Last week, we butchered one of the two pigs we've raised for this purpose. Abe killed and processed the carcass by himself. I bagged and weighed the meat, and then the following day I rendered the lard and made the sausage. We have the hams and bacons curing.It was a tiring two days, but it all went very smoothly. We ended up with 100 lbs of meat, and boy is it good! What with the pigs and rabbits, we never have to buy meat, although we do sometimes buy fish for variety. Next year we hope to introduce fish to our homestead.
The number of pigs on the property is dwindling. We sold Gloria this week, and we may have a buyer for a gilt and our boar. That will just leave us with the one remaining butcher pig. We'll then be pigless for a while (until June, when we get two feeder piglets). It'll be sad to have no pigs around, but it just seems better for us to buy and raise two piglets than to have the whole breeding operation here on the property. Leo's teacher is the one who bought Gloria, so we will be able to have two of her piglets each year, which is great. And something else that's adding to our culinary pleasures is, of course, the mushrooms. There's little better than fresh pork, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, all of which we have in abundance.
I've been following for about a year - enjoyable blog. We used to raise our own pigs and chickens, they always tasted way better than anything we could buy. But they do tie you down a bit! It's one thing to get the neighbours to feed the cat while we're away, its quite another to ask them to feed/muck out the pig(s) and chickens...
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