Farm Journal

• Harmony Farms
• Emerisa Nursery (open March through October: Tu-Sa, 9-5, Sun, 10-4)
• CalFlora (open Monday - Friday 10 - 4)
• Home Depot
• Wheeler Zamaroni (open M-F 7:30-3:30, Sat 8-12)
• Western Hills 16250 Coleman Valley Road, Occidental. (707) 874-3731. Maggie is the owner. Open: Thursday-Sunday 10am-4pm. Call for winter hours and appointments.

Last Sunday we planted table grapes, kiwi, a blueberry (to replace one that had died), artichokes, collards, and leeks. We planted these in our cottage garden (between our office and our well house), which we had covered with cardboard and composted horse manure in the fall. The soil is now delightful to work with. Simply stick the garden fork right through the wet cardboard and turn over beautiful soil.

Today we bought lots of seeds to plant perennials and self-seeding annuals in the cottage garden. We'll start the seeds indoors and put them out in 6 weeks or so. We're also looking forward

On January 12, we said goodbye to this year's pigs. We'll get four big boxes of pork and so will Jessie. We let the pigs get much bigger this year than last time. They were over 200 pounds each.

Because it is rainy season, we had to have the slaughter in the front yard. The ground is too wet to drive a truck into the back. Martin did the butchering again, then took them over to Bud's Meats for cutting, smoking and wrapping.

We got the pink pig on August 29 or thereabouts. We got the black pig a few weeks later. Then Jessie brought over some other pigs, but he sold or traded these within a few weeks. My best guess is that our pigs were about 6 months old when we had them slaughtered.

We love our backyard. Some people wouldn’t like having a large portion of their property under water all winter, but we like it. Scout likes it, too. Look at her run.

Detailed directions for several methods of whole hog BBQ.

Great information about slaughtering, butchering and smoking.