farm dwellers

I'll be in NYC for a few days, having a grand time at the International Association of Culinary Professionals annual conference, I'm sure, but I'll be missing these creatures and things at the farm (I get to speak to JR, so I'll miss him, but it's not like we won't have any contact while I'm away. So far, neither the dog nor the pigs have learned how to talk on the phone. Total bummer.)

The lady of the house. She's not quite sure why we speak to the pigs the same way we speak to her, but she does like that she gets to live indoors, and can pretty much talk us into treats any time she likes.

Behold the lovely Araucana hen, Gertrude, amidst the not so lovely farm mess. We're cleaning that up. I swear.

Rebecca really likes straw. And sleeping next to her sister's arse. It's a really good day when new straw has been added to the pen and Rebecca can dance around in it, burrow under it, then sleep next to Prudence's posterior.

Turkeys on one side, chickens on the other. The turkeys got the smaller part of the poultry duplex.

Here's a tool that's almost properly put away. At least I won't walk into it while it's lying flat in the yard, causing the handle end to pop up and whack me in the forehead. Yes. That has actually happened here. Ow.

Rebecca likes straw, but Prudence likes rooting in the dirt, trying to tear the barn's rock wall down, and, more than anything, she likes eating. Note the frothing at the mouth. Furious eating is what she likes best. Eff that straw madness.

 

spotty pigs

So tiny! But not for long.

After threatening to start a farmette last year, with best, yet insufficiently serious intentions, this winter, we were finally able to locate pigs to add to our otherwise avian (and canine - let's not forget canine) menagerie.

But not just any pigs, mind you. Given my preoccupation with obscure winter squash, and our love of our heritage breed chickens, only a heritage breed would do. Better still if the breed were endangered so that we could be part of helping to preserve it.

An extensive search of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website led us to narrow our focus to two swine breeds, Large Black, and Gloucestershire Old Spots.

The drawback to the Large Black for us at this point, as we are just a smallholding, was the large part of the equation. The sows reach 600 to 700 pounds at maturity, the boars can top out at 800 pounds, a fact which, as I read it aloud to JR, caused both of us to envision certain destruction of our corral (even with the restoration of electric fence) and pigs run amok. Very, very large pigs run amok, surely rendering us each persona non grata in our little community.

The incredible scarcity of the Gloucestershire Old Spots (GOS) was a big draw. The oldest spotted breed in the world, in their homeland, the United Kingdom, they had dwindled in popularity from the end of World War II on, nearly becoming extinct in the 1960s. 

In 1995, with only 4 GOS pigs in North America, Robyn Metcalfe, the original founder of the United States' Gloucestershire Old Spots Association, and owner of Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation in Maine, worked with U.K. breeders to come up with a plan to reintroduce the breed to the United States.

In 1996, after a U.K. to New York flight on British Airways (during which I'm sure they were rather well-tended to - these piglets are first-class charmers, it would be nearly impossible for the flight crew to resist providing a back scratch or two hundred during the course of the flight) and a few months in quarantine, 20 GOS piglets were delivered to Kelmscott, then distributed to interested breeders. Even still, in 2009, there were fewer than 200 breeding animals in the U.S. and fewer than 1000 in the U.K.

So the backstory was very compelling. And then I read that these are laid back pigs. And everyone on our farm - maybe excluding the roosters - is laid back.

The breeder who we bought from had indicated on her site that the pigs were good around children, which is important for our nieces' and nephews' sake, and thus, the decision was made. I mailed a deposit check on New Year's Eve - ending the old year and starting the new one well and with purpose.

A few weeks later, on the only serious snow day we'd had all year, JR and I piled into his truck at 6:30am and drove 45 minutes in increasingly slippery conditions to the Prudence Island ferry dock.

Initially, we had planned to park the truck on the mainland, ferry over with our dog crate/pig transport device, and be carted out to the farm by the farmer.

Fortunately for us, the lack of demand for travel to a small island in a snow storm opened up a spot for our truck, and we floated across Narragansett Bay until, approximately 4 feet from shore (fabulous visibility that day), we spotted the dock, and the farmer, Pat Rossi, in her truck, waiting for us to follow her out to Rossi Farm.

GPS knows it ain't paved, but they don't seem totally clear about the fact that it's ocean.

In near-blizzard conditions, Prudence Island's inland landscape is a bit surreal, dotted with sculptural evergreens, spare, yet contorted, or more likely windswept. 

The island is also desolate in winter, as the year-round population is only 218 people, all but two of whom - Pat Rossi and her son in front of us in their truck - were hunkered down in their homes.

That's the ocean to the left. It's the gray, stormy-looking thing.

We followed the ocean road to Pat's farm, where a small herd of gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spots of varying ages greeted us. I had already selected our two gilts (females that haven't yet been bred) from photos Pat had emailed earlier, 77-06 and 77-07, each with a green number tag in her ear.

Of course, 77-06 and 77-07 would not suffice as names, so upon making the selection from the photographs, I began the brainstorming of proper names.

06 is very spotty. You should see all the spots: on her back, on her face, on her ears. She's uber-spotty. I'd name her Spotty. Perfect.

07 has one big spot on her lower back. I'd name her Big Ass Spot. BA Spot for short, and to keep it clean. You know, for the children. Even though children are only visitors to our house.

No matter, even with a G-rated name, I'd be sure to slip up like I normally do with ducking ossoles, which are small birds that duck rapidly during flight, and also when invoking Duck's sake, because I care deeply about Duck and her well-being. I mean, what the duck? Who wouldn't give a duck about Duck?

JR, trying to be polite (obviously far more polite than I am capable of, Ms. Longshoreman-Mouth over here), mentioned that being of the breed Gloucestershire Old Spots, and also being spotted, that perhaps those might not be the most original names for our pigs. Geez. Way to burst a new pig-mom's bubble.

At Rossi Farm before heading to the ferry dock.

On the drive home, pigs safely tucked away in the dog crate, I proposed new non-spotcentric names: Prudence (aka Spotty) and Rebecca (aka Big Ass Spot). Prudence is obvious, I know. Because they are Rhode Island island pigs, they were both given Rhode Island island names, and Rebecca's is in honor of the statue of Rebecca that graces the teeny traffic rotary in downtown New Shoreham, Block Island, our favorite beach vacation spot. (Spot! More spots! Spots all around!)

Just before the carrying to the pig pen - and the horrific squealing - begins.

After a bit of blood-curdling squealing during the carrying from dog crate to pig pen (totally normal, pigs don't like being carried) - during which no police were called, which was good in the moment, but possibly bad in terms of our neighbors' overall concern for others - Prudence and Rebecca settled into their straw bed and new surroundings.

Within days, apparently having not heeded Pat Rossi's warning that they want to be pigs not pets, they began running to the gate for back scratches whenever they spotted us, sometimes even charging out of the straw bed at the sound of our feet. Within those same few days, JR and I were both completely smitten.

Soon, we'll be bringing a boyfriend - yes, a stud - to the farm for them, and will breed the girls to help perpetuate the breed, as well as to raise and sell some of their offspring for market, and for our own consumption.

For now, we're quite content to treat them a bit like pets (hey, they really like having their backs scratched!), and get to know their personalities - Prudence is the more outgoing gilt, though Rebecca has warmed up to us. It's amazing what a little spine-scratch will do to increase swine friendliness.

Prudence being treated just like a pet. Aside from the living in the barn part.

In the short time they've been here, Prudence has made it known that she is the alpha in this pen, behaving in a quite hoggish fashion around the trough, but still quite content to have her sister sling her hoof over her side while they lay side by each basking in the afternoon sun. A lovely sight, indeed. I'll have to be extremely stealth to sneak up and capture a shot of it for you before they hear me and rush the gate for scratches, but I'll do my best.

welcome to tiny farmhouse!

Our new Gloucestershire Old Spots gilts on arrival day at our farm

When I first met JR, way back in the early 1990s, he was raising Black Angus cattle. He was a little ahead of the curve in his cattle-rearing (like 20 years or so), as they were grass-fed.

And this was a good thing, because they were tasty, but also a bad thing, because technique for cooking grass-fed beef wasn't exactly well-known back in the day. And among those who lacked knowledge of grass-fed cooking technique was JR.

As a result, many a friend who bought beef from JR complained of shoe-leather textured steak. Twenty years on, this is still a topic that is brought up when we attend our friends' summer barbecues. Steak plus JR equals tough (however, other cuts were just fine, as many were slow-cooked at lower heat. Fortuitous!).

By the early 90's, JR had also already raised two pigs, which he had named Lunch and Dinner. A friend told him that they had to be named, and, given our current experience with pigs, these do seem like two of the safest of all to-be-eaten pig names.

Around that same time, JR had been selling fresh eggs from his hens to a local golf course for their weekend breakfast service.

This went on for most of the summer, until one fateful morning.

First, there was the crack of the shell, next, the hiss of the grill, and then, lo and behold, two little chick eyes stared back at the elderly woman who was frying the eggs. A little shocking for the golf set. The chicken egg order ceased.

My own entree in to raising my own food was blessedly free of all of these issues. No tough steaks, no naming pigs after mealtimes, no baby chicks staring back at me from the fry pan. Primarily because I didn't start with livestock. Oh, no, my own grow-your-own exploits were not without failure. No. They were not.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was living in an old Colonial house, circa mid-1800's or so, that had been converted into an apartment building. The landlords were very sweet people, and they had given their blessing to my request to plant a garden.*

One particularly muggy June Saturday, I set out to plant my plot. I had started creating rows - rather neat rows, in fact, ones that my organized Virgo self could really feel proud about - then poured the tiny seeds into my palm and started placing them gently in the rows, spaced 1-foot apart.

As I carefully covered the seeds with soil, another tenant, an octogenarian gentleman, came outside and asked what I was planting. I looked up from my task and replied, "Tomatoes," with a big smile. Boy, was I excited.

"Tomatoes?"

"Yes. Tomatoes."

He hesitated a bit as he figured out how to break the news to me, then he said, "I believe that tomatoes have to be planted a little earlier in the year."

"Oh, really? Like, how early?" I asked.

"Um, like March," he said.

Gardening and raising livestock are learning experiences, of course. If you're a beginner, there's a high likelihood that you'll be humbled in your initial attempts, but the rewards are so well worth it, and it becomes easier with each passing year.

For us, this winter's addition of pigs to our homegrown enterprise has proven the source of rookie mistakes (oh yes, I will be sharing), but they've also provided a renewed sense of purpose here at our tiny farmhouse, and I'm thrilled to be able to share that with you here.

As has been the case at Poor Girl Gourmet, I'll be sharing recipes here as well, usually with a budget-conscious bent (though I do hope you'll forgive me if we splurge from time to time, and if I don't do quite as much math over here).

There will also be stories about our farm and garden - the slug-eating hens, the sent-from-the-devil-himself squash bugs, as well as tales from our travels (as our vacations are typically food- and farm-focused - shocker.), occasional stories about food artisans, and tidbits about the (primarily pretty) things that make a house a home.

I'm really excited to delve deeper into all of the things that we do here at our tiny farmhouse, and I hope that you'll find it to your liking, too. 

Thank you so much for stopping by!



*a longer version of this gardening story was included in my book, Poor Girl Gourmet: Eat in Style on a Bare-Bones Budget, though I felt I had to share it again, as it shows that though the learning curve is steep, you can level out rather quickly.