Considerable Pathos

Last week our three pigs were slaughtered for food. This was the plan and we did indeed see it through. Though I feel like a bit of a cheat as I happened to be at work when the local guy came to shoot, skin and butcher them. I didn't mean to be away. In fact, I’d been steeling myself for the hard reality of slaughter as I stood by the pig pen through the increasingly cold days of autumn, trying to fathom how these three affable “Daves” would become bacon and pork chops and ham. I felt I owed it to the choice I had made, the choice to get to know my food on a personal level, to be there to see the thing out. But John, the “pig processor”, could only make it on my working days and so Dan helped out instead. I returned home that day to a pile of pig skins, a few puddles of blood and a heavy heart.

We tried to raise and slaughter these pigs as humanely as we could, arranging for them to stay home rather than be stressed in a slaughterhouse somewhere. We gave them plenty of room and pig goodies, gave them no reason to stress or fear up until this day. The night before the slaughter, I even went down to town and bought the largest cheapest bottles of vodka in the liquor store (The clerk had a good laugh when I explained they were for my livestock) and Dan made the pigboys “White Russians” with the last few cartons of milk. Even so, when I returned home the day of, Dan was pretty tight-lipped. So I am left to imagine that even with the pigs drunk as skunks, it was not a thoroughly an easy passing.

These days, I've been avoiding the pig pen, and I do not quite look at the drying hides in the barn. BUT, I must also admit that when the meat arrived a week later, wrapped neatly and in such amazingly plenty—enough to feed us and several other families for a good long time-- I felt a sense of pride. We had done what we set out to do: Provide for our family in a sustainable way, provide for our pigs a healthy, free ranging environment where they could root and graze and eat healthy whole foods, work hard from May to November, recycle loads of organic groceries that would have filled landfills rather than swine bellies. (Pigs are the ultimate in recycling…) And be part of the food chain again.

But How does it feel? You ask.

Hmmmm…… so, so.

On one hand, pigs are curious, trusting creatures (At least compared to sheep, who fully expect that you will eat them every time you so much as glance in their direction) and this makes the idea that we would violate the “trust” and actually eat them all the more awful.

On the other hand, the Daves were gobbling close to 20 gallons of food a day, an untenable situation. I could not imagine standing out in the lower barn an hour a day plunking frozen yogurt out of frozen 8 ounce tubs with frozen hands to keep the boys plump and happy. The cost of their feed skyrocketed towards the end there. And they were eating vanloads of donated food a week. Not easy to fit in between ferrying kids and playdates and work responsibilities and hay for the sheep. Owing to the confluence of weather, school and size, three, 300 pound pigs began to feel like one thing too many.

On the other hand, the pigs were pleasant and sweet and so easygoing compared to the nervous flock of sheep. They were fun—if stinky—to have around. My oldest had taken to riding them! And they could be counted on to eat every kind of table scrap—much more efficiently than the chickens. I didn't mind the half sandwiches left in the kids' lunchboxes when I plopped them into the "pig food" bucket on the counter.

On the other hand, I truly believe that death is a natural part of life and that by removing ourselves so thoroughly from the food chain (Many folks get squeamish just thinking about the “cow” in their burger) we have created a sort of strange new taboo. Yes it is scary and awful and I have experienced death on many very personal levels, but it is real.

On the other hand, it is much harder to look at a pork chop when you remember the pig it came from happily slurping up gallons of milk and grain, its stubby tail waggling.

On the other hand, as barrons (Castrated Males), the Daves had no other “purpose” other than to feed us.

On the other hand, do ANY of us have a "purpose"?

Will we do it again? I’m not sure yet.

I believe that it is natural and right to have a personal relationship with your food. But it is also a whole lot harder.

To Dye For

Ta Dah!!!!

This yarn makes me wish I knew how to KNIT!

Fall Farm Update

It was in the 30's last night. Definitely cold enough to talk fall, a busy time around here. (Actually, every time is pretty much busy on Maggie's Farm.)

Here's what's happening:

The little turkey poults of late June are now full-fledged adolescents, wandering about eating windfall apples and clover and whatever else they can get their beaks on. We have two narragansetts and a chocolate turkey in with the more common white and bronze varieties. Maybe we'll keep a breeding trio this year. We'll see.I love how turkeys take the idea of "flock" seriously. They stick together. Chickens, by contrast, are much more individualistic.

Speaking of chickens, Mighty Hera's batch of "sink chicks" are all grown up: Two roosters and two hens. They continue to live in the barn and may attempt to overwinter there. We'll see how that goes. Our second set of chicks (The kids have named them "Basketball", "Soccerball" and "Pearl") have moved from the temporary "broody coop" into the main coop and are now part of the flock. We've been waiting for the rooster on rooster on rooster violence to start up, but so far, it's been relatively peaceful.

The ducks have gone on to new homes. They were too panic-stricken for us. And messy. I've heard it said that there is a reason that ducks are called "fowl" :) That is definitely the case. So, no more ducks.

Speaking of messy, the Daves (Our trio of GOS X Tamworth pigs) are really big now, and so friendly and easy-going. I am having a hard time imagining eating them. Every day, during feeding, I stare at those "6 nice-sized hams" and tell myself that I will be able to do this thing. And I will. I have to. There is no way we can keep up with the feeding and care of these guys as they grow to top 500 pounds. But for now, they are settled into a more weather-tight pighouse (Dan made it by modifying the duck house) and enjoying lots of windfall apples and school cafeteria leftovers.

All of this year's ewe lambs are sold, but we still have 4 ram lambs available for sale: Dodge, Drac, Data and Duncan

Dodge and Drac are really magnificent rams-- already big and broad. Dodge has a great, square build and color. Drac has a truly amazing fleece and horns that will someday rival his sire, Charlie. We'd love to make you a deal on these guys, if you are interested. It will be a shame to eat them. A serious shame, but this farm ain't big enough for the both of them (+ Charlie + Rahm)

A twin born in Mid-May, Data is still smaller than the other boys, but he has great parasite resistance and is from those wonderful Jager Farm, Bambi and Rektor lines. He will look just like our herdsire Charlie one day. ...And he is available at a substantial discount. I don't have a current picture, but this is his sire, Charlie, and likely what he'll look like as an adult:

Duncan has quite a lot in the way of build and genetics. He has a very white-white fleece and the potential to throw moorit color or even spots.

And the apples are just getting ripe. They are magnificent this year, due to a preponderance of rainy days. It has been fun to share them with neighbors and friends. But somehow, we have yet to bake a single apple pie.

The Franklin County Fiber Twist is happening next weekend. Our yarn will be available at the "Metaphor Yarns" booth. Check it out!

Breed 'em or Eat

As summer draws to a chilly close, we find that our thoughts must also turn a bit chilly. Dan and I look at this year's lambs-- 5 rams remaining!-- and make some very real life-or-death choices. Who will we retain for breeding? Who will we eat?

Who will we eat????

Yup.

It may seem a callous, brutal question, but reality is: We have no room for 7 grown rams. Come cold weather, they will pummel each other. And they will cost an arm and a leg in hay... and arm and a leg and the rest of the farm perhaps as well. So it has come to this: a difficult choice. A lot of hemming and hawing and second guessing. But it's early in the season yet, and there is time for all that.

I don't think I appreciated the cyclical nature of the farmer's world before we began living it. Sure, every children's book makes mention of the seasons, Halloween and Thanksgiving, leaf piles and sledding. But as farmers, our tasks, even our preoccupations and worries are so specific, so predictable and seasonal, that season itself takes on a different sort of resonance. Nearly five years of farming and I could tell you month by month what my worries will be, what the little annoyances (^%*&&#$# wandering, wrong roosting turkeys!) or joys will be. I could tell you when I am going to be banging ice out of water buckets or clipping maple branches to sustain the sheep through the sparse late fall pasture, shooing a forever broody hen off her nest or checking on heavily pregnant ewes through the long night hours, skirting fleeces or dyeing yarn.

And so I can tell you that before the celebratory and Thanksgiving-y time of "harvest", comes the time of year when I look at the lambs-- the lambs that were once so cute and big-eyed twiggy who now look like everybody else out there more or less-- and make life or death decisions.

Once it's decided and done, I will not be able to look at pictures of these lambs for a while. It will be like any other loss... only one we've engineered ourselves. But there will be food in our freezer and enough hay for winter. And in the spring, I will run twenty times a day out to the barn to check on ewes with bulging bellies. And the cycle will begin again.

Death shadows the seasons on a farm. Fear of it (or of hurt, illness or injury) to your livestock informs much of what you do throughout the seasons of winter and spring and summer.

Then, in autumn, you cause it.

I like to think that farming has taught me to hold death a little closer. Itwas easy for me to forget how much a part of life-- how very normal-- death is when I was shielded from it in the suburbs, buying my meat from Stop and Shop. I chose not to think about the many deaths that enabled my lifestyle. Quite a far cry from my ancestors, who probably had an intimacy with death that I cannot even fathom.

And so, like the seasons, I guess I have come full circle as well.

At any rate, we still have some wonderful ram lambs for sale....

Skein Central

We just got a new shipment of yarn back from the mill, and it is beautiful! We tried something new this year and mixed colored in the same skein. The effect is a sort of tweed... or zebra. I love it!

We also a lot of white this time around (Our white sheep are super hardy and just keep propagating...) But the white ranges from slightly gray to oatmeal colored to glossy and warm. More variation than you'd expect from "white"

Varied the size this time around as well. Some of the yarn is 2 ply sport, some a beautiful fingerling.

Fresh off a seminar in dyeing yarns and roving, I will be dyeing some of the white skeins. This is a first for us. Other than a kool-aid and one-color dye experiments, we've offered only naturally-colored yarns. look for the results (whatever they may be) here on the blog.

So now, the question shifts from "When will the yarn show up?" To "What the heck are we going to do with all this yarn?" (Have I mentioned I don't really knit-- well? In truth, I have been "learning to knit" for three years now. and may never progress beyond this point due to a lethal combination of work, kids and ineptitude...)

The yarn is expensive to produce, but we love the magic of these skeins, remembering, as we do, all the way back to when they were on the backs of our well-loved sheep.

And it is for sale, of course. Soon to be posted on our website and on Etsy as well.

Plums!

In between kids, farm and work, Dan managed to make 18 cans of Plum and Plum Pepper Jam this week. (Yup, he's pretty amazing...)

We are set for about 500 Peanutbutter sandwiches, very important with school fast approaching.

Entering a few jars in the Fair this year!

Hoggy, Soggy, Sickly Days

The weather's been brutal this month; rain then rain, heat and humidity, more rain, followed by more heat and more humidity. It's the perfect storm as far as parasites and stress are concerned. Maggie's Farm Forecast says "80% chance of livestock disaster." And we've had it.

Stubby Dave (One of the three porcine "Daves" hanging out in the future sheep pasture in back) was hit last week. We knew something was up when he declined dinner. We knew it was serious when he was not tempted the next morning by a juicy wad of leftover pizza. All day Stubby lolled in the mud, his teeny-but-cute eyes following us as we moved along outside the fence. He was definitely out of sorts.

A day later with no change, we called our vet. Now, Dr. S is a typical wonderful country vet. He was swamped (Weather related no doubt) and suggested-- after a short phone conversation--that we give Stubby Dave a shot of our fancy new one-time-only antibiotic.

Sure, Okay....

Stubby was so lethargic it seemed at first that the task would be a snap. But as soon as we put on our boots and filled the syringe, he grew instantly alert. He gave a few inquiring squeals as I straddled him and pressed his shoulders into the mud. The needle went in and Dave-- lethargy forgotten-- exploded into the far corner of the pen, the tip of the needle riding along on his hip. We sloshed after him, trying to snag it, which we did, then started all over again.

Dave was sick enough to slettle back down in the mud after a slow-motion chase, and we tried again. Same result (Minus the needle coming apart). We tried again, and again.... By this time, we were stinky and sweating and thoroughly done with hanging out in the pig pen.

I remembered the woman who sold us the Daves telling us that the only way to hold a pig was by its back legs. Dan gave that a try. Not such a good idea once the pig is 150 or so pounds... he received a serious splattering of mud for his trouble (The most odoriferous, disgusting mud imaginable, mind you) before releasing Dave for another slow pursuit.

Persistence paid off in the end, and Stubby Dave finally consented to treatment. A few anxious days later he was back tussling for scraps with his brothers.

In the meantime, we had to treat a ewe for parasites and just today, Dusk, one of our youngest ram lambs, succumbed quite mysteriously. The stress of the constant heat and rain couldn't have helped. This is the first death we've had in 3 years of sheep, and it is worrying, especially as there was nothing obviously wrong with the little guy. He was hot and a little lethargic yesterday, but still feisty and fine. Today: gone. I've heard late season lambs struggle the most and this one was late... and small, and born to a yearling ewe. But it hurts nonetheless.

In truth, every time we have an animal illness or set back, I begin to think about giving the whole farm thing up. In the sadness of the moment, anything seems better than facing another sick, miserable, hungry or otherwise needy animal and not knowing exactly what to do about it. But the next day, I am up at dawn (or thereabouts anyway) pausing in my chores to "take stock" of the peaceful flock, and it all seems okay again.