Sallygardens Smallholding

Where to Source Free Range Pork

Following on from interest in my previous post I'd like to highlight the fast growing range of alternative food sources here in Ireland. To find artisans local to your area have a look at the interactive Food Map of Ireland by clicking on the badge below, you can add contacts if you know of any not yet listed.

 

You'll notice on the food map a farm owned by the Chilton's in County Roscommon, not far from Sallygardens. This is a classic example of a family run small scale local business which caters for customers who have opened their eyes to the reality of intensive farming.  These freedom farmers raise excellent rare breed, free range, 'happy' pork who follow their instincts roaming the great outdoors. I know it's excellent meat because Dan helped them with their last sausage making session and was paid in kind with a decent whack of truly delicious sausages! You can either buy pork directly from them all prepared and ready to cook, or if you fancy getting even more hands-on you can buy a pair of eight week old weaners to rear at home.

For more details contact Andrew Chilton on 086 6627415. More pig breeders are listed on the Sallygardens forum pig category here, or you can buy an eBooklet for €8 about raising weaners for the table written by me, just drop an email to me here at irishsallygardens[at]gmail[dot]com.

Butchering Free Range Organic Pigs at Home

When your pigs get to slaughter weight you can take them to the abattoir and they'll kill, butcher and bag up all the meat if you wish. Of course after you've been through it all a few times you may start to get tempted by the thought of saving a few Euros, or simply be keen to have a go and attempt to do the butchering yourself. You can arrange with the abattoir for them to kill and gut the pig so you can collect the cleaned out carcass in two halves and attempt the butchering at home.

Amazingly (and you'll be even more amazed once you've tried it yourself!), a trained butcher can cut up a pig in little over an hour but don't use this as your guideline for completing a the job!  Allow a full twelve hour day with the help of at least one other person, preferably four keen workers. A second day will also be needed if you intend to make your own sausages and salami. Don't forget about freezer space, a couple of pigs will fill three or four drawers of an upright freezer.

Before you gather troops and collect the pig carcass it's vital you have a number of essentials to hand which should be organised  and lined up ready to hit the ground running a few weeks prior to the event. Invest in some butchers knives and a sharpener, ask your local butcher where he buys his own. Also buy a couple of rolls of plastic bags for packing and a good black permanent marker for labeling bags. It's handy to have a weighing scales for measuring out portions when bagging up too. 

If you also intend to make sausages ensure you have already decided on flavours and bought in the necessary herbs and spices well in advance, mix these the day before so they can be easily added to each batch of ground sausage meet as you work. Ensure you have sausage casings and a sausage maker ready to roll.  Buy and watch the River Cottage DVD 'Pig In a Day With Hugh & Ray', watch it several times and set it up in front of the table you'll be working on so you can play and pause the DVD as you make your cuts. We pool bought ours to share between friends.  Keep a well stocked first aid kit close to hand. Take regular breaks and eat well because you'll need to keep up your energy levels. Warn any squeemish, vegan or vegetarian friends and neighbours not to call in that day! Have some chilled beer and wine to crack open once you've finished to celebrate.

Again this is a fantastic experience for children to witness first hand. There is no mistake where their pork chops come from after seeing this. I'm all in favour of educating people as to where their food originates and if that results in my children choosing to become vegetarian then I'd be proud to assist them, we all eat too much meat anyway. I don't want them to be so disjointed from the realities of food that it comes as a shock that pork was once a living pig, or that their burger was a cow. So many kids (and adults) these days don't make the connection or never get the opportunity to, because meat is not packaged with any visual reminders of animals on the labels and our lives are so removed from the whole process. It's all too easy to mentally bypass the realities of life, death and animal welfare that is required for us to consume meat.

I've often had visitors to our home who meet our pigs and find them delightful creatures (which they are), then when I explain that they aren't pets but are for the table, the conversation usually goes ; 'That's so cruel, how could you?',  'Are you vegetarian?', 'No!', 'Do you eat pork from the supermarket?', 'Yes, but that's different', 'yes it is because our pigs are outdoors and free ranging, your pork has probably never seen the light of day and has been raised indoors', silent thoughtfulness then ensues. On the other hand I've had lifelong vegetarians stay with us who have decided to eat our meat because they see that the animal welfare issues that stop them supporting intensive meat production systems are simply not an issue here. Education and awareness followed by informed choice and less meat eating could improve life for a lot of pigs!

Goats Cheese Almost Got The Better Of Me

Last year I made the most simple form of cheese which involves straining the moisture out of yogurt until it reaches the consistency of a cheese spread. It only keeps for a few days in the fridge so it has to be made as and when it's required. You can do this with shop bought yogurt or use your own home produced milk if you have it. The process is simple and not much goes to waste, it's also a wonderful thing for the children to get involved with. I think showing them how food is made really broadens their horizons on so many levels. They begin to think about animal welfare, ingredients, the labour involved and of course the flavours. When we buy yogurt in the supermarket now they seem to have far more respect for their food and little goes to waste. Even if they don't finish something, they'll think about which animal could eat it safely or where to compost it.

Since the simple yogurt cheese making all went so well last year I was determined to try and make 'proper' cheese this year. I did a bit of research into which might be the best book and I invested in Ricki Carrols 'Home Cheese Making' which I have found to be a fantastic book. It not only has hundreds of recipes in it but also ideas and case studies from many home producers and small artisan business people. There's great explanations of the whole history and process of cheese making, as well as the essential individual recipes. Having read through the book several times I then decided on trying to make a simple farmhouse cheddar cheese and ordered some sachets of starter and rennet from Moorlands Cheesemakers in the UK.

The next step was waiting for the goats to kid which induces lactation, and once the kids were a month old I began to take just a  morning milking which gave me between one and two litres of milk. A lot of milk is needed for a small amount of cheese so it took me about five days to save two gallons (nine litres). Unlike cows milk which produces golden yellow cheese, goats milk  produces snow white cheese and butter.

All set and enthusiastic I began heating the milk up to 85F which took quite a long time and then added a pinch of the starter.  After leaving it to stand for forty five minutes I added the rennet. After another forty five minutes the milk had magically turned into a delicate white jelly which meant it was time for cutting the curds into one inch blocks.

I then put the pot into a sink and slowly brought the curds and whey painstakingly up to 100F over the course of half an hour by adding warm tap  water at first and eventually hot kettle water to the sink. The curds were gently stirred all the time and shrank in size as the moisture seeped out, forming the yellow greenish whey.  Once at 100F it was left to sit for five minutes.

The contents were then all poured out into a muslin lined colander, and the curds hung to drip. After a set time, the curds were then placed into a clean bowl and broken down gently into walnut sized chunks, I added salt and then packed the curds into molds with drainage holes.

For molds I used small tubs and drilled holes around the base and sides. I didn't have suitable 10, 20 and 50lb (25 kilo) weights to place on the molds for the suggested timings and it was at this point I came close to losing patience with the whole exercise! Luckily Lena our WWOOFER came up with an ingenious idea; using clamps instead of weights.

The next morning I released the clamps and finally we peeled off the muslin and set the little cheese rounds on a wooden board to air dry for a few days. When the rind developed the cheese were painted with melted bees wax and now it's sitting in the scullery for a month to ripen.

I can tell you it was a marathon task and I was exhausted by the end of it all. At one stage, when I realised I didn't have anything to improvise for the weights, I was on the verge of chucking the lot in the bin!!!  I think it's something we will do on rare occasions as special treats and seasonal gifts for friends and family. Stay tuned to see how the cheese turns out.

If you fancy having a go at cheese making it's essential to follow a proper recipe to the letter because the timings and temperatures are vital to the final result. Using scrupulously clean equipment and researching the pros and cons of pasteurised versus non pasteurised milk is also compulsory before the fun begins.

Fluffy Chicks Galore

The chicks that hatched in the incubator have all survived and are now three months old. We gave half to a friend and out of the eight we kept six are roosters and only two are hens. We'll probably keep the hens as layers but the roosters of course will be for the pot in roughly another months time. That's four months from hatching to table in comparison to about six weeks for most commercially grown chicken. Our chicken will be far superior in flavour, low in fat and high in nutrients thanks to their slow growth, organic feed and happy free ranging lifestyle. For those that keep hens just for laying it's worth noting that most roosters would be dispatched as day old chicks, or kept for the table, so if you are a vegetarian then supporting the breeding of laying hens by buying eggs, or keeping your own hens probably, isn't your scene when all is considered.

Our two broody hens (silkie cross breeds) also did a good job later in the summer and each sat on a batch of eggs we bought from our local poultry breeder. From those sittings we now have two Jersey Giants and three Marans, both good heavy breeds. Next year we will definitely give the broodies a much large amount of eggs to hatch, perhaps ten each.

Not only did our two broody hens sit, our Light Sussex actually went broody before them and hatched out two of her own eggs! We weren't expecting this and so we hadn't saved many eggs for her to sit on, which is why she only had two.

I have to say they are very good mothers. Until now I didn't quite know how a chicken could be a good or bad mother! In watching them they stay close to their chicks and protect them from other chickens in the flock. They don't leg it off and leave the chicks standing in the open field if I call them over for food, they wait for their chicks to catch up. When food is scattered and the flock all jump into a scrum, the mother hens pick up a beak full of feed, take it beyond the mayhem and scatters it on the ground for their chicks to eat in safety. They also sit on the ground now and then for the chicks to take cover and warm up. At night they snuggle with the chicks, abandoning their usual high perch for a box full of hay on the ground instead.

Best Green Blogs

Finding fantastic blogs on arts, crafts, parenting, cooking and business is fairly easy as there are a huge number of top class sites to choose from. Locating ecological and sustainable living themed blogs are a little bit more difficult to find. Once you come across one there's usually a host of links to like minded similar blogs, but there still just isn't the volume you'd find on other subjects. I've just come across something that makes it even easier to find what your looking for in the green blogosphere called Best Green Blogs which is a directory. I submitted this Sallygardens blog and was delighted to be notified that it's been elevated to Editor's Choice with a lovely little review. If you author a green blog why not consider submitting your site, it's free. If you are interested in 'green' subjects pop along and enjoy the variety of sites to choose from.

Gifts

Sometimes as a blogger I receive wonderful emails from the most generous of people. It's heartwarming to be the recipient of such wonderful words and gifts. Take for example an email I received from Randy in the US recently. She wanted to send me something from her locality, and as we are both beekeepers, this is the thoughtful gift I received in the post.

A sample of her local honey sealed with beeswax in the most beautiful hand blown glass vessel made by an artisan in her area... captivating. And a beeswax candle which has been burning for many a delicious family meal.

And another beautifully wrapped box of gifts from Elderfaery who is another blogger with an exclusive site ... more beeswax candles with a delicious aroma, a handcrafted sewing kit with an amazing embroidered tree on the cover made by the lady herself and symbolic to us both (we have both lost parents in recent years), a pair of locally hand knitted fingerless mittens for the winter months and a bar of chocolate.

But it wasn't just the contents and the wrapping that were incredible, the handwritten letter  was a work of art too ...

Many, many thanks for your kind, thoughtful and beautiful gifts, and sincere thanks to all of those who take the time to email me and leave comments on my posts. There are a lot of kind hearted souls out there.

Busy On The Farm

This summer we have had WWOOFERs for the first time. A lot of extra helping hands have helped to make light work of many tasks and each volunteer has brought something worthwhile to our lives, and not just the farming, be it music, laughter, knowledge, friendship ...

The endless lists of jobs are still endless but things get finished far faster than usual, but of course more items get added to the list just as quick as they are crossed off! Most visitors have been individuals but we've had one couple which was challenging to keep both set up with enough jobs. I thought it might be harder for me with two extra people in the house but they were so wonderful at helping at mealtimes and general upkeep of the kitchen that it was in fact a lot easier than normal with them around. Dishes were miraculously loaded and unloaded in and out of the dishwasher and pots and pans were washed, tables set and even some meals cooked.

Another challenge has been to find jobs for WWOOFERs on rainy days, and we've hand plenty! The polytunnel is always a good bet and it's looking magnificent ... not a weed in sight and plenty of successionally sown crops in there to see us through the summer and autumn now. All my beekeeping supplies have been made and are ready to rock and roll as soon as the sun shines again, if ever. During breaks Oliver produced his trombone and so my six year old would play along on her fiddle, teaching him how to play 'the Kerry Polka'. It was a wonderful ensemble, fiddle and trombone!

Then Robin came over from Scotland with an RHS qualification in horticulture under her belt so she could hit the ground running.  Luckily she was also well used to bad weather, so we got a lot done in the polytunnel that week.

Chelsie came from Vermont, USA having traveled and performed in Ireland for a week with a choir. We finished off a permaculture bed that Georgie and Oliver had started. It's in a very sheltered sun trap and so I've put in some cape gooseberry (Physalis), 'paskins' rhubarb grown from seed and a 'brown turkey' fig tree.

At the moment Lina is with us from Switzerland and has been doing trojan work too. We've been making a very large permaculture vegetable bed which involves moving many wheel barrow loads of manure and mulch. I'll post all about permaculture very soon as it's something I'm learning about and it's close to my heart. Lina is also a wonderful bread maker and so she has treated us to some hand made oven baked loaves (I normally use the bread maker).

So far the summer has been very busy and productive on the smallholding, but we have forgotten to block off a few days for our planned trip to Dingle to swim with Fungi the dolphin. I'm still determined to squeeze in a short break somewhere before school starts again.

Guest Smallholder

I meet many like minded people who are smallholding in various ways around Ireland and I'd love to introduce some of them to you now and then. Each smallholder has their own way of doing things and a lot can be learnt from others. This is my friend Geraldine.

She and her family grow all their own vegetables and also keep chickens, goats and occasionally pigs. Both her and her husband work part-time giving them a cash flow and plenty of time to be at home with the children and tend the smallholding. They are in the process of converting to an organically certified farm. When I was visiting her recently over in County Roscommon I noticed an ingenious way of watering pumpkin and squash plants until they are established under a mulch. The system can be reused year after year.

Simple, effective and a perfect example of the re-use of otherwise waste materials before they go into landfill.

That's an awful lot of squash for one family! I'm hoping some surplus comes my way.