2 Lesbians and a Fish Farm

So yeah, it is winter…after many lovely weeks of 40-50F weather, this snowy, icy, cold thing has stuck.  And I officially don’t like it.  At. All.

Did I mention that I don’t like it?  Yes, I know, I live in Wisconsin.  In fact, I was born here.   That doesn’t mean I can’t wish for Long Beach, CA weather here (I lived in CA for a few years and have been ruined on winter ever since).

Anyway, so because it is winter and gross out and uncomfortably cold (even though I recognize it isn’t all that cold for here at all) and also because Emme will lose her noggin if I don’t get her kitchen fixed back up soon, winter remodeling has begun.  Remember all those mold problems we had last year?  And of course, all the badly built, and structural issues.  It is time to tackle said issues.  The good side of this is I have awesome excuses for needing new power toys..err, I mean tools.  And another bonus is I get to do more demo.  I mean, really, who doesn’t like to do a little demo now and then?

All kidding aside, we have some major projects to do around here.  While also working out plans for the farm this year.  We have seeds to start, like, um, last week, that haven’t gone in yet…we have coop plans to build (yes, another chicken condo is coming…sigh), a barn to convert back to an actual barn and not just a half arsed one, gardens to plan and plot out, little baby chickens to welcome (yikes!  that’s in like 2 weeks!  I need that brood box done!), and so many more things to do.

So, stay tuned for some exciting times…I promise to ask Emme to post pictures of my handy work in the kitchen remodel.  And I’m using the term handy loosely I think.  We’ll see!!

If you read the last post, you will have noticed a mention of a wedding. Yes, we are getting married. In just a few days. We will be posting after the wedding.

Sing it with me now!  Guess who’s back, back again, Slim Shady!

Slim Shady, my arch nemesis…the mink!  He/She is back and driving me absolutely bonkers again.  This is war, I mean WAR!  The last couple weeks as we prepare for our wedding and try to make it through the winter that has finally shown, the stupid mink is back and tempting me to do crazy things like wait outside all night with a rifle.  Well, he’s eating my fish!  And killed my last (and favorite) duck who had avoided this demise for a whole month.  So yeah, I’m tempted to wait in the barn, sitting in a lawn chair with a rifle like a deer hunter in a blind.  I’m telling you —  I. Am. Mad!

I have spent the last few weeks swearing up a storm every time I go into the barn because I keep finding dead sucked on fish all lined up next to the raceways again.  Or worse, I go in to find a dead duck who had previously been safely swimming in a raceway “guarding” fish.  So I wander around, cursing the mink while I count dead things, and scouring every inch of the barn looking for how in the world Shady is getting in.  Two weeks ago I found a small tunnel at the west end of the barn where he had dug through the flower bed and shoved some rocks aside and crawled under the barn frame.  So I pried up some concrete block pieces from elsewhere and stuffed them into the hole, inside and out.  Ha!  Got you Shady!

Not so much…

Two days later, there were still dead fish.  Sigh.  Then I lost my last and very favorite White Pekin duck, named appropriately, Duck.  Emme found him in the hatch raceway bitten on the back of the neck and very, very dead.  Ok Shady, now I’m really mad.  So every day I feed fish and walk around I constantly look for possible entrances.  I plugged more rocks and spare parts under the door with the stairs where the raccoons were getting in this past summer.  I rolled up an empty feed bag and shoved it under the crooked garage door that won’t quite shut all the way…anything and everything I found, I plugged.

Still dead fish. Arrgh!

So yesterday, while I was supposed to be doing things on my Honey-Do-This-Before-The-Wedding list I was instead wandering around the barn again in search of just how the heck Shady was getting in.  And then, there it was.  Across the barn as I fed the lower raceways, on the south wall, was a cut out from long before.  Shady had managed to push or pull or I don’t know what but the cut out was now basically a little tunnel door.  I saw snow, on the ground, inside.  Aha!  I got you now bub.  I went over to examine the evidence (here is where it becomes very obvious that I am a complete dork and watch way too much crime tv).  Sure enough, about two feet from the mink door was a dead fish.  And, on the mink door was a spot of blood.  So I ran around the corner, opened the garage door and went outside to look and see if there were tracks.  Ayup!  Sure were.  And, a tunnel! (dun, dun, dun!) So I follow said tunnel along the building nearly to the corner where it took a sharp turn to the south toward the creek.  Followed it across the yard and to the edge of the creek and there it went under the culvert that spans the driveway.  Ooooh, you little shady creep, now I know where you live!  You are mine!!

However, in the meantime, since I was supposed to be doing about fifteen other things, I simply shoved a barricade into the mink door and went to go apologize for missing the trash dump hours (again)…sigh.

But you wait, because I’m going to get this little bugger yet. Watch me.

Yesterday we rounded up our two red wattle pigs and took them off to butcher…so if you aren’t into that, cease reading.  Definitely cease looking because I am posting some pictures as well…

OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

( NOT kidding, description of butchering process follows as do PICTURES of this process)

So, mostly I (Chris) am the critter person around here.  That’s just how it works.  I am a critter kind of person, always have been always will be.  Critters of most persuasions seem to like me.  A lot.  And most of them that end up in my care also tend to end up being a bit weird in personality.  Quirky, shall we say…but then that isn’t really the point of this article.  I think I’m just postponing the somewhat icky part here just to give you a minute to decide whether to read on.

Yesterday, we spent 2.5 hours and plans A-F getting the pigs loaded into a horse trailer for travel.  These pigs were always for food.  They were purchased for the purpose of raising them for food, and for their gardening power, but mostly for food.  It was always the point.  However, being the critter person that I am, I kind of got attached to the little buggers.  Pigs are cute, and funny, and super smart and have pretty cool personalities if you take the time to see it.  So as I raised them, it was also my job to watch them closely… to not is to possibly miss signs of illness or injury.  If you don’t know your critters then you won’t know if something is more weird than usual.

I enjoyed my time with them.  They made me laugh with their little pig antics and their little pig “monkey noises” and their incessant requests for back scratching.  They annoyed me to no end with their escapes and their chases and their pushing and shoving at breakfast.  Mostly though, they provided me with a great experience and a chance to learn new things and enjoy another being.  So when it was time to load them up I was torn between sad and as usual, frustrated with their lack of cooperation.  But, after much ado they finally ended up in the trailer.  I bet Emme will write an encounter at some point…she had a good vantage point for that one

Once loaded however, I was on my own.  We have the kids at the house and they were coming home from school so Emme was not able to attend the um, adventure, with me.  Friends and neighbors of my father happen to know all things critter and all things related to critter, such as butchering.  Since saving $$ was a goal, having our friends butcher was way cheaper than the actual butcher so we chose this route.  Another goal of ours is to know our food, so farm butchering was also important to us.  I’m a pretty dedicated meat eater but I also strongly believe that you can’t just pretend your food comes from little plastic wrapped styrofoam trays at the market instead of actual animals.  A big chunk of knowing our food is raising it ourselves and knowing exactly what goes into this enterprise and what comes out.  We could just raise them and send them off to slaughter, but that just doesn’t seem right.  We would still be cutting out the truly pivotal part now, wouldn’t we?  So, if we are really going to do this know our food, self sustainable farm thing…we are going to have to go whole hog…pardon the pun.

Anywhoo, off to the farm we go.  Once loaded and settled down with a few words of encouragement ( some from me to the pigs and some from Emme to me) we headed off to Iowa.  I thought about the acts to come along the way, and yet I didn’t.  When I realized I was making myself crazy I stopped.  Luckily the friends willing to butcher are kind souls and were very kind and sympathetic to the squeamishness I was having both for the process and for taking my little pals to be killed.  When we arrived I stuck my head in the trailer to make sure my girls were ok.  I did NOT want them to suffer or be upset anymore than absolutely necessary.  I gave them a few words and thanked them for being such wonderful pigs and I went into the house.  They seemed to be rather curious but settled after the trip.

After a bit my friends decided we were all ready.  They were kind enough to relax me with good conversation and an adult beverage.  They suggested that I wait inside until they had the first pig out of the trailer, killed and bleeding out.  They knew these were animals I raised with love and care and that killing them or watching them be killed on my very first try would be a bit much maybe.  I thought about it and although I strongly believe I should be a part of the whole thing I had never butchered anything in my life, so during this first experience I sat that part out.  In a way I’m glad that I did, because the rest was quite a bit to get used to as it was.  I did, however, wait on the porch where I could hear but not really see what was happening.  So I heard them talking gently to the girls, and leading one out of the trailer to the drive.  I heard them calm her and wait for her to settle a bit.  I heard the shot, and I heard her squeal and I heard the second shot.  I waited for a bit, feeling maddeningly like a big cruel jerk and fighting of irrational thoughts like running away with the last pig.  When I heard the tractor rev up I knew they had her hung from the bucket so she could bleed the rest of the way and so they had a platform from which to work.  These pigs were about 250lbs each, so laying them down isn’t really an option.

So here is the technical part, as I see it. (This is where things get descriptive…last warning!)

After the pig is shot successfully, their throat is cut so the blood can exit the body.  They are then hung from hooks (in this case off a tractor bucket for height and maneuverability) and taken over into a well lighted area.  Then incisions are made in the skin around all four ankles and along the entire underbelly to open up the skin.  Very carefully and very deftly my friends began to skin the pig.  I can’t express to you what I felt watching that.  Part of me was fascinated and part of me was horrified.  Also, detaching for a moment, it isn’t quite as gross as one might think.  Anyway, the skinning takes quite a bit of time and was not the easiest thing to watch.  I stayed well back at this point.  I was behind the tractor and off to the side where I could see from a distance but not be all that up close and personal.  Baby steps people…it isn’t fun.

After the skin is successfully removed in one giant piece,  then you work on removing the head.  Once that is removed and apparently saved by some people, you can begin to work on the gutting.  A very large knife is inserted and the carcass (which it is definitely now a carcass) is split from stem to stern along the underside.  The organs are carefully cut out and removed…some are saved like the liver, and most are discarded.  By this time I had edged myself much closer and in fact by gutting time was right there at the side of the pig with everyone else.  I found myself holding the save bucket of guts somehow and ended up somewhat involved in the process.  Trust me, holding my cookies was not easy.  And holding that bucket while they removed MY pig’s head and entrails was a super surreal moment.  I felt like two split personalities inhabiting the same mind simultaneously.  One part of me feeling terrible and grossed out and unsure of what I had gotten myself into with this raising pig business…and the other side of me fascinated with the technical process.  I think that was the chef in me coming out.  From critter to carcass to cuts of meat was something to behold and the chef in me was totally engrossed.  The rest of me was just grossed.

So, the carcass was split in two with a sawzall lengthwise and then cut into shoulder, rib/side, and ham chunks and put into the cooler to chill for a few days.  We all wiped our hands and went inside for another adult beverage.  I was slow going in because I was busy making sure I wasn’t going to throw up or anything while also being proud that I hadn’t so far.  I walked by the trailer and looked in on my other pig…who was, I have to admit, my favorite.  Her name was Pork Chop.  The point was to remind me she was food so I would keep my distance, but I think Pork Chop was simply too adorable in name and personality to keep a distance.  She looked at me and I felt guilt.  I felt bad.  I also felt grateful to her and I said so.  She calmed when she saw me and I feel good about that.  They trusted me and knew I wouldn’t hurt them.  I raised those pigs with a lot of care and love and respect.  I gave them the best life I could.  And I am grateful and proud that they were such wonderful pigs.

Another thing that struck me in this whole process was the fact that one of my butcher friends, Al, came in from the front porch as I entered the house.  He told me he had to “hang on and lean over for a minute”.  Butchering, even when you are used to it, isn’t something to just dismiss.  It effects even the hardiest of people.  It was touching to me that Al seemed to be as effected by the process as I was.  It isn’t an easy thing to do and I am grateful that he and his wife were very understanding to me and very respectful to my pigs.

Following are the shots I managed to take while I was in my disassociated chef mode:

We love our goats. Truly we do. They are like toddlers — they try to get into everything that we block from them. If there is something to climb, they will find the way up it. If they want to get into something, they will find any way to do it. Somehow our goats found a way onto the roof of our chicken house.

The chicken house was vacated of its occupants this spring by a pack of hungry critters. Once the chickens were gone, the goats decided to move in and make it their home. The nesting boxes were quickly converted to feeding areas. The goats were happy. They had a little modern dutch condo with a beautiful glass window to watch the events outside. A bed of straw was added, the nest boxes were converted to feeding areas, and they were content with their living quarters. For a while.

Today we looked out the window to see a goat standing on the roof. We haven’t any idea why she decided to get onto the roof. Was it to see better, was she playing reindeer games, or was it a king of the mountain game? Only the goats know.

We went outside to see if we could coax her down. No doing. For some reason, she would not jump down the way she got up.

We walked closer to see if there was a reason that she would not get off of the roof.

And Gaia just looked at us. We talked to her in goat language “mmaaaaaaaa,” which usually encourages them to run to us. She would look at us, look at her feet, look at us, move slightly, seem to slip, and stand and respond “mmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” Oh oh. She is stuck. A goat stuck on a slippery wooden roof. It had rained for the previous few days which was suddenly follwed by a period of freezing temperatures. This means that we would have to find a way to help her down.

Chris decided to climb up onto the roof and try to coax Gaia. Emme held the ladder, threw up hay (for coaxing), and took lots of pictures.

Gaia would have none of it. She would take some hay, venture closely to Chris and then skitter away. We would expect this type of behavior from Morgaine, who is slightly skittish, but Gaia loves to be petted and fawned over. She was simply afraid. Gaia would take steps towards Emme (on the ground), find that her footing was unstable, and step quickly back where it was safer. Chris tried to coax with hay and encourage her to come near, but every time that C would get a hand onto her, she would skitter back. This was going to be an interesting experience for all of us.

Interesting and frustrating.

Gaia finally came close enough to Chris so that Chris could grab her harness. Chris quickly leaned over, grabbed a hold and slid down the roof with the goat in tow. Gaias feet sliding along the slick wooded roof. Emme moved the ladder away from the outside nest boxes so that Gaia could jump back down and then swung the ladder back up to stop Chris from plummeting to the ground. Chris was ready for a drop and roll, but fortunately, it was not necessary. Chris stopped her slide, the ladder was in place, and Chris could safely descend.

As soon as Gaia was on the ground, ran into the chicken coop and started to ascend back onto the nest boxes and onto the roof. We stopped her and placed a piece of wood in the way. We looked at each other and ran into the barn to grab grain and appropriate tools. Emme grabbed grain to distract the goats while Chris grabbed 2x4s and a drill to block access to the nest boxes for climbing.

Finally everyone was safe, and in place, and hopefully quiet … until the next adventure.

Ahhh, the things we do for our animals. We chase them up and down wild hillsides, we splash in frigid temperatures, and we glean from frozen fields.  This week we spoke to friends who own a large organic farm. The end of the season was upon us, which meant that the fields were full of unused and frozen produce. We have been thinking about finding ways to get our goats (and pigs) off of grain. Although grain can be a good supplement when they are young, grain is really not the ideal food for animal consumption. Hay, grasses, vegetables, are much more natural to many animals. So, we offered to help glean our friend’s field.

Of course, the week that we start gleaning the field is the week that the temperature plummeted to the teens and white stuff decided to fall from the sky. Emme refuses to use the s word quite yet, although snow would be preferable to the cold of which we are not quite accustomed.

We made the trek to the farm and found the appropriate fields. Our knives could barely saw through the frozen kale stalks — each pass over the stalk seemed to barely make a dent into it. We worked up and down rows sawing through the stalks and collecting the frozen pieces of vegetation to throw into the back of the truck.

When the truck bed was finally filled, we dragged our frozen and tired bodies into the cab and returned home.

The hope that the animals would like our glean was proven as the goats and alpacas timidly tasted and then devoured every morsel. We will be returning for more….

Ever try to chase a pig?  Especially a pair of 200lb pigs?  No? Well, if you need some exercise or some breakup of boredom we highly recommend you try it!

So, here we are again.  For various reasons we have neglected our poor blog and also, frankly, to some extent our farm. However the world has gone around in circles again and life has changed and we find ourselves with much more time to spend here and at work on the farm.  Until last week Chris was the chef at a local restaurant and Emme was the baker.  Now we are back to being farmer Chris and Professor Emme

Luckily our pigs helped to welcome us back home.

The other night, in the midst of the chaos of our lives, our pigs (named bacon and porkchop) pushed through a fence and found their way into the yard. The pigs are about 200 pounds. Porkchop is friendly and outgoing, where bacon is timid and jumpy. Chris came home to find that the pigs had escaped. Porkchop took a look at Chris, associated her with food, and followed her back into her yard. Bacon, however, took a look at Chris and ran up the wooded hillside to hide. Chris spent hours tromping through the dark woods in an effort to find Bacon. Bacon would make noise, but run away as soon as Chris came near. After a long period without success, Chris came inside and take a break and warm from te cold. It was decided that running up and down a wooded hillside in the middle of the dark was not wise, so we opted to try again the next morning.

Morning came and then the sun. The kids went to school and we went out to hunt for our pig. Chris and Emme went up the hillside to the last spot where we heard her. We studied the area and noticed areas where she had obviously rooted into the ground and made herself a warm den under the soft bed of pine. We walked in the direction we believed that she had gone. We walked up and down the hillside calling out “piiiig” every so often. We would stop and listen — no hint of grunt in return. In frustration, we hiked over the hillside and down to the road. We walked the road back to our house and wondered who we call about an escaped pig. We had one more direction to walk before we made a decision. We would head that way first.

Chris took the truck into the back part of our property while Emme did some coursework. After about 30 minutes, Emme’s phone began to buzz with text messages that Bacon had been found. Emme grabbed some rope and hiked to the back part of the property and up a very steep hillside. Emme walked quietly, listening for noise as she texted Chris from an idea where to go. Up the hillside she walked until the grunting of a pig was obvious.

There she was — near the top of a hillside with Chris sitting nearby.

Emme marched up the hill, rope in hand, laughing at the sight. Chris sat on the hillside in wait.

When Emme finally reached their side, there was a discussion about what was the best way to capture the rogue pig.

Rope in hand, Chris crawled up to Bacon’s side. Little did we know how quick the girl was. As soon as Chris was close enough to touch her, Bacon was on her feet and running further up the hill. Emme followed quickly — jumping over fallen branches, and zig zagging to keep ahead of the pig. The goal was to be on various sides of Bacon so that she would go where we wanted her to go. Herding a pig? Ha!

Emme tried playing rugby with the pig — dashing and tackling the pig. This didn’t work, instead tumbling onto the hillside. Chris ran along side and we attempted to figure out where to go. Suddenly we slowed and Bacon stopped. We stopped. Bacon rolled in the sunny leaves and enjoyed the sun while we discussed what to do. Bacon’s tail was wagging in eagerness. We decided to make lassos and try to herd her to another one of us. Chris circled around and Bacon took off in an entirely different direction. Emme jumped up and both ran up the hill (how much up is there in this hill??).  Finally we topped the hill and Bacon found another sunny spot. We looked around and worried about the places that we could go and what would happen if she decided to go down the other hillside. Oh what to do….

We decided to return to the house and choose another plan of action. At home we looked online under search terms such as “how to catch a pig.” The recommendations included enticing with grapes, roping, and of course, a gun. We read and wondered, read and conversed. We were at a loss, but knew that if we did not get her back, we would have to deal with a rogue/wild pig in our hills and that could be a dangerous situation.

Our decision was to go to the bustop and pick up the youngest child and then head to the hillside to bring her in one way or another. Chris packed up a gun into the truck and we headed to the bustop to wait. We talked about the possibilities. The bus stopped and the youngest tumbled into the truck. We were ready. Chris would head up the hill and Emme would wait inside with our youngest.

Suddenly the truck stopped as a pig crossed our path. Huh? Did Porkchop get out again? Chris got out and took a look at the pig who was trying to jump over her. We told the youngest to stay in the truck as we looked at the situation. Chris moved over to the barn while the pig ran over to her. It was Bacon. Bacon had made her way all of the way down the hillside to us. She must  have heard the truck (which she associates with food) and run to the sound. Emme had a bag of grapes in my pocket and threw them to her. She devoured them.

We made certain that the youngest child was safe and then worked to move Bacon to her yard. We threw food onto the floor into a trail to the door of the fence. Bacon devoured every bite. We got her in and her sister welcomed her home. We sighed in relief and double checked every piece of the fence.

I know it has been quite a while since we’ve posted any updates. This has been a whirlwind summer: It started with a car accident, Chris becoming an executive chef and Emme becoming a baker at the same restaurant,  house issues, gardens, fish, pigs, and livestock galore. Life was busy, hard, and interesting. Life is more interesting now, but allows more time for living the life we want to live.

We will be back with more postings soon!

Just a note to let you know we can’t believe we haven’t written in so long! It has been a circus within a circus within a psych ward around here lately…updates to come soon and far more regularly. Promise!

For over a month the coop has haunted us. We have worked on it and had to stop due to days of snow, sleet, hail, or rain. Other projects have taken precedence and forced a pause in the building of the coop (the goat fencing). Our own lack of building knowledge has made us stop and think about our plans. But finally, finally we have a coop that has taken shape. It is not yet complete, but it is close. We only need to finish the nest boxes and add a place for the birds to perch. Fortunately, we can take a little break, as the chicks are less than a week old.

Most of the wood came was reused — we found the wood on freecycle or through people who were tearing down old barns. The wood sat outside, waiting to be used.

We always seemed to be balancing on piles of wood.

Measuring and remeasuring.

Chris did a majority of the work (although it turns out that I am really quite good with a jigsaw).

We did have some unappreciated help. The goats really liked to tear into bags and boxes of screws. We are still trying to clean up the debris from the goat help.

The picture window was actually from the sliding glass door that was on the previous chicken coop. The frame rotted away and the door fell out. We decided to use it as a picture window instead.

We never thought that we would finish, and even doubted that it would stand. But then, suddenly,  it began to take shape and actually look like a building.  It seems to have a personality — a postmodern Danish structure. The green wood frames a chicken door. We also plan to use this green to frame the picture window. The green wood was part of the freebie wood. We decided to have fun with it.

Everyone participated in the building of this. The kids climbed into the coop and even used tools(!) to help put up walls.

The roof is up. This will be replaced with metal in the near future (we have some free coming to us).

Nest boxes are accessible from outside (in the back). These will have a lid — so that you only need to lift and remove eggs.

The chicken door has a door. There is a human door on the other side.  We will provide the chickens with a ramp.

The coop is not 100% completed, but it is almost done. There are 60 chicks now living inside of it and we are excited to have it usable. I hope the chicks enjoy it!