New Sows

This week we've been doing some work on the gardens, but most of our efforts have gone to the pig pen. We mucked out the toilet area (we would place hay on top of their poop, which keeps the smell away and makes for a better compost), and put it in a pile in a garden bed we won't be using for a while. While Abe and I did that, Leo carried rocks and filled in a hole they'd made under their water nipple (they quickly learned how to push the nipple so that water would pool up into a lovely mudbath, which had grown incredibly deep). We then put a shade up and made a new hoop house, so that each sow would have a nesting area.

Once everything was ready, we went to the city and bought two beautiful sows. They are still young (born in July 2010), but already showing signs of the immense size they will grow to be. Both are pregnant, one due about 18th May, the other beginning of June.

They had a stressful day yesterday with the 2 hour journey to our place, and when I went to take a photo, they were asleep under the shade in some hay and did not even stir. Notice how their front legs are intertwined (we had considered getting just one due to the cost, but decided that the company would go a long way to keeping them both happy and healthy).

We need to fence a new area for them to graze, although there is no rush, as we will keep them penned up until they are used to this as their new home. This is the first time they have lived with dirt and grass under their feet, so we don't think it will take them long to call this home.

We only went a few days without having pigs on our property, but we are glad those days are over. These two are the beginning of our herd, and we hope that they will long be a part of our family.

For more photos, click here.

A freezer full of pork

On Wednesday, we processed the pig we'd saved for ourselves.

A couple of friends came and helped Abe with the nitty gritty. We had prepped pretty well and things went very smoothly. Nonetheless it was a lot of work. They began at 7am and finished at 12pm. All three were pretty tired, but a hearty meal of, yep you guessed it, pork helped out.

I weighed and bagged the meat before putting it in the freezer:
7lbs 14oz ribs, 1lb 5oz back strap, 12lb 4oz steaks, 17lb 12oz roast cuts, 1lb sidepork, 2lb 1oz stewing meat.

On Thursday we rendered the lard, which took a LONG time, but produced 9 liters of lard, and some leaf lard (we're rendering that today, so not sure how much, although considerably less than regular lard). Plus there was a bunch of cracklings, over 7 pounds.

Also on Thursday we ground up all the meat we'd put aside for ground pork and sausage - 7lb 4 oz ground pork and 8lb 11 oz sausage.

Not sure how much the hams and bacon weigh. We will weigh them when we take them out of their cure in 10 days.

The guys that helped us took the head to make tamales, the skin to do crackling and the liver. Plus we'll give them some steaks when we cut them up and some sausage and ham when they're done.

In all, a year's supply of meat for us, and extremely tasty meat too from what we've already sampled.


We'll be posting full instructions on our site soon:
http://www.velacreations.com/pigs.html

For more photos, click here.

Hair cuts

I just cut my boys' hair, and they both look so cute that I thought I'd post the photo. There's also some more photos and videos of Leo here since my last blog.

Our weekly chores

We seem to be so busy at the moment, what with running the homestead, earning money, additional projects and anything else we can squeeze in before the baby arrives (we know from experience that we will not be getting much done right after Nico arrives in about a month). So we decided to organize our chores into a weekly schedule, to help us remember to do some of the bits and pieces that need to be done every week. Then we fit all the other stuff around this list.

If interested, here it is:
Monday - Rabbits: breeding, weighing, weaning, separating females that are due, butchering, tanning hides, etc.
Tuesday - Watering trees. Moving chicken pen and tractor.
Wednesday - Garden: making soil blocks, transplanting, planting, collecting seeds, canning, drying, etc.
Thursday - Day off... well, day off chores at least, but that just makes it a better day to tackle big projects!
Friday - Water trees. Check on bees (every other week). Clean house.
Saturday - Laundry (by hand of course). We will now be starting to use the rest of this day to work on our site, as it is in pretty dire need of an update.
Sunday - Mushrooms (every other week).

New Freezer

Last year, we bought a Sundanzer Fridge. They are expensive, as they are designed for off-grid systems and are extremely efficient, but worth every penny in the long run. The fridge has never made a dent in our batteries and we love it.

Well, we have been saving and have now bought a Sundanzer freezer. We have put it in the (half-buried) powerhouse, where the temperature stays a constant throughout the year. We also bought some extra solar to make sure it didn't tax our system.

Abe installed the solar yesterday (look at our beautiful, but ramshackle set of solar panels) and our batteries have been floating all day, which basically means that they are as full as they can get. So we decided to turn on the freezer. We don't really have anything to put in it yet, so I filled up a bunch of water bottles and ice trays to give it some thermal mass. Oh yes, and it has one rabbit in it. Next week it should be filled with a year's supply of fresh pork, ham, bacon and sausage. Until then, I may have to make it a little more useful by making some ice-cream... doesn't life suck!!

This little piggy went to market

This week we sold two of our three pigs.

We had set up a ramp into our little Toyota pickup a couple of days beforehand, where we started to feed them. In hindsight, we should have done this sooner, for they were not quite comfortable enough with it when the time came to load them up. We spent about an hour with Abe trying to push them up the ramp, when they wouldn't go voluntarily, and that just stressed everyone involved out. So he then tried something he'd read on a pig forum - he put a bucket over their head and pushed them (without too much force) backwards up the ramp. They were trying to get their head out of the bucket by running backwards. In fuve minutes they were both loaded and calmer, looking for food.

We have a formula to estimate their weight, using their length and girth, but we had obviously been doing it a little wrong, as they ended up being 10kg lighter than we had thought. Oh well, you live and learn.

We have kept one pig, which will be for our family's needs. She was the smallest of the three, so we are going to let her gain a little weight first. I had been worried that she would pine for her siblings, but she actually seems very happy. Being the smallest, she was always the last to the feed and mud pit - now, she's king of the castle and seems to really enjoy it.

It will be very sad to see her go and be without pigs - they truly are a joy and benefit to any homestead - so we have decided to buy two breeding sows. They are already bred and are big and beautiful. We will pick them up over the next couple of weeks, once we've moved their pasture and pen.

For photos click here.

Setting up the bait hives

We went down to a friend's apple ranch yesterday and put up the three baithives Abe had made. They are each in a quiet spot, amongst trees, close to the river, right next to all the about-to-bloom- apple trees. We have only ever seen swarms of bees later in the year, but we wanted to have them up now in case any hives are ready to swarm soon. Hopefully we'll catch a few extra hives to add to our property.

For more photos, click here.