Vaughnshire Farm

$700,000,000,000.00 is child’s play for those serious about destroying our nation.

We use to call folks who betrayed our nation traitors and saw them hangin on the end of a rope.

Now we joke about their betrayal and we see them dangling in the funny papers.

No one believed Rome could fall,
but now her fall is a proverb among the nations.
What will America’s epitaph be?

One of the questions we were asked recently was about our pigs…. So here is a brief overview of what we have learned with pig 1 and pig 2…

We recently took pig 2 to the butcher shop and we are absolutely thrilled with the difference in taste and quality of meat between pig 1 and pig 2. 

With pig 1, we didn’t know what we were doing…like all new farmers–trial and error are sometimes the greatest learning experiences.  We built him a square pen out of hog panels and fed him all the scraps we had.  We also gave him cracked corn.  When we had extra milk or sour milk, the boys would soak the corn or a some hog finisher in the milk before feeding it to him.  While the meat was far superior to what you find in the store, we did learn a few things to improve the meat quality. 

With pig 2, the guys ringed her nose (she eventually lost her rings though)  and released her into the pasture.  She wallowed around in the mud in the pond and ran around with the cows, sheep and goats.  She ate nuts she dug up, ate grass, a bit of stolen sweet feed from the milk cow, occasionally some corn (she didn’t like much) and soured milk and also a plenteous supply of fresh scraps from our kitchen.  Pig 2 was leaner.  The meat off of pig 2 is much better and in the future we will be pasturing our pigs as opposed to a pen.  The boys hope to set up an area for raising pigs in a wooded area on our property where there are lots of nuts to root up. 

If you are thinking about raising a pig or two, from our experience, we can tell you that pigs are fun and relatively easy to raise.  They grow quick and you can have delicious farm raised pork in your freezer in about 6 months. 

Today we were quite busy.  We took a trip to the butcher shop to pick up our meat.  We took all the coolers and freezer bags we had and still needed more…so the children ended up packing some of the meat in plastic bags and putting it inside boxes.  We froze on the way home with the air conditioner on high!

Here the boys are unloading the roller rack and packing our hamburger patties.  We are very glad we opted to have 1/3 of our beef put into patties.  They came out very nice…and are sure to be a convenience for me cooking. 

They loaded the coolers on to a roller cart to take out to the trailer. 

Almost ready to go…It took quite a while to pack over 600 lbs of meat. 

A very proud 11 year old stands by the lamb meat he raised. 

 A very busy 2 year old pushing carts. 

After a big day, we finally get the last of the meat into the freezer.  We still have a lot of rearranging to do, but at least we have our own beef, pork and lamb stocked at home in our freezers!  And Wow..that is an amazing feeling to raise your own food!  Anyone wanna buy some meat?!!

Since moving to the farm, we have had a crash course with the concept of food going from the field to table…family style.  I will be the first to admit that at first it was at first very strange concept.  We, like the majority of Americans, were completely disconnected from knowing where our food came from.  However, lately we have had plenty of opportunities to get use to the age old idea of family food production. 

Yesterday, we took our steer to the butcher.  He weighed in at 1,080 lbs!  I was surprised he weighed so much!  We also loaded up a pig weighing in at 205 and two lambs that each weighed 50 lbs.  Had we of known the lambs were only 50 lbs, we probably would have waited a little while before processing them.  

We were concerned about loading up the animals on the trailer.  Our last experience with loading up an animal to take to the butcher was traumatic.  Traumatic only because the pig would not hop up in the trailer like we were expecting him to. Only after lots of dragging, pushing and ear deafening pig squealing, was the 300 lb pig finally in the trailer. That day we found out that they don’t just hop up in the trailer when you want them too. 

However, we learned a few things from last time.  First, don’t feed them before you load them up.  You will want them hungry so they come to the feed you lure them in with.  Second, park the trailer in the field the night before and put a feeding trough in it.  They will want to check it out. 

The guys put a feeding trough and feed in the trailer the day before.  They left the trailer open and in the field over night.  The next morning our 12 year old went out to the trailer and put some more feed in the trough.  He then ran up the hill to go find the cows and bring them down.  When he arrived back at the trailer, to our great astonishment, the pig was waiting for him.  He was lounging in the feed trough inside the trailer.  WOW, that was easy!  Our steer wasn’t as easy, but compared to what we were expecting… 

Now we were ready to head off to the butcher.  We had about an hour and a half truck ride with 8 children and a trailer full of animals.  We arrived at the Yoder’s butcher shop and went inside to fill out our order.  They hand you a sheet of paper for each animal you bring in and ask you how you would like him.  Roasts or Steaks, thick or thin, tenderized or not, medium or hot sausage etc. etc. etc.  After we filled out our orders, it was time to drive around back and unload.

The boys help unload. 

Here they try to coax the cow off the trailer and into the weighing station. 

Little ones look on with great interest. 

Still trying to coax the cow…only this time out of the weighing station.  I became a bit concerned when the executioner began to yell at the cow, “HOOO, YHAWW, I don’t have all day cow!” 

Maybe I should get the children back in the truck??

The Yoder’s butcher shop is quite large.  The children look on at the work taking place.  Our 3 year old asked, “Is this the place where they take the cows apart?” 

It was a great field trip…that is…for those who enjoy loading and unloading messy animals and watching people cut up meat.   We will return in about 3 weeks to pick up our meat. 

The day has arrived and we are downsizing here at Vaughnshire (for a change!). 

We will be less one cow, one pig and two lambs out in the pasture –  We’re off to the butcher…that is if we can manage to catch them all! 

This year, we chose a female pig.  For those who haven’t heard our pig story from last year, you may want to go check it out.  Last year we had a male pig and that came with the duty to remove certain parts so he would grow into a nice, meat pig. 

However, this year came with a new set of operations…that of learning how to ring a pig’s nose so we could let her graze in the pasture without plowing it up.  Like last year, I stayed in the house and pretended not to hear the screaming pig or see the boys bent over struggling with a pig who obviously didn’t find nose piercing a pleasant activity. 

They finally finished the deed and released her into the pasture.  All is well, except our concern that maybe pigs like to eat baby lambs?  We are still relatively new to farm life so we don’t know these things yet? 

We separated the sheep and the pig with an electric tape fence.  The pig, of course, tested the fenced area we wanted her in and kept going to the fenced area we did not want her in.  After a while, we left her……and watched and hoped she didn’t eat lambs or try to hurt the sheep.  We quickly observed she befriended the sheep and seems to think that she is part of the herd following the sheep where they graze and lounging where they lounge.  It is sort of a strange site. 

With spring comes an increase in the amount of things to do around here on the farm as well.  The boys have all kinds of baby, toddler and laying chickens to manage and are scurrying around trying to put together plans for an egg-mobile.  We also just acquired a new pig.  I am not sure how old she is.  And then there is the garden…awaiting…  We have plants ready to be transplanted and seeds to sow.  We are waiting on a nice day without wind gusts and rain.  The guys have been doing their own spring projects like clearing brush, limbs and gathering compost piles. 

Cutting tree limbs

Part of our spring cleaning included me putting an ad on Craig’s list for our massive rooster population.  They were all gone the next day!  Wow…what a difference that makes.  We would have prepared them for the freezer, but circumstances with work and activities did not permit a chicken processing day. 

I still have a huge list of spring cleaning “to do’s” pertaining to the house that I will hopefully get around to doing. 

Beth promised photos of our lard rendering excitement, so instead of editing her post and retroactively adding them, I will add them in a step by step format.

First cube the fat

Count your son’s fingers when he is finished

Cook it down.  We found that our new “crock pot oven” worked great.

We added a teaspoon of baking soda to lighten the finished product.

Liquid temperature should not get above 250 degrees.

Strain and cool.  (We used our milk filters)

Once it cooled down and looked nice and white, we spooned it into some jars and stuck them in the fridge.

Mrs. C. brought this ad to us last weekend.  Apparently we were not the only one’s who had a Monster Turkey for Thanksgiving! - Great ad!..

However, in our case, the turkey was not fighting for space in the freezer - he was too busy taking up oven space.  It was the cow and the pig fighing over the freezer space.  Eventually though they both learned to share the space available and get along like old field friends… at least when the light is on.  Who knows what they do when the door is closed?

Today we picked up our Freezer Pig.  After an entertaining summer with our farm pig the day finally came for him to graduate.  That’s right after a lot of study in the field (literally) and further reading and reflecting on what the Vaughn family has in the way of leftovers each day it was finally time for him to move from being a farm pig to a freezer pig.  This is a great milestone in every pig’s life and one you would think he would look forward to.

So on Tuesday we backed the truck up to his pen and
opened up the gate so he could jump right in the trailer.

Here pig pig pig….It’s uhm… graduation day

NO!… I don’t want to go to the butcher…
Some pigs are a faster study than others
so I tried to assist him in his decision making process.

Would you just get in the trailer?

Look I didn’t want it to come to this,
but I’m going to turn off the cameras.

OK so the real question is how DO you get a 300 pound hog in the trailer if he doesn’t want to go?  You don’t chase him in.  You don’t coax him.  You don’t reason with him.  You don’t ask “nicely”.  We tried all those things.  No the way we got our pig on the trailer was to lasso the hind legs, plug our ears and drag him in…. little by little, inch by inch, with him squalling and hollering the whole way!  But in the end - when it’s time to graduate - it’s time to graduate.

Finally at the butcher…a.k.a. the graduation ceremony

How would you like your freezer pig?…  “I’m going to go with frozen.”

Seriously, we found a great local processor who made the first hog processing a joy for the family.  We went down the check list and answered all the questions they had about the cuts we wanted and asked all the questions we had.  Questions like, “Do we get bacon”?  Or, “Can you render the fat”?  The answer to these questions was we can give you the slabs of bacon and we can put your fat in a bag for you.  We thought that was a great deal and left farm pig in the gentle hands of “Mrs. Tweedy”

So what do you think he weighed?  We had our family guessing game when we got home.  Here were our guesses:

248 - Daddy
316 – Pierce
250 – Mariah
250 - Peyton
230 – Mommy
230 – Patrick

I’ll give you the answer after the next picture in case you want to play your own family guessing game.  Just remember you are guessing the hanging weight, not his body weight which you see in the pictures and video above.

The next day we called for the weight and made sure farm pig made it through the ceremony ok.  They told us he did great and would be ready to come home on Friday.  Everyone was excited this morning when I announced it was time to go get freezer pig.  We grabbed the cooler, loaded up the truck, and headed out for the processor.  The picture below is the final result of this agrarian experiment. 

Not a bad summer’s work for carrying scraps from the kitchen to the field.  The answer to the weight question is 237 pounds of prime pork for .62 cents a pound.  Tell me again why we wouldn’t get another pig next year?  Of course we still have the exciting adventure of rendering lard and finding a meat slicer to slice our bacon…. I’m sure there will be fun stories coming up about those adventures.  Oh yea.  On Monday we pick up our beef for the year, since Monsanto won’t be ready to graduate until next summer.