if you like pigs you may also like chickens!

I've just done my bti to help Hughs chicken Out campaign, by sending off my snap of an empty free-range chicken shelf to the chicken-out office.
More details over on my other blog here...

the bacons gone - time for some easy eco-action!

Well, we are now pretty much through our supply of porky delights, just a few packs of streaky bacon left.

This blog was all about the pigs, and as we're not getting any more for a while, I've started a new blog - its all about saving the planet one click at a time. If you've got a pc, you too can be an eco-activist!
There's loads you can do, emails, petitions, boycotts, donations, and it does make a difference.
So, grab your mouse, get out there, hug trees and save whales.

finally, the butcher day photos!

Yes we did actully do it ... the pigs disappeard and we then went to pick them up as 4 x half sides of pork. Picking them up on the friday night was very very weird - huge friges with more beef, pork and lamb than i've ever seen - and this was a tiny family run place!
We kept the boys in a just-turned-off freezer over night, to keep them chilled out, and then had an early start on a bright saturday morning for butching.
My main job was to keep running between my laptop, to play, pause and replay bits of the River Cottage 'Pig in a day' DVD, which was our butchering guide throughout, we couldn't have done it without Hugh and Rays calm advice and demonstrations! If you have pigs for the first time - you need this DVD.
I won't comment on all the pics below as they are mostly self-evident, and i've tired to get them in time order.

This is what we did to our pigs:

We bought a big bit of plywood, which put onto the greenhouse decking made a great butchers table.


Ben and Sam insisted that the flat caps were essential butcher's clothing!?!


I now know how to tie proper butcher's knots - a life skill worth having for anyone!



Making bacon....
we used all of the belly pork from both boys, and the back loin from Minty to make streaky and back bacon, very easy, just a box, a bunch of salt and a few aromatics like pepper, juniper and bay leaves.


and we also made up a brine of water, salt, apple juice, cider, bay leaves, juniper and a bunch of other lovely smelly bits, into which went 2 of the legs to make hams. It smelt a lot better than it looked, honest.


Making sausages...
we did this the next morning, started by mincing all the diced pork which we'd made from the shoulders and other off-cuts, then into the real hog casings!


until we ran out of that sausage mix!
Hugh says that only a few people understand the way to tie sausages in the traditional 3 sausage loops, and if you can do it first time off you are a 'sausage twisting genius'. I am that genius! We felt that living in Cumbria we had to do a Cumberland ring too, not as much fun.


after 3 recipes of breakfast bangers, we moved onto salamis and chorizos - really easy to do, just pork, salt, garlic and pepper (salami) or three types of paprika (chorizo). Will definatly do some more of these again! (we ended up moving them into the potting shed as there were too many flies outside, but they look better in this photo!)


Making bacon - part 2
after about 4 - 5 days the bacon gets all the salt cure washed off, and then sliced (with sams' fantastic ebay purchase slicing machine) and packed in greeseproof paper for a freezer load of bacon

some of our steaky bacon
and most (but not all!) of the packs of the bacon.

Then the really good bit - the eating!
This is our first sausage, which was delicious.


and this is the first of the hams, that we glazed with honey and mustard and baked. So far, this has been my absolute favourite, although Sam preferred the spare rib joint that we did 'Donnie Brasco' - so called by Hugh because you put it in a cool oven and then 'forgetta bout it' for 18 hours.


Our total porky output:
Big box of bacon - gave some away to grateful friends, still have lots in freezer
about 8 packs of sausages, got invited to a few BBQs after the first ones were tasted, and they've now all gone!
about 32 burgers - only about 6 left in freezer now
4 salamis and 5 choirtzoz - nearly all gone - fantastic flavours!
2 hams - one eaten, one in freezer
1 leg - in freezer for a big family roast next autumn
4 spare rib joints - very tasty
2 rolled loins - great for a sunday roast, soft meat, easy to carve
4 tenderloins - haven't had any yet but gave one to sams dad who loved it
4 chump ends - in retrospect should have made these into sausages
4 x 4 chops - big, thick and delicate slightly sweet tasting meat
trotters - i'm not a fan but sam likes them as does Bens dad!
spare ribs - nearly all gone now, small and not much meat on them, but very tasty and great at BBQs with homemade marinade on (soy, honey, mustard and Vals plum jar main ingredients)

i think that's everything... oh, kidneys, but no livers or blood so no pate or black puddings.

if we did it again, we'd probably make more bits into sausages, as these are great gifts, you get to make different recipes, great for BBQs, breakfast or an easy dinner. More burgers too, and more salamis. It would have been good to get the livers to make pate as well.

We're still eating our way through it, and its all marked up with an M or a G so we know which of our boys it came from. I know some people find that odd, but I actully prefer to eat Minty, who I know had a great life, good food, was happy and lived like a pig should live - outside and rummaging around, rather than a lump of pork from a supermarket that leaves me wondering if anyone ever fed it an acorn or scratched it behind its ears?
We'd definatly do it again - our only problem is that Val and Abi want their garden space back, so we need to find a new place with room for some pigs!

limbo - the 'no pig' part of the project

Well, b-day has been and gone. We currently don't have any pigs.

It actaully wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The boys were exemplary behaved, trotted out of the trailer, followed Sam and I down the path to their holding pen, and then just stood there sniffing about at all the new smells and looking up at with a 'where's breakfast then?' look on their faces. They weren't stressed at all, which is a good thing. We said our goodbyes and left them being looked over by a lady in Wellies from Defra.

I went off to work, and Sam went back to disinfect the trailer and then remove all the fences and generally tidy-up the garden a bit.

I did feel a bit sad, in fact a bit guilty would be a better description. They were so trusting, so friendly to us, so well behaved on their last day. But I know they had a great life with loads of room to run around and dig in, good food and lots of attention and fuss, which is a lot more than most pigs you see as packs of bacon get.

We now wait for the weekend when we go and pick up 2 x halves of Gary and 2x halves of Minty and the big butchering weekend starts!

last day for our pigs - mixed feelings all round

We're finally here. The last day of the 'live pig' part of the pig project.

Sam and I spent yesterday 'pig-proofing' our trailer for the boys trip to our local abbatoir/butcher tomorrow. As our trailer is an open one with sides that are mostly mesh wire and no roof, we've had to tie cardboard up against all the open sides to make it windproof and then secure plastic tarpaulin over the top and sides to make it rain proof. We've put down a load of their normal bedding (easibed woodchips and a pile of fresh straw) to make it warm and cosy. The next bit will be getting them into their luxury transportation.

The plan is to not feed them as normal tomorrow night, but instead rattle their food bowl in front of them all the way down the garden path, round the back of the potting shed which has a nice handy wall next to it, with the only way forward being up into the trailer where food, water and straw awaits them..... sounds like a good plan but we'll let you know if it actully works!

How are we feeling? Well we re-watched Pig in a Day again last night, and also ordered a load of stuff like knives, containers, sausage skins etc which was kind of exciting (if a tad expensive!) and we are looking forward to making sausage recipes and curing our own ham.

But there is a bit of the sentimental part in me that keeps thinking things like - i wish it wasn't windy and cold today, because the boys are in bed and they don't know that this is their last chance to dig and sniff and run about..... and that's because I'm taking them to be killed tomorrow.

But then there's another bit of me that is looking forward to not having to feed them, clean them, worry about them escaping etc, and having more time to focus on the DIY at our house, which has been noticably put back because of the pigs.

So, its mixed feelings. I'm glad that tomorrow its an early start. There won't be time to get sad, we just need to be practical. Quick, efficent, painless is the order of the day - for me and the pigs!

bacon day is set

We're getting very near to the end of this part of the pig project... the date has been set to say goodbye to our two boys, and hello to an awful lot of pork.

Tuesday is offically Bacon Day.

Up until today they have actully been making it easier for us to send them away to the big bacon factory. Sam and I were arms deep into some DIY on our new house on Sunday, and had to down tools and rush back home to deal with a mass breakout. When we arrived the boys had been sucessfully tempted back into their run with buckets of food, but the garden was slighlty worse for wear. Not only were there perfectly formed trotter prints across the lawn and flowerbeds, but the orchard had three or four Minty-nose-sized holes in it from some moss digging attempts.

We spent over an hour trying to reinforce the fences. Desparation has set in with trying to contain the pigs, and our ramshakle defences now include large rocks, breeze blocks, tree stumps, branches and even holly clippings in a bid to stop the pigs getting close enough to the fence to dig under it. It looks a bit like Steptoe's yard, but fingers crossed it seems to be working!

Other than the containment 'issues', the whole pig run is a huge wet, stinky, clayey mud bath. It looks bad, it smells worse and the thought of it ever being a prize winning vegetable patch seem a long way off.

However today the sun has come out, and the boys are playing the 'cute' card. No escaping, just lying next to each other sunbathing. Maybe they realise that next Tuesday is planned as Bacon day....


I thought I would feel sadder and more emotional this close to the big day, but there is actully a big part of me that is relieved. We'll be able to really get on with our DIY without having to feed them twice a day, the house can be left with no worries that there will be Pigs wandering through the village on our return, and we'll finally be able to pay back all our friends with fantastic tasting bacon, sausages and joints!

We are currently watching the River Cottage 'pig in a day' DVD over and over, ordering supplies - sausage casings, knives, mixing boxes, salt etc and planning the who, how and when of the big butchering event. We'll take pics of the whole thing from carcass to eating the final bangers and let you see the results!

the bacon day dilemma

We weighed the pigs last weekend (movie of pigs, buckets of food, upside down garden table and industrial scales comming soon...). Minty is an impressive 86kg, but little Gary is a 'must try harder' 64kg.

I'm very keen that we only go through the whole experience once. Not only to minimise the detress to one pig left on its ownsome, but also to minimise the stress to us with the trip to the abbatoir, the butchering session, getting all our kitchin equipment out etc etc. But Sam is keen to do Minty now and keep Gary for a few more weeks to get him up to a decent size. He figures that any distress to Gary being on his own will be outweighed by the joy of getting the food bowl all to himself, as Minty does bully Gary and ends up with more than his fair share of the grub.

We've asked our favourite forums and although a lot of people agree with me, they also agree that Gary is a tad too tiny to send to the bacon factory now.

I don't think there is a right answer....