No More Pig Meat to Process!

The Almanac in Countryside said, "Historically, today and the 27th are the wettest and cloudiest days east of the Mississippi during November. After the precipitation, expect much colder weather."

So I wasn't surprised when, sometime after midnight, driving rain on our thin metal roof woke me, and I wasn't surprised to find that almost an inch of rain had fallen during that pounding.

The swales in the peach orchard did their job well. Even by midafternoon, about twelve hours later, standing water waited to be gradually absorbed into the earth. Without the swales, all that water would have run into Hog Creek and off the farm. Now, it will percolate and, hopefully, replenish ground water.

The rain has been a boon to the cover crops planted. The sheep will continue to eat down the rye grass planted in early September (see behind the sheep), and they will come to the rye planted in late September, not nearly as strong a stand (to the left of the photo).

Somehow, we still have six sheep! We were going to kill off the three large mixed breed ewes so we wouldn't have to feed them through the winter. But with the state of our freezer, I'm not sure how we'll be able to manage that.

The best of the cover crops, though, is in the future blueberry patch. That side of our road is a stunning emerald compared with the unsown, scratched over, remains of market garden mess on the other. The beautiful growth is so rich, though, I admire it, even while I wish for more of it.

When Phil started his butchering this morning, the weather was bright, sunny and warm, with great gusts of wind. About the most horrible conditions possible for trying to cut up a pig. Wind blew the leaves around, and, after living in the gusty wind corridor in Boulder, we have no affection, and little patience, with wind. The sun glared in Phil's eyes and on all cutting surfaces, and green eyes let in more light, which makes sunlight more painful for green-eyed folks than the rest of us (or at least, so we've heard).

But the worst of it was the warmth. It is quite difficult to cut meat that is not completely chilled. But since it was really to warm for hanging, it was really too warm to leave it out, so there was nothing to do but carry on.

Happily for Phil, the weather cooled off. At one point, there were corrugated clouds to the southeast, unlike any clouds I have seen.

And round clouds to the southwest. Quite dramatic and beautiful.

Butchering takes an inordinate amount of energy. By the time Phil has sawed, hacked, cut, wrapped, and labeled, and I've sent 75 pounds of sausage through the KitchenAid grinder—twice—the day is done and we are drained. Every time we have processed a pig we comment on how thankful we are that we needn't do it every day.

So, for the last time for a long time, half a pig, ready for processing. The haunch was turned into sausage, which I use more frequently than ham.

We had a bit of a bad moment when we realized that the three piglets had filled our last freezer much more than we realized. We had thought that six chest freezers would be sufficient! With some rearranging, though, we managed to get all the meat in. And when the power went off temporarily, I managed to not entirely panic at the thought of six freezers with defrosting meat. I suppose that will be my constant, underlying concern until we eat (or sell) the contents.

Perhaps a little reminder to not store up treasures on earth. In this case, I take comfort in the fact that we had no intention of storing more than a third of that much meat.

***

And, for the grandparents especially: cute things about the boys.

After watching part of the fascinating movie Black Whole, Isaiah made a cube out of Geomags.

And Joe has taken to falling asleep with Jadon's Build-a-Bear, now slightly orange from life in the trailer. His little furrowed brow, framed between two stuffed ears, made Phil and I laugh as we went to bed last night.