Farewell 2013 Pigs and Giving Thanks

It was a dark and stormy night as we said farewell to the pig yesterday evening.  I just realized I did not get any pictures of them this past week.  I think the last pictures were from last week.  Anyway....

Piggies at 8 weeks old-

 Pigs around 25 weeks old (sorry I didn't get a better picture of all 4)-

We estimate they weigh around 250lbs each.  So they put on about 200+ lbs in the 17 weeks (4 months) we had them.  250lbs is around the ideal weight you want to be sending them off at.  This is for efficiency reasons.  Maybe I will post more on that later.

Corralling them into the trailer last night was an adventure, in the dark and in the mud.  Thankfully Jonathan was home to help man handle them.  We managed to get the biggest three in without too much stress but the smallest pig slipped out the trailer door before we could get it closed.  Pigs are VERY smart, crazy strong and can be VERY dangerous when panicking.  Once the smallest was separated from the group it panicked and became quite hard to get into the trailer.  Jonathan and our friend did a great job handling the pig and thankfully no people or pigs were hurt in the process.  Might I add that Jonathan did NOT grow up on a farm so kudos to him for learning how to handle these animals and not afraid to muscle the pigs around.  There was alot of contact and muscling that went on.

We are very thankful that all 4 pigs were sent off healthy yesterday.  We're keeping 1 pig's meat for our self and have sold the other 3's meat to friends.  This 'thanks' even made it onto our Giving Thanks Tree-

Baby girl is thankful for simple things as well-

I would like to make Thanksgiving as big of a deal as Christmas in our house.  Taking time to give thanks is super important (you don't have to wait till Christmas to give thanks for our Savior being born)!  I know it is hard to compete with a holiday that brings presents but I believe many things can be done to amplify a holiday.  Kids are easily swayed with cookies and crafts. :)

I am by no means an organized mommy, so doing simple things like crafts and cooking with the kids is NOT a part of my everyday life (some mommies have this skill).  I do my best though.... even if it brings on false labor pains in the act. :)

Hoping everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and takes time to truly give thanks!

Pigs, Kids and Squash

Yep, that's pretty much what is in this post.  Just some pictures of such.
We are VERY thankful for friends making the effort to bring us their pumpkins and squash.  One friend has a dad who is a butternut squash farmer.... she dropped off boxes of squash for them.  The pigs prefer them even over the pumpkins.
Carrying a batch of donated pumpkins-

He's on a mission-

Over the fence they go-

Piggies don't waste anytime-

Watching the animals is a part of our daily routine.  Little Man is telling Baby Girl that he read somewhere that squash seeds can help as a natural wormer.

The pigs are looking good.  Probably about 230-ish pounds average.  Just a few weeks to go.  Much leaner than last year and we believe will give us better quality bacon as well (last year's bacon was very fatty and hard to get crisp).

This little piggie has not had a good past week.  He must have got in the water trough and got water in his ear.  It was obvious he had an ear infection.  We gave him some medicine (that will be out of his system in less than a week, so no worries to our pork buyers).  I brought him a pumpkin here to help him feel better.  Giving the meds part was interesting.  Ever try and give a 250 lb wild animal a shot in the neck without any restraint system (ie head chute)?  Well he decided to cooperate once, probably cause he knew not to mess with a pregnant women (don't worry, my husband did the muscling part).

Onto other things that are fun.... trying to clean the yard of leaves and pine needles with playful kids-

At least little man helped some-

Leaves are mostly up, snow fell yesterday.  We are looking forward to Thanksgiving.  Last one as a family of 4.

Growing A Garden, How Much Money Is Saved???

I set myself to keeping records of garden harvest this year.  I mainly wanted to get an idea of possible cost savings, what plants give us the highest 'payback' and what we should focus on or not so much focus on in the future.
Fellow gardening friends should be encouraged too.  There are more benefits than just tastier food (as I am sure you know this).

So how much money did this rectangle of dirt grow?

Here is the breakdown, prices are from my local Stop & Shop grocery store (which I consider to be the local average price range).  Note that we grew everything organically which in the store is an even more expensive product than I have listed below, I used the regular produce price-

Red and Blue Potatoes:
Total weight grew- 23.5 lbs
Total savings @ $4.99/ 5lb bag = $23.45

Chips made from blue potatoes-

Garlic:
Total weight grew- 1lb 7oz (about 19 bulbs)
Total savings @ $6.34/lb = $9.51

Green Beans
Total weight grew- 9.6 lbs
Total savings @ $2.49/lb = $23.95

Soybeans (Edamame)
Total weight grew- 1.5lbs
Total savings @ $5.99/ 10 oz bag = $11.98

Sweet Corn
 Total weight grew- 30.6lbs (or 73 ears)
Total savings @ $2/dozen = $12.17

Corn beard-

Leaf lettuce
Total grew - roughly equivalent to 3 bunches (its still growing alittle)
Total savings @ $1.99/bunch = $5.97

Eggplant (Ugh, I'm still having nightmares about all the eggplants, a blog post about using it here)
Total weight grew - 32 lbs (or 82 fruits, but I threw and gave a bunch away)
Total savings @ $1.99/lb = $63.68
Note to self, grow less of these next year.

But the ratatouille was amazing.... and freezes well to make great soup fillers for the winter.

Beets
Total grew- 3 lbs (still some growing in the garden)
Total savings @ $3.49/1.5 bunch = $10.47

Heirloom Tomatoes
Total weight grew- 30 lbs (or 35ish tomatoes)
Total savings @ $2.99/lb = $90.76
~Note, this is an unfair price.  I used regular tomatoes price here instead of an heirloom tomato price.  There were no heirloom tomatoes for sell in the store at the time of my price gathering but I know the price for heirlooms would be more.  Pretty much I am saying, the total saving should be more.

Amish Paste Tomatoes (similar to Roma or Plum)
Total weight grew- 27 lbs
Total savings @ $1.99/lb = $54.31

Pickling Cucumbers
Total weight grew- 15.25lbs
Total savings = ?? store cucs were priced per fruit not pound, I did not keep count of the fruit but there were alot.  I canned 8 quarts worth of pickles and we ate fresh cucs almost regularly for lunch.

TOTAL savings all together = $305.26

To be fair I will factor in the seed and seedling expenses,  which comes to $43.13
So that would bring it down to $262.13.  I don't preserve alot of my seeds from previous plants nor do I hassle with growing some things from seeds for transplanting (like tomatoes).  I buy seedlings instead from a local nursery.  Those that do this will see even more savings than us.
I would like to add that I did not count some things (such as blueberries and sugar snap peas, that just provided maybe one meal or snack), nor did I include our cherry tomatoes, there were too many to count (and I am not growing them at all next year).  I also want to note that I messed up our highly anticipated heirloom sweet potato crop.  We were expecting a HUGE harvest, but I made a growing mistake for our region... it will be corrected next year.
For those overly analytical people, I did not log hours spent working in the garden (to know what our time is worth).  The reasons for gardening goes well beyond cost savings for us.

I thought the above information would be nice to share for encouragement to other people trying to grow their own food... whether large, medium or small operation.

For now though, all garden thoughts can rest.... then we will hit it up again next-