There were three seminars we agreed would be good to sit in on and one extra just in case we wanted to stay a little longer.
We had a little bit of a theme this year...anything pig/pork. So when I saw this on the schedule and that it was early - at 10am...that was incentive to get to Albany as early as possible. Our chosen route these days to avoid going through Portland is to go via I-205 and not deal with any nonsense that might slow traffic down. It's a little longer, but at least traffic keeps rolling. Anyway, we arrived with about half an hour to spare.
Just like most fairs there were a variety of vendors, so I wasn't terribly interested in checking those out except for Bob's Red Mill. I love to stop by and just pick up the goodies that they are giving away. We made our way to the Real Food Stage and selected our seats.
Once the presentation started I felt like maybe this presentation would be a little slow. The speaker was inexperienced at Mother Earth News Fair and there were a couple of technical issues - mainly with her mic. Her talk was fairly brief, but full of all sorts of information that will help us with making bacon once we have pork with which to make bacon out of.
While the talk was interesting I was glad it was over and looking to move on to the next presentation...
Seminar #2 - Homegrown Pork and Getting Ready for Backyard Pigs with Jeannette Beranger, The Livestock Conservancy
Jeannette Beranger is an excellent speaker and we have sat in on her presentations the past two years which both were about chickens.
So this talk was mainly about how to set up for pigs and we did pretty good with setting up for them. Especially with the few items that we actually had.
- Shelter - check - The shelter can be elaborate or fairly simple. We went with simple. Free pallets from a neighbor down the street and a tarp. Tom slapped the pallets together and put up a piece of garden fabric to use as a curtain of sorts. They basically need to be sheltered from rain and wind. During the few days we have had that were rainy, the did spend a good amount of time in their shelter. I'm guessing that they were sleeping and only emerging when it was time to eat or to relieve themselves.
- Water - check - Since we only have the two pigs right now we are able to get away with using a Rubber Feed pan that we picked up at Pioneer. Once there are more (babies) we'll have to revisit the waterer and explore our options.
- Protection - check - We are currently using the Pig QuikFence. It's a nice set up, not terribly different than the poultry netting. This netting is 30" high and should work until Fiona has piglets. At that time we'll have to figure out how to modify what we have or get the Hog Net which is 24" tall and has strands of wire along the bottom which are spaced two inches apart and would be perfect to keep piglets in. We have some time to consider what to do once Fiona does have her first litter.
There were other tips and what not, but these were the most important. She also went over the different breeds of pigs that would work well for a backyard situation.
I always enjoy The Livestock Conservancy presentations. I hope that there will be more talks in the years to come.
Seminar #3 - Whole Animal Butchery with Meredith Leigh
We both were looking forward to this presentation! For this demo she was using a half a hog! What the What?! When I saw the carcass being prepared, I started to get excited and couldn't way for things to get started.
Not only did we learn a lot of the lingo - Primal, Sub-Primals and Retail cuts we learned a lot about how home butchery is the best way to go as far as the animal goes. Every part of the animal will be used in one way or another weather it is for human consumption or for amending the gardens or feeding to the animals - mainly chickens. Even the feathers can be composted which goes right back to the earth. Every part of the animal has a use and those parts need to be used!
The thing that really struck me is how as a consumer we look for a specific cut (steak, roast, etc) whether it is considered the "best" cut or a lesser cut. What is thought to be a great cut - tenderloin - is actually not that great. While the cooking of the tenderloin is easy, it actually does not have that great of flavor. So to just take something like the tenderloin out would be to take away from another cut of meat that is considered a better cut. So to butcher for a specific cut can be wasteful and some of the parts are useful for better cuts of meat are used for things like All Meat hotdogs. Anything to make a buck right?
What?!
Oh man! If this isn't compelling enough I don't know what would be.
I know, most people do what is natural...go to the store and peruse the meat cases that are filled with all those supposedly tasty cuts of meat and make a selection of those steaks, roasts etc and plop into your shopping cart.
What is happening is people are buying meat that has been factory farmed...and that's another issue altogether which I touched on a couple of posts ago.
My solution for part of our meat purchases is using Butcher Box which has been great! They partner with farms that raise pastured animals - win! However, just as before we are still consuming specialty cuts of beef and pork. So, in a way it's also a non-win. Soon enough we'll be able to fill our freezer with our own pork and even sooner we'll be harvesting our chicken.
This seminar was the best of the three and at some point I'll have to add Meredith Leigh's book to our library The Ethical Meat Handbook.
Until then I'll be educating myself on factory farmed animals, the importance of whole animal consumption and learning how to butcher an animal myself.
After looking around at a couple of vendors and checking out the animals that were in one of the buildings we made our way out. Before heading home we visited the Historic Carousel and Museum that was featured on OPB a couple of months ago.
Each animal on this carousel is hand carved and painted by volunteers. People that had no experience or skill for carving were able to carve each of these with amazing skill. The story is pretty extensive, so it would be best to just go to the website HERE.
The next time we find ourselves in Albany we'll be going back to the carousel and taking a ride. At $2 per person that is cheap entertainment.
We have decided that attending both days of the fair would be the way to go. That way we could sit in on seminars that happen later in the day without feeling like we need to jet out of there at a certain time.
For example, one of the last sessions at the 5 o'clock hour was Intro to Charcuterie with Meredith Leigh - now that would have been interesting to sit in on. Learning how to incorporate the parts of a pig that wouldn't normally be sold as a retail cut. Think Italian cold cuts aka Salumi. The Sunday sessions included more Meredith Leigh presentations and another Karen Solomon session focusing on pickling.
Next year we'll go both days...do AirBnB or the hotel next to the fairgrounds and do all things Mother Earth News "Bringing the magazine to life."
In other news: the swine have been with us for 3 months! The duo are doing well, growing a lot and getting older! Fiona is 5 months old and Mr. Rexy Pants is almost 5 months. They may reach breeding age in 3 more months at the earliest. If that is the case I'm not sure how we would know for sure that she is bred.
We still have some time so we'll just put those thoughts on hold for now.
It's has been a great day! We spent the day catching up on the things that we would normally do on Saturday and had a nice relaxing day at home. Next year I'll extend the weekend by a day maybe two to enjoy the weekend even more.
Farm Life is the Best Life!
Photo of the day:
I wanted a photo of the 4 girls...but Shell-Bell couldn't stand not being the center of attention.
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