Piglets

At last we have our new piglets. These two are quite small, only a few weeks' old. They are the first pigs to be in our new pig area, a large grassy paddock with an electric wire running round just a little way off the ground. They have rings in their noses to stop them turning the ground into mud!

They seem to be very happy and content in their new area, although as yet they are not eating any grass! Guess they haven't figured out what it is yet. Meanwhile they are eating all the scraps we give them, and chomping down the kumara (sweet potato) which they love.

They're small, but won't stay small for long!

Farm roundup early December

Yikers where does the time go......? and sorry once again for slackness in posting...!

It has been hot and very windy during the day here on CTF. Not my favourite time of the year I have to say, the wind drives me nuts and is very tiring. Everything is getting very dry and I am bad at watering my plants. Still there's no point moaning!

On the plus side everything is looking very pretty with lots of flowers out now in the potager garden.

Nigella 'Love in a Mist'

Nigella self seeds freely and makes for a pretty display

'Pinks' - these have also self-seeded

Pinks

Snapdragons

Sweet peas

I'm harvesting loads of peas, we're eating them fresh and also I'm freezing them for later.

Looking forward to harvesting the garlic next month, it's doing really well, just need to give it water now!

On the pig front, we're enjoying delicious bacon and pork from our last lot of pigs. I will be cooking one of our hams for Christmas lunch.

Sadly though the little pig died - was squashed by the big pigs when they broke into his pen. We were all very upset about this. Makes us realise how very strong pigs can be to break through corrugated iron fencing!

Currently we have no pigs but are hoping to get some piglets soon. Will update on that when it happens. These piglets will be in a grassy paddock with electric fencing and rings in their noses - hopefully will avoid the 'too much mud' situation. They have a shelter and water supply hooked up ready to go, G has been very busy with getting that all ready.

The relocation of the pigs means we have freed up the last pig pen area. This will now be a fenced vege garden. At the moment we are using it to grow pumpkins (pig food mainly) but next year I'd like to have raised beds in there - it's a nice flat area and has some hedging to provide shelter from the westerly winds. The bulk of the tomato plants are in the other pig pen (where the little pig was). Anyway, the raised gardens will be a job to add to the list for next year!

That's all for now!

The arrival of Little Pig - post not for squeamish readers!

Yes, we have a new pig, and have named it "Little Pig". We don't normally name our pigs, since they are not pets, but felt the need to name this one, mainly to distinguish between it and the other 3 pigs. Here he is in his own fenced off pen:

He really is very little when compared to our 3 other pigs which have now grown to "almost big enough to turn into food". They would of course grow much larger in time, but the worry is that they would then be too big for us to handle. We butcher the pigs ourselves and it's a fairly big operation, which involves first shooting the pig (and then cutting its throat). It's a very quick process and the pig has no awareness of what's coming. A much nicer life by far than the many factory farmed pigs, even here in NZ, not to mention the imported pork from China etc. In my opinion, if you eat meat then I feel you should really be able to accept the butchering part, if not visually, then mentally. It's not pleasant of course but this is a reality.

Once dead, the pig is then hauled out of the pen and dunked into an old tin bath. Why a bath? Well we use it to remove the hair, not what you want on your cuts of meat! And of course the pig may well be a tad muddy! The hair is removed by scraping the pig with a very sharp knife (G does this) while very hot water is poured over the pig - that's my job. We boil up the water outside in a wood-fired copper boiler. I keep the fire going and the water topped up all the while. Also we use a large chain to pull in a see-saw fashion to help remove the hair.

When as much of the hair is removed as possible and without too much delay, the pig is hoisted up for gutting. After this it's ready to deliver to our lovely local homekill butcher for processing into bacon, hams, pork chops and mince. We like our bacon and the quality of our home produced bacon is far superior to what we've found available in the supermarkets.

Anyway, Little Pig is happy in his new home, runs around making oinking noises when he sees us and enjoys the milk, kumara (sweet potato), pumpkin and kitchen scraps he gets fed. We are on the look out for another piglet to keep him company, since most animals prefer not to be on their own. And in case you're wondering, we're keeping him separate from the other pigs for his safety, since they are much bigger than him and we can't be sure they would accept him into their 'gang'!

3 little piggies

It's pig raising time again here on CTF. This year we have 3 pigs, this time we have 3 boys and the breed is 'Long White'.

They are very shy at the moment and run away pretty much whenever we are around.  In their run they have some small pumpkins (and I mean small - we had a very disappointing crop this year - not enough rain!) and some kikuyu grass to munch on. This is supplemented with vege scraps and more pumpkins. Also they are getting cow's milk - we're hoping to source a good supply of that this year.

The ground in their run is very hard at the moment so it will take a bit of rain to soften it up enough for them to get their snouts in action. They will have a 2nd area to move into, a large paddock - when the grass has grown long enough, and they have turned over the soil for us. Pigs really are living ploughs, and they also fertilise as they go too, so it's 'win-win'.

Hopefully by shifting them to 'pastures new' this will work a lot better than previously. It means we can then plant out the original run with more fodder for the next lot of pigs. Timing, as always, is everything.

Time for an update!

It's Winter here at CTF, and we've had a few frosts, but some lovely fine days too. Fortunately not too cold being at the Northern end of NZ. We don't get snow here, it's usually just wet, with a cold southerly wind or else fine and sunny during the day but frosty at night.

I've been out pruning our many fruit trees, some of the bigger ones have needed quite a bit of work and that's very time consuming. I've been fairly brutal to them poor things but they did really need to be 'minimised' - we don't want huge fruit trees with inaccessible fruit for one thing! While we may not get such a great crop this next season, I'm hoping the following one will be good.

The pigs are growing fast. They've already eaten all of the root fodder we grew for them in their paddock (mainly mangels and sugar beet). And they've eaten just about all of our pumpkin harvest too - although I was loathed to feed them one of the only Musque du Provence pumpkins that grew in the drought - have kept this for a few winter soups for us!

They're now guzzling their way through lots of milk, crab apples and the odd handful of pig pellets.

In the vege garden, while things have slowed down over Winter, we're still managing to harvest a few greens for the dinner table.

The broccoli has been performing well, we've eaten quite a lot already with more yet to harvest. Apart from the standard green heading, I've put in some purple sprouting as well.

The cauliflowers are doing quite well. I planted purple ones this year for a splash of colour -

Also in the garden lots of spinach, silverbeet and herbs - coriander and parsley. I have found the odd chilli out there too which is amazing! Hope your garden is producing well over the Winter months.

New pigs

This year we have 4 pigs, so we will now have our work cut out feeding them!

Right now, they are feeding on their paddock lot of mangels and sugar beet. As you can see, they have wasted no time digging these up and munching them! I have also been supplementing their feed with household scraps (I collect them from my work too), and cooked up pumpkins and potatoes. Hopefully we can get hold of some crates of kumara (a kind of sweet potato here in NZ). Last year we did this, and boiled up large batches in a copper boiler outside - it's too hard to cook up enough indoors in small pots! Previously we've also managed to get hold of excess milk from local farms, don't know if this will be possible but we will try. The pigs love the milk and it's easier than cooking up food.

So, here they are, 2 girls and 2 boys (no names - they are destined for the table!):

3 little pigs

OK well they're not quite so little now!! In a couple of weeks they will be approximately 6 months old. The two on the right are the Tamworths and the one on the left is the Duroc. It was hard to tell them apart for a while, until I discovered the Duroc has a pale smudge on her snout.

Compared to the photo from when they arrived and were just 8 weeks old they are quite a bit larger.

They have really done a great job of digging over the soil in their run, and yesterday we filled up some of their holes with water so they could have a nice wallow!

They also like to drink the muddy water too.........despite trying to keep their trough water clean they usually stand in it. They don't seem to worry though!

We also topped up their hay and they had a great time rolling and playing in a big pile, wagging their tails all the while.

I think they are 3 very happy pigs don't you?!

Miniature garden again and new piggies

The wee garden D and I constructed together the other day has had a few alterations. We found some small iridescent blue coloured glass pebbles and thought they would look pretty in the garden. Some of the bigger stones we took out, leaving just the 'crystals' (not sure what the rocks are, they were found locally on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour). D picked more flowers. I can see this could be habit-forming, and can see making one in a larger container might be on the cards!

Today saw the arrival of our new pigs. This year we decided to get 3 little piglets, since we do love our bacon and ham, and I would also like to have some pure pork sausages this time round. So many commercially made sausages contain lots of undesirable additives. When we lived in the UK for a while we used to buy delicious pork sausages directly from a pig farmer at the growers market in Buckfast in Devon. Pork and apple, pork and sage, pork and juniper berry were some flavours I remember.
Anyway, I digress....back to the pigs!  2 are Tamworth and the bigger one is a Duroc. We have not kept a Duroc before so will be interesting to see what sort of temperament it has. They are all tame at present and have been well cared for by a local pig farmer.
The piglets are cute, friendly, move very fast and were extremely noisy when lifted out of their transport crates! But they seemed very happy to have a lovely big enclosure to explore and lots to munch on!

Bring home the bacon

Literally!

Last night hubby collected the pork from the butcher (from our 2 pigs). We only just fitted everything into our 2 freezers (with existing fish/beef/lamb/pork). Now we have loads of delicious smoked bacon again! We also got some roasts, chops and a few hams.
YUM!

Mystery plant and a treat for the pigs

Does anyone know what this plant is please? It was given to me (as well as some seeds) but the plant name was unknown.
Apparently it attracts insects that would otherwise be munching on veg plants! It has purple/mauve flowers and they then turn into papery 'lanterns' which contain the seeds.

The pigs are enjoying some lovely creamy milk that G was given by a friendly farmer. Rather a lot of milk actually...this tank holds 1000 litres!

Our 2 pigs are drinking about 20L a day, on top of food scraps and crab apples. They also get the odd handful of pig 'tucker' (pellets).

In the garden I've done a bit of much needed weeding, plus shifted several (approx 40) strawberry plants into a nicely prepared bed - loads more to do. Also have purchased some lavender plants for a hedge. Although these are tiny plants now, I hope they do well in the spot I've got planned for them. They will be on a north-facing slop, bordering a pathway.
We also have the first of our new seasons fruit trees to plant. There are 5 peaches, another apple and 3 more mandarin/satsumas. These will be going in the ground ASAP.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, I still have lots of citrus to deal to - lemons, limes (from our trees), oranges and tangelos. I'm planning on making some marmalade and lemon honey, but also want to make some lemon pickle. I've made lemonade, and also have a batch of citrus cleaner brewing.

Busy, busy, busy, but all good down on the farm!

New pigs!

It's time for pig raising again. Yesterday we bought 2 little piglets, 8-9 weeks old. These ones are 'Large Whites'. Aren't they cute?

Re-cap on the pig butchering - with photos

I didn't post any pictures of the pigs/pork on my last post so here they are now.

A finished pig ready for the butcher

A nice pork shoulder roast!

We are just waiting on the bacon and hams now. Have quite a lot of roasts and chops in the freezer.

Update mid November

We've been busy planting. Trees mainly, getting them in before the summer heat kicks in for real, although it has been fairly hot and dry already. We did get a slight dowsing of rain today - hoorah! and it has been a bit cloudy for the last couple of days. We (this is the royal 'we' here, as G has done most of the hard work!) have been planting all types of native tree, in various spots around the farm. In a few years time (and it doesn't really take long) they will be flourishing, and providing us with shelter and privacy, plus attracting the birdlife.

Taraire tree being planted and watered

I've also been busy working away in the veg garden, getting in some more veg, zucchini, chillies, capsicum, eggplants and herbs. I have some more watermelon seeds coming up and will plant these with the others ASAP. The pumpkins, corn, melons and tomatoes are all doing really well in the old pig area.

Also today was a big day as the pigs were slaughtered (stop reading now if you are squeamish!). G had a friend help him and in no time the pigs were dealt to and hair removed by soaking them in a boiling hot bath, then they were hung up and gutted. Now they are with the butcher and next week we should have some lovely bacon, pork and hams to fill the freezer and enjoy over the next few months.

While killing animals is never a pleasant job, we can feel good about the fact that the pigs enjoyed a free-range natural environment with plenty of fresh air, good food and the occasional head scratch! Sadly the bulk of commercially available pork in NZ is not from happy pigs (see here for more info).

And in terms of permaculture, we closed the circle by burying their remains in the old pig area now the new veg garden, next to the pumpkin patch. Thank you piggies.

Happy pigs

The pigs are now housed in their new enclosure. They have a lot more space, less mud and a big grass paddock to run around in (and they do!). The green thing in the photos is a cover we thought they might like for a bit of shade, but in hindsight have taken it out, they have their shelter which gives them shade and also the fences are all now double height corrugated iron (wasn't quite finished in these pics) so at various points depending on where the sun is they can get some shade there also.
I think they are very happy. Well done and thanks to G for all his hard work.

As happy as a pig in....

MUD!
Lots of lovely slushy, splodgy mud thanks to all the recent rainfall!

Yes 'porky' and 'bacon' are growing into big girls now. They're enjoying their diet of milk, food scraps and the odd handful of pig nuts. Soon they'll need a bigger house!

Pigs at the trough

Literally!

Here they are speedily devouring a selection of tasty cooked up veg scraps, leftover bread, porridge and crab apples!
If you look closely at the photo you can see the frost on the grass. We've had a couple of quite heavy frosts in the last couple of days. Beautiful clear sunny days in between though.
Here's another frost photo:

Four-legged ploughs!

The pigs have made short work of turning over a large area in their enclosure! Fortunately this is what we envisaged and are happy for it. Not so good if it was your prize lawn however!!

Piglet pics

Here they are enjoying some crab apples.

They are getting a little tamer, and now letting us get a bit closer!

We have pigs!

Woohoo! Great excitement today as we have at last bought x2 piglets. They are Tamworths - a rare breed, originating from England. We've got them in with the chickens at the moment, while they are small. We've been wanting to get pigs for a while now, so are feeling very happy to now have them and a very fine pair they are too. These pigs are destined for the table so although they are very cute, we have to always bear in mind the reason for getting them. If you haven't already watched the River Cottage series (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) and the segments about keeping pigs, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, here they are just after arriving:

And a little later, after a bit of a feed, relaxing in the afternoon sun: