The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Maple Sap

I got an idea last summer about making Maple Syrup with the trees up in our hollow. I know that it is a big thing up north, but I have not heard of much maple tree tapping done in Kentucky. We have the trees, so I thought … why not?

We marked about 25 or 30 maple trees last fall by painting an X on them so we would know which trees were maples when the lack of leaves would make it harder. What we didn’t do was determine which trees were sugar maple compared to silver maple, red maple, black maple, etc. We have read that all maple trees can be tapped and turned into syrup but they have different sugar contents.

After reading more about the differences, we decided to only tap the trees we thought were sugar maples based on their distinctive bark.

Here is a close up of the bark that we were looking for:



We decided on 8 of the biggest trees with the fullest tops on them, that were also pretty close to our road. We have read that the fuller the crown, the more sap will be produced. Two of the very largest we decided to use 2 taps each, so we had a total of 10 taps going.

This weekend was perfect tapping weather. The days were sunny in the 40s and the nights were freezing in the 20s. The flow was on!

I used 3.5 gallon plastic pails to collect the sap in, which worked well. We used 5 gallon buckets to transport the sap down to our "sugar camp". The children went around several times, emptying the sap buckets into the big buckets and loading them on Matthew’s four wheeler.

Here are some of the buckets hanging on the trees. You can tell that the trees are large enough. A tree should not be tapped unless it has at least a 10 inch diameter:





Here is one of the bigger trees that we used two taps on. I used the brighter buckets on the trees that were further up on the hill:



Here is the other big tree with Matthew in front of it. There are actually much larger maple trees further up the ridge, but we decided to only use the closer ones this year:



This is a shot from the distance that you can see two of the trees at the same time if you look closely:



Simon and Christina enjoyed helping Matthew gather the sap:





Here is a neat picture that Matthew took of a drip of sap coming out of the spile:



We made a sugar camp with the propane grill and coleman camp stove. Maybe next year we will cut enough wood to use a wood stove and be more "authentic". Our main goal for this year was to see if it could be done or not.



It worked well, although was a very slow process. Here I am stirring the sap:



While waiting for the sap to boil down we talked and read and the children played. I got pretty sleepy in the warm sun:



So far it has been a successful venture. We still have more sap to boil down, but we have made about 6 half-pint jars of syrup so far! Some have turned out better than others, depending on when I stopped the boiling.

I have more to post later about our first maple syrup making weekend at Pure Water Hollow and the final results. I would also like to record some more on the methods we used this year so we won’t forget the specifics in the future.

Until then, God Bless!

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7 comments
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blessed mom on February 4, 2008 at 11:06 am
Wow – I am impressed! We have a ton of maples in our woods…. I would love to get maple syrup! We love it and it is so $$$$……..I always thought this could only be done up north… you have inspired me!

Blessings,

gloria
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Belle on February 4, 2008 at 11:33 am
I have wanted to do this since I was nine or ten. I told my mom about your post and now we are thinking about doing this! I am so excited!

You all look like you had a lot of fun!

If you have any tips please share them with me!

Belle
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Trixi on February 4, 2008 at 11:43 am
I have to say I am impressed to. Quite an adventure for the kids too.

I was wondering how you went about finding your butcherers for the pigs. Did you call your local extension?

Blessings,

Trixi

From Purewater:
We found out about the butchers around here by word of mouth, asking folks at church and work.

There are 2 very local meat processors here in our county, and I have heard mostly negative comments about them. I visited them and they are just operations out of private homes, and cleanliness was a question.

Another butcher is in the next county, where we were going to church, and it has a better reputation. We took our first hog there and were mostly pleased, although they were not very patient with us green horns not knowing what to ask them to do.

The FFA at the local high school reccommended the meat market 2 counties away. I checked with that one, and they were very professional and helpful for us beginners. We have been happy with the results so far.

For me, professionalism meant a lot. Both the butchers we have taken our pigs to also run a regular meat market and sell their own meat daily. The two that we rejected only processes meat when they have a customer, and they do other things in the meantime to supplement their income, and were very unprofessional in their business.

I guess the local extension office should be a great help. They are a resource that we have never tapped into for some reason. I guess I respect the opinions of my local FFA ag teachers the best, and they have always been willing to help the community.
Edited by Purewater on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 3:00 PM
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sheryl on February 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm
This has been something I have thought about doing it. But I wasn`t sure if we had the right kind of maple trees here. I can`t wait to hear how it all turns out. Maybe this can be a project I can talk Sam into doing next year. Thank you for sharing. sheryl
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Mom on February 4, 2008 at 1:23 pm
You all are amazing!!!

This fall I read a book to my son(the girls listened too) about a family who made a living by collecting sap.The book was The Sugarbush Family by Miriam E. Mason.

Well…..ever since I read that book we have been talking about making our own maple syrup, we love maple syrup.

I was looking to order some spouts this past Saturday. I looked at the Lehmans catalouge, but I have not ordered them yet.

Where did you get your spouts?

How long did you have to boil the sap?

Thank you so much for sharing the great post.

maa's mom

From Purewater:
I am planning to post again about more of the specifics, but I'll give a quick answer to those two questions.

We did order the spouts from Lehmans. It suprised me that they had the least expensive ones of the type we wanted. The cheapest was in bundles of 10 for about $18, which made them about $1.80 a piece. We have usually been satisfied with Lehman's products.

The boiling time was tricky, because we apparently didn't always have consistant hot heat. It would take 3 gallons of sap about an hour on high heat for it to even start boiling. (Does it take water that long to begin to boil?) After it starts to boil It seems to take about 4 hours more for the 3 gallons of sap to boil down to 8 ounces of syrup when the heat is good.
Edited by Purewater on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 3:14 PM
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Amy Jo on February 4, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I am so impressed!!! Thanks for including the pictures too…….I would have loved to help stir for some reason! LOL

God's Blessings,

Amy Jo
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Trixi on February 5, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Thank you for responding. You and your family are a wealth of info. Have you considered raising a beef cow. That is an area we are exploring also. I have not ever thought of the local FFA.

Blessings,

Trixi

Purewater's reply:
We would love to raise some steers for beef. I wish we had some flat land to pasture them in, though. We need to fence in our kudzu hill better and let the goats finish clearing most of it up, but then we think we may be able to graze cattle on the hill with the goats. We would also like to try a milk cow someday!
Edited by Purewater on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 9:36 AM

This Little Piggie Went to Market (and the other 4, too)

We successfully got the pigs off to market on January 28th and I picked up the fresh pork yesterday. The cured hams and bacon won’t be ready until next Saturday, February 9th.

Here they are, in our wagon, waiting to go on the long ride:



We decided to take the whole family, so we hitched the trailor up to our van. I think it is a strange sight to see our new van pulling a load of pigs, but it worked!



Have pigs, will travel! We took a total of 5 to the same meat market. Three were ours and the other two were sold to two different customers who are going to deal directly with the meat market for their cuts of meat.

The last time I posted about the pigs last week I mentioned about the possibility of some more sales. We were blessed to be able to sell 2 more of the pigs, one for $100 and one for $110! Also the person who had agreed to buy one hog if we raised it for her, came through and paid the $100 we had agreed on back when the pig was a feeder. The $310 that came in this week was a particular blessing, because I was not sure where I was going to get the money to pay the butcher for fixing up the remaining 3 pigs that we were keeping for ourselves. It turns out that these last sales paid for the butcher with money to spare.

To re-cap the feed costs compared to the pig sales, it seems that we came out ahead. We raised 15 piglets from birth and also fed 2 sows and a boar. We paid out $665 for feed during this pig raising operation time and we sold 5 pigs for $40 apiece ($200), 1 pig for $45, 2 pigs for $50 apiece ($100), and 2 pigs for $100 apiece ($200) and one for $110. That adds up to selling 11 pigs for $655. (The 12th pig I really gave to the FFA in exchange for them castrating 10 of our male pigs. I was counting that as a $100 trade since that would have been what the vet would have charged, but even if we don’t figure that in, the feed costs were just $10 more than the sales of the 11 pigs. I find that to be rather amazing!)

So that leaves us with basically free meat from 3 hogs. But nothing is really free unless you do it yourself. Some day we may butcher our own hogs here at Pure Water Hollow, and then the pork would be as close to free as possible, costing only our labor. That is the goal of self sufficiency!

But, we are not there yet. Maybe someday.

In the meantime, we took our 3 hogs to a very reputable meat processing market. Of the three meat markets we were considering, it is actually the most expensive one and also the one that is the farthest away from our home! But they vaccuum seal the meat, have a very professional reputation, and is the same place the FFA at my school does business with. I figured to go for the best.

The three pigs that we kept were about 256, 222, and 215 pounds alive. Their carcass weights were 185, 160 and 155. The market we went to charges a $20 kill fee, .35 cents per carcass pound, and another .35 cents for each pound you want cured.

We got about 239 pounds of fresh meat in pork chops, tenderloins, roasts, and sausage, and we are getting 161 pounds of hams and bacon cured. That is a lot of pork! The final bill, including tax was $291.35. So it is not free. If you divide the cost by the pounds, we are getting each pound of pork for an average of .73 cents per pound. That’s not too bad, I think. Now our freezers will be full again and we have saved much grocery money.

God is good!

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3 comments
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Trixi on February 3, 2008 at 11:37 am
This is our goal for next year. Thank you for sharing all of this great info. with us!!

Blessings,
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mountainmama on February 3, 2008 at 5:14 pm
We are looking into the cost of pigs at this time. I have been comparing the cost of buying one already grown or raising some on our own. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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The Unlikely Homesteader on February 3, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Sounds like it all balanced out pretty well ~ especially since you get the peace of mind of knowing what the pigs were fed and how they were treated. Well worth it, I'd say!!

Trixi

Pigs Grow Fast To Fulfill Their Destiny

Our baby pigs are now grown and getting ready to fulfill their destiny. I posted earlier about the cost/benefit comparison of raising our first 15 piglets, but I left out some of the more tender aspects. No matter how much money we may make or loose in this venture, you can not put a price tag on the learning experience, the fun and the adventures, we have enjoyed as a family through this pig raising experience.

We are not sad that their time is up, as we have prepared ourselves all along, reminding ourselves everyday of the fact that the ultimate purpose of these animals is meat production. Each one that we sold, we were reminded of that purpose, and we have looked forward to this final phase. (I don’t know if Nellie and Sally are pregnant right now, but chances are, we will have another batch of cute piggies before we know it!)

These were the first piglets to be born at Pure Water Hollow Homestead and it has been an amazing adventure. Remember when they were this small?



This is Christina with that same little red pig 6 months later (today). Hard to believe the change, isn’t it?



It is amazing that once upon a time just six months ago that black pig was the same size as a kitten!



And here is Simon with one of those black and white piglets six months or so ago.



Notice how big the black pig and black and white pig are today:




We still have two of the three white pigs that were born. Here is a shot of the one with the spot on his eye being born:



And here he is today:



I basically just wanted to post a few of these comparisons. I had posted many more pictures of the pigs and our adventures with them in our “Learning About Pigs” category when they were small but then I realized I have not posted any recent pictures of the piglets. These 6 months have really flown by, but I would have regretted not getting at least a few pictures of the piglets as big market hogs! We are all really proud of them and are grateful to them for their contributions to the homestead.

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2 comments
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Mom on January 20, 2008 at 1:18 am
Yes, you are right. You can't put a price on a learning experience.

I am bet that your children have really enjoyed taking care of the pigs and seeing them grow.

Those little piggies have grown so quickly, it is amazing!

I have enjoyed reading about your homestead!

Belle~homesteadgirls
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amanda on January 20, 2008 at 1:14 pm
My hubby has informed me that a co worker of his would like to do a joint-deal in raising 2-3 pigs for personal consumption.( Him and us)

I am going to let him read your blog to get some ideas on this venture. He raised pigs with his family as a teenager. It would just be him and me doing it this time.

Thanks for the time you spent posting this. Can't wait for him to read it.

Blessings,

Amanda <><

II Corinthians 5:7

Pure Water Hollow Hog Operation

I have been contemplating the costs of our hog raising operation here at Pure Water Hollow this morning. The piglets that were born last July have now run the course from tiny, helpless things eating only their mama’s milk, to full grown 230 pound market hogs. And next weekend we are taking those pigs we did not sell to the butcher to eventually re-fill our freezers with fresh pork chops, roasts, smoked ham, bacon, and sausage.

It is hard to believe how much feed costs have increased, just in these past 5 months. The end of August the pig and hog chow we buy from the feed store was $14.20 for a 100 lb. bag and now that same bag is $15.20. The corn feed meal has risen from $9.10 per 100 lb. to $10.25 per 100 lb. Thankfully we have continued to obtain plenty of old milk for free to supplement the feed costs, so that has helped very much.

So now for the numbers. Since the end of August, when the piglets were 6 weeks old and eating the purchased feed, we have spent a total of $665.00 on the pig feed from the feed store. That sounds like a lot considering it has just been over a 5 month period of time. In August we were feeding the 15 feeder pigs, 2 sows and 1 boar. Now we are still feeding the 2 sows, 1 boar, and 6 market hogs. After this week we will only have the 2 sows and 1 boar.

The pigs we have been raising have been bringing in some benefits, however, that largely cancel out the feed costs. I traded 2 of the feeder pigs for $80.00 worth of mechanic work on the truck and 1 of the feeder pigs for $100.00 of veterinary work when the FFA castrated 10 of the males for us. (Our vet charges $10.00 per animal, so I figure it would have cost $100 if I had taken them to him.) I traded 3 feeder pigs for $120.00 worth of straw that we needed for bedding. I sold another feeder pig for $45 and two shoats (bigger piggies) for $50.00 a piece. One of our market hogs has been sold for $100, with us finishing him out and taking him to the meat market with our others.

After adding those numbers up, the $665 feeding bill does not seem so bad. We have sold or bartered 10 of the pigs for a total of $545 and we still have 5 – 230 pound market hogs left. We could still sell some more this coming week. Last night we received a call from some folks who might want to purchase one of them for another $100 and they thought they had a family member who would be interested in buying 1/2 of a hog for $50. If that happens than we would be up to $695 the pigs brought in, which would mean that all of our pork for the freezer only cost us our labor (which has been considerable). We are talking about the meat from 3 and 1/2 hogs, which would probably be about 450 pounds of pork.

All in all, we are satisfied with our first experiment in raising pigs. From here on out it should get easier to raise future litters of pigs. If we can get a field in which we could raise some of our own corn for feeding, the costs could come down; and if we do a better job advertising and marketing our animals in the future, we may be able to sell them easier.

I will write more after next week to record how the final transactions go delivering the pigs to the butcher and our experience there. We are going to a different meat market than we took Porky to, just to see how different they are. This meat market vacuum seals the meat which should be much better than the paper wrapping.

{I wrote the above this morning and since they were on my mind I decided to take my camera with me when we fed them to get a look at how big they are now. I will post pictures of how these pigs have changed over the 6 months of their life in the next entry. I was going to put the pictures here, but it seems like they should go in a different little post.}

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5 comments
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sheryl on January 19, 2008 at 9:19 pm
You could butcher them your self and save on a butchering bill. lol Really it isn`t that hard. I told Sam after our experience raising hogs, I will rather find a local farmer and just buy one ready to butcher. We would just butcher it ourselves and the only cost we would have in it would be the cost of the hog. I am so happy for you all that everything is working out. I wish you the best of luck with this. Please keep sharing with us. I love reading the post about the hogs and I can`t wait to see the pics of them. sheryl
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faithfarm on January 20, 2008 at 6:31 am
Thank you! This has been a very helpful post. We are about to start the Hog adventure. We are blessed to have the ability to butcher any of our animals ourselves. So the butchering fee's can be taken out of our cost. The information on feeding them out is so very helpful since it has been years since either of us has done it. Thank you again-your blog is a joy to read, Blessings>faithfarm
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Trixi on January 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Thank you for sharing this. We are contemplating getting 2 feeder pigs in the spring. This gives me an idea of what our pigs will cost us to feed out.

Blessings,

Trixi
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LittleHouse on January 22, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Hello Uncle Eric! Ma and I just read your post before this one. The essay was really good! I have read a couple of literature stories by Jesse Stuart. He is a very good writer! I just recently read a little story by him called "Old Ben." It was about a boy that gets to keep a snake. Ma and I really enoyed reading the essay by him!

I hope everyone is doing well! I am praying for all of you! Please tell everyone "Hi" from all of us! I love you all!

Love,

Mary
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Shaune on January 23, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I love the pics of you land. We had a pig roast at the end of Dec.2007 ,for an early new years celebration .My friend built a cajun cooker ,with a built in steal top to burn wood to cook the pig. This was our second pig we roasted in the box. It turned our really good !!!! Very tender and tasted great !!! I am not a big pork eater , but cooked like that it was very good eatin', I must say. You can view the cooker and roasted pig in my blog album, if you would like. Nice meeting you on here, you have a lovely homestead ,Shaune

If I Were 17 Again

I came across this essay in my oldest daughter’s literature book this evening. I don’t think I had read it before, but it really choked me up as I read it tonight. I’m not going to print the entire essay here, but I am going to record a good portion of it; especially the parts that really spoke to me.

It was written by Jesse Stuart and it is entitled, “If I Were Seventeen Again”. What he writes about is much of the very thing that we are striving to provide for our own children now, and much of what I ignored when I myself was 17 years old. Maybe that is why it speaks to me so hard:

“If I were seventeen again, I would want to live on a Kentucky hill farm. I would want to grow up and live where there are trees, meadows, and streams.

If I couldn’t live on a large farm, a few acres would do. But I would want space to hunt over, and a stream or lake nearby where I could fish. I would want to mow the meadows with a span of horses or mules, and haul the hay to the barn on a hay wagon. I believe the boy or girl who hasn’t ridden on a hay wagon has missed something in his youth. If he hasn’t smelled new-mown clover, he has missed the finest wind a youth ever breathed.

In the spring of the year, if I were seventeen again, I’d want to take long walks into the woods. I’d want to get acquainted with all kinds of birds, how they build their nests and the kind of materials they use, what color and size eggs they lay – from hoot owl to the chicken hawk and sparrow – and how and what they feed their young. I’d want to know all about the animals – foxes, possums, coons, rabbits, skunks, minks, weasels, groundhogs, and all others. I would want to know and I would find out what they ate, where they lived, what animals were friendly to each other and which were enemies. This is a world every teen-age boy should know….

I would also learn the names of wild flowers and plants that grow in the woods. I would also want to learn the kinds of trees. I’d want to learn them so that when I touched the bark on the darkest nights I could identify the tree….

In summer, if I were seventeen again, I wouldn’t miss working on a farm. I wouldn’t miss plowing and harrowing land, planting seeds in the ground and hoeing vegetables and plowing the young green corn…

I would, if I were back at seventeen, learn all I could about planting. I would want to be able, if I were cut away from all money-earning jobs or positions, to grow my food from the soil. I would want to specialize in growing one particular thing. And I’d want to specialize in growing a breed of cattle or a kind of hog, or a rabbit, or chicken….

If I were back at seventeen, I’d want to find bees watering on the hot sand by some little stream, course them to their tree, cut the tree at night, and rob the bees. I’d want a few bee stings too. A boy who has never found a wild bee tree, robbed bees, and tasted wild honey has missed a lot in life….

If I were seventeen and hadn’t already done so, I would identify myself with the church of my choice, and I would be there at least once each week…

I would be honest to the penny. If I borrowed a nickel from someone, I would pay it back. I would put myself into the rut of honesty, and I would follow through. Why build strong bodies at seventeen, bodies to stand the wear and tear of the years ahead, and stunt the great growth of our character? If I were to choose between a strong body, or strong, honest character, I’d take the latter. I’d want a reputation for honesty…

If I were seventeen again, I would earn my own money, or most of it. I would take days of work for other people. And if and when I accepted a job for the other fellow, I would do it well. I would do it so well that he would want me to work for him again. I’d do it so well, others who had seen my work would want me to work for them. I would do the work so that I would rejoice at the finished product, so I could sleep contentedly at night – because we build character through work we do with our hands. Do work well at seventeen, and you’ll be doing it well from then on.

If I were seventeen again, I would stand up for my convictions. I wouldn’t be a follower of something I didn’t believe and knew was wrong. No matter how popular the idea might be, I would hold out. I would be myself. I would be guided by what I thought was right….”

For me, seventeen (and eighteen) was the worst, most regretful time of my life! If only I could do it over again! I cared about nothing that was truly important and I risked so much. So many wonderful opportunities of life just cast aside in favor of the most destructive, corrupt, and vile behaviors!

If God had not intervened and saved my soul at age 19, I shudder to think where I would be today. Only by His grace and mercy did I even survive long enough to repent of my sins, be born again, marry a wonderful Christian woman, have an incredible Christian marriage and family, and be able to reflect back on all of it today, at age 40.

Now He desires me to live each year to it’s fullest potential for His glory. We can never go back and re-do age seventeen, but we can make the most of every moment we have today!

I will live age 40 today with the same zeal for life that I should have lived age 17 yesterday!

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3 comments
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sheryl on January 18, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I love to read Jesse Stuart books. He was such a great author. His old farm place is just about 10 mins from where I live. He wrote about a lot of people from W Hollow and Plum Grove. His books should be read by everyone. I have been reading his books to the kids. We are getting ready to read "A Ride With Huey The Engineer". The book is about the Eastern Kentucky Railroad. Then I am going to do a unit study with the kids about the railroad. Thanks for sharing with us. Enjoyed reading it. sheryl
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Schatzi on January 19, 2008 at 12:10 am
Wow..oh wow is all I can say….thank you so much for sharing.

Blessings,

Connie
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amanda on January 19, 2008 at 8:30 am
I couldn't agree more! What a great find to read!

Blessings!

amanda <><

II Corinthians 5:7

More Great Pictures From the Overlook

On Sunday afternoon (January 13th) Mathew, Christina and Simon decided to enjoy the Lord’s Day by heading up to the overlook and taking in some of His majestic beauty.

After church we ate and fed the animals. I had talked about taking one of our Sunday Afternoon walks, but was just too tired to go. So while I came down to the house to take a nap, my band of adventurers were off on the four-wheeler to the ridge.

As usual, the view of the river and farms in the valley below was amazing.




In the spring we won’t be able to see this direction very well because of the leaves:



While they were up there they could see (and hear) a train on the tracks across the river. You can see the start of it in this picture if you look closely:




The tracks go behind a mountain and reappear on the other side. This one turned out nice of the train. It looks like a little electric one at Christmas, doesn’t it?:



The evening sky was turning a pretty color and Christina took this one:



Here is one last look at the river:



You might be wondering where the snow is on January 13th. Well, we had snow today, on the 15th, but all that has already melted away now. We had snow at the beginning of January, but nothing too major. Overall we are having another mild winter in eastern Kentucky. In some ways I am thankful; lower heating bills, easier doing the farm chores, nice days to enjoy places like the overlook. But at the same time, we all do love snow here at Pure Water Hollow!

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2 comments
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Trixi on January 16, 2008 at 7:00 am
You have the most beautiful spot there. Thank you for sharing.

Blessings,

Trixi
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Sugar Bend Farms on January 16, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Oh Wow! I was excited to find your blog. We use to live in McCreary county, KY. My husband's job took him there to build the Federal Prison. These photo's make me really miss Kentucky! I love the mountains!

Keep the photo's coming!

Hogs: The Most Important Animals

I found a wonderful little book written about life in the hills of eastern Kentucky in the early 1900s. It all takes place in an area very near Pure Water Hollow. The author, Rufus Mitchell Reed, was born in 1895 and was raised in country very similar to the land we find here. His book, Conquerors of the Dark Hills, was published in 1979.

It is time for us to have the hogs we have raised from birth butchered for meat (the ones that we didn’t sell). I loved reading about Reed’s memories of raising hogs back when he was a boy in these hills, and I decided it would be nice to record his recollections of hogs here on the blog as a bit of historical perspective. I will post about our hogs sometime in the future and how it has all worked out, but for now I just want to quote Reed.

The following is from pages 28, 29 and 30 of the book Conquerors of the Dark Hills in the chapter entitled “Hogs: The Most Important Animals”:


“In these dark and isolated hills, the men rated hogs above all other animals in importance. They used every part of a hog except its squeal. Hogs and corn went together, and you’d think to hear them talk that their very existence depended on hogs and corn. They rated hog-stealing as the worst of crimes, equally as bad as murder. There were some who said these hillmen took better care of their hogs than they took of their kids.

To show you how terribly bad they rated hog-stealing, they once lynched a man for stealing the hogs of the settlers. They banded together, caught him, tied him to a tree, and almost beat him to death with hickory wythes. But that is a tragic story I shall tell fully in a later chapter.

Early in the fall, Dad would castrate three of his finest male shoats and put them in a floored pen to fatten for early butchering, about the first of November. Then he would get together with the other men of the valley and they would round up their other hogs. That is, they would get as many of their hogs together in some big fenced lot as they could in three or four days of herding hogs. In the lot there would be several sows with litters of pigs, and many shoats.

These men had a way of marking their hogs, a system somewhat like the cattlemen of the West use to brand their cattle. Each settler had his own peculiar mark, which he placed on the ears of his hogs. I remember watching Dad help the other men mark their hogs’ ears. Dad marked his hogs by cutting two “smooth craps” in the ears and then splitting the right ear. Lige Jordan marked his hogs with a “swallow fork” in the right ear and a round hole in the left ear. Jody Sartains’s mark was two splits in the right ear and a smooth crap in the left, and so on. Each man had his own hogs marked and each knew the markings of the other. So there was never any danger of any settler claiming the other man’s hogs.

Now why did they go to all this trouble to mark their hogs? Because it was now time for the men to drive their hogs far into the deep woods, to eat the “mast.” In those days of virgin oaks and chestnuts bearing bounteous crops of acorns and nuts, there was no use wasting corn to raise hogs. Let Mother Nature take over the feeding for a time. So the men drove their hogs far into the woods and left them there to feast on the abundant mast. By Christmas time they wound be squint-eyed with fat.

Some of these hogs would soon find other hogs which had reverted to the wild state. Many of those turned out to eat the mast would go wild as bucks. But all would eventually be found and brought in to be butchered for late meat. The valley men had dogs they had especially trained to catch and hold a wild hog until the owner came to tie it fast with a rope. These trained dogs would catch a wild hog by its hock and sink their teeth behind the hock bone. It was then impossible for the hog to get free. The owner would come, tie a rope around the hind leg, and drive him in from the forest.

When the snows of January came and covered the ground, that was the time the men got together and went in search of their hogs. They would usually find them denning under an overhanging mountain cliff. It was some hullabaloo when the dogs found these half-wild hogs and began to bay them until the owners came.”



I just thought that piece was so classic. I guess it really struck home as I thought of our own hogs. At one time we had a total of 18 pigs together in a big fenced lot, maybe something like he mentioned. There was the big boar, two mama sows, and 15 piglets/shoats. And last fall, when the piglets were still little, we let them run around in our hills every day and eat the mast. They seemed to love all the acorns, hickory nuts, and beech nuts and even came down near the house several times to feast on the chestnuts all over the ground. Our dogs Luna and Mammoo are not trained pig herders, but we have laughed (and yelled) at them many times as they chased the escaped pigs back to their lots! And now that the January snows have come, the pigs are all just about big enough to slaughter.

We are trying to get back in touch with the past, but didn’t realize there were so many parallels to how things really used to be around here. I thank God for all He has allowed us to take part in!

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1 comment
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2gramsroses on January 8, 2008 at 4:09 am
I really enjoyed reading this. I think there is something very special about linking with our past, and I can remember my granddad, doing his hogs ears and my hubbys dad notched his hogs ears years back. thanks for bringing me a smile this morning. sherry

Feeding the Stock On A Freezing, Snowy Day

The New Year of 2008 has come in like a lion here at Pure Water Hollow! January 1st saw a snow advisory for our area with 3-5 inches of snow expected overnight as well as a wind advisory with drifting snow and temperatures in the low teens. We had flurries all day, but nothing stuck until about 8:00 P.M. when a friend called to let us know about school being called off for the next day because of the snow. We turned the flood light on and were amazed at the sight of everything being white and snow blowing so hard that it looked like a blizzard!

The weather service issued another snow advisory for today with an additional 1-3 inches of snow expected. Around 1:00 our thermometer had risen to 20 degrees and we decided it was probably about as warm as it was going to get and our animals needed attention. The computer said that the wind chill would make it feel like 4 degrees so it was bundle up time: gloves, two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, two shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, and coat. Christina and Simon thought it was funny when I expanded the size on my John Deere cap and placed it over top of my hood!

The first thing was to see if the truck would start and turn the heat on to melt the snow and ice off the windshield. The old truck started fine and then I went in to get the boiling water I had on the stove. I needed to boil some water to pour down our hand pump in order to unfreeze it. There were several inches of snow stacked up on the spout and the pump handle was not going to move at all. It did not take much water to get the pump thawed out and primed and I began pumping water into the buckets. The wind was biting cold and snow was blowing down off the trees above, but the pumping action filled the buckets quickly. We use 5-gallon plastic buckets, which have plastic lids that snap down on them to close them up. If we didn’t use the lids we would loose much of the water going up the bumpy hill in the truck. Except for the cold, wind, and snow, everything was going just like it does most days.

Matthew, Christina and Simon had bundled up too, and they did some sled-riding with Erica while I was working with the pump. This was the second time today that they had some adventures on the sled-riding hill. I stopped to feed the chickens, which did not want to come out of the coop, and I watched the children go down the hill a few times. Soon we all (minus Erica) headed up to the barn to see how the pigs and goats were doing.

I carried one of the buckets of water over to the goat lot along with a bucket of feed. Their water pans were frozen. One was frozen so solid that it could not be broken up, but the other one was able to be broken up with water still beneath. After chiseling away the ice and dumping it, I was able to put some water in it to rinse it out. I usually rub all over the bottom of the pan with my fingers to get every bit of dirt cleaned out, but that tends to get my fingers wet. I decided that would not be wise in 4 degree wind chill, but my fingertips did get a bit wet anyway. (I am thankful for the new gloves Lisa got me for Christmas.) The goats did not go for the new water as quickly as I thought they would, but they did drink some. I tried telling them to drink now because it would freeze again pretty soon, but I don’t think they understood. They did eat some grain but they were preferring to stay under their roof and in their house. I noticed later from across the ravine that they were greedily drinking the water, thankfully.

When I got back to the barn, Matthew was finished feeding the 4 shoats we are housing there. Some of the milk we have in storage was frozen, but most of the jugs in the inner stall were not. These four pigs have plenty of straw, as we gave them two bales yesterday in preparation for this cold spell. Simon and Christina worked on chiseling out the ice and scraping it out with a hoe in the pigs water trough in the barn and then we filled it with another 5-gallon bucket of water. The pigs were thirsty a bit, but by this time they were nuzzling down beneath the straw for a nice winters nap after filling their bellies with the pig chow milk shakes and corn in their feeding trough. Again I told them all to come over and get some water, because it will freeze later, but alas, they either did not understand me or else they basically ignored me.

Matthew had mixed up a couple of buckets of corn meal milk shakes for the other 5 hogs in the big lots and loaded them on the truck. I had stood around for some time watching the girl pigs and waiting on Christina and Simon to finish with the water trough and I started having trouble feeling my toes at this point. We had already been out for over an hour and I thought we had better get a move on.

In the large lots we have our boar, two sows, and the two big barrows from July’s litter. I am amazed how huge Rufus is now. He was laying down in the straw in one of the pig sties when we came up but Nellie and Sally and the barrows were greeting us rudely at the gate. Soon the sleepy gentle giant Rufus came out for his food. The lot had been very muddy but now was all frozen so it was much easier walking around. We feed these pigs in two troughs, a large one and a small one, as well as place several piles of corn around on the ground in different places. This way there is plenty of room and less fighting. It is fun to watch the pigs each go around and around visiting each feeding station. Usually when one goes, a couple of the others race to the same spot just to fight a bit.

The snow began falling rather heavily as we were watching the pigs here and the wind had died down. It was incredibly beautiful at this moment, looking across the ravine at the forested hill all covered in white, with heavy snow coming down all around us. Christina and Simon were playing in the snow beside the lot and Matthew seemed to be enjoying watching the pigs and snow as well. My toes were no longer bothering me now and I decided to linger and enjoy the moment.

Matthew mentioned that the only thing that felt very cold were his cheeks. Due to my full beard, I don’t have that problem much. It was during this time, however, that I realized there was actually ice in my moustache and beard!

Another reason to linger was because I wanted them to clean out all the slop in their troughs so I could fill them up with water. They can usually drink from their nipple waterer in this lot. I have it attached to a storage tank (a converted pick-up truck toolbox) that holds about 60 gallons of water. It works good most of the time but the pipe freezes up good in weather like we are having now. It will thaw in a few days, but in the meantime I thought we could just use the feeding troughs to hold water after they are finished feeding. I was amazed at how long it took them to clean up their troughs good enough. For some reason they were enjoying the corn on the ground better than the corn-meal milk shakes. In the meantime, Matthew went to get more straw for the pig sty they stay in the most.

Eventually I decided to put some corn in their troughs and sure enough, they cleaned up the food trying to get all the corn. Now I could fill up the troughs with clean water. Or could I? It had now been a couple of hours since I filled the water buckets and this particular bucket had been setting here for quite some time with the lid snapped on. I got my fingers out of my gloves and tried to take the lid off like we always do. It was frozen tight and would not come off! The trough was finally ready for water but the winter cold wanted to deny it! I did finally get one small part of the lid cracked open so a trickle of water could come out. I’m not sure, but I think there was some ice inside the bucket as well. I held the bucket over the trough for what seemed like a very long time, allowing the water to slowly fill the up the trough. Eventually the trough was full with whitish looking clean water. I didn’t think they would mind much for the milky/corny tint to the water. (I guess you could call this flavored water for pigs!) I told them all to come up and get some water now because it would freeze later, but they did not seem too concerned about it. Some of them did drink before we left.

All the animals now had fresh food and water and we weren’t any worse for the wear. I decided it would be good if I could talk to the animals like Dr. Dolittle and make sure they understood that they would only have a small window of time to drink water, and then it would not be until tomorrow sometime before they would have water again. The weather man says our temperatures will not be above freezing until Saturday. If he is correct it will be a total of about 96 hours of below freezing, going from Tuesday noon to Saturday noon. We still have about 60 hours of freezing left in that scenario!

It was actually pretty much fun feeding the animals in the freezing, blowing snow. It made it feel like more of an adventure and it was a satisfying feeling to be able to take care of the stock and know that they would be fine. The weather channel is not predicting any more snow for tomorrow, so tomorrow we will just be feeding the animals on a freezing day with snow on the ground, but not the wind or snow blowing in our face.

Feeding and watering the animals in real winter weather is not a problem for just a few days, but I can see how it could get tiring and tough if we ever have a real bad winter for an extended time. So far it doesn’t look like that will be the case, as the weather channel folks say that next week we will be in the 60s every day again with lows in the 40s. We will thank the Lord for whatever weather He sees fit to put our way, and we will rely on His help no matter what we face!

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2 comments
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faithfarm on January 2, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Sounds like you have it under control! I thought I would share a tip I learned from a fellow goat farmer and it worked well for me. Take hot-as hot as you can get from your tap and put it out fot the goats-they drink it like the first morning cup of coffee! I've had to use this tip for the last few weeks off and on and it has helped the goats water intake alot. Goats normal body temperature is alot higher than ours and they seem to really appreciate the hot water in the mornings. Hope this helps.

Blessings

Faith Farm
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Rachel on January 2, 2008 at 9:25 pm
You might laugh at this, but it all sounds soooooo nice to me right now! We are trying to stay cool at the moment in our part of New Zealand, on a hot hot day with a hot wind blowing a gale across our plains. I did harvest my first vegetables today though.

The snow sounds wonderful! I love reading your blog – I learn a lot from it and it's enjoyable reading.

Rachel

Country Boy

Here is an unusual post for me. I do not associate much with John Denver or Hank Williams Jr. or Johny Cash and I am not an advocate for much of their music. However, they each have a stanza in a song that I do identify with and I thought it would be fun to put them down here together. These excerpts speak to me.


Well a simple kinda life never did me no harm
A raisin me a family and workin on a farm
My days are all filled with an easy country charm
Thank God Im a country boy

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

Country boy, you got work to do
Country boy, in the morning dew
You gotta plant the seed, you gotta cut the weeds
There’s many a row you know you gotta hoe
When it’s quittin’ time, and your work is through
There’s a lot of life in you
Country boy, you lucky thing
Country boy, I wish I was you, and you were me


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2 comments
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Mom on January 2, 2008 at 2:44 am
I like the one by Hank.

maa's mom
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faithfarm on January 2, 2008 at 7:21 am
Nice post-It says alot and made me smile-I was just thinking of one of those tunes the other day and wondering how many real country boy's are out there.

Blessings

Faith Farm

Ultrasound = Timothy Clifton

God keeps suprising us, it seems, with this pregnancy!

One of Lisa’s blood tests in November had come out postive for a possibility of Down’s Syndrome in our baby. That news was not too disturbing for us, as we will love our baby no matter what happens, and we also knew that the test did not neccessarily mean it would have to be Down’s, but just a possibility. Anyway, we decided to go to Lexington to the high risk pregnancy specialist our doctor reccommended. The appointment was yesterday, New Year’s Eve.

The good news is that our baby looks perfectly normal. The doctor said that their ultrasound is able to detect Down’s Syndrome in 90 to 95 percent of the Down’s cases, and as far as they could tell, the baby does not have Down’s. His heart and other organs all look good and so do his fingers and toes.

The suprising news is….

our baby is not a Tabitha, but a Timothy!

On October 25th our ultrasound with our home doctor said it was definitely a girl, but there was apparently no doubt this time about it being a boy!

The strange thing is, for the past several weeks, Simon has been saying “good night” to Lisa’s belly by saying, “Good night Tabitha and good night Timothy if you are in there too.” Simon has been hoping for twins (we all have, really) but the doctor said he will need to be fired if there are two babies in Lisa’s womb and they have missed one.

It was quite a shock to us for them to say it is definitely a boy. We are not disappointed at all, just confused and mystified. Christina says she is not sad that it is not Tabitha and that she will love to see Timothy just as much.

We will all be very excited to welcome Timothy into the world! We thank and praise the Lord for the good report about Timothy’s health, and we also are trusting that He knows exactly what baby needs to be born into our family!

WE LOVE YOU TIMOTHY!



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4 comments
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Amy Jo on January 1, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I have had 3 friends lately come to me saying the baby may have Down's and then later on finding out through more tests that it is not. I wish they wouldn't say these things if they weren't sure. I suppose it makes the doctor's and hospital more money for more tests though….perhaps this is the reason it is happening so much??

I am glad the baby is healthy and growing. Congrats on the baby boy!!! When we had our Noah, there was NO DOUBT he was a boy. It was rather funny because the doctor told me, there is his little winky!!! LOL

God's Blessings,

Amy Jo
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The Unlikely Homesteader on January 2, 2008 at 2:38 am
We have a son whose ultrasound said girl too. Two techs and a doctor were all VERY certain that we were going to have a daughter and that was the only ultrasound I had the whole pregnancy. We had pink *everything* and were quite suprised when the doctor said "It's a Boy!"

My husband is quite a jokester and many people thought he was kidding when we started letting everyone know that our baby boy had arrived!
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SimpleFolk on January 2, 2008 at 10:35 am
Thank you for the update. What a surprise! I'm happy that Timothy will be well, but I agree with you and felt the same way with all my babies–it wouldn't have mattered. Still praying here for Timothy and Momma…won't be long until you get to hold him in your arms!

Happy New Year!

Amy
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Trixi on January 2, 2008 at 10:38 am
Congratulations on little Timothy. I am glad all is well.

Blessings,

Trixi