Almost There

My baby sister (okay, not such a baby anymore), Katie, and her sweet husband, Josh, are getting ready to welcome their first babe into the world. Katie's hoarding cute cloth diapers and knitting up a storm! We cannot wait to meet little Lyla and I had a LOT of fun taking some maternity portraits with her recently on the grounds of a beautiful old mansion.

Spoons

The Nativity

We unwrapped the thrift store nativity pieces one afternoon at nap time, when I sensed my little fellow needed some special time with me.
He put the characters where they needed to be. Shepherds on a hill of rumpled blanket overlooking a plaid flannel sheet Bethlehem. Wise men far off in the East at foot-of-bed. Mary and Joseph in a quilt cave. He listened intently as I quietly told the story. I sincerely love how he is grasping the season this year.
Later, the nativity moved downstairs to the dining room table. I feel it is too precious *not* to be played with and I think you'll enjoy his little three year old addition to the creche scene:

Processing Day

After it hung in cold air for four days, some friends came over to help us process the hog.

Sean used a reciprocating saw and a meat saw to slice down the backbone. We had trouble with the reciprocating saw getting too hot - you can see the white fat as he cuts in the photo below.

The meat saw, which we purchased at a restaurant supply store and also used on the cow Sean butchered last year, has a blade that easily bends and was a pain to use. We haven't found a better saw option.... but in the end, between the two, it was done.



Friends held the feet while Sean sawed. The carcass next to the hog is a deer, as it is also hunting season here.

We split the hog into sixths to bring inside. The two front shoulders, the side slabs, and then the rear legs.

Skinning...

I found a recipe for a white sausage that I wanted to try. It must have been a poor man's version of sausage, made with oats and traditional sausage spices like pepper and sage and the ground fat from around the kidneys mixed it. We had trouble with it bursting when cooked, but it was very good and tasted just like sausage, even the texture.

Bacon!


The kitchen was sausage central and the dining room was the chopping, slicing and break-down local. We used the KitchenAid grinder attachment and an antique manual one that our friends brought over. We have a KitchenAid sausage stuffer, which stinks and so we bought a 5 lb. manual one from amazon, which works great. While the KitchenAid grinder works quickly, I did not like that it was too loud to talk over, which is not a problem with the antique manual one. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for one.




Salami!

With three children and five adults, it took about eight hours, from clean kitchen to clean kitchen. We made over eighty pounds of breakfast sausage and salami, thirty-five lbs of bacon, about forty pounds of ham. With chops and ribs and all we got between 180-190 lbs of meat.

After the last post, I received a lot of questions, which you can follow in the comments. If there is anything else I can share, just ask.

Hog Harvesting

This was our first year raising our own pork. You can meet Snitzel the pig here and read a little about the fun she added to our lives. This is also fair warning that if you are squeamish, to click away, as I'm sharing some photos of hog-to-pork-to-feed-our-family.

We are so amazed at how fast a hog grows! In just nine months Snitzel weighed about 320 pounds, fed mostly on vegetables and a little corn.

I was brave and watched the slaughter because I figure if I really want to do this, raising meat for my family, I need to accept and process the entire life cycle . Sean ended up dispatching the hog with a 9mm shot in the brain. He then cut her jugular vein so she bled out. And that is the very pretty-fied version of how things happened. You can thank me for leaving out those photos. :) However I could not resist sharing this one of Sean, who didn't realize he had carnage on his face. Love his baby blues.

Sean used the little tractor to lift the carcass out of the mud and onto the grass .
Our friend Mark, who came over to help, and Sean, stood by the hog to give an idea of just how large our hog was.

Sean hosed the hog down until she was nice and clean.

Next was the problem of hair. I never knew hogs were so hairy before raising one but you learn something new and wonderful every day, eh? The three main options for hair removal are scalding, skinning or burning. We (said loosely here as I stood with the camera) - well, we burned the hair off with an propane roofing torch 'cause we're classy like that.

Sean torched and Mark scrubbed off the burnt hair. If you are thinking this couldn't have smelled pretty, you are absolutely correct. I retreated indoors.

After the burning and cleaning, Sean gutted the hog, cut off the head and hung it (the hog, not head) in the woodshed, where it stayed for four days in the cold air. We have always found the aging of meat like this to greatly improve the flavor as it gives the muscles time to relax and the rigamortis to work its way out.

I always get asked a few questions whenever I share about raising our own meat, which I'll share, but if you have others, feel free to ask away.
1.) How do our kids handle this?
Our kids were very involved in the day to day care and loving of our pig. They have grown up with understanding the complete life cycle of animals, from birth to reproduction to death, no doubt the same as generations of children before them.
2.) How involved are the kiddos in the slaughter?
Because of the possible unknowns with shooting an animal, we keep the kids indoors while an animal is shot and bled out and then they are as involved as they'd like to be. Annaliese usually will take a cautious peek and the boys are as elbow deep as they can be, Ella too. Our friend Mark's two small kiddos were here too. Sean showed all the different organs to the kids and they watched the hog being gutted and hung. Anatomy at it's best.
3.) Why take the time/hassle to raise your own meat when there are grocery stores and prettily packaged portions of meat?
There are three short answers to this. First for cost effectiveness. From one hog we harvested almost two hundred pounds of meat for about $1.25 a pound, with that cost spread over nine months. We pretty much know everything she ate, which is our second reason for raising our own meat. I recommend the book Nourishing Traditions for more on this subject. I also wanted to learn how to raise my own meat, to learn skills that have faded away from popularity but are valuable. Might seem crazy, but such is me. I love knowing that our hog had a happy life, lots of belly rubs, that it was talked to, had lots of earth to plow and grubs to find and veggies to eat.

It was with Thanksgiving in our hearts

that we gathered at the cabin in the north woods on Thanksgiving Day. Our little family, my Dad and step-mama, sweet friends, and my brother in law and his daughter.

Our turkeys hadn't quite filled out enough, or enough as I wanted, and so a free-from-all-yuck store turkey and venison were our main fare with a long table full of delicious sides that mostly my step-mama made, and she is a wonderful good cook.

Chase kept watch at the window, mouth and fists full of carrot sticks and dip, waiting for everyone to arrive. I am thankful for this boy. I am thankful God spoke so clearly to Sean's heart that He wanted to give us another son - and then we had Chase.

I am heart brimming over in thanks for this man.
For his loving leadership in our home, for his love for me and our children, for God's grace and keeping of us through those difficult times in life.

The cousins had so much fun with each other on our long we-ate-too-much and making room-for-dessert hike through the woods to check on beaver ponds and enjoyment the peaks of color the forest gifted us with.

Like this color. Can you believe that is an au-natural straight from the woods color?

Fresh, to plant at home tree. A bit of green and a wonderful scent. I am thankful for this boy and his adventurous spirit and compassionate heart.

There were sneaky snowball wars with the bit of white lying in the woods and lots of running ahead and slipping behind trees unnoticed, to surprise fellow travelers.

On and on we walked on trails loggers made years ago and Sean cleared again with the tractor this summer. On to explore a cozy nook in the woods: a hunting blind perfect for imagining as a playhouse.

The woods of the Adirondacks are always arms brimming over full of beauty, even in winter. Lichen and moss, intricate tree bark detail, animal tracks and rushing creek sounds vi for attention.

I am thankful for this girl, my firstborn, for the gift of her life and her growing-in-grace years and her friendship. I have the best eleven year old ever.

We watched for beavers in their new ponds and mounded stick and mud homes, appreciated their new work on their dams and wondered at that such small creatures can move the course of rushing water with their diligent work.

I am thankful for my Dad, that my kids love their Grandpa and that he and I, after all the heartache of years past, have an open and honest and loving relationship. I am thankful for forgiveness and the power of letting go.

The boys played with the well pump Sean recently drove into the earth. It pumps out clear beautiful water a dozen or so yards from the cabin. Anywhere there is mud, or the potential for mud, my kids are on it! They do their former mud-pie loving mother proud.

I am thankful for Addie-girl and her life, for being gifted the wonder of life through her eyes as she endlessly points and exclaims at everything she sees that catches her eye.

For Aiden and his braveness I am thankful. For the little big-boy who sidles up to me and asks for a song and to read to me, I am thankful. I am thankful for his love of justice.


We had a lovely at the cabin day, brought home our yearly Charlie Brown tree for some greenery and life in the living room along with happy memories for years to come. For those readers in the USA, I hope your Thanksgiving was lovely too.