Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[sumi]

Guys, I don't know where I'm moving to yet, to be honest. My brother is coming over in a few weeks to stay with me and I decided to stop house hunting for awhile and wait until he's here, so we can search together. Finding an affordable rental property (especially in Co Tipperary) with a bit of land is hard though. There are houses enough to rent, but some are too expensive, others are unsuitable, or too far away from everything, or, when I enquire, have 30 people after it already. I'm going to make some serious work of getting into a position where I can get a loan to buy a property. The market is still looking great on that front. It's just the rentals… We may end up moving to a different part of the country altogether. DS wants to go back to Co Cork. I'd love to head down there or possibly Co Kerry. We'll see… I'll keep you all posted

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hope you find a great place, Sumi!

Finally feel like I'm getting back to normal - yippee! Still have that 'hanging on' kind of cough, but I can make it through a whole day at work and come home and do my chores without feeling like I'm gonna pass out. I went and bought some dirt/compost/manure to fill some of my big gardening tubs today. I unloaded all 30 bags (40lbs) and moved them to the garden area alllll by myself. Won't say I wasn't whupped when I got finished - but it got done and that's what's important.

Picked up some more heritage tomato plants today too since I never got mine started like I should've. Grabbed a couple pepper plants too. Wanted to find some eggplant but I've been to three places and can't find any. Guess I better get some started because eggplant is one of our favorite dishes yummy!

I've GOT to do some disbudding soon. I have to work Saturday so I guess I'd better plan on getting it done Sunday....at least all the bucklings. For the doelings I can probably procrastinate a little longer.

Took an ice chest to work with me today hoping that the butcher would call and say Mr. Pig was ready to come home. Guess I'll give them a call tomorrow and check. I'm ready for some home grown pork. Timing is everything though because neighbor asked me today if we should go ahead and butcher that pig this weekend, lol. Had to tell him that I gave up on him.... Oh well - we've got more pigs. Told him I wanted to butcher the young up and coming boar before he gets too big...maybe late summer. He'll be 9 months old in August and I think I'd like to try one at that age.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Ha! Of course that's how it goes!

Glad you're feeling better, is your husband sick still?

So... Are you selling all those bucklings?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

DH is better too, finally. We went to see his Cardiologist Wednesday just because the P.A. at the quick clinic we went to said he should get checked out. Cardiologist is like....yep, you're sick, lol. Also scheduled some tests since it's two years past his triple bypass. He'll have an echocardiogram and a nuclear stress test sometime in the next couple months. I am planning on him passing with flying colors so he better not do anything to contradict me, lol!

Not sure what I'm gonna do with all the bucklings exactly. I'm gonna put a doe and her triplet bucklings for sale, but not sure if I care if they sell or not. I'd like to get her offa the feed bill - but she's a nice milker too so....no biggie if she stays. The only thing I'm sure of is if the little guys don't sell they will be neutered and grown out for the freezer. That's the plan...but ya know how plans go, lol.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

My pig is READY! Whoop, whoop!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Woohoo! Can't wait to hear how it is!

I'm having pork chops tonight for dinner. Mmmm pork.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Got Mr. Pig home and tucked into his new home. Freezer is pretty full now! I weighed it and came up with approx. 115 lbs of pig product - but that includes the head and 10+ lbs of fat. Wish I didn't have to work tomorrow or I'd start curing that bacon and try to remember how to make hogs head cheese. I'm gonna have to search for my recipe(s). I shouldn't have had such a big lunch because food of any kind does NOT sound very good right now. I'm thawing a package of pork chops - but will likely wait until tomorrow to sample them.

We are windy, windy today. There's rain in the forecast, but "they" say it's going to stay north of us. But next week is another story. Possible rain about every other day next week - geeze.

 

[NH Homesteader]

How do you do your bacon? We froze ours from our last pig and still haven't brined and smoked it. Now we are about to have another pig's worth!

115 lbs is a fair amount! We got 122 off our last pig but that's with boneless everything and no fat or anything, just meat.

Anxious to hear how it is!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Been a few years since I've done bacon and I'm going to hope I can find a recipe similar to the one I used before....but it involves, salt, pepper, brown sugar and I remember ordering some maple sugar and pink salt. I debated long and hard about the pink salt, but in the end I used it because I was afraid not to. May or may not use it this time. I kind of like the idea of NOT using it. I rubbed the dry mix over it and put it in a big Ziploc bag in the fridge and turned it every day for a week. (The longer its in the fridge, the more juice it pulls out of the meat and the liquid acts like a brine.) Then I smoked it until the internal temp reached 150 degrees. That was some DAM good bacon too!

 

[NH Homesteader]

We don't use it. I know some people say it's not safe not to, but that stuff is nasty. DH used to process pigs with a guy who turned out to be a real jerk, and he had the smoker. So we haven't done our own bacon since. We use maple syrup, sea salt, Brown sugar and.... Don't know what else. But the issue for us is the smoker! And maple syrup is expensive. I'm not using the stuff we made! Do you have a smoker?