Happy Accident: Fall Week #2 – 10/30/24
Happy Accident
At the farm we raise raise hogs for employees and family. This year I have joked that the pigs are of a cursed season.
Usually we raise 4 hogs. This year, the day the hogs were delivered was the day of the Mt. Horeb school shooting. When my farmer buddy, with five live pigs in a trailer waiting at my farm, called asking a) where was I and b) if I had ordered four or five feeder pigs, I did not pick up. I was up in town, panicking and keeping my phone line open for my kids who were in lock down. Left in uncertainty, he left me five pigs.
I had only ordered four pigs. My annual grain delivery had already occurred, and I had only purchased enough organic grain for four pigs.
And so began the season of the cursed pigs….
Just a couple of weeks later, there were wicked storms and tornados in our area. The night the tornados came through, the cover of my grain bin was blown off. It rained and rained on all of the dry grain I had just purchased. Matt and I climbed in the bin the next day and tried to scoop out all the wet grain we could, and put it under fans trying to dry it out as best as possible. It only took a day and flies were everywhere. The grain still started to rot. It was a sticky, stinky gross mess – I had to waste so much of it and feed questionable grain to the pigs.
And so the cursed season continued… not enough grain and then that grain partially ruined.
Grain deliveries have minimum weights. Since my grain deficit didn’t match the minimum delivery weight, I decided to just go with having smaller pigs this season. They fattened up to some extent, but they were quite far from the desired 260 pound end weight.
As the season turned into October, it was time to take them to the processor for harvesting. This too ended up being a debacle. Due to the corporate consolidation of meat raising and production, fewer and fewer small processors exist. Our processor, Hoesleys, is experiencing such high demand that when I called them a year ahead to schedule my pigs’ slaughter date, they were already booked. So I had to resort to booking with an unknown processor much further away. (And the cursed year continues)
Then it came time to load the trailer. I borrowed a trailer from other farmer friends down the way. Unfortunately we had over-lapping slaughter dates and so they were unable to lend me the trailer for a full week ahead of loading. This was a problem, because usually I switch to feeding the pigs on the trailer so that they eventually load voluntarily. With only a couple of days with the trailer, I did not have enough time for the pigs to get used to the trailer and start eating on it.
On the day of the loading, we could not get the pigs on the trailer. In fact, these pigs were so skittish about loading that one pig actually hurdled the fence and got out of the pen.
Having missed our slaughter appointment, and with slaughterhouses booked months out, I now had 5 pigs with nowhere to take them. To boot, one of them was now hanging out outside of the pen! Trying to put her back in was futile, because she now knew how to jump the fence. We did not want her teaching the others.
Needless to say, that was a stressful day. I had no idea how I was going to solve this problem!
So I did what most of us farmers do – I called other farmers for ideas, connections, contacts.
Eventually, through the help of some hunter friends and The Butcher Man, we were able to make sure the meat wasn’t wasted. Our hunter friends came and took care of what had become a feral pig (who had so much fun eating all the rotten tomatoes still on the vine!). That meat, now unsellable, will be the pork myself and Michael will eat this season. Then, the Butcher Man, like an angel of death, came to our farm and performed an above board on-farm slaughter and took the meat to a processor that he had a personal connection with.
And you know what?
The process of the animals being slaughtered on farm will be how we do it going forward from now on! The pigs died happy (literally – they were just munching on morning winter squash, not able to understand why their buddies had ‘lied down’ before they too were killed.) No stressful trailer load. No stressful highway ride. No horrible last hour at a sliaghterhouse where they can smell death before it’s their time.
Always I am seeking to stay connected and close to what is really happening with the food we put in our bodies. Separation creates lack of understanding and lack of appreciation. That’s why I grow food! And now with my own pigs, all the separation is gone now as well. I got to witness the entire process of my buddies becoming my meat. I was sad. I was fascinated. I was disgusted. I was grateful. It’s the only way I will eat meat at all, really, is to eat meat that I knew. To eat animals I once cared for, so I never forget to be grateful for the nourishing gift they provide me and my loved ones.
What felt like a cursed season of the pigs, turned into a happy accident. One too many pigs, not enough grain, spoiled grain, a pig hurdler, a missed slaughter date…. all of these things have led to understanding that from here forward I will only ever harvest my hogs right here on the farm where they were raised. It feels like the spiritually correct things to do and I’m so glad we have a way to make it happen going forward.