Tag Archives: farm visit

Meadow Haven Farm Visit – Hogs

Finally! The end of the road! The hogs!

I explained why we ended up at the farm “in the chicken post”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/253-Meadow-Haven-Farm-Visit.html and had plenty to say about cows “in the cow post”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/256-Meadow-Haven-Farm-Visit-Cows.html and I tend to “talk” a lot, so I’m betting you all are expecting a lot of words now, aren’t you?

I actually don’t have many. My only pre-Meadow Haven experience with hogs was at Girl Scout camp a bazillion years ago (I think I was 9, but I’m not sure) and I don’t remember much. We had to take turns feeding them, at a frequency of about once a week. Since I was only there a week, I only fed ’em once. I don’t remember the hogs in the slightest, just that I was disgusted by having to carry this heavy bucket of slop out to them!… Continue reading →

Meadow Haven Farm Visit – Cows

“In the previous post”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/253-Meadow-Haven-Farm-Visit.html I posted about why I was visiting “the farm”:http://www.meadowhavenfarm.com/index.html (to pick up a butchered hog) & the chickens on the farm. This was going to be a post about the hogs & the cows, but it turns out I took a lot of cow photos.

Cows! The cows were pretty neat, especially given their relative lack of aggression. Cows in the New Mexico bosque are total jerks, in case you didn’t know. I mentioned this (maybe in slightly politer terms) to Jeremy. He told me the trick to cows is to be confident and make sure they believe it.

I’m just going to say, that’s pretty hard to do when you have no experience with cows and you suddenly find yourself the star of a Looney Tunes short.… Continue reading →

Meadow Haven Farm Visit – Chickens

I missed writing this up Saturday & Sunday. I didn’t realize how busy the days would be. But I’m thrilled to be writing now. Well, for some value of “writing”, as today’s post is going to mostly be photographs. I think.

I think most folks know this, but it bears repeating that the seeds for this hog purchase were initially planted in February 2011, when I asked Jeremy of “Meadow Haven”:http://www.meadowhavenfarm.com/index.html what it would take to get a pound or two of bacon that wasn’t previously frozen. I knew it was illegal for him to sell it to me at the market, but I also knew that Bill & I eat as much bacon as we make, and we tended to make as much as we thawed.… Continue reading →

To market, to market

To buy a fat hog!

Okay, not to market, and the hog will already be mostly butchered into cuts we want to eat, so who knows if it was fat?

We’ve mentioned a couple of times that we are buying a hog with several of our friends. Today’s the day we go to the farm to pick it up. One friend can’t come with us, but he loaned us his car. We’re taking our coolers and a couple other friends loaned us theirs.

Over the course of the weekend, I’m going to try to post everything we do that’s hog related. Tomorrow isn’t hog related, so there won’t be much of a post, but Sunday you should get a post about today’s farm activity (if I don’t get it up sooner), and Sunday we’re making sausage, so I’ll be photographing for that.… Continue reading →