Pig Wranglin' - How Pigs Were Herded West

Scanned from Outdoor Pig Production by Keith Thornton
From the start of our whole farming adventure I’ve been keen on pigs. Pigs are the unsung hero of the farm. They eat the scraps, they eat the whey, they till the land (i.e. cause a huge mess and dig mud wallows), they have impressive intelligence, and, most importantly, they make bacon! For whatever reason, when we visit farms I always love the pigs and I’m really looking forward to having a herd.
 
So, I’ve been reading a lot about outdoor pig production. I guess I should say “a lot of what I can find”, which isn’t a whole lot to begin with. One of the most promising books I’ve found is called Outdoor Pig Production, by Keith Thornton and it just came in the mail this week. I found a copy from someone in the UK and it even has an old note and a newspaper clipping taped to the inside with a picture of a Duroc and the breed’s benefits:
Read More

"You're Not a Farm, Why Call Yourself a Farm?"

Sometimes I think to myself, “What are we doing with a website and a blog and a name for a fictional farming entity that has never produced a single product?” I also frequently wonder, “What they heck do other people think of all this?” Here we are, two city-folk with no background in farming, no real experience on a farm, and we have all this stuff online purporting to be “Little Seed Farm”. Not only that, but we are using pseudonyms! Strange, right? If I were in the reader’s shoes would I be thinking about the absurdity of what we’re doing? Probably. So maybe it would help to explain some of our thinking.

There’s a few reasons why we decided to get going with all this stuff way ahead of time. One reason was completely unplanned, but is definitely a great reason in hindsight, and it’s that now we are completely “pot committed”, as they say in poker. We broadcast our hopes and dreams to the world and now we have a little more pressure to actually make it happen. There’s no doubt in my mind that it would happen anyway, but now there’s more at stake than just a dream between two people.

The original reason that got all this going was that
Read More

Making A Cheeseboard Out of Salvaged Wood

Original Cheeseboard Condition (Wiped Clean of Dirt, Bugs, etc)
One man's trash is another man's cheeseboard.
In our household I’m notorious for a few things, one of which is bringing home stuff I find on the street. Among many other things, we’ve salvaged a couch-side table, a TV stand, a bookshelf, a shoe rack, porcelain plates and now a new cheeseboard! Well, new to us at least. The best part of this story is that it all happened two days before Sweetbreads’ birthday (which is today, happy birthday darling, I love you!).

Saturday morning I was in a classic guy situation: two days pre-birthday, no concept of what to get her and hoping for a miracle to happen. At 8am on my walk to the farmer’s market such a miracle did happen. Strolling down the street I saw what appeared to be a nasty, old, rotted out piece of wood on the ground. However, I’m always on the prowl for new stuff, especially when I’m alone, and this particular piece of wood caught my attention. Despite it’s seemingly useless condition a few things struck me as odd.
Read More