Looking Back: Things We've Done Right

Things we’ve done right in our three years here:

1)  Getting chickens.  That includes having our own layers and learning to butcher our own meat chickens.

2)  Getting Dexters.  While Sara is not the best representative of the breed, she has given us a marvelous heifer, and Siobhan has convinced us that we love cows, particularly Dexters.  The very helpful and friendly Dexter breeders we’ve met have also contributed to our enthusiasm.

3)  Getting pigs.  Herb getting to meet the Large Blacks at Nature’s Harmony Farm changed his perspective on pigs, and he caved in to my pleading for a pig when I found some on craigslist.  Now we’re both pig fans!

4)  Getting Muscovy ducks to eat flies in the barnyard.  Besides doing exactly what we raised them to do, they are beautiful and fun to watch.

5)  Finding Jeff McBryar, our butcher, and Jim Gifford, the breeder of our Berkshire crosses.  It’s so helpful to have local contacts that we can trust for their expertise in their particular area.

6)  Getting a smoker and vacuum sealer.  We are hooked after smoking our own bacon and ham, and Herb will probably smoke anything that lies still, including fresh salmon at Christmas.  The vacuum sealer will prevent freezer burn in our meat and produce.   It has even been useful in packaging bubble-wrapped bottles of homemade liqueur for air travel.

7)  Reading blogs.  I have learned so much from reading blogs, particularly Farming in France, Hope Refuge Farm, Sugar Mountain Farm, and Throwback at Trapper Creek.  I used to follow Nature Harmony’s Farm blog when they still had one, and this led us to their summer Farm School which was a tremendous help in giving us insight and direction—and leading us to pigs!

8)  Getting a generator.  It could have been a serious mistake not to get one sooner, but Herb managed to find one in time to save our meat last time the power went out.

9)  Making improvements over the past three years.  These include:

• Getting our Kubota L-series tractor, one of the best decisions we've ever made.
• Fencing our 20 x 30’ garden.
• Fencing the barnyard.
• Fencing the Home Pasture with no-climb horse fence so our tiny Dexter calves can be safe.
• Hiring a crew to link all our fences and give us the large new pasture we call Kara’s Pasture.  They came with ideas that saved hundreds of feet of fencing, made our pastures more functional, and got the job done in a fraction of the time that Herb could have done it alone.
• Converting half of a surplus shed into a brooder house.
• Building a large chicken coop and moving it to the safety of the barnyard with water and electricity handy.
• Piping water to the barnyard—it has saved us carrying countless buckets in freezing weather.
• Running electricity to the barn—enabling us to have motion-detector security lights, unfrozen water in the winter, and a barn ceiling fan for hot weather.  A future project is to connect it up to the brooder house so we won’t need to run multiple extension cords.
• Getting a head gate set up with a chute, small round pen and simple sweep gate.

10)  Doing this!  We love what we are doing for ourselves, for our children and grandchildren, for our animals, for this bit of creation God has given us to steward, and for friends and acquaintances we can share these blessings with.

The Accidental Ham

Earlier in December, the hams I cured were ready to smoke.  They were just too big for me to handle from a wheelchair, so I had to pass the baton to Herb.  After all, it's really a fun process, and I knew he would enjoy doing it.

First, he rinsed the hams well, especially in all the cavities.  Jeff had opened them along the long bone and encouraged me to pack salt in there to encourage an even cure.

Next, Herb patted the hams dry with paper towels.

This shows how the meat pulled back from the joint bone during the curing process, which took hams that were slightly over 15 lbs. down to 13 and a half.

Here's the other end of one of the hams.

Early in the afternoon, Herb set up the smoker, put chunks of hickory in the bottom, and--once the smoke was drifting out--put the hams in the smoker.  Based on the amount of time it took the bacon, I figured the hams needed several hours.  So we went about our business, leaving the hams to soak up the delicious hickory smoke.

. . .

Herb fed the animals before it got dark and left for a meeting.  He got home about 9 p.m. and suddenly exclaimed, "The hams!"

Accompanied by my wails, he rushed out to unplug the smoker and haul out the darkened carcasses of our once-beautiful hams.  We were sick at heart!  How could we have forgotten them?  Herb stuck the lumps of meat in the fridge, more out of reflex than anything else, and we went to bed.

The next day I suggested that since Jim and Monique wanted their ham cut up and frozen in stew-sized chunks, why didn't we go ahead and cut one up and see if we could salvage any?

So Herb got out a knife, and to our delight, there was a beautiful, pink ham cooked to perfection inside that charred hunk of meat!  Little bits that fell off tasted amazing.  We couldn't believe it!  When I (finally) checked on the internet to see how long the hams should have been smoked, we found that the  8 hours they spent in the smoker was exactly the right amount of time.

So on Christmas Day, our accidental ham will be the centerpiece of our table, and we will thank God for ALL His goodness this past year.  That's no accident!

Curing Bacon at Home

Over a year ago I had bought some pork belly at Nature's Harmony Farm.  Unsure what to do with it, I kept it in the freezer all this time.  Recently I had the motivation to figure out how to cure it, with our own pork ready to be brought home in a few days.  So I researched recipes online and used them as a basis to create my own homemade bacon cure.

The ingredients:
1/2 c. kosher salt
1 1/2 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
2 small sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 sprig of fresh thyme, crumbled to remove leaves
1 bay leaf
10 juniper berries
fresh ground pepper

I hand ground the garlic and herbs with a mortar and pestle, then blended them with the salt.

Some recipes use glass or plastic containers; others use ziploc bags.  I chose the container method for my bacon.  I cut a new plastic sink liner in pieces and used a piece to raise the bacon up out of any liquid that would drain out during the curing process.

Next I rubbed the curing salt all over the pork belly and into any crevices, then closed the container and put it in the fridge.

Two days later I drained off the small amount of fluid that had collected in the bottom of the container and reapplied the curing salt.

After five days I could see that no more liquid was draining out, and the bacon was quite a bit firmer than it had been at first.  The final step was to thoroughly rinse the bacon, pat it dry, and smoke it for 2 hours with hickory chips.

A few days later when Herb came home for Thanksgiving, he cooked the bacon for breakfast.

We learned a few things from this experiment:
(1) The ideal time for curing the bacon is 3 to 5 days;
(2) one hour is long enough to smoke it, and
(3) it was truly delicious, and we can't wait to taste our own bacon!

A Busy, Wonderful Day

After we got Sara fixed up, halters on her and Siobhan, and acorns collected for the pigs, Herb went to work setting up our new smoker with me as his assistant.

Once it was ready, it had to be cured.  He rubbed vegetable oil all  over the inside, then plugged it in for 3 hours.

Here is the smoker getting cured, although nothing shows since you don't use wood to cure it.

The pigs heard the metal rattling on the back porch near their food bin, and they squealed excitedly, sure it was something good for them.  That was so tragically ironic, since it is FOR them, that it made us sad.

Finally the smoker was cured and cooled and ready to go.  We put foil packets of mesquite chips that had been soaked in water and a few larger pieces directly on the lava rocks.

Next, we poured a beer into the water pan and finished filling it with water.

On the top rack of the smoker we placed the brisket we had bought at Triple H Meats, the same place we will take the pigs on Nov. 7.

I kept the seasonings simple so we could taste what the smoker does to the meat:  Penzey's Sunny Spain seasoning and some salt on the meat and a beer in the water pan.

Finally, we closed the smoker, plugged it in and let it go for 2 hours.  Mouth-watering smells and wisps of smoke began wafting forth before long.  It was a long afternoon to wait . . .

So we decided to accomplish a few more things.  Herb hitched up the trailer and drove it into the pigs' pasture so we can start feeding them in it tomorrow.  They came over to investigate and greeted us.  I started scratching 4, and she sank down full length on the ground with a "smile" on her face.  Both of us starting rubbing and scratching her while she ate up the attention.  In a few minutes 8 joined us and  flopped over for her scratch just like 4.  We must have sat there for five minutes, giving the pigs a massage while they "smiled" in bliss.  They are NOT making this easy!

One last job before fixing dinner.  While Herb braced the trailer with concrete blocks, I got a light set up in the chicken coop.  It's time to start extending the girls' light to keep their egg production up over the short winter days.  As I screwed in the bulb, I looked down and said, "Stupid chicken!"

Then I looked closer at the egg lying on the floor.  Hmm, I thought I knew what color eggs all my chickens lay, and I've never seen one that color.  I wonder if it could be a duck egg?

My research says not--all duck eggs are white or creamy--but it does make me wonder who made these two little "nests" on the floor and why?  Ooh, I just love a mystery!

The unsolved mystery had to wait because it was time to fix dinner:  home-smoked brisket, garlic smashed potatoes, home-grown green beans with garlic, and home-grown salad with cucumbers and the last few ripe tomatoes.  Dessert was Crannachan, a Scottish dessert that is basically whipped cream flavored with whiskey and honey.  And for an after-dinner drink, we had a bit of the Glen Moray whiskey we bought in Scotland with Katie and Cameron.  Now that was the perfect end to a perfect day!