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You should Google it Chris and see what people are doing with them. It's like a new trend, lol. I'll bet strawberries in those would work fantastic. That's thinking outside the box for sure
next year, try some greens in a gutter, b4. It would take up hardly any room at all! Anything shallow rooted could be grown in one of these.
I love infographics, thanks for posting this. I am going to put it on my website.
there are some really cool looking setups. I've seen pictures of people hanging the long strips of gutters from chains. You can be very creative with them.
Google them and you'll see some pretty neat pics...
just like the old days here in North America, where entire families worked the fields.
I think even now, in some places, school shuts down for a week or two so the farming kids can help with the harvest.
b4, evil companies like Monsanto spent a LOT of money trying to disbunk the facts about Prop 37. They may have succeeded this time but I think they are also realizing that a LOT of people are becoming aware of just how terrible their company is!
I was just talking about this on Facebook, Eddie. What a huge groundswell movement we have seen about food labelling.
Not every important thing gets passed the first time!
I am unsure how it works in the US or in Cali. Can they try again to pass it in the future? I would think so, but not sure.
that idea of vertical gardening is really ccatching on. Great for growing food if you live in a townhouse with a really small yard.
Have you ever seen people growing greens out of gutter material? Amazing, really
Look at the small child peeking under the table..adorable
nice photos. It makes sense that when a person is in a different country, they should try to adapt to that country. Pace is a lot slower in many countries than it is in US or Canada.
Heck even where we live,in the bush, the pace is much slower than Vancouver.
Nice pictures Chris!
those pigs look great. nice for them to be free too and roam where they like.
doubt I would ever try walking a pig like a dog, lol!
Oh yes, no doubt it would be harder than doing a pig!
That first year, we got too attached to our two pigs, Pork and Chop. It was hard to slaughter those ones. After that, we stopped naming most of them and I hardly spent any time with them at all.
Works better :)
Your guys are braver than us. They probably have the whole process down pat. Each one knowing what he has to do and where to sit on the pig, all of that.
The first year we got pigs, we had to move them. Being ignorant of how things work in the real animal world, we just let them out of their little run and led the way down to the new big barn run.
We figured if we each shook a food can at them, they'd follow us.
Long story shorter, we will never do that again. There was yelling, laughing, panic, frustration.I will never forget the way my husband looked when he was trying to lay on the pig to get a better hold on it. I bust a rib laughing even now years later. And wow can they kick!
From then on, we put up rails whenever we have to move them, make them go in single file. It's probably more than we need to do to move them, but memories of the first fiasco keep coming back.
Our pigs usually weigh out at 200 lbs, gutted and skinned out.
Just found out that Baker Creek Heirloom seeds is taking 50% of their seed sales (for today and tomorrow only) and donating those profits to the Say Yes to Prop 37 movement!
I think it's an awesome idea and hope you will too.
Here's their link:
http://rareseeds.com/
It's a great read, isn't it?
We don't render the deer fat, we find there is not enough there to bother with it. We do render bear fat, though, it makes awesome pie crust!
I did a post on the site about it, and you can read it here:
http://www.countrylivinginacariboovalley.com/hunting-and-fishing/bear-meat-and-making-lard/
Yes I will repost Christmas Kitty! If you can remind me in December, that would be great.
some pig processing pics
A couple of things: we always do the pig first thin in the morning, when we would feed the pigs breakfast. This way, they think they are getting fed and since pigs are greedy, we never have a problem enticing one pig to come on over.
Another reason we do it in the morning is because of the flies. By Fall, the flies are not out in the morning - they wait for the heat of the afternoon.
We slaughter one pig at a time, until there are 2 left. At that point, we slaughter both of them, since we don't like the idea of leaving one pig alone to keep wondering where his buddies have gone.
Bring a 3030 down to the barn, and get the quad over there in place. The day before, Graham fences off a small portion of the pig run (so we can get just one pig in there).
By the way, never try to kill a pig with a 2020. Everything we have read says you can use a 2020. We learned the hard way that if the pig even slightly moves when you pull the trigger, a 2020 is not enough. We want one shot to completely do the trick.
We put a bit of feed in that area and the first pig that runs in there is THE pig. I quickly close the fence so the others can't get in. I dump some feed on the ground and when the pig starts to eat it,Graham does the deed, while I am pouring buckets of feed for the other pigs.
Right after the kill, Graham slices between the tendon and the bone on the back of the pigs feet. He runs his straps through there, an loops the strap onto the hitch of the quad.
He drives the quad out of there and brings the pig over to his excavator and lifts the straps (and pig) into the air. Makes it easier for him to do the gutting and skinning.
You could gut it on the ground, then hang the pig anywhere you have room.
At this point it is still early in the morning, but frankly, the man deserves a beer in his hand. There is still work ahead and since we really hate killing anything,the man needs a beer.
This picture gives a better idea of how he has the pig hung up.
Skinning the pig. It is not quite as easy as skinning deer, but still the skin does pull away from the pig like a deer.
As he is skinning, he makes small slits in the skin already peeled, so he can hold the skin with his fingers. Helps him peel the skin off easier.
Once the deer is skinned, if possible we like to let it hang. We often use a reciprocating saw to cut the pig in half, along the spine. Makes it easier to handle this way.
Since our meat birds are gone for the year, we clean out their room, lay down some sheets and then hang the pig from hooks in the ceiling.
We completely enclose the pig in old clean sheets. We leave NO blood anywhere in that room, as we don't want to attract flies.
In the pic, you can see how we use large clothespegs to close up the sheet. Make sure NO space at all is open so that a fly can get in there.
When we do the butchering, most of the fat gets cut off, wrapped in packages and put in the freezer. We use this to feed our chickens in the winter time. They need extra fuel to keep themselves warm and this works well. Don't feed the fat in the summer!
Awesome looking pork chops, to be cut and wrapped.
Here is the bounty from ONE HALF of ONE pig. The bowl holds all trimmings, which we will cook up and can for dog food.
Here is the awesome book that we use for the actual butchering process. It is a Must Have. Ours now is dog eared and has lots of blood stains in it, we have gotten this much use out of it.
And, here's a link where you can get the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0882663917/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0882663917&linkCode=as2&tag=mdah-20">
This link DOES have my affiliate link embedded. If anyone decides to buy the bok, I would appreciate it if you bought through my link. I have bills to pay, like everyone does.
If anyone has questions, please just reply to this post or send me a PM.
If you want more information about raising pigs, you can go to my site and read it here:
http://www.countrylivinginacariboovalley.com/category/raising-weaner-pigs/
( I see now I haven't moved over all the pig raising posts from the old site, but will add that to my to-do list).
Oh, about removing the hair. The first year we raised pigs, we bought hog scrapers to remove the hair with.
First had to light a fire under a big barrel full of water, then dunk the pig, then remove and scrape.
Well that was such a pain in the butt, we have always just skinned them ever since.
We have never tasted any difference with the skin off, even with the hams.
Are your pigs fenced in? I can't tell from the picture
If you're a good shot and go for a heart/lung shot, you could stock your freezer for the price of 10 bullets!
And, you'd get enough bacon to wrap your grouse in.
good one!
Once we gut and skin deer, we cut it into quarters. We have hooks mounted into the ceiling of our Cold Room. We take the quarters and hang them in the cold room for several days.
If we find the meat starts turning before we butcher, we cut those portions off. Even if we lose some of the meat if we have to do this, that's OK. We want our deer meat aged before butchering.
b4, I will get some pictures up but here are a couple answers about how we transport the skinned pigs to the butcher...
After they are gutted and then skinned, we wrap the pigs in clean old sheets. We tie the ends of the sheet into knots, then we use clothespegs to keep the long sides closed.
Also, we lay a couple old sheets in the bed of the pickup truck. Even if your truck bed isn't clean, this will definitely keep the pigs clean while getting them to the butcher.
When we butcher deer, we only do 4 things with the meat:
Cut a few roasts (maybe 4)
Cut a couple roasts down into steaks (end up with maybe 10 or 15 steaks)
Cut all the rest of the roasts into small thick pieces, which we turn around and use for making venison snitzel (the most awesome way to eat venison). We end up with probably 30 or 40 packages for snitzel.
All the rest gets grinded up for burger.
One more:
All trimmings and lots of the meat gets cooked and pressure canned for food for da Wolf. Since he gets meat on top of his crunchies every day for dinner, we go through a lot of meat this way. We do the same with any trimmings from pork, chicken and bear.
b4, I am still going to post pictures, but have had a bad migraine the last couple days, so haven't done much on the computer.
If you've done a deer, it is not much different to do a pig. I'll check around later and see if I have pictures of pig processing, let me know if u would like to see them, b4
We do our own slaughter at our place. Sometimes we bring the skinned and gutted pigs to the processor to do the butchering, but we often butcher our own. Depends on the amount of free time we have.
You've "planted the seed" so to speak, so now let's hope she starts growing in knowledge.
Lots of people just need a hand in getting started.
Your response pretty much had me rolling on the floor!
I am sure you have been a good influence for her Chris, as it opens up another perspective for her.
As long as we keep assimilating gardeners one by one, we'll be successful :)
Have a wonderful trip back south, I know you're anxious to be home again.
thanks todd, I wondered if this was the same article I had read a few months ago.
I think, altho don't know for sure, Oregon is one of those states that is very much against self sufficiency.
haha! In Winter I can sit around in a tshirt and jeans, but then I am sitting pretty close to the woodstove :)
The link wants me to subscribe in order to read the article....
Looks great Chris....I so miss this part of living on the Coast - Being able to eat at least fresh salad greens all winter.
No more baths for you :) Just think what a good protective crust you will have by the Spring
That sounds wonderful! We absolutely love having tomatoes just cut into quarters and served on a plate with dinner. Yummy!
quite the procedure and those guys really know what they're doing!
Sounds wonderful! Fernie is a beautiful place, but then so is most of BC.
There's nothing like hiking and stopping for a drink from the mountain streams. I know exactly what you mean when you save you crave that water!