And now we are waiting for the call to come pick up our pork at the processing plant. Of course, it’s going to be a little longer before the hams and bacon are smoked, but the wait will be worth it! I’m hoping that by next year we will be set up to smoke our own meat again. Both Will and I have done it before, but right now, we don’t have a smoker or facilities to set one up. (There’s always a next year project!)

We kept our two gilts and are bringing a friend’s boar over to breed them. We’re trading breeding services on our buck goat for their boar’s services, so it will work out great for both of us. We’d hoped to breed both to a red wattle boar, but their only red wattle boar weighs 800 pounds. He’d squash our gilts! So we’re using their Berkshire boar this time and have reserved a purebred red wattle boar from the same sow that we got our barrow from — unrelated to either gilt. We don’t want to raise lots of pigs. Grain prices are horrible and don’t look like they’ll ever come down again. But we’ll raise a couple of litters a year and sell the extra weaner pigs to help pay for the feed costs for the pigs we keep to raise to butcher. I really do love the red wattle pigs and our friends say there’s no better pork. I’ll let you know about tomorrow! Mmm.

Meanwhile, I’m working on an article for the magazine on off-grid living on a shoestring, getting ready for a second Christmas dinner with my son, Bill and his wife, while Will is out burning brush piles. As our land was cut-over Potlatch timber land, there were lots of slash piles up on our ridge. UGLY. They were too rotten to use as firewood, so they just sat there. As we’re having an open winter, Will decided to burn them as there’s 3-4 inches of snow on the ground for safety. Last night, he burned six piles up on the ridge and BOY does that look better! And today, he set off the three piles down in our horse pasture. Those were all that was left from clearing the horse pasture, all shoved into one huge pile and two small ones. They all burned nicely, and relatively completely. What a relief it is to have all that gone. Another job done.

On to the next! Will’s working on his bridge, down at the creek. It, too, is coming along nicely, with both ends now down and supported well, rip rap on the upstream side consisting of power poles, boulders, and rock. There’s even planking on top for temporary driving over with the four wheeler! Now he’s hauling gravel to raise the level of the lower ground beyond the bridge, with rip rap to keep it from washing away. This will be a huge improvement over our inaccessible acreage across the creek, except in the winter. Soon, we’ll be able to drive the four wheeler, dozer, or tractor over it year-round. — Jackie

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Odd chicken egg

I got the craziest egg today. It is perfectly round, only the size of a yolk and the shell is very thin. Is there a reason a hen will lay an egg prematurely? Is this something to worry about? And should I pitch it or use it?

Erica Kardelis
Helper, Utah

This is just one of those things — some blip in the hen’s reproduction cycle. It’s nothing to worry about and you can certainly use the egg. I got a rippled, lopsided egg the other day that made us all laugh. I think the hen hiccupped when forming it! — Jackie

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Rancid pecans

I was making some Christmas candy and found a 2# bag of pecans on the shelf that I bought last year this time. I opened them to use them up but they are slightly rancid. Do you know of any way to freshen them up or will I have to throw them out. Hate to because they are so expensive. What’s the best way to store nuts long term so this won’t happen again?

Adell Struble
Aledo, Illinois

I can up all my nutmeats. It works perfectly and they never get rancid. I’ve got some pecans my friend Juanita and I canned down in New Mexico, twelve years ago, and they’re still perfect. (Pressure canned dry, toasted at 5 pounds pressure for 10 minutes.)

Once the nuts get rancid, they can’t be restored. BUT they can be used for stronger tasting foods, such as chocolate (brownies, fudge, etc.). If they are barely rancid, they can also be used in cookies. I prefer to can ‘em and not worry about just how rancid a bag is! — Jackie

Raising meat

My husband and I just recently bought a 100 acre farm. We want to make it into a hobby farm but feed us also. We want to purchase one cow for the beef. My questions are: is it okay to raise just one cow? How long do we raise it for? What age should we buy it at? We will also be buying to pigs for eating also. We currently have 7 chickens and 1 rooster that have been laying eggs since they were 3 months of age. Someone told me I was doing something right with them so maybe I’ll have great luck with a cow and 2 pigs.

Joanne

Yes, you can raise one steer for beef. (Steer, not cow; cows are female and are usually used for breeding, raising calves and/or milking.) Most folks buy a calf between 3 days old and three months old to raise for beef. At two months old, calves are usually off the bottle and weaned…but cost more than when they were babies. But then, it costs about $70 a 50 pound bag for powdered milk replacer, too. It takes a bag of milk replacer to raise one calf to weaning, and baby calves are more tender and can become sick with diarrhea (scours) quite easily. If you can, I’d advise getting a weaned calf. It doesn’t matter much what breed. Most young calves are dairy breeds, usually black and white Holsteins, the most common dairy breed in the country. Jersey calves are cheap, but it does take awhile longer to get them up to butchering weight of about 1,000 pounds. The meat is just as good, regardless of breed. It usually takes about 18 months to raise a calf to butchering weight, again, depending on breed and care.

Pigs are a good investment for meat, as a spring weaned pig will be ready to butcher in the early winter, weighing about 250 pounds. And they eat a lot of waste garden produce, weeds, scraps, etc. too.

With larger animals, like steers and pigs, just make sure that you have adequate fencing. It is NO fun to chase down runaway critters! You’ll love your animals and the meat they provide. — Jackie

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Bread in a jar

I recently watched a cooking show where the chef made an applesauce quick bread that he baked in a wide mouth pint jar. He greased the jar, filled it about half full with the batter, baked the bread at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, then placed sterile lids and rings on them when they came out of the oven. He claims they will seal and keep up to a year. Have you ever done anything like this? Can it be done with yeast bread? My wife has become a canning fool since reading your column and would love to try this.

Bruce Schneider
Hinckley, Ohio

I used to make many different quick breads, canning them in jars as you describe. But experts now advise against this practice, citing that it is possible for botulism to grow in these jars. So I cannot recommend this practice any longer. Sorry. And no, yeast breads never worked using this method. — Jackie

Mastitis

My nubian goat just had her baby, at 1:00 on the Dec.19th. This is not her first time to have a baby but it is the first time for me to be there when she kids. I am afraid I might have done something wrong because one of her bags is hard. We read we needed to give her penicillin so we have but I want to know is there anything else we can do? How long between kiddings?

Lynne White
Lacombe, Louisiana

If your doe has mastitis (usually evidenced by abnormal milk and a hard udder), a week’s course of penicillin injections will do a lot to help. Milking her several times a day (much as you’d drain an abscess) will also help clear the bacteria out of her udder. To provide relief from the swelling, try massaging the udder and using warm compresses on it twice a day. Improvement should be seen within a few days.

I’m not sure what you meat “between kiddings.” Does usually kid once a year. The time between kids in a birth ranges from a few seconds to about half an hour. — Jackie

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We just had a snow storm mixed with freezing rain. Several deer came down the trail below the house, heading for the horse pasture and the round bales of hay we have out there. The horses sometimes share their hay with the deer. So far, our deer herd is fat and happy with the relatively open winter we’ve had so far. We’re several feet below normal snowfall for the year.

This fall the beaver were stockpiling tons of brush in the mud out in the beaver pond and I commented that I feared an open cold winter. And we’ve sure had an open winter so far. The cold usually comes right after Christmas. We have plenty of wood and food, so we’re not worrying.

Today I helped a friend can up a deer he’d shot with his bow and arrow. He wanted to learn to can meat, so I spent the day giving lessons. He went home with lots of meat and was real excited about the possibilities! And that’s exciting to me. — Jackie

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Canning meat

I’m getting brave enough to want to learn to start canning. When you talk of browning meat before canning, are you fully cooking the meat? And if you pour boiling water over it (such as hamburger)won’t it get all soggy and come apart?

Mary Janson
Aurora, Colorado

Good for you, Mary! You’ll really love canning your own food, I promise. Once you find out how simple it really is, you will be off and running. No, I don’t fully cook the meat, I just brown it enough that the meat heats thoroughly and shrinks down so more fits into a jar. I don’t use water in my browned ground meat, but I make a broth, using the pan drippings. By packing the meat gently into the jar, you use little liquid and no, it doesn’t get mushy or come apart. — Jackie

Watering pigs

How do you water your pigs? I have rubber tubs for ours but they are always climbing in them, getting them full of mud and knocking them over. Not to mention having to clean the buckets out three times a day is creating a huge mud hole in the already muddy pen. We bought a “dog lick” and that worked great all summer but now that winter is here it freezes. Winter watering is a chore and I need to figure out a way to keep clean water in front of the pigs without making such a mess!

Mia Sodaro
Frazier Park, California

You don’t have to keep water in front of the pigs all the time. If you provide all the fresh water they will drink, plus a little left over to use before it freezes, twice a day, they will do great. We do this, as well as mixing water or milk with their dry grain. Our pigs are big, happy, and healthy; yours will be too. — Jackie

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Yesterday, we went to pick up our beef from the processing plant. Our oldest son, Bill, and his wife are getting a hindquarter, we are keeping a hindquarter and we pre-sold the front two quarters. The cash from the front two quarters paid back a whole lot of the feed that steer ate ($720 buys a lot of feed). Bill pays for the cutting and wrapping of the hindquarters in exchange for plenty of cheap meat. The total cost was only $240 for butchering, cutting, wrapping, and freezing and our share is $120 after Bill pays for his part. So we feel that it was a good deal, all in all! I’m thawing out two T-bone steaks right now. Can’t wait for supper!

Check out the picture of Mittens and Spencer playing. They roughhouse every day. Mittens even stands in Spencer’s mouth and bites his cheeks! You can’t believe how funny they are. Both of them just had their distemper vaccinations, but it sure didn’t slow them down any. (Distemper is an awful killer of both dogs and cats…as are the other diseases the vaccine protects against. The cost is minimal and the peace of mind is huge!)

We may butcher some of our animals for food, but we love them all and do everything in our power to keep them happy and healthy. — Jackie

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Hens not laying

My question for you is about chickens. I have Isa Brown and Barred Rock hens who are just 25 weeks old. Usually my new hens are laying already. I only have 1/4 of them laying. This is happening to 2 other people I know too. The one has Australorps the same age that are not laying at all. Is there something going on in environment that they aren’t laying? We all have different feed sources too so we don’t think it’s the feed. We are thinking that we got them too late and not enough light. I have now started to turn a dim light on about 4am. Any suggestions? It definitely baffles us as to what is going on to so many people.

You also said you will be butchering your roosters? Do you kill them outside then do the butchering and cleaning indoors? Earlier this week we butchered off the last of our old hens and it was cold!! It took my hands a few hours to thaw!

Cindy Hills
Wild Rose, Wisconsin

We’re having the same trouble with the pullets we raised late this year. As the days are so short now, we have to start providing extra light in the evening, so it tricks their time clocks into producing more eggs. For us, that means scheduling a few hours of generator running time each evening, as we are off grid. For those on grid, plugging a single CFL into a timer, and setting it to provide a few hours of extra light each evening will work. When we build our new chicken house (after the new barn is done), we plan on adding a small room to house deep cycle batteries and a charger, so we can give lights to the chickens without running the generator then. (Sometimes it’s convenient, as I’m doing wash, running water, etc. Other times it’s not and we feel it’s kind of a waste of money.)

No, we freeze our fingers, too! We pick a sunny, partly warm day and only do three at a time. We’ve found that in that time, our fingers don’t freeze too badly and the warm water from the scalding keeps the birds fairly warm for plucking and the bodies are still warm for the cleaning. Our fingers start to freeze when we rinse off the birds and table with a hose. Brrr. That’s what we get for putting it off so long! — Jackie

Canning in half-pint jars

I am a 72 year old, single person and do much of my canning in half pint jars. My questions is: When I am canning meat, like hamburger or meatloaf in half pint jars, how long should I keep the pressure up (11 lbs) on my pressure canner?

I think the safe answer is the same as pints, but I would like to know what you think about it. I did call the Ball Blue book people and their answer was “they haven’t did any testing on half pints” so they didn’t give me a answer. This would also be a good question for the magazine because many people are now canning more than ever.

Charles
Hazel Green, Alabama

Charles, you can up your half pints for the same length of time as you do your pints. I do it all the time and can’t imagine the Ball Blue Book folks not being able to tell you that! I find myself canning so many things in half pints, especially meats, as I use them as ingredients in mixed recipes and a pint is just too much. — Jackie

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