Old McDonald had a farm......

Today, we added the second of two pretty pink pigs (Large Whites) to the farm. We got the first one last week. The big draw back on these little sweeties is they are male...... Which means one day this week my honey and my boy will be castrating little piggies. They have never done this themselves before and I will be doing some serious praying!!
In the past we have kept our pigs in a pen and have fed them out before processing them.
We are excited to have this portion of pasture fenced in and our little piggies are now out rooting it all up. Our goal is to have everything we raise here and everything we eat, to be free range grass fed. Here are all of the reasons why: The Amazing Benefits of Grassfed Meat

And here's our little Ramsey. He is definitely becoming all male. I don't really like that part but I guess that's what you have to have if you want to breed sheep. UGH......

And here is the true Old McDonald had a farm or what we affectionately know it as, Mr. Ronnie's farm. We love it!!! We fenced in a pasture right behind the garden area and we now have the turkeys, pretty pink pigs, Phoebe (pot belly), and last but not least Ramsey our St. Croix ram living back there.

We don't intend on keeping them all together forever. We plan to put the pink pigs in their own pasture behind the barn in a few months. Most of the turkeys will be making it to the freezer in October/November. Ramsey will also get his own little pasture, as soon as we get the ewes in the Spring. However, having them all together right now really works, not to mention, it is so entertaining out there. You can see our Retriever/ Lab mix, Daisy, wishes she could join in on the fun. We have been giving them all of the rotting left overs of the garden. They are loving it. This evening they got some watermelon, pears, and muscadines. As soon as I get everything I want out of my garden, which is going to be real soon, I hope to put the little pigs on the garden spot for a couple of months. I want them to root up all of the weeds, to their little hearts content. I am hoping that will help out our weed problem, which has been TERRIBLE this year.

I plan on linking this post up to the Preparedness Challenge and the Barn Hop over at Homestead Revival, one of my all time favorite blogs.

Busy Days of Summer and Rendering Lard

Rendering lard, why would anybody in their right mind do this? Well, when we process the pigs they always send us home with nicely wrapped packages of lard, such as below. In the past I have promptly thrown it in the garbage, not wanting to tackle this project. However, the more I read about "Good Fats", I thought why not give it a try. I have to tell you it is a long process. I should have started earlier in the day. I just did not realize.

The lard starts out a nice white and pink color when first going in the pot.

You put little chunk pieces in a stainless steel pot on the lowest stove setting. Stirring often the lard will slowly begin to cook down.

Then it starts to turn a grey color as it is rendering down. You will be left with small pieces of cracklin. The end result of hours of rendering. I could not wait on it all to render down so I finally just filtered out what I could and ended up with 3 pint jars. I poured the lard through a cheese cloth several times to ensure a clear end product. The jars sealed themselves during the cooling but I still think I am going to run them through the canner for a little while. It's beautiful and I can't wait to make a pie crust!! Today, I am rendering more lard. I am starting wwaayyy earlier and using a smaller pot. I hope that speeds up the process.
The turkeys are now 12 wks. old and are just so interesting looking. I thought they might be bigger by now but they aren't. Lord willing by Nov. they will be a good size.

Here are the turkeys walking across the backyard during a good downpour. They just absolutely refuse to stay in the acreage that we fenced in for them. We need to clip their wings but I don't know that that will help.

Our days are full right now on the mini farm. We have been canning pickles, freezing peas, squash, and zucchini. We are also really busy with all of the animals around here.

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I will leave you with this last little snippet of happenings around the homestead. We have a small game chicken, who we lovingly call bird, because she looks like a bird up next to regular size chickens. Anyway, we had not seen her in weeks and thought that a predator must have gotten her, as she comes and goes as she pleases, out of the pen. Well about a week and a half ago we found her and 7 baby chicks in the barn. We promptly put her in the chicken tractor. I would have loved to let her walk around the yard with her babies but from past experience we knew that she would be too vulnerable to predators. Lord willing, when the babies get bigger, we can let them out to run around together. I am thankful that we have some chickens with the natural instinct to set and care for babies.

Have a great weekend!!!

The end of May already, here's what's been keeping us so busy

~~Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. 1 Corinthians 3:8-9~~

This is the biggest cause of our busyness. Our very large garden. It rained and rained and rained and we were about 2 weeks late even getting our garden planted. Now that it's in the ground, it quit raining. UGHhhhh So for now we are water sprinkling it. It's not coming up great but my tomatoes look really good.
We are doing a lot of this......

My girls are doing their fair share of weeding, as well. Lord willing, we will have a bounty for all of this work. Working in the garden and putting up the harvest is one of my favorite parts of homesteading. Oh and by the way, the outfits below are not something we would ever wear outside of the garden! We like modesty!!

Our newest advenuture is beekeeping. My husband and son took a beekeeping class a few weeks ago. My son is hoping this will be a little side business for himself. He is so excited about it and loves his bees already. He has been in his hives every other day so far.

Here are the girls working hard.

My boys in their bee suits.

Smoking out their bees so that they can release their queen.

Another major project at the Spencer Family Farm is raising 15 Bourbon Red Turkeys. We have had them about 3 weeks and let me tell you, it has not been easy. We did not realize that turkeys are not the smartest of animals. We got them as day olds and thought it would be like the many chickens that we have raised in the past. However, turkeys we soon found out will starve to death standing beside their feed. They have to be taught to eat. Which we did for over a week. It has been tough and we have lost 3 but they are all eating well now and it seems they are doing good.

We plan to keep 3 hens and 1 Tom for future breeding. We are giving 2 to my mom and will process the rest for the freezer. They are so cute but aren't growing as quick as chicks either.

Here's Mrs. Phoebe. We have moved her to the big pasture to free range too. She has lost so much weight since having a bigger area to run around in. We are so crazy about this little missy. She gets two eggs at the end of everyday and now she is in the habit of running when she sees me heading to the chicken house. Who would have known that a pot bellied pig would be so much fun?

The girls are busy laying in their new Hen Pals Nest Box. I have to say I love this thing and the girls do too. We are getting about 20 eggs a day.

They also love the big new area that we have fenced in for their free ranging.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day and remember those that have given their lives so that we could have freedom!!