Pork for Sale! Pork for Sale! Fifty Cents (And Some) for Pork!

In the days since I have written, we have hosted friends here and been hosted elsewhere. We picked up Phil on his return from a quick trip to Colorado, and drove on to fetch our two processed pigs.

We have languished in the continued heat, driving through a dousing rainstorm only six miles away, only to have it dry up within a mile or two of our house. That happened once. And twice. In the month we've had with only a tenth of an inch, we have watched the plants dry up until neighbor Butch said, "Even watering every other day, it's not enough."

So today, when the storm clouds gathered to the west, we were cautiously optimistic, enough that Phil and I headed down to the lower pasture to bring the cows their third large round bale this week. And while we were going, the heavens opened.

A swimmer in high school, I haven't been overly fond of being wet in the years since. Two and three hours a day in the pool (and sometimes more) was enough wet to last a lifetime. But this wet was different. This was the prayed for, longed for rain from heaven.

So while the cows congregated around the bale, oblivious to the water running off their backs and the rivulets running around their hooves, Phil and I headed back upslope through the downpour. Half an inch fell on us in that ten minutes. We were soaked through, pools in the shoes, as wet as if we'd fallen in the pool. And so, so thankful.

We got .8" in that twenty minutes or so. Then the sun came out, the humidity soared, and the earth rejoiced in such a drink.

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A word about our two processed pigs. They were a total of 424 pounds hanging weight, meaning the pigs were gutted, skinned, de-hoofed, and ready for processing. They must have weighed right around 300 pounds each (about 30% of the live weight is lost to internal organs), and we ended up with just under 300 pounds of beautiful sausage (chorizo, hot Italian, and mild Italian), sliced raw bacon, picnic roasts, butt roasts, and chops. About 50% dressed weight is right about right, and this doesn't count the box of gorgeous, white lard that I will render and use daily.

And we got to keep the heads this time! I have two gruesome tongues sticking out between big nasty teeth frozen in the freezer. They take up a lot of space and I need to figure out what to do with them.

In the meantime, if you are fairly local and want uber-delicious, soy-free, whey and organic fed, forest raised pork, without any hormones or antibiotics or genetically modified anything, let me know. We have plenty, and hope to move it ASAP, to make room for the remaining pigs and birds that we would like to process.

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I was happy to see that Cleo's limp is a good deal better, to the point that she is almost walking normally. Catherine had a luscious full bag this morning, but her baby Clover was on the wrong side of the fence, blatting piteously, and apparently incapable of remembering how to return to his mother, who paced on the other side of the fence. Phil walked up to the calf and picked him up, carried him to the pen, where Clover, stunned, refused to move. His mother came within feet of him, and he just stood, as if shell shocked, until we walked closer to him. Then he jumped like a little deer and went to his mother to nurse. Her bag was much diminished.

While we were going down to the cows this morning, I saw a black strap on the ground and, in my new mentality to "clean as I go" (which I sometimes actually achieve), I bent to pick it up and realized it was a black snake, so I ran up the path screaming and waving my arms.

Why do snakes give us the willies? I don't know. Phil told me today that he almost stepped on one while setting a pen, and also did the jump-away-while-shouting technique.

Today, he went to it with an axe in hand, and, when he saw it was not a poisonous problem, he used the tool to fling it aside. They do serve a purpose, eating rodents and such, so I understand his action. But I certainly kept a close eye out as I walked around that area the rest of the day!