2019 Hog Butchering at Tangly Woods

Jason and I continue to slowly make our way through Farming While Black by Leah Penniman. Just recently in one of our morning reading times, she was referencing a section from Braiding Sweetgrass, where Robin Wall Kimmerer summarizes the sacred law of wild foraging for plants. We would have read it before but it felt particularly appropriate as I was working to prepare emotionally for our hog butchering. While this is written with plants in mind, it struck me how much of it could also apply well to butchering animals. I'd like to commit to figuring out how these principles apply to all types of harvesting (plants and animals alike) and can be lived out in our life more consistently and authentically:

• Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them. Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
• Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
• Never take the first. Never take the last.
• Take only what you need.
• Take only that which is given.
• Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
• Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
• Share.
• Give thanks for what you have been given.
• Gift a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
• Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever. 

The night before our hog butchering, I sent Jason to bed as early as possible since he was getting up to start the fire around 4 a.m. After getting kids settled down for the night, I found myself googling things like "how to be at peace with butchering your own animals." In addition to finding (and ordering) the new book For the Hog Killing, 1979 by Tanya Berry, I also landed upon this article in the Modern Farmer.

I'm going to share a few excerpts below that resonated the most with me as I was processing the waves of emotions as our butchering days neared. And at this point in the post, I will also include a warning for those reading: there will be some pictures of our hog butchering included below with my reflections.

"Some people get uncomfortable reading anything to do with killing an animal, and I understand this. When we knew we were moving to the farm, I decided that if I was going to continue to eat meat regularly, I owed it to myself - and the animal - to be present at its death, as well as its birth and the days in between..."

Then regarding butchering day: "It will always be uncomfortable...You know and they don't. You question your motives, as you should...But I come back to the same decision each time: I am part of nature, not above it. I choose to be within the food chain, not to stand outside of it..."

And in terms of preparing for butchering: "I hang white prayer flags in the stall, and the night before, I sit for a very short time and thank them for their good work and sacrifice. The week before, I am always agitated. I was talking to another farm friend who said it would be the day she wasn't agitated that would upset her. I know I will always feel anxious in the days leading up to the slaughter. On the actual day, it is so fast, and then they are gone...I have cried on butcher day in the past, when it is over. But now I usually have a day of tears in the week prior. It is on my mind, a conscious decision I make to kill an animal to eat it. It is a conflict to love animals, nurture them and kill them. I get it. Because I live it."

So I've now successfully shared other people's words that have connected with me, but I'm still not easily articulating my own. I'm feeling a lot more things these days than I can easily put words too. While I knew that logically there was no reason to feel differently about this year's butchering, the only hog we were butchering from our property was the mama of the piglets. It was the first time we were butchering a mammal that we had watched birth, nurse, protect and raise our first litter of piglets. I felt not only grateful to her for her life but the lives she had brought into the world. As I looked at her lifeless body and thought of her three spunky piglets, there it was right there together: milk and blood. Thankfully the lesson from last year from my dear and wise friend from the Philippines had stuck with me: I was sure to let the mama pig know that I was grateful to her. It was still hard! But what the article above reminded me of and helped me put into perspective is that it's ok for it to be hard. That maybe it would trouble me more if I was not experiencing some angst about butchering days.

There are so many things I feel grateful for around the butchering this year.

• The killing part went seamlessly, instantly and without anxiety/fear/pain on the part of either sow. I was so relieved!
• We moved the butchering down to our home this year and it was so much less complicated - so much less hauling things up and down and was lovely to get a system set up that will work well for years to come. It was especially helpful since I landed some kind of quick but unpleasant stomach bug on day 1! I was very glad to not be trying to do what I was doing, while feeling lousy, all away from the comforts of home.
• The weather was perfect for butchering - cold enough for the meat to be right for working with and no precipitation to make things unpleasant to work outside in. 
• No one got burned by the various fires going for scalding, making ponhoss, and rendering lard.
• The girls all had fun and Terah is chomping at the bit to be old enough to help cut up lard!
• What we have tested so far has been delicious!

Here's a bit of a visual run down of the main two butchering days.

The concrete pad was the center of the activity! Jason had planned ahead when doing the railing to have one section removable to make way for the scalding pot!

 Scalding is done to loosen the hair. Scraping happens before the gutting and halving.

The woodshed provided the perfect place to set up a winch for the gutting/halving. Jason was pretty pleased with this!

By the end of day 1, both sows were cut into sections and ready for day 2! Despite birthing and nursing piglets, our sow had quite the layer of lard still on her! Off of her and the much smaller female we rendered over 12 gallons of lard!

I was so very grateful to wake up on day 2 feeling better - able to enjoy and not just endure doing the morning chores. And I felt the first pangs of hunger as we got into cutting up the lard. A very good sign!

Alida had graduated to helping with lard cutting, and she had a very attentive pupil who was eager to observe and try it herself - "maybe next year" we told her!

Day 2 is the busier day that can benefit from more hands to help. Once the lard was cut up, there was sausage to grind and bag (about 70lb of it) and then kettles to tend as the lard heated up and the bones/scraps were boiled for ponhoss.

Once the lard has been rendered, then we press it and then strain the lard out and press the cracklins. That is not, however, before we throw some potatoes in the lard to cook and enjoy fresh and hot with salt and pepper!

Then the end of the day is the race against the sun (and in this case us getting cleaned up and to a CJP holiday party!): there is lard to jar up, ponhoss to put into pans and very busy taste testers!

By the time we were leaving for the evening, the jars of lard in the root cellar were starting to cool and whiten. It's so beautiful!

Speaking of lard, we used the last of last year's right at butchering time. So we have already started in on the fresh supply and I just popped popcorn for our kids and their friends (who are hopefully winding down soon for the night)! I'm ready to wind down too!

So the butchering is officially over - yesterday was the end of it with the slicing and vacuum sealing of over 44 pounds of bacon!

As soon as the butchering came to an end, we shifted our attention to making some adjustments for the living situations of our remaining pigs. The three piglets needed to move to winter quarters where they were not contained solely by electronet that kept grounding out and they kept getting out from under it. And the red adult pig needed to be moved to some fresh pasture and was very eager for company. So we brought her some. She is still figuring out if she liked our solution for company or not!

The one really nice thing about separating piglets from the mama was that we got to begin getting in with them and letting them them figure us out and us getting to know them better. Here's a short video of the three of them getting acquainted with Kali! They were enjoying tickling her and playing "ring around the Kali." We are enjoying them immensely!

Leaves and family time, including a WEDDING!

Thanks to the chance of icy roads today, we vacated PA a day early in favor of greater ease in our return trip home. It was not that we were eager to leave - Terah in fact wanted to stay at least 80 days - but a buffer day between a trip a way and the start of a work week is always a good idea! It's a rainy cool day so it has nicely limited our options, which we often need help with. It didn't keep me from enjoying a walk with a friend this morning and another coming up shortly.

Prior to our travels to be with family these last 3 days, we got in some really good family leaf raking time - complete with leaf pile fun for the whole family AND some good fun for the piglets too. I put two videos at the end of this post: Kali needed an outlet for her creativity (now that the play is over) and so was coming up with a new technique for raking. Even Terah agreed that it is not nearly as efficient. But it was good for some laughs! And under some of the leaf piles was quite the accumulation of acorns so we raked up sheet-fulls for the pigs. They LOVED rooting through the pile to find the tasty morsels. But the piglets added a new twist to the whole thing. They loved both the acorns AND the leaf pile so would both play and eat. Very very cute! In this picture, it appears that the mama pig is almost smiling her thanks for the snack.

It's December now and we normally like to wrap up our leaf raking by this time, but we aren't where we want to be just yet. It's a pretty large pile but we are still hoping to get some more loads to add to it before we call it good for the year. So far we have never had too many... At the same time, we are eager to get to some of the fall/winter routine tasks, as well as see if we can't make any progress on the longer term projects that normally have to wait for the off season to get our attention. As I work on this, Jason is starting some sketching for the subterranean greenhouse we hope to put on the front of the house this winter. We successfully transported all the glass panes from his parents' home back to Tangly Woods so that is one step in the right direction!

Our girls got to enjoy an extra day on PA this time around as they took a road trip on Wednesday with their aunt Emily and cousin Ivy. It was an uneventful and fun trip for all - it is obvious that Terah is a much better traveler when her parents are not with her! Jason and I stayed back to come up the following day - both to enjoy some time just the two of us and to get things ready to be gone for a few days. It ended up being a rather chaotic partial day with one person coming to buy some laying hens and borrow a coop, a friend coming to work on some of the hog butchering set up and then another friend coming to buy our boar.

So we only have female pigs for now - we still don't know if our large red pig is pregnant but we decided that if they hadn't been able to figure it out by now it was probably not going to happen. And we were happy to simplify things a bit for the winter (not to mention that the boar was not always being very kind to the female at feeding times). 

By Thursday morning, we were good and ready for some relaxation after the excitement leading up to the trip. It was a really good time with family. For me this year there was a growing discomfort with the notion of the holiday "Thanksgiving" and what that means for many people in this country. I was grateful that at our main feast as a family we were able to take some time to acknowledge the history of oppression of indigenous persons (that is still going on) and to name and share a little about the indigenous group that lived in Jason's home area first. That felt like a small but important first step! I was grateful for good conversation about so many meaningful and important things. In addition, there was lots of music, food, laughter, game playing (Boggle!), walks, AND a wedding! 

As we were getting ready for the annual "Sing for your Supper" event at Jason's aunt's home, I asked Jason if he thought I should take our camera. We both decided that others would take care of that and we shouldn't bother. I, in general, do a horrible time of remembering to take photos at Benner gatherings - or being inspired enough to go up and root through our things to find the camera! So we got to the event only to be surprised that Jason's brother and fiance were getting married right then and there. Only a very few were in on the surprise, and the rest of us took a few minutes for it to sink in what was happening. And then we were elated!! It will be hard to top that in future years - what a party and lovely time of celebration!!

Well, time to head out on a walk! Here's the piglets enjoying leaves and acorns:


And Kali "raking":

Everything other than the play!

It's a gorgeous fall day and I want to head out for the evening chores here shortly, so this will be a quick compilation of the things that have dotted our lives over the last few weeks other than the play (which clearly took "center stage!").

Possibly against my better judgment, we offered to host a CJP Halloween Party. It was so much fun! Leading up to it, I did wonder why I keep getting myself into these fixes where I clearly take on too much. It's just all good stuff... And I knew how much our girls would love a reason to make donuts and bob for apples; we weren't likely to do that just for the 5 of us. So instead we partied with 30 or so others (students from my program and much of the cast from Kali's play). The evening included a costume contest (Lady Gaga and Beyonce won, but Jason was a striking "replica" of Tom Petty - even brushed up on his song Free Falling enough to include it in the evening's fun), bobbing for apples, eating donuts off strings and then various games.

Kali hadn't been sure what she was going to be for the party but then she dreamed she was a raccoon. That worked for her! How fun to dream up your costume!!

Between various social things, play practices, and less light in the evenings, we have gotten to a slow start on our leaf harvests this year. And Jason has done a lot more raking solo - he's out there now working on the garden path mulching with leaves from our wood's paths. We have only gotten to do a few short stints of family leaf raking, but I hope some more are on the near horizon. I'm continuing to struggle to strike a balance between home demands/needs/desires and my office work responsibilities. There's a lot vying for my attention in both realms these days - a considerable source of stress that I'm continually trying to work at figuring out, lest it get the best of me.

I have been grateful for more recent bursts of fresh air - thanks to Mom and Dad, Jason and I have been enjoying more morning walk/jogs together! We are savoring a nice long November stint with them upstairs. I have not seen nearly as much of Terah (or Alida) in recent days. Particularly Terah has a way of migrating upstairs often - sometimes I don't even know she has disappeared. It was so clear how much she was eager to reconnect when they arrived, snuggling up for a story or just a cuddle! The house feels much more complete when they are here! We are grateful to them for being willing to tend to Tangly Woods again while we head north for Thanksgiving at the Benner's.

AND we are very much hoping our pigs behave in our absence. Just yesterday Alida came up to the house to tell me that a piglet had gotten out - rooted under the electric fence. Jason has tightened it up and it seems to be working again, but they are getting to be very adventurous (and hungry) gals! They are really growing and seem to be nursing less and ravenously hungry most of the time. I've been enjoying scooping up cherry pits from the woods and listening to them crunch them down. I just got the last of the windrows of millet for them today so we'll probably resort to just giving them an afternoon milk snack for the foreseeable future, which will not disappoint them! I'm hoping that I'll figure out how to process and prepare for the upcoming hog butchering the weekend after Thanksgiving. I don't expect for it to be easy, and I don't really wish for it to be.

 Well, speaking of pigs, it's feeding time!

Pride and Prejudice

Over 3 weeks since the last post and what a full several weeks it has been! As I type, Kali (or Miss Caroline Bingley) is at "all strike" at EMU, tearing down the set and putting things away from the fall play that just concluded last night! I expect an emotional letdown is on the horizon for her. And maybe not only her. I must admit that, even after seeing the show 7 times, I'm a little sad it is over. I will not miss driving to town multiple times a day, hardly ever having evenings at home, or hanging out in the EMU coffee shop working at 10 p.m. But we have no regrets whatsoever about Kali's participation. It was such an absolutely positive and fun experience for her!

I have no idea how long it will be before lines from the play are no longer inserted into our daily conversations. I have been known to say of late things like, "go, go, go" or "you'll tear my nerves to pieces" or "there is no stratagem in the common cold..." And Terah will be playing by herself and all of a sudden in a perfected nasal tone we'll hear a drawn out, "Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcey." As I type, Alida is having a snack at the table and just came out with, "Lady Catherine DeBlah" and is now singing, "I like to eat roast goose with stuffing..." Other lines crop up here and there for all of us. Some make me laugh, others make me groan. I'm eager to no longer have the catchy tune and words "the purpose of a man is to love a woman and the purpose of a woman is to love a man..." stuck in my head. Those things will fade over time, and I imagine what will remain is many good memories!

It's almost hard for me to believe just a few months ago that this was just an idea. On a much smaller scale it reminds me of us buying our place here on Fruit Farm Lane. Would we have done it had we known how much work it would be? Maybe not! AND we are so glad we did! Had I had a clear sense of the time commitment this would be for Kali and all of us, would we have still encouraged her to audition? Maybe not! AND we are so glad we did! I don't know what her next theatrical undertaking will be, but I feel rather certain this one will not be her last!

I mentioned to her the other day that it would be interesting to see what it would be like for her to take on a character that is a bit more like her. Miss Bingley did not have much in common with the Kali we know and love! She is as snooty and stuck up as Kali is down to earth and approachable. On the way home from practice one night, Kali was reflecting how if she was going to a party as Kali she would not like to wear makeup, have her hair done all up and be wearing a light pink dress with a train. But as Miss Bingley it worked. That was when I knew that she was really getting into her character.

It was really special that our families came from near and far to see the show. All our siblings and parents were able to see it. I think it was fun for many to see Kali in a new light. And it was hard for some to believe that this was her very first show. From the very start, it was clear that Kali would learn and grow so much through the experience. That is all well and good, but what was most delightful to me was how she practically skipped out of every practice. And when show time came around she had a few butterflies but really wasn't overly nervous. She was more excited than nervous. And she was mostly anticipating how sad she was going to feel when it was all over!

It was such a fun group of people to work with. It felt so supportive, with everyone cheering everyone else on. It was no wonder the play came together so well, with a group of people that worked hard, enjoyed being together and knew how to have a really good time. It was fun for me to get in on a little of what happens in the "green room" pre- and post-performances (since I am still that gal that doesn't like to miss anything). Each night Kali enjoyed counting how many boppy pins had to be used to keep her hair up - it was always in the 40's or 50's!

I've been thinking during the two weeks of performances about the whole concept of being proud of your child - it was after all a play called Pride and Prejudice. I have reflected just a bit on why I have not felt all that inclined to say "I'm proud of you" to Kali. I do, in many ways, feel proud of her - the courage she had to try out, the dedication to learn her part and fully embody her character, and the way she stretched herself over the last few months. On the other hand, these are also things that I've grown to love about who Kali is and so this process has not been outside of who I know her to be. While it's a new experience, she was very much herself throughout. So what I mostly feel is admiration and love for who she is and who she is becoming, and am glad for the ways being in the play this fall contributed to her learning and development (not to mention many really enjoyable evenings for her!).  

She may be growing up, but it was pretty fun to follow her out of EMU last night with Kali riding on her tricycle. It was the tricycle's first time being in a play too, and I think it got some of the best laughs!! I don't know that it will be in a play again, but I'm eager to see what Kali's next one will be! I think first we are all going to enjoy a little recoup and reconnection time! I was looking over the week ahead and had this little moment of joy when I realized that tomorrow I'll come home from work and not have to leave again in the evening. So we'll try to savor the positive things about the play coming to an end, and also support Kali as she both grieves the end of a very special thing and considers what this points her towards in terms of future endeavors. If it means us all getting to enjoy more theatrical performances, I'm a fan!