Leaves Collected, Hog Butchering Complete, Christmas Tree Up and more!

Kali is home (and has been for just over a week)! And we are glad! Stay tuned for more from her trip. We were ready for the reverse "Kali exchange." Terah rocked our little Kali one last time and then sent her on her way with Alida, who wanted to make the trip with Grandma and Grandpa to pick up our big Kali.

We tried to hold off on as many fun and exciting seasonal things as we could for Kali's return, but it was not possible in every case. We did take advantage of some good weather days to wrap up our leaf collecting for the year. At some point there are diminishing returns and it's time to call it good enough. We have now done just that!

And just in time, as we had one of our biggest annual projects just around the corner: Hog butchering! Every year this is a taxing undertaking - emotionally, logistically, and physically. This year had the added component of this being the first time we were butchering pigs that had been born and lived every day of their lives here at Tangly Woods with us. This is how we want to do it, even if it is hard. My emotions go all over the place in the days leading up to butchering. As we went down to talk with the pigs and thank them for their lives and tell them that we would be butchering them, I felt so grateful that they were not scared of us. They flopped over immediately for their belly rubs, giving us contented grunts while we talked with them. On the one hand, it makes it harder to kill an animal that is so tame. On the other hand, I'm so glad that our pigs lived lives where they felt safe in their home and were trusting of us. It does strike me that it seems many are most comfortable eating the meat of animals that they haven't personally known, and sadly in many cases this also means animals who have been bred to be uncomfortable due to breeding them for what we want to eat the most of, have lived their lives scared of humans who mistreat them, and then experience fear and stress in their last moments. If I'm going to nourish my body with the abundance of products a hog provides for us, I want to know that that animal was well cared for and enjoyed a good life. These three "piglets" (yep, I called them "the piglets" until the very end) did indeed have a wonderful pig life and not a bad view either!

There hadn't been much "down time" leading up to the butchering, so it felt good to get up well before dawn the first morning and join Jason out by the fire. The scalding trough needs to get going early to be over 150 degrees when we have the first pig ready to go in. Jason and I drank our decaf coffee, fed the fire, and talked about how we were feeling about the day ahead. We had once again pulled out our Wendell and Tanya Berry book For the Hog Killing, 1979. This year the line of his poem that struck me the most was, "let this day begin again the change of hogs into people, not the other way around..." The day before during my weekly town trip, I was hearing stories on the news about how the few wealthiest nations of the world had bought up most of the contracts for all the promised COVID vaccines. It felt more like people turning into hogs rather than the other way around. 

I went through a lot of the steps in last year's hog butchering blog post so will not go into much detail this year. We keep refining our system, but the main things were unchanged this year from last (except we moved the large kettles off the concrete pad this year so the fires didn't crack it again). Each year we do it, I learn a little more and get my hands in more parts of it. 

And I'm not the only one learning more each year and getting more involved. Our kids are right in there with us, and the littlest is particularly excited about the ways in which a year's growth means she can do more things this time around!

The first day went seamlessly and I always feel such relief when the killing is over. And the first day is always a bit shorter and has less work for many hands. Day two is another story! 

The more hands the better when  the time comes to break down the halves and cut lard and prep chunks for sausage.

I got a lot of practice at skinning this year.

Last year Terah had her little chin poking over the table asking if she could cut lard. We told her we thought she needed to grow a little more but maybe next year. And now it is next year and she has her very own cutting board and some experience with sharp knives under her belt. She was ready!

It's always a satisfying moment when we can get the lard kettle going. 

With the ponhoss kettle and the lard kettles going, we can move on to sausage.

I had a good helper for sausage grinding too.

When the lard is really rolling, that is when it is time to put potatoes in the lard to deep fry. Then the tasting can begin - the tongues are the first things to try, then the potatoes and soon after that: ponhoss.

Terah was right in the action the whole day. 

It's nearing the end of the day when the sun is starting to set and we are filtering the lard and jarring it up and putting ponhoss in pans. 

By bedtime that night the fresh lard on the bottom shelf of the root cellar was beginning to solidify. By morning the golden liquid was solid and white!

But it's still not done at the end of day 2. There is plenty of clean up in the following days. And then arranging and rearranging freezers as we load them up with ponhoss, sausage, backbone, ribs, backstrap, and then after salt curing for 3 days, bacon. Our job was made easier by a very last minute purchase of a small used chest freezer from a friend to help us through this crunch time where we have just done chicken and hog butchering and we have lots of seeds to make their way through the deep freeze. As of this morning, we finished the last step in the process of organizing and packing away the bacons. Hog butchering 2020 is over.

Maybe some day I'll take the time to write more of my reflections about hog butchering, but once again I found those two days to be some of my favorite of the year. And this year the feelings were even deeper and also more accessible to me. I realized at the end of Sunday that I was tired to my bones and felt more alive and with more joy than I have for much of this year. I felt connected to some of the sources of my sustenance and a deep gratitude. There are times that raising pigs feels like too much. But they fit so very well into our systems here at Tangly Woods, we all like them (thank goodness Kali came around from her days of picketing with her "no pigs" homemade sign), they provide so many useful products, and they help keep me honest and uncomfortable and I am glad about all of that!

Now fast forward to today! The yearly jaunt around Tangly Woods to find a suitable Christmas tree. Some of us were a bit overdressed in sweatshirts and some of us a bit underdressed in sleeveless dresses. Either way, it was strange to put up a Christmas tree on such a warm day.

As always, the pickings seem slim but then we find one! But the process of looking is the most enjoyable part. I don't know when we last just took a stroll around the land together. Today it was the last spot we looked and we all agreed it was the best for 2020, with a few in the wings just needing a year or two more of care and growth. For the first time this year, while Kali climbed a neighboring tree, Alida cut down our Christmas tree! She was clearly proud as she drug it to the front walk for clean up and trimming before we brought it in to decorate. 

As I finish this up, Kali is playing Christmas carols on the piano. To stay with the Christmas theme, as soon as I post this the whole Tangly Woods' crew will gather to watch the American Shakespeare Center's A Christmas Carol. But before that, two quick newsflashes.

1. We are deep into seed testing for next year - sometimes a whole bunch of kinds at one time. All the girls have popcorn seed to test for next year. We are still making our way through the bushel baskets of Delicata squash. And now we are starting in on the PA Dutch squash. Yum!

2. Alida is not losing interest in the chickens! She loves them and they are pretty fond of her too. Following a family meeting months ago, the plan was for Alida to become more involved in the breeding and selection and care of the birds here at Tangly Woods. A big move in that direction happened this week as her two birds joined up with a larger flock in the arch coop and Alida is now the caregiver of those chickens. That coop involves Little Buddy pictured here - who seems to be the chicken that never grows. We all quite fond of them, but are a bit perplexed as to why they don't grow!