The Big Pig Post

We are just over a month away from sending our pigs off to be processed into edible bites.  Lots of people ask,  "will you be sad?", to which I answer no.  We will see.  We didn't name them which has kept us from becoming too attached or humanizing them..... and they don't talk or haven't made friends with any spiders or sheep (baa-ram-ewe).  What they have done is grown, at a nice rate for pasture and free will feed pigs.  When we first got them in mid-May they were just weaned and 8 weeks old,  weighing about 30ish lbs (this is an estimate).  Preface posts- Fence Building 101 and E-I-E-I-O.

They grew fast.  2 weeks later and 10 weeks old.  (Homemade trough credit to Jonathan)-

 15 weeks, around 95 lbs each-

And now 22 weeks-

Ha ha.... just kidding, this is a pig at the zoo.  Here they really are.  The male weighing in at 209 lbs and female just under 200 lbs-

Nice and think-

Hams and tenderloins!!

If they reach 240 lbs by the time of slaughter we will get around 140 lbs of meat from each pig.  We will keep one for ourselves in the chest freezer and sell the other to friends and family.  One whole pig will probably take up about 6 or so cubit feet of the freezer (depending on what cuts we get).

Photo compliments of Sugar Mtn. Farm in VT, click here for more info.

How do we weigh our pigs you might ask?  We do not have a scale large enough to do such (actually we don't own a weight scale of any sort).  You estimate their weight by measuring their girth and their length, then do alittle math (girth x girth x length / 400 = weight).  The Pig Site gives a more thorough description if interested.  Here is our pig's growth chart-

The great escape is not figurative, it happened when we were on vacation in July and a neighbor farmer kept them for us in his cattle trailer for a week.
So that's the latest on the pigs.  They will most likely be taken to the slaughter house in October.  The nice farmer we bought them from has offered to pick them up when he is taking his.
Looking forward to having home grown meals-

Kind Of A Big Deal

I don't expect everyone to get as excited about this as me but......  one room's windows (our dinning room) have all been framed in!!  That means no exposed drywall around any windows in one room.  This is the first room in the house to achieve this status.

They still need to be painted like the one on the right.  Jonathan also made the stool and apron (the two most bottom pieces) different on the newer frames.  It's only slightly different so it is hard to see in the picture.

It has been a busy month at work for Jonathan but he has made time each evening to work on it-

Finishing these two windows has taken some time just due to normal daily business (mostly summer travels, yard work and starting a farm.... wait do we have kids?).  Here is Matthew helping last February with some progress (guess Jonathan prefers his gray sweat pants when working on trim)-

He likes his brad nailer.... makes the job soooo easy-

Did you notice we finally have something else hung on the wall (between the two newly framed windows)?  This was hung in celebration of hanging something else (I am serious).  This was our first piece of art purchased from a local pastel artist Kelly Milukas called Blue Barn-

It was hung in celebration of finally getting our second art piece and hanging it.  We bought this giclee of hers last weekend during the South Coast Artist Tour called Lavender Fields.

I like that you can see it from down the hall-

It helps balance out the dominant shelves-

I want to end with a honesty moment.  Before I straightened up the living room for the picture, this is the damage that my 11 month old had unleased on the room.

Tidiness is not her thing, but she does like a clean window-

Adirondack Family Getaway

We recently spent a long weekend with family in the Adirondacks.  Since the family spans from New England to Southern California, it had been sometime since we had all been together.  Needless to say it was a special time.

Jonathan's aunt and uncle let us all stay in their beautiful home.  It sits right on this scenic and peaceful lake.  Here was the view from the back porch-

The Adirondacks was the first place I saw I loon (that is an aquatic bird, I have seen and met plenty looney people before).

Our first adventure was a geocaching hike.  The expedition was Narnia themed that followed snow mobile trails (this was the first place I snowmobiled and snowshoed too).  At the trail head (or the wardrobe, for the Narnia fans)-

Already having some difficulty because we could not find the first clue.  Where's Mr. Tumnus when you need him!

We went on anyway knowing we would find our way.  We came to a divided path and guessed which way to take.  Maria may or may not have been worried-

Red salamanders were everywhere-

And then we spotted a tree person!!!! and they told us where the first clue was!!

As it should be... it was next to a lamp post, just alittle farther in than we anticipated.

We set out to find Aslan even though the White Witch had released swarms of mosquitoes to deter us.... but it didn't work and we pressed on.

Finally we succeeded and found Aslan in a small mailbox attached to a tree.  (Good thing the real 'Aslan' was with us the whole time :) -

 Then it was time for some relaxing on the water.

You wanna jump in?

Milo took another step towards manhood, learning to catch his own food.  Easy smeezy-

Looking so confident in this picture.....

....but this video tells another story-

More relaxing and fun-

The boy's night to cook, they made a pretty good mexican food feast.  Always entertaining these boys-

Discussing the day's events-

At Camp of the Woods after church.  Checkmate Pa !

We also went to a really nice concert at the Camp of the Woods.  It was really entertaining for us and the kids.  Very talented orchestra and singers.  Milo perked up when they played the Sesame Street theme song.  My favorite pieces were the Olympic Theme song and a stellar performance of Sing, Sing, Sing (I think that was the name).

As previously said it was a great time.  Special thanks to Dad and Mom T. for organizing it and to Carol and Leard for letting us use their lovely home.

On the home front I have an exciting house update to share.  Stay tuned......