Northern Farmer

It’s almost fifty degrees warmer this afternoon than it was Saturday morning. And it’s still not above freezing, but it sure is more livable. The seat in the old farm truck has returned to being somewhat comfortable, compared to having the same effect as sitting on a cement slab during the cool days. So, all in all it wasn’t too tough. Can’t wait till spring though. We’re still on a super high here from church yesterday, what can I say, it’s not dull! I still stand amazed in the changes in our family the last six months after making the move to that Little Bible Believing Church. And so much more to come, Praise the Lord! Daughter Rachel got back safely from the Twin Cities late Saturday night with the church group and she’s on fire for the Lord. Interesting thing about what she went to is that they had skits and stuff that are highly in tune with how I think and write. They were about this society going down the tubes. Now I know that I’m not alone here with these feelings and beliefs. So from what I gather from her, we’re on the right course in this family, and also our church. It feels good not to be alone.

So with that reinforcement we’ll keep on pluggin. Everything is pretty well in place for Spring here, except I have two more one hundred bird chicken tractors to build yet, but they’ll get done. I’ve learned to make them a little lighter than last years model. That thing was made to withstand hurricane force winds, but it was a bugger to move at times. We did learn a lot raising them last year with that method, never lost a bird, plus they taste as good as it gets.

This summer we’ll be raising our Hillbilly Hogs over across the road at our winter cow lot. They’ll have grazing and every kind of garden scrap there is up until later October. About that time we should have some old fashion Open Pollinated picking corn available and will finish them off on that. We’re kinda going for a good old fashion lard hog, the kind I grew up raising. Now, most folks have never tasted real pork, sad to say, they just get the standard soybean/corn, raised in confinement hogs that are produced today. Some even think when they order a hog from a farm that they are getting something special, but buyer beware; many are raised basically no different than the industrial farm hogs. The same goes for farm raised chickens. Around here I know of a lot of folks that buy a few hundred chickens, broilers, raise them entirely indoors on commercial feed, and sell them as farm raised chicken. Well, I guess technically they are farm raised chicken, but I’ve eaten many of these and they are no different than the industrial raised broilers. You know, them black boned buggers. There ain’t no chicken or hog that’s better than the ones raised the old fashion way! It’s hard to describe by writing, but the difference between frying up hillbilly hog pork chops and regular chops is like night and day, the hillbilly hog’s chops frying will make your mouth water, they smell so good frying up. The regular ones have a hard to describe rancid smell that just doesn’t cut it. And the hillbilly hogs have some darn good tasting fat that doesn’t go to waste, doesn’t have to be trimmed off before hand. And I’m just talking chops, the other cuts are the same, a totally different meat than modern raised pork.

I think hogs do have the potential to be the backbone of any self sufficient farm or homestead. They once were thee number one animal on any farm or homestead as far as personal consumption went. The only thing not used was the squeal. After raising thousands of hogs over the years I’d have to say there are few animals easier to raise and that have the potential for helping out the farm or homestead family get closer to self sufficiency than a hog. And also few animals require so little investment. They really don’t take much space, they’ll plow your garden patches every year with no petroleum requirements, plus they’ll dig up every rock you have in these gardens, not to mention fertilize the garden. They’re manageable as far as butchering, in comparison to a twelve hundred pound beef, the sausages, hams and bacons are out of this world. And cheap too.

And also of importance is getting like minded folks to work together butchering and cutting up the meat. Doing things this way no money has to leave the pocket. And it sure wouldn’t hurt having friends and neighbors working together again like years past. Doing things like this is a blessing, I believe a person is blessed when they work together on good family projects such as this. I think every time people work together and bypass the modern culture, things happen for the good. It can be no other way. A person cannot receive a blessing putting there money into a system that’s against God. It just doesn’t work. Especially when we have a clear choice. We’re to busy we say, that’s always a good one, and I use it to often myself. So we buy from a system that’s out for total control, period. Because we’re “busy”. We have very little to do with neighbors and friends unless it fits our busy schedule. So we support a culture that is out to destroy what little is left of Christianity. And the thing is, this culture is in no way keeping it hidden that it wants to destroy Christianity from the face of the earth, and we still support them. Doesn’t make much sense.

So we’ll keep on with the dream, one step at a time. A dream that includes family and friends, whether they know it or not. We’re not retreating; we’re building for the future. I do believe it’s so very important to be using what God has given us for the good of those we know. There will be a Blessing.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2006 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.