it’s pretty hilarious seeing a five pound piglet with an chunk of pear in it’s mouth. What’s even funnier, however, is when we bring orange slices to the fourteen pigs out in the woods and see them with an orange in the mouth, just like you or I used to do when we were kids. Plus, they make a squeaking sounds when they chew on the orange peel. So adorable...</span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Anyhoo, back to the piglets. As I said, they are doing quite well, as are their mothers. Garnett never had a problem, except that she got so exhausted during her farrowing that she lost one baby because she simply couldn’t get it out in time. And we all know the struggles Ruby had. But she is doing amazingly well; she has become more vocal, grunting and snorting and squealing all the time and she is producing plenty of milk and taking fine care of both her and Garnett’s offspring. She is gaining weight and looking like a fine and healthy pig once more. And thank goodness for that!</span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The piglets are hilarious! There is no better way to describe them, besides cute and adorable of course... One of my favorite things they do is as soon as they notice you coming, they all stop in their tracks, lift their tiny noses up, face their tiny ears forward and stare at you, trying to figure out who you are. They can’t see very well, but their smell is second to none. I will write a little about their noses sometime soon, as they are fascinating to watch. As soon as they figure out you are known to them and they feel safe, they scatter, darting here and there, squealing and grunting as they go. They can run very fast on those little legs of theirs...</span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They seem to love company, and when I head down to see them to refresh their water or bring a snack for the moms, the piglets always come running, nudging you with their noses, grunting and oinking, trying to eat you pants, shoes laces, gloves, leather knife sheath and anything else that might, no matter how remote, be a tasty treat for them. They will also crawl all over you, scratch themselves on you, fall over for belly rubs, close their eyes in delight when you scratch behind the ears.... and, this is sometimes the cutest of all, they sleep in an ever changing pile. Once a piglet has made it out to the edge of the pile, he or she will crawl to the very top of the pile and wiggle themselves in. It’s hours of entertainment...</span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj7y0FQrlnk5BwA4m3fcQXbB0TNceeoiSDYouV0yN-R1g4W8weiEYs7B-lpa3MEmaT8lFjjAEGpG_sLdCZsX6lwFuYTm1dXbybtZl-GLLDPVxF4ZrwnAmTsT_ofn1wdE4pch7Q5MVAY4/s1600/IMG_0483.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj7y0FQrlnk5BwA4m3fcQXbB0TNceeoiSDYouV0yN-R1g4W8weiEYs7B-lpa3MEmaT8lFjjAEGpG_sLdCZsX6lwFuYTm1dXbybtZl-GLLDPVxF4ZrwnAmTsT_ofn1wdE4pch7Q5MVAY4/s640/IMG_0483.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-89717624051398346132012-04-08T11:29:00.000-07:002012-04-08T11:29:20.098-07:00Sausage!!!<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So you know what happened with the two shoulders that came from the pig we had slaughtered a little over a week ago, but what’s happening with the rest of the pig? Well, I’ll tell you...</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On Tuesday, I spent all day processing the rest of the pig. I deboned the hams and cubed the meat and fat, keeping them separate, for sausage. I cured the bellies for bacon and the loin for a Spanish style smoked pork loin, kind of like Canadian bacon, but better (sorry Canadians). I turned the cubed meat and fat into 30 pounds of sausage, in three different flavor profiles. It was a busy day of butchery and charcuterie work, so needless to say I had a great day!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am going to give you all a basic lesson in bacon curing and sausage making, one at a time. First lesson, fresh sausage.....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sausage making is really not that difficult, as long as you stick to a few very important rules. And buy stick, I mean strictly adhere! These rules are, in no particular order:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Keep everything very very cold, the meat should be bordering on frozen, all your equipment should be kept in the freezer for at least 2 hours before you use it and all mixing, measuring, etc should be done with the meat set over a bowl of ice. Cold is key! It keeps the fat from melting, which will cause your sausage to be greasy and mealy. You want that fat to slowly melt as you cook the sausage so it basically bastes the meat inside the casing as it heats up...mmmmmmm</span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Speaking of fat, don’t skimp! For every four pounds of meat, you will need 1 pound of fat. If you decide to go less, than you might as well not even bother to make sausage, the results will be one big disappointment. Plus, if you are using pasture raised, well sourced and non commercial pork, the fat is actually good for you, so eat your pork fat people!!</span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Use plenty of salt. As with the fat, don’t skimp, besides a sausage that’s dry, the worse thing is a sausage that’s under-seasoned and bland.</span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Work it! You need to emulsify, (suspend the fat in the liquid), your sausage meat to create the proper texture. This isn’t hard, but it does take a little bit of elbow grease...</span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You will also need some specialized equipment, mainly a meat grinder and sausage stuffer. You could get you meat ground at you local butcher, but DO NOT, under any circumstances, buy ground pork from the grocery store. If you do not have a stuffer, a pastry bag and with a stuffer attachment works OK, and you can always make unstuffed sausage for you patty and sauce needs.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OK, so here we go....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ingredients</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">4 pounds of pork shoulder meat</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 pound of pork back fat</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2.5 Tbsp salt</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 Tbsp fresh ground black pepper</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 Tbsp ice water, as in, a pint glass full of ice and 2 Tbsp of water</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Following the rules I have set, mix the meat, fat, salt and pepper so that the seasoning is well distributed. Grind it through your grinder with the medium plate into a bowl set over ice. Once all the meat and fat have been ground, pour in the 2 Tbsp ice water a,d start to mix vigorously. This can be done by hand, my preferred method, with a wooden spoon or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. What you are looking for is a uniform, sticky mass of sausage meat. I always with it well with both hands, then grab the whole mass of meat and slam, yes slam, the meat down into the bowl. This really works and usually only takes 3-4 good slams. The whole emulsification process should take no more than 90 seconds. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Take a small piece of the meat and make a small patty, fry it up and taste it for seasoning. This recipe is very simple and adds little to the flavor of the pork, so it’s a good recipe if you have really great pork, for it will highlight the flavor of the meat and nothing else. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Describing how to stuff sausage is tough, its really one of those things that somebody should show you, and I bet there are some videos on youtube that can give you a general idea. And if that’s all too much, simply use the sausage unstuffed, it’ll still be super tasty! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If there are any questions, please let me know and I will answer them as well as I can. Bon appetite!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-ZzqLVX1Q-67J5nTrTKXOhFfYdgOKAamwgInAwm9K44mNSx3YAkC9VbiQKekHTbZ1gcVOOXnTh2IyGFYdRUL957LFy0_yHPhMVBEuIiO27qXyicA34rmNlU1-mX81wKSR31kZrr8t7o/s1600/IMG_0468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-ZzqLVX1Q-67J5nTrTKXOhFfYdgOKAamwgInAwm9K44mNSx3YAkC9VbiQKekHTbZ1gcVOOXnTh2IyGFYdRUL957LFy0_yHPhMVBEuIiO27qXyicA34rmNlU1-mX81wKSR31kZrr8t7o/s640/IMG_0468.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-64736882540382562722012-04-02T10:10:00.000-07:002012-04-02T10:10:32.580-07:00Smoked Pork Shoulder and BBQ Sauce Recipe!<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I think it’s about time that we talk about eating some pork. All these pictures of cute little piglets has gotten us off track form the reality of this farm, which is that we raise these pigs for food, both for our own consumption and for the general public through the restaurants we sell to. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last wednesday, amidst all the chaos of Ruby’s horrific farrowing, Dan and I corralled one of the medium size pigs from the group of six into the trailer and drove him down to the slaughter house in Everett. We were hoping to be able to sell this guy, but that didn’t end up working out, so he is now a farm use pig, and to good use he will be. He was about 240 pounds live weight, so we got approximately 160 pounds of usable meat, which is a very manageable amount for us here. We had the butchers break the pig down into hams, shoulders, bellies, jowls, hocks, leaf fat, back fat, and one loin cut into chops, the other kept whole. We also got a bag of offal, liver, kidneys, heart and tongue. The bellies will be cured for bacon, the jowls are curing already for guancialle, the hams have been broken down for sausage, into which we will add quite a bit of the back fat. The leaf fat, this is the fat that surrounds the kidneys and the other vital organs and is the best fat on the animal, will be rendered down for lard. We packed up the chops for eating and I deboned the other loin which will be cured with lots of paprika for a smoked Spanish style pork loin.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We wanted to try some of the pork fresh and right away, so we decided to do a low and slow pork shoulder. We used a weber grill for this process, with charcoal briquettes and loads of apple wood trimmings from all the pruning we did earlier in the season. We simply seasoned the shoulder with lots of black pepper and kosher salt. A small fire, about a third of the starter chimney filled with briquettes, was started and then placed on one side of the grill, a pan of water was positioned on the other and the shoulder placed over the water. We throttled down the air vents on the grill so that the charcoal burned very slowly and the apple wood would smoke and not catch fire. Every 90 minutes or so, we would start fresh coals separately, to burn off any started fluid, and add them to the grill along with more apple wood. You’re looking to keep the temp in there around 225, but it’s hard to do on a weber, so it takes some practice and intuition. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This process of keeping the ham in smoke at a low temperature went on for about 10 hours, the result of which was to die for. The meat was fall off the bone tender, sweet, salty and smokey. But not too smokey, as the apple wood gives off a very mellow smoke that doesn’t overpower the flavor of the meat, which is great because these pigs taste amazing! I mean, really really really good, some of the best I have ever tasted.... </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We enjoyed this tasty meat with cole-slaw, home made potato rolls and some home made BBQ sauce, a recipe for which is below. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRsVVpYnsJYhtlFUqx36jC4KvYATAvocvAYnXYJyD9qDxPG3Y9fkSDpPC8W3KZ0_9XnhpaOqjQJ717oq5d7rY8JbQuyTXMIFDb3HYlnqXzxGK9j-oBDMpX5qmhdC3vNWhBJy4xeJzvNsk/s1600/IMG_0391.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRsVVpYnsJYhtlFUqx36jC4KvYATAvocvAYnXYJyD9qDxPG3Y9fkSDpPC8W3KZ0_9XnhpaOqjQJ717oq5d7rY8JbQuyTXMIFDb3HYlnqXzxGK9j-oBDMpX5qmhdC3vNWhBJy4xeJzvNsk/s640/IMG_0391.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmunq1fh1R-zbhlpftQ0XYQymuVoDPQ0Ep7223zfpFSZYGp7lkimkIeIeodhOpcZMRJ8MJBK-nGxgQc7IBN3CkIchtyF_PVtdAmUXxBxjHWyAW0J4u35Ga7m3rMtdPc_GKwjb_wJBHzs/s640/IMG_0397.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaF7oEs5BdJtRUTqLRS_Bm3VhrM5rqh-hezW3LgokjtBYE8Prs3uTIFU54L-QaIedHClDoYbwd6I6OjI_cCsGCx0RE2EeTzz1itroch9bM7IE1JYICI17HryGaAqQmeClkTCHBcjI1th8/s1600/IMG_0398.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaF7oEs5BdJtRUTqLRS_Bm3VhrM5rqh-hezW3LgokjtBYE8Prs3uTIFU54L-QaIedHClDoYbwd6I6OjI_cCsGCx0RE2EeTzz1itroch9bM7IE1JYICI17HryGaAqQmeClkTCHBcjI1th8/s640/IMG_0398.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sebastiaan’s Caramelized Onion BBQ Sauce</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ingredients:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 Large onions, sliced paper thin</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Half a stick of butter</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 Tbsp olive oil</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">5 cloves garlic, sliced thin</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3/4 cup dark brown sugar</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 cups ketchup</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 heading Tbsp mustard powder</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2 tsp ground ginger</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 Tbsp fish sauce (optional)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1 cup water</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">salt and pepper to taste</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">cayenne to taste</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Procedure:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Slice the onions as thin as you can. In a heavy bottomed pan, (cast iron works great) melt the butter with the olive oil over medium heat till just frothing and add all the onions. The idea with this BBQ sauce is to start it on a base of very well caramelized onions, so this step is very important, so take your time. Over the course of about 45 minutes, cook the onions till they are super caramelized, you will need to stir it often and scrape up bits from the bottom. They should be a deep dark brown and smell very nutty. Add the garlic and cook just till fragrant. Once this has been achieved, move all the onions to one side of the pan, leaving about half the bottom exposed. To this area, add your brown sugar. We want to make a bit of a caramel with the brown sugar, so let it cook with intermittent stirring till the sugar melts and darkens by a few shapes. Deglaze the pan with the water and stir well to release any tasty bits stuck on the bottom. Then add all the other ingredients and let the sauce slowly simmer for about 30 minutes to let the flavors meld together. If you like a chunky sauce, serve the way it is, but if you like a smooth sauce, blend the whole deal in a blender. Any leftovers, if any, can be kept in the fridge for a few days.</span>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-37516106081475733022012-04-02T08:29:00.000-07:002012-04-02T08:29:28.069-07:00Garnett is doing great!<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Starting at about six thirty last night, Garnett starting giving birth to her litter of piglets. I was lucky enough to be there to see them all be born, help them take their first breath, clean off the membrane in which they were encased and help them find Garnett’s nipples so they could start feeding. It was incredible! Most of the piglets were breached, so Garnett had to push a bit harder, but they all came out looking great, albeit covered in that thin aforementioned membrane. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As soon as they are born, if they weren’t immediately taking their first breath, we would give them a bit of a shake, wipe the gunk from their mouths and faces and help them upright. Within 30 seconds to a minute, they would be up and moving, instinctually trying to find mothers nipples. It was amazing! And after about 5 minutes, they were dry, clean, eating and looking like perfectly formed, tiny pigs! These animals surprise and amaze me on a daily basis. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had never seen a birth of any kind before, so this was a phenomenal experience. There are few words to describe it and I am just happy that I was there to help Garnett and the little ones. She gave birth to seven total, one of them, unfortunately, didn’t make it. In the excitement of it all, I got very few pictures, so for that I apologize, but there will be many to follow of the six little ones eating, sleeping, playing and doing all manner of cute piggy activities.....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOlelasx5rkKv6KIOz6scxHNzyZca0WAk9o-FRgvmUp0YzC2csjmo7vu7Ef7OPzLfShfT6Q1h8phuQMy3ui70qJbQ78fkMlFrQcPqP6GAG3hVaTDSIl6EnSz6EA6TDIQlE_CdqXpso3o/s1600/IMG_0411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOlelasx5rkKv6KIOz6scxHNzyZca0WAk9o-FRgvmUp0YzC2csjmo7vu7Ef7OPzLfShfT6Q1h8phuQMy3ui70qJbQ78fkMlFrQcPqP6GAG3hVaTDSIl6EnSz6EA6TDIQlE_CdqXpso3o/s320/IMG_0411.jpg" width="239" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlHwpG2sxIzTvWKwUahaR9G59C8JmR0QwDCPg80c4vzcO3U6-M4wCZBxY8N_JAoeE8r48rsyH_8sG7y0DARzPK0j40J_Qf8wt69fVarJGoBuEkJbZA1HxC4yFB-_OYSzIPN8HxzNkw-c/s1600/IMG_0408.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlHwpG2sxIzTvWKwUahaR9G59C8JmR0QwDCPg80c4vzcO3U6-M4wCZBxY8N_JAoeE8r48rsyH_8sG7y0DARzPK0j40J_Qf8wt69fVarJGoBuEkJbZA1HxC4yFB-_OYSzIPN8HxzNkw-c/s320/IMG_0408.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMVVP84dLBgpgL0q0nYHd0VJnmmPu5igCFXo65XEOcO615TG2SzwRo36oaR7yc8JW7qsrhsC_xCBLkC9DkHi3VfAx3BASlMrowCteZC0mga4_raqijesnZBdWxHsicx180MdWVAnapqvY/s1600/IMG_0410.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMVVP84dLBgpgL0q0nYHd0VJnmmPu5igCFXo65XEOcO615TG2SzwRo36oaR7yc8JW7qsrhsC_xCBLkC9DkHi3VfAx3BASlMrowCteZC0mga4_raqijesnZBdWxHsicx180MdWVAnapqvY/s320/IMG_0410.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Garnett herself is doing great! She’s tired, but seems content, is eating and drinking lots of water. Her piglets are nursing away and staying warm embedded in piles of straw....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-57133617152534257822012-03-31T07:19:00.000-07:002012-03-31T07:19:14.619-07:00More good news!!<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">There is a factor to why Dan and I decided to get so invasive with Ruby that I haven’t discussed yet, and its something some of you might been asking yourselves about. “Why didn’t you just call a vet in when you realized things were going downhill so quickly?” Well, around here most livestock farms are massive, as in hundreds of animals, and compared to that, our group of 25 pigs is tiny. All the vets around here work on yearly contracts with these farmers, and this is simply beyond our budget. What makes it even more complicated is that none of these vets will make a house call to a farm that’s not under contract, no matter how grave the emergency is. That’s why we give our own pennicilin shots to sick pigs and attempt procedures like the one we had to do on Ruby.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, thanks to the wonderful interwed and some searching and cold calling, Carrie was able to locate an unlisted vet who was willing to come out and see Ruby. Her words were: “I don’t know how you found me, but now that you did, I’ll come and take a look.” She was here on wednesday and took a good look at Ruby. Her diagnosis was that she had a Uterun infection, and she pulled out a lot of compacted dead tissue from her vagina. The same stuff that we saw her pee out a couple days before. She washed out her vagina and gave her a number of shots, which was a work out for us, a pig doesn’t like to sit still, especially not when you are stabbing her with 6 different shots! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She got a long acting antibiotic, a shot of something that makes her uterus contract so she could get the last of the dead tissue out, B-12 shots to elevate her mood and to stimulate her appetite. She also left us with three more shots to give her, much to Dan's and my chagrin. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Since she has gotten these shots, she is greatly improved, eating solid food, getting up and walking around. Being more social with us and paying more attention to her brood. We are all delighted that this is happening, as there were a couple moments where I thought she wasn’t going to make it. The vet even said that she might possibly be able to breed again! And more good news came from her when she said that the piglets look better than they should if they had only been eating formula, which means Ruby is still making small amounts of milk, and might come back to full production when she starts eating again. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The visit from the vet was exactly what we needed, and she agreed to be our vet from now on, which is the best news yet. So if anything like this happens again, we’ll call her right away and leave it to her to decide what to do.....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I leave you with some gratuitous piglet pictures, they are simply too cute for words....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_WlqmN7trn1bi5udGK_zMt-oq7-juI-WaHM8URBxNdqBDrItic4a-Q_gKYHpkK2h9RhtDjIfIgGFD0fxxiK1X_-BuJ8_zheJ9Ax9KCkhuiJ3KILD3JbtkcaQVzA6z7oWMvVsL3qhPi6w/s1600/IMG_0381.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_WlqmN7trn1bi5udGK_zMt-oq7-juI-WaHM8URBxNdqBDrItic4a-Q_gKYHpkK2h9RhtDjIfIgGFD0fxxiK1X_-BuJ8_zheJ9Ax9KCkhuiJ3KILD3JbtkcaQVzA6z7oWMvVsL3qhPi6w/s640/IMG_0381.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSqNbNgEAJ8nf6SQXR871CZ0BNQb1mex2IaWEkFFvI5U047dZf-e-YCsnQdXXmdOZ6Fsj15r6vvkyA7NiY86AFHk403fF-PoVOx_-ZX9IVHgO3lp75PuxHG7dzi4HECY1sVEQAzUqjbvk/s1600/IMG_0389.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSqNbNgEAJ8nf6SQXR871CZ0BNQb1mex2IaWEkFFvI5U047dZf-e-YCsnQdXXmdOZ6Fsj15r6vvkyA7NiY86AFHk403fF-PoVOx_-ZX9IVHgO3lp75PuxHG7dzi4HECY1sVEQAzUqjbvk/s640/IMG_0389.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKyGPbSPd9uTdqpBPu5FtpH8aYLsoC-mGEsOWsWcTFsVSDHNRefEDV0QwihIdMhoYkjWGavoVoVs9w41C9wHfWGF2tBj_Amdmd1VYXvZKBv4d3gw_1_OwBV8fjLZDG63y8_kUUUzccDU/s1600/IMG_0362.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKyGPbSPd9uTdqpBPu5FtpH8aYLsoC-mGEsOWsWcTFsVSDHNRefEDV0QwihIdMhoYkjWGavoVoVs9w41C9wHfWGF2tBj_Amdmd1VYXvZKBv4d3gw_1_OwBV8fjLZDG63y8_kUUUzccDU/s640/IMG_0362.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhatOYsClTRLbBRNb-x-3H9bcLDdXUdA3OTkada0tPqXjCPJddFlVUkioFesZJsbqkRt9o926NFehvoiGQP4IcbaPPsjDFZ8bqn10PppFZ8qISc25cB5sBnBX_ygzxEBymKNzkPsEI6EyM/s1600/IMG_0361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhatOYsClTRLbBRNb-x-3H9bcLDdXUdA3OTkada0tPqXjCPJddFlVUkioFesZJsbqkRt9o926NFehvoiGQP4IcbaPPsjDFZ8bqn10PppFZ8qISc25cB5sBnBX_ygzxEBymKNzkPsEI6EyM/s640/IMG_0361.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-38810934537370983962012-03-26T12:02:00.000-07:002012-03-26T12:02:07.220-07:00Still a roller coaster ride....<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveGg9JUpExFNXep6POELQzX9WooUvr_z_EM9ECQhOvCZ51mQtGo_FbvDCxFS7RsixMqwFVDFjwcyAGfcPoP92uz6tn0m7juFg9u-qjWj3-bFqzslMP-PPYrb6lLIZghkNACbycREl0_o/s1600/IMG_0327.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveGg9JUpExFNXep6POELQzX9WooUvr_z_EM9ECQhOvCZ51mQtGo_FbvDCxFS7RsixMqwFVDFjwcyAGfcPoP92uz6tn0m7juFg9u-qjWj3-bFqzslMP-PPYrb6lLIZghkNACbycREl0_o/s400/IMG_0327.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was gently reminded by a friend yesterday that I haven’t given any of you an update on what’s been happening with Ruby and her piglets. I started this blog as more of a journal for myself you see, but as it turns out, a lot of people enjoy reading what I have to say! Go figure. So apologies for the lack of prompt updates....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Unfortunately, Ruby is still struggling. She got better after she finally expelled the last of her stillborn babies, and we she was producing milk for the surviving three. Since then, she has been declining; not producing milk, refusing to eat and being morose and lethargic. We have been feeding the piglets on a product called “Nurse All,” a multi-species milk substitute that we feed them with a nipple screwed on a soda bottle. Two of them have taken to it quite well and drink happily from the nipple, the boy however, hasn’t. He squirms and squeals and acts like a major jerk and is consequentially the smallest of the three. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But back to Ruby. She started eating solid food again after we gave her some of the same formula we are giving the piglets. This gave her some energy and she was able to get up, walk around a bit, roll over for belly rubs and start to act like her old self again. But starting yesterday, she stopped eating, and wouldn’t even get up without some coaxing. She is drinking lots of water, but no food, not even when we make her oatmeal with whey and apples and all other matter of things pigs love. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0aOEJ3WoX90U7jtwMxz-JCn5_apIHyBRn86k1J3UzmVAHlLOxX5WHuu-nvfzqMOdAaK7MUNdAQNeqnD6BG3mvE-tDsxZi-Pf7oGIVBY4KfplUJ1mDoaKvBlX7kZ_OWB0YSjyCgFK4Ig/s1600/IMG_0328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0aOEJ3WoX90U7jtwMxz-JCn5_apIHyBRn86k1J3UzmVAHlLOxX5WHuu-nvfzqMOdAaK7MUNdAQNeqnD6BG3mvE-tDsxZi-Pf7oGIVBY4KfplUJ1mDoaKvBlX7kZ_OWB0YSjyCgFK4Ig/s400/IMG_0328.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This morning she was being extra cranky and wouldn’t even give her food a smell. This has gotten us pretty worried, but a clue to what was going on came seconds later. She started to pee, and it was pretty obvious that things weren’t the way they should be. It was cloudy and had the consistency of loose cottage cheese, my first thought was a yeast infection, but a more logical conclusion is a urinary tract infection. Poor lady, she is having a really bad week. We banged a shot of penicillin into her this morning and will again tonight, we also mixed some aspirin into her formula, and hopefully this will start to work quickly. She is currently shivering and I am worried because we are going down to the mid twenties tonight. This will be another long night for all of us. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Garnett is as big as a house now and is currently right smack in the middle of her projected farrowing period, and considering tonight is going to be very cold out, it wouldn’t surprise me if she gave birth this evening. Which would be great, because if she waits any longer, we will have to keep Ruby’s little ones away as they will be large enough to bully all the newborns away from Garnett’s teats. Another potential problem....</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On top of all this, Dan and I have been busting out asses working on the 9 million other projects around here, but that’s another post all together....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-44762783944920196862012-03-21T09:16:00.000-07:002012-03-21T09:16:22.191-07:00Good News and Close Calls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPnSlq7tqs5LterLKUVW_VKmqvuX-P1kGjEDWBXS8di02qBIMz_HJc_6JPV5JXxr4ZASTdRvknpcQuhibFV2BeK96I9v7oBOn6FoM2wHXpPCNh-8oeU_nOmnhnMPXKzO5iAlUD5mu4TI/s1600/IMG_0185.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPnSlq7tqs5LterLKUVW_VKmqvuX-P1kGjEDWBXS8di02qBIMz_HJc_6JPV5JXxr4ZASTdRvknpcQuhibFV2BeK96I9v7oBOn6FoM2wHXpPCNh-8oeU_nOmnhnMPXKzO5iAlUD5mu4TI/s320/IMG_0185.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, its been a hectic and emotional couple days dealing with Ruby and her complicated pregnancy, but there are very positive things happening. Like I mentioned earlier, we started her on a course of penicillin right after we got the stillborn baby out. We were very worried about infection considering there were two of us inside her, the barn is not a sanitary environment and she was so exhausted from it all that she would have a hard time fighting anything herself. We’ve also started giving her crushed up aspirin mixed with water and given to her via a syringe (sans needle) in the mouth. This has been helping and last night we noticed she was getting some of her energy back. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We had also noticed that she hadn’t stopped contracting her muscles, as if she were still trying to push something out, and once she was feeling a bit better, these contractions became very strong. Dan had investigated her vaginal canal for any more babies and had found none, so we weren’t sure what was going on, but she was clearly trying to force something out. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We had also decided to take her three surviving piglets into the house for the night, we made a nice home for them in a dog kennel with a heating pad and a nice layer of straw. We got some milk substitute because we were worried that they weren’t getting enough food from their mother, considering her state. Let me tell you, bottle feeding a piglet can be both cute, when the latch and drink, or a nightmare when then don’t. All they do is squirm and scream and scream and scream. Who knew so much noise could come from a 20 ounce piglet? </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To add insult to injury, Ruby was so sick and so out of it yesterday that she couldn’t move and all she did was roll from one side to the other. A nearly fatal result of her inability to be aware of her offspring was that she would roll right on top of them. On two separate occasions she had just about killed one of the babies, luckily on both instances, Dan and I came in to find the baby, gave it mouth to snout and brought them back to the world. Never a dull moment here on the farm, that’s for sure.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This morning when I checked up on Ruby, I found three more stillborn babies and a much improved mother. She was breathing better, was able to get up a bit to drink water and had stopped contracting. She also rolled over for a belly rub and gave little grunts of pleasure, something she hadn’t done in almost forty-eight hours. We gave her another shot, which cause her to grunt angrily and sit up, both good signs, and tried to get her to eat, which she still won’t. The swelling of her vagina has also gone way down and when we returned her young, she seemed to be producing milk. I have high hopes for her and am in awe of how tough this pig is....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-73834051124498965362012-03-19T16:27:00.000-07:002012-03-19T16:27:11.760-07:00Opposites.....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmAoyRDfXmJLukWTGzTHW8pHonc_eN3Vf0HOZ1jPUOn719KWfCS1fubAIk1O-34f_vMKrfLy-HWlZbpmfW8DP-Z5fFDHCcmeWjaHdRFyujtRUmIgOsvpEsN52pZRTkjAaoLDvDg6gaak/s1600/IMG_0312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmAoyRDfXmJLukWTGzTHW8pHonc_eN3Vf0HOZ1jPUOn719KWfCS1fubAIk1O-34f_vMKrfLy-HWlZbpmfW8DP-Z5fFDHCcmeWjaHdRFyujtRUmIgOsvpEsN52pZRTkjAaoLDvDg6gaak/s320/IMG_0312.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XY5_p4zV80HRnVDuHCiT71UN6Q4AHb2ntUiOurqfhnaDaYgLRffnOxDNVtTzUlSjax2WBO4h__AU7XUvRNJzZ1A9Fzmlr1RPuT-ibCr5Pn8_OxWY9aKND4BIYnifUM8ULcbnc8h-Kus/s1600/IMG_0306.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XY5_p4zV80HRnVDuHCiT71UN6Q4AHb2ntUiOurqfhnaDaYgLRffnOxDNVtTzUlSjax2WBO4h__AU7XUvRNJzZ1A9Fzmlr1RPuT-ibCr5Pn8_OxWY9aKND4BIYnifUM8ULcbnc8h-Kus/s320/IMG_0306.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today was tough, probably the toughest day on the farm thus far, but it was also a phenomenal day; a day of opposites. Allow me to explain:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I walked into the barn this morning I saw that there were three tiny, new additions the the Buckland Farm cast of characters. Three tiny piglets, super soft with big eyes and the littlest hooves you’ve ever seen. Piglets really are as cute as you think they are...</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There was a bit of a problem, however. These three had been born at about 3am, and in a normal farrowing (birthing in piggy terms) the whole litter should be out within a few hours. More than an hour between piglets is rare and cause for concern. In Ruby’s case, it had been five hours since the last piglet emerged, and we were therefore quite worried. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our worries were confirmed when she gave birth to two stillborn pigs, both of whom were almost twice the size of the ones that were scurrying around my feet. Considering Tamworth litters average out at about 8 piglets, we were pretty sure there were more babies inside her, possibly dead ones, which had to come out or Ruby would be in danger, especially if they were dead, then she could have gone into toxic shock and died. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While I tried to keep Ruby as calm as I could by rubbing her sides towards the back, opening up her legs so that her pelvis was open and soothing her with my voice, Dan, with the help of much lubrication, felt inside her to see if there was another pig waiting to be born. As it turns out, there was, and this pig was by far the largest of the litter, it was also stuck. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ruby had been expected to give birth almost a week ago, and she was getting extremely large and distended. What we speculate happened is that some of the pigs developed faster than the others and somehow blocked the others from being born. Another theory has to do with the fact that the womb of a pig divides into a Y, with pigs developing at either end. This Y shape can become twisted, causing a blockage and inhibiting the birth of the piglets. We aren’t sure what happened, and at this point we will never know, but those are two theories we have. Any thoughts would be appreciated...</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But back to Ruby. The piglet was so large that we couldn’t get it’s shoulders through the very small opening in her pelvis. Dan and I both tried and were up to our elbows inside her, trying to get a good hold of the piglet so that we could pull it out. Three hours we tried this, and three hours Ruby pushed and pushed. She is a bad-ass pig and she is the toughest creature I have ever come across. Humans are sissy’s...</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We finally were able to get the piglet out, and upon one last inspection of her, we concluded that this was indeed the last piglet. The fact that it brought along the after birth confirmed this. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ruby is now in pretty bad shape. It was a very invasive procedure for her and she got tore up a lot inside, she bled quite a bit, but that has stopped. We had no other choice but to proceed this way, as it was an attempt to save her life. We will keep an eye on her, try to get her to eat (which she hasn’t yet) and make sure she feeds the three piglets that did make it into this world. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpexVpVK_zp6h_8-okvfqjMFfnqliho9GuRpVNo1qSzK-8ALcDzjsjNsZTB8eUQ2bOt0rQDN7rqMhTNnHx_1gzwO6mLTw5Zo8DBHypMNP8kPJZbecNZZNUePX5xR8LwcoRMlRDO8zb8rA/s1600/IMG_0313.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpexVpVK_zp6h_8-okvfqjMFfnqliho9GuRpVNo1qSzK-8ALcDzjsjNsZTB8eUQ2bOt0rQDN7rqMhTNnHx_1gzwO6mLTw5Zo8DBHypMNP8kPJZbecNZZNUePX5xR8LwcoRMlRDO8zb8rA/s320/IMG_0313.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I hope she comes through, but I have to wrap my mind around the fact that she may not. But, she did produce three beautiful and healthy little piglets, which is amazing in itself....</span></div>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-26310000657573342172012-03-13T14:45:00.000-07:002012-03-13T14:45:36.921-07:00Garden Prep!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Q9zYcvPH4KiNztmtDO35KYkO4desTzomMJFuz_CjHJKWAC6Y3jhwGUNc46O6pmYRG3703z01rlsAE1zPQQdP8UGE9c84eGTtgNKETHS9-YDSQdGERdMJojkULbqYaAAzi4oN27q9IWM/s1600/IMG_0225.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Q9zYcvPH4KiNztmtDO35KYkO4desTzomMJFuz_CjHJKWAC6Y3jhwGUNc46O6pmYRG3703z01rlsAE1zPQQdP8UGE9c84eGTtgNKETHS9-YDSQdGERdMJojkULbqYaAAzi4oN27q9IWM/s320/IMG_0225.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Holy crap!! Its been 10 days since my last post, that is almost unacceptable.....almost.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I do feel that I have a decent excuse however. It turns out that farm work is hard work. Well, I knew that, but the last week or so has been very busy. The weather is changing very quickly, as I am sure you have noticed yourself, and that means that we have to get the fields prepped and ready so that we can get plants in the ground as soon as the ground is ready. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We stared a couple weeks back by seeding some plants very early so that we can try to cheat and get some early cabbage and kale before anybody else. There is some friendly competition between farmers to see who can have the earliest crops each year. Our kale and cabbage seedlings are looking very good, they have been living under the lights for a while now and are currently spending the day outside to “harden up.” This is exactly what it sounds like, they are delicate little plants that need to be slowly adjusted to the wind and the sun. We also have some onions seeded and some parsley. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have also started to prep the kitchen garden for planting. We spent a good amount of time last month planning out the gardens, and this week Dan and I stared laying out the boundaries for the garden and we did some plowing. Meet Grillo, our two wheel tractor: </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MqwpMh-Y_TRuo1Rnurh0yGNr5-oTsI9zmrosSHdIB2lgdNCyUkc0-MIqiMr6FuxIuG9xda90e3y2stWENxGpKB-EKTTendt9GQM4M8ss2uYfWcZ2zBVIRE3ux0xJZVJ-vFPrMxj96WE/s1600/IMG_0229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MqwpMh-Y_TRuo1Rnurh0yGNr5-oTsI9zmrosSHdIB2lgdNCyUkc0-MIqiMr6FuxIuG9xda90e3y2stWENxGpKB-EKTTendt9GQM4M8ss2uYfWcZ2zBVIRE3ux0xJZVJ-vFPrMxj96WE/s320/IMG_0229.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This thing is a beast! It can do anything a full size tractor can do, just in a scaled down version, so for out 200 foot by 75 foot kitchen garden, this thing is the way to go. Operating it, however, is hard!! If you want a killer upper body workout, come plow a field, its no joke. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The field has been plowed and Dan and and I need to lay out the 50 by 35 foot beds for the individual crops, and then lay out the paths so we can get between them during the year for weeding, watering and harvesting. Its going to look really nice once we get it all set the way we want it..</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqshCcy7nC6wohRWseQ__CL44YAoQuSsgfE7-XXpXZ-c0WpUauo8KlzD7BwxsV6bnhFHD8OYRCpZzfBdnep5zniUczJauzZUCB0i8rJZXwO8kRZfXjGSjo8rsEZM4QRz4FRFpCBUjLXs/s1600/IMG_0233.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqshCcy7nC6wohRWseQ__CL44YAoQuSsgfE7-XXpXZ-c0WpUauo8KlzD7BwxsV6bnhFHD8OYRCpZzfBdnep5zniUczJauzZUCB0i8rJZXwO8kRZfXjGSjo8rsEZM4QRz4FRFpCBUjLXs/s320/IMG_0233.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YVfFTeOMjyS_mmtx8NdGw93xvVANxmlO8XRwBWgvXek23iav6uVI3wxa6KKQqtjKzx4gsAxQx42ifHSpvkc5RxAFVyYjXLP8dGSG_-90jTOSfhf1EFYUGSPtX4n-GYuECaX87DJAgyc/s1600/IMG_0234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YVfFTeOMjyS_mmtx8NdGw93xvVANxmlO8XRwBWgvXek23iav6uVI3wxa6KKQqtjKzx4gsAxQx42ifHSpvkc5RxAFVyYjXLP8dGSG_-90jTOSfhf1EFYUGSPtX4n-GYuECaX87DJAgyc/s320/IMG_0234.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today we used the Grillo to dig a trench, 6 inches deep, about two feet wide and forty feet long. This is one of our asparagus trenches. We filled the bottom inch or so with some very rich manure compost and then added some rock phosphate as fertilizer. This is all preparation for the planting of asparagus crowns. The crowns are the year old roots of an asparagus plant and they look nothing like the nobly green spears we see in the spring. These crowns get planted and then allowed to grow and develop for three years before any asparagus is harvested. Their root system needs to develop and grow large and this takes time, so unfortunately I will not read the reward of this particular bit of labor. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpw3inBZcyBOFizr3li3Tf8XVU3ymBwZGV_Td40VVVdNWbgADnHQdO8ZQp3m62_3ZIgjBWk9Z3Y-dinpdOjFD6l5zU_uC14lfax0wx2oj72o1s8cPV32O6U47JqAmQk09RJK8DauIyM0/s1600/IMG_0235.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpw3inBZcyBOFizr3li3Tf8XVU3ymBwZGV_Td40VVVdNWbgADnHQdO8ZQp3m62_3ZIgjBWk9Z3Y-dinpdOjFD6l5zU_uC14lfax0wx2oj72o1s8cPV32O6U47JqAmQk09RJK8DauIyM0/s320/IMG_0235.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvISMHt4gls8H-BwoRJRvRiiUeAQyfDNWLKs3JnAn_X56qSKK5OeBuXq-k-s1sOAQjjFRCjdPh14LdreXQlKXNFZ16JXW2PDky6KtDFLXU3zFhFziq3D2xOm6pBZ1tq67O0C2uKS14gOM/s1600/IMG_0237.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvISMHt4gls8H-BwoRJRvRiiUeAQyfDNWLKs3JnAn_X56qSKK5OeBuXq-k-s1sOAQjjFRCjdPh14LdreXQlKXNFZ16JXW2PDky6KtDFLXU3zFhFziq3D2xOm6pBZ1tq67O0C2uKS14gOM/s320/IMG_0237.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will, however, be eating lots of onions, as I spent an afternoon last week prepping a 50 foot bed for two rows of onions. These are onions started from “sets” as apposed to starting from seed, and are meant as eating onions, not storing onions. The basic idea is that you plant small onions, the size of a pearl onion, let them grow three months or so, harvest and enjoy! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_NTcTuOlnvaAhY92HdnNEPUcwiX-9iRrBGLJU89zhHerYLnlVMjxQUVO8d5lkZwygVfqbMOpkwls0ow_XXp8Zsfg_KjjQ9blou3nDrP7ZKZS2ZBWlVcCv5UnfjnZ7wHhRlsEVhe9pI2A/s1600/IMG_0203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_NTcTuOlnvaAhY92HdnNEPUcwiX-9iRrBGLJU89zhHerYLnlVMjxQUVO8d5lkZwygVfqbMOpkwls0ow_XXp8Zsfg_KjjQ9blou3nDrP7ZKZS2ZBWlVcCv5UnfjnZ7wHhRlsEVhe9pI2A/s320/IMG_0203.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">As you can tell, we have been super busy! And on top of all this, we are going into the barn every hour to see if the girls have given birth yet, which could happen any moment now, so stay tuned for gratuitous piglet pictures....</span>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606463471671291917.post-55214766085104611392012-03-02T09:46:00.000-08:002012-03-02T09:46:48.819-08:00The Pigs we have.....<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After my last post, a friend asked what kind of pigs we raise here on Buckland farm, and I thought that was a question worth answering on a larger scale, for all to see. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaKgW2LzZGjr4A637kHdAl1In-AnjWeonEavq5tFUz-YBip99EoAuqw8QcoINqD1T5ChIDYK3NfmYpiZsMbDzWFjwDUjJ1ziyqaVGAeW-57hUPgTbPwkYR7rK3b7qfN_SoOpOnUNuvcc/s1600/IMG_0177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaKgW2LzZGjr4A637kHdAl1In-AnjWeonEavq5tFUz-YBip99EoAuqw8QcoINqD1T5ChIDYK3NfmYpiZsMbDzWFjwDUjJ1ziyqaVGAeW-57hUPgTbPwkYR7rK3b7qfN_SoOpOnUNuvcc/s320/IMG_0177.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the present mom</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"></span>ent we have twenty five pigs on the farm, ranging from three months to about 16 months in age. We have one boar who goes by the name of Bo, and he is getting close to 800 pounds. He’s a big boy and can be both super sweet, coming up to you for belly rubs, or a complete jerk, pushing you around with his nose and pestering his pen mates, Fern and Willow (more on them later). Bo is a cross between Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spot. Tamworths are one of the oldest domestic breeds of pigs and they are originally from England. They are a medium sized pig, topping the scale at 850 pounds, with perky ears, a long body and a beautiful copper-red coat. A couple characteristics of the Tamworth make them a perfect pig for our farm; they are very efficient foragers, have strong legs and bodies that enable them to walk through hilly, rocky and muddy environments and are even tempered, intelligent and fun to be around. They are also very hardy and can withstand harsh winters, rough winds and hot summers. The Tamworth is also know as the bacon pig, because they have a long body and therefore a large belly perfectly shaped for tasty bacon. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79-PLy7frAUI8T_JVLoI_c0ggiq7sXhEJDFsEkmuib3-jqkYhAWfey6o1Di4aEFMaC2e-heF5wfiJ1nDmNjsKzTPzZdSX25WDGchISwe16Mb9SJJ7MWXasHybPhu8CbKkrOzhwZKUorM/s1600/IMG_0161.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79-PLy7frAUI8T_JVLoI_c0ggiq7sXhEJDFsEkmuib3-jqkYhAWfey6o1Di4aEFMaC2e-heF5wfiJ1nDmNjsKzTPzZdSX25WDGchISwe16Mb9SJJ7MWXasHybPhu8CbKkrOzhwZKUorM/s320/IMG_0161.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Gloucester Old Spots also originate in England and have similar charecteristics to the Tamworth when it comes to foraging and having the build to live out in the pasture. They are a bit smaller than the Tamworth, have light hair with black spots all over it and huge, droopy ears that fall forward over the face. Bo has the color of a Tamworth, except for two white socks on his front feet, but most definitely has the ears of a Gloucester.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The third breed of pig that we are breeding in is the Arkansas Razorback. These are a breed of feral pig pig that closely resemble wild boars, and are therefore much smaller and are even more adept at being out in the wild. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You have met Ruby and Garnett who are both 100% Tamworth and they have been impregnated by Bo. So their litter will be mostly Tamworth with some Gloucester in them, exactly like the 14 juveniles we have running around, who are also Bo’s offspring but mothered by another 100% Tamworth breeding pair: Fern and Willow. Bo has recently re-mated with Fern and Willow, I know this because I saw it with my own eyes, so we will have so we will have a lot of little piggies running around within a few months.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Like I said, Bo is big and Bo is getting old, so he has been slated for a farm slaughter. He will be replaced by Agamemnon, a pure bred Tamworth hog, who will be breading with Strawberry and Juniper, who are our Tamworth and Razorback crosses. He has attempted to mate with them recently, and we are hoping that in his teenage excitement he wasn’t able to seal the deal, if you will. For if he did, they will give birth at the same time as Fern and Willow and we will have between 35 and 45 piglets from one day to the next, not a disaster, but definitely not planned. We will keep a good eye on them and see if they have their cycles in three weeks. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I know this is a lot of information, and I still get a bit confused myself, but it gives you an idea of what we have here on the farm, what we are breeding and how they are all related. Please post and questions or comments, and I will do my best to answer them...</span>Sebastiaan Zijphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02888464786371342436noreply@blogger.com1