A Year In Redwood

Who would have thought 6 years ago that I would be at this… I really am a proper country girl now!

To fill you in on how we now have Old Farm Heritage Pork…. last year Alfie and I thought it would be a good idea to get TWO pigs, grow them on and have our own pork to share with family and friends!  Pork would not be my favourite meat – especially that which you buy in the shops – it is just so colourless and tasteless, so growing our own pigs seemed such a good idea.  We had the space and plenty of outhouses that we could convert one into a pig pen.  That was in September…. we sourced the pigs and Alfie went off to collect our two new little British Saddleback pigs one Saturday – and Alfie being every salesman’s dream purchaser came back with 3 pigs not 2!  I was told you couldn’t leave one all alone!

Winter wore on, days had gotten shorter – I was heading off to work every morning and coming home in the dark.  Then one Saturday morning Alfie took me aside to tell me that our pig population had increased – he had once again given into temptation and had purchased 4 sows during the week!  So now we had 6 pigs (one of our original guys had died of pneumonia).  6 pigs is a lot of pigs – and that soon multiplied to even greater numbers especially when you allow 2 boy pigs mix freely with 4 girl pigs.  3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days later we had 36 piglets…. I let Alfie have the sleepless nights – I just wasn’t getting involved in that.

Piglets are lovely and cute, but they grow fast and eat a lot!  Thankfully we subsequently sold off 26 piglets and are now down to 5 adults (one of the original boys went off to butcher earlier in the year) and 10 teenage pigs.

Time to call in the butcher – so from the end of this month we will have some very nice pork.  The pork we had earlier in the year was just so much nicer than anything you buy – it is much darker than we’ve all got used to, granted there is more fat content but that actually just adds to the flavour.

The pigs are out and about all day.  We feed them on locally grown produce (barley and vegetables); and they also get to eat any windfalls.  Boy, do they like apples… you should see them gobble up apples.

It is funny to watch pigs, they really are quite intelligent and have their own personalities.  They all have different favourites when it comes to food too!  Clarence, the boar, is very partial to bananas – while Pinky just loves oranges!  I know you shouldn’t give them names, but in the end you have to be able to identify them.  We haven’t named the younger ones but the adults include Clarence, Pinky, Perky, Floppy and Lucy!