Piggy"s Night at the Library

Last year for Christmas I made all my grandkids soft, stuffed Red Wattle pigs. This year on Halloween weekend Taylor's pig went to a stuffed animal slumber party at the library. The kids all dropped off their stuffed animals on Friday evening and then came back on Saturday morning to pick up their animals, a treat and pictures of what their animals were up to during the night.

This is Red Wattle Piggy listening the Charlotte's Webb on tape. I love it!

Taylor's daddy said it would have been funny if Piggy was reading a pork cookbook!

I wonder what else he was up to all night?

National Small Farm Conference and Trade Show/RWHA Annual Meeting

After spending half the day pulling together reports, printing cards and brochures, hauling piglets to the vet, filling out health papers and generally dashing about madly, Brian & Kacie headed out for Missouri. Ok so all the dashing about madly was done by Brian and Kacie. It's hard to dash about madly in a splint with an ace wrap up to your thigh and crutches. I was limited to organizing the paperwork and supervising.
I had really been looking forward to the conference and our annual RWHA meeting. It's one of the few times during the year that so many alternative/heritage breed farmers gather in one place. And the RWHA annual meeting is the one big RWHA gathering for the year.  Not for me this year. I just couldn't see myself hopping around the exhibition hall when just bumbling out to the bathroom exhausts me.
So here I sit snuggled up on the couch with the laptop for company, my son and his little family sleeping in the next room because I can't be left alone in case I should fall or worse yet - not be able to carry food from the kitchen to my little nest on the couch. Contrary to popular opinion, I think I could live on the bowl of apples on the end table for 3 days quite nicely and I've learned to hang my lidded travel mug from the hand grip on my crutches.
It could be worse, I suppose, but I do miss being outside and taking care of the animals.
Oh well. Hopefully, Kacie will take lots of pictures and Brian will remember to turn on the recorder for the meeting. I'll just have to wait and see.

This little piggie went to market....

We are off to take 3 not so little piggies to the processor. Then we will have Red Wattle pork available again at Double Oak Farm Green Grocery, located at 1120 Washington in downtown Columbus, Indiana.

The folks at Double Oak offer locally raised beef, pork and lamb as well as seasonal local produce and preserves. They are expanding their inventory all the time so stop by and see what's new!

A new farm record!

We put 120 chickens in the freezer today and we were done before the sun went down!! It sure feels good to have all that meat in the freezer.
Guess what we had for dinner>>>>>

MEATLOAF!

Chicken has to wait for a week before I can face it again. :^)

Prep for the big day

The vats are scrubbed and the knives are sharpened. The birds had their last treat this afternoon - sunflower seeds. We are ready to start bright and early tomorrow morning.... off to bed for me.
My alarm is set for 5:30.

Bye Bye Birdies

Tomorrow is butchering day. We will be putting 120 birds in the freezer. Our friend Arthur and my son and his fiance will be over to help. Brian will be at school. Hmmmm you think he planned that?

It will be nice to have all that chicken in the freezer and it will cut down on chores for the winter. We're hoping this is the last year we will be buying meat chicks. Next year our Buckeyes should be producing enough fertile eggs for us to hatch and grow out our own Kiss My Grass Farm pasture raised all natural chicken.

Sustainability here we come!!

I know I've been absent...

absent from writing this blog, absent minded...

Well I'm going to try my best to work on that. I know I keep saying that.... but I mean it this time. LOL

So updates:

We traded houses with my daughter. We are in the little yellow house at the front of the property. Most of our things are still in boxes, but slowly I'm digging out. My mom is staying at the big house and will be living with my daughter and her family.

The garden was a bust this year in the draught. We had to decide whether to water the garden or the animals. We decided on animals.

Next year the gardens will be small, raised and hopefully will produce enough for us to get by. With Brian in school, we are really pulling back our production.

We'll still have pork available and eggs when the hens cooperate.

So now it's time to get out and milk Hazel. .. so gotta go!