200 lbs of goodness

Yesterday was the day I've been waiting for for the past 4 weeks!  If anyone has been following this blog, we took our 2 pigs in to get butchered about four weeks ago.  Our pork was finally done and we went to pick up our meat!  Over 200 lbs of pork!

This is what 200 + lbs of pork looks like (plus one more big bag not shown in this picture)

There are bacon, and ham, pork chops, sausages, shoulder steaks etc.  It's kind of awesome to be able to see the harvest of your hard work.  All the hard work of feeding them twice a day, running after and catching them after they escaped, all of that hard work finally paid off!  And the best part is that we know what we were feeding our pigs and there was no hormone or junk in our meat!

This is our pork meat inventory

This is what I'm having for breakfast this morning:

Yum

Sunday = no rest day

Sunday/Sabbath day is usually a day of rest.  For going to church and leaving the care of the world behind.  But if you just got a bull the other day Sunday means no rest!

We just picked up a Dexter bull on Saturday morning.  Dexter is a smaller breed of cow.  It's perfect for people with a smaller farm/land.  You'll need about 1-2 acres per a regular-sized/large cow/bull.  But for dexters you'll only need about 1/2-1 acre per cow.  Hence, the reason why we got a Dexter instead.

So yesterday after church we came home and we're looking around the front pasture to make sure the bull is settling in okay in his new home and that he was still around.  Of course he escaped!  It just seems like we always have a problem keeping the animals inside of where they are supposed to be. But to my defense this time it wasn't quite our fault, the bull actually busted the old gate that was improperly installed by the previous owners and he lifted the gate up and got out from underneath the gate.  See picture below

He busted the bottom bar of the gate then lifted the whole gate
up and escaped from underneath the gate.

So we spent about two hours looking for him, attempted to drag him back to where he was supposed to be, finally dragged him back to the front pasture with the help of a lasso and four-wheeler, then temporary fixed the gate so he wouldn't get out again for the time being.  So much for resting on the sabbath.

We found him in the very very very back corner of the property and where it's very very very swampy (we just got a lot of rain here this past week so the back of the property turned into a swamp).  Out of all the places he could have gone to or gone hiding he had to pick the swampiest and the furthest corner of the property!  This bull better not escape again!

Here he is, we named him Dexter.  How original, right?!

A closer look at Dexter

Animal shelter

The animal shelter I'm referring to is not "the pound".  I'm referring to like a cover for animals.  We had been wanting to build some shelter/shades for the pigs but just haven't had time to do it.  So finally today we did it.  We got it done before the severe thunderstorm is supposed to come.  I'm glad I have a handy husband.

Digging holes for the posts.  Thank goodness for the post hole digger we purchased from Harbor Freight it made the job so much easier!

Making progress

Almost done.  The pigs are inspecting it.  I think they like it.

Finished!

Our next project?

We just received this catalog in the mail yesterday.

I didn't get a chance to look at it yesterday but I had some time this morning to look through it.  Let me tell ya, I have never ever in my life been so sucked into a catalog, let alone a seeds and plants catalog.  But I spent quite a bit of time this morning looking through the WHOLE thing!  It was so fun looking through it, circling all the plants and seeds I want to buy later when we have our garden and dreaming about the day when we have a garden full of our favorite fruits and vegetables, and the day when we could harvest all of our hard work and the sweet juicy apples, and tomatoes and whatever else from our very own garden!  Of course we will start out small and just experiment a little first before we go all out.  But one can always dream, right?!  I'm hoping we can start a garden this year but we shall see, it's not like we don't already have enough projects already.

Talking about projects this morning we went out to tear down the very old chicken coop that is on the property.  We also cleaned up that chicken coop area so we can build a new one and hopefully we could get some chickens soon....I can't wait to get our own chickens and get fresh chicken eggs every morning!

An exciting morning

This morning started out as just one of the normal days.  We got the kids up for school, fixed them breakfast, packed them lunch then off to school they go.  And as usual we walked them to the front gate to wait for the bus.  But this morning there was something waiting at the front gate with us too!  It was a wrecked car in the woods right by the front gate.  My first reaction was "what the heck? What happened here?  Did someone get hurt?"  The driver's side door was opened so hubby peeked inside (he's always just so curious) and nobody was in the car and the key was left in the ignition.  We figured it must have been a teenager who was speeding down the dirt road last night, lost control then crashed.  (Yes, I don't understand why but we see these dumb teenagers and very young people speeding down the dirt road ALL THE TIME!  Kind of annoying.)  And after they crashed they probably panicked and just left the keys in the ignition and just walked home or something (teenagers just do weird things sometimes, you know?)

We called the sheriff's department so they could come out and do whatever that they do for situations like this.  The story gets more interesting.... Came to find out this car was reported stolen.  AND they said there was a very strong smell of marijuana inside the car.  So someone stole this car and while going on a joy ride smoked some weed, then crashed the car and left the scene.  But something else fishy is going on...if the car was reported stolen why would this person have the keys to the car???  But whatever I'm not a cop so I'll just let the cops deal with it and figure that one out.  After the cop was done doing his thing we just stood there and watched the wreckers pull the car out of the woods and loaded it up onto his truck.  It was very interesting to watch, quite a show, except it was a free show.

We found this stolen car in the woods this morning

Door left open and keys still in ignition

Busted fence

Where did the fence go?!

Check out this big ole' rut this car made last night