Making Traditional Bark Baskets

Over Easter Scott mom decided that we needed to try making baskets out of tree bark. She has a traditional style bark basket from the North Carolina mountains, so using it as a template and a handout as a guide, we trudged into the forest to find the right trees for our project.

Scott's parents live just north of Raleigh, NC on a heavily wooded tract of land. The handout on making traditional NC mountain baskets stated that poplar tree bark should be used for the basket and hickory bark for the thread, and specified that the deed should be done in mid-July around the time of the full moon. Well, being in an area quite a bit warmer than the mountains, and given that we might not be at her house in July, Peggy decided that Easter week was the right time for making baskets in central NC and declared that full moon or not, we had a mission to fulfill.

Scott found a poplar and tested the bark to see if it would come off after being cut with a hatchet and pounded upon with a hammer. The pounding separates the outer bark from the inner tree but will only work at certain times of the year. Voila'! It worked like a charm, so he broke out the chain saw and dropped the tree on the ground.

Well you didn't really expect us to make the baskets in the forest did you? It's tick season.

After cutting the poplar into manageable sections and finding a few small hickories for thread, we headed back to the shade of a tent beside the house and set the entire family to work. Check it out - these folks are all expert bark basket makers now!

Scott found an old dogwood cudgel that he made as a teenager and put it to work separating the bark from the inner tree. It was the perfect tool. Once beaten to submission, the bark will pull away relatively easily in large sections.

Next, you have to scribe a football shaped line in the outer bark near the center of the basket to make the bottom. This has to be done carefully to prevent cutting through the inner bark, and allows the basket to fold into shape. Here's Bonnie doing a fine job with one of Scott's custom knives.

Apparently it is very important to have lots of supervisors when scribing! Good work Grandpa and Dylan.

Next you have to make holes for the thread. Yes, we cheated again - power drills definitely make the job easier. Hard to tell in the picture, but Conner is pounding hickory bark to get the inner strands off for thread while Jacob drills holes in the basket.

Soak the bark to make it thread easily, thread away, tie it off, and . . . viola' . . . you have a basket!

Hmmmm . . . since we're supposed to be in the mountains this July . . .

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Vintage Gravely Walk Behind Tractor - SOLD!

Scott, the kids, and I spent the weekend cleaning up this 1961 Gravely walk-behind tractor with mower, sickle, and chipper attachments. It's a great machine that we thought we'd use around the farm a lot after Scott aquired it, but the purchase of a shiny new BCS walk-behind tractor/tiller for the garden quickly relegated this antique to the shed. We considered restoring the Gravely to take along when demonstrating blacksmithing at the local farm shows, but we simply don't have the time between graduate school, work, the farm, and Scott's knifemaking . . . and we could really use the space:)

So, we've decided to sell. If you're interested, let us know. If  you know someone who might be, pass the info along. This is a highly restorable, mostly original, very functional Gravely tractor. The engine is the original Gravely and, although a few things could be tweaked, everything works.

The chipper was originally green, as indicated by a few spots where the tan paint didn't adher. 

The sickle has a few broken teeth, but all the parts move freely, and the attachment link is immaculate.

We even have the original manual, some maintance records and other Gravely artifacts.

We're asking $1000 for everything and are located in Clarkton, NC. Email if you have additional questions.

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Lake Waccamaw Southern Farm Days

In March the entire family demonstrated at the Lake Waccamaw Southern Farm Days Festival. Scott, the bladesmith and blacksmith, forged over green coal and was assisted by his two sons - Jacob and Conner.

Scott's mom Peggy, daughter Bonnie, and nephew Cullen cooked traditional style.

 Apple dumplings - Conner helped by eating the peelings.

 Fire roasted apples

Chicken roasted in a traditional reflector oven

Corned beef . . .  

. . . browned to perfection by Cullen . . .

. . . under a salamader blacksmithed by E. Scott McGhee.

Cowboys, wranglers, saloon gals, and all kinds of interesting folk attended the event.

See you next year!

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Scott's Spicy Sausage

At Bluefield Acres, we grind and blend our own sausage using fresh meat from naturally raised American Guinea Hogs. You can use the following recipe to blend your own sausage, but it may need adjustment depending on the pork you use. Our Guinea Hogs graze for much of their food, which may account for a higher salt content in the meat. We're not sure why the meat is saltier, but we use less salt in our GH sausage than we would if using commercial pork (about 2 grams less).  If you are raising your own hogs on pasture or forage, please keep this in mind, as you may find it necessary to play with the recipe to make it work with the terroir of your farm (soil, climate, topography) and the eating habits of your animals.

If starting from scratch, cut separated meat and fat from your animal into cubes, then blend at 80% meat to 20% fat. Cool in refrigerator before grinding, then course grind this mixture once without spices and refrigerate again until cool. We use an LEM grinder.

Next blend in the spices at the following measurements and grind the blend twice on course to medium (depending on your preference). We prefer our sausage course ground and mix it to have a low fat content.

1 lb meat/fat
6 grams of salt
2 grams black pepper
1.1 grams red pepper flakes
0.6 grams chipolte
2.4 grams brown sugar
* sage - see below
50 ml water

*2 teaspoons sage per 5 pounds meat/fat

Remember to cool the sausage in the refrigerator between grinds to keep the meat from getting too hot, and always wash or freeze grinder attachments between grinds to prevent contamination.

Enjoy!

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Mak'in Bacon

Scott finished curing our bacon last week. This requires fresh pork bellies with the skin left on. Once you have the bellies, here's how it's done.

Lay out bellies and rub with sugar cure (see LEM for pink salt; read instructions carefully to make the rub); seal in 2 gallon bags and refrigerate.

Flip over once daily checking consistancy; when stiff at the thickest part, the bellies are ready for the next step (note: for safety reasons bellies must be removed from the cure in 7-10 days).

Take bellies out of bags, rinse throughly, and pat dry; then smoke with indirect heat or bake in oven at 200 degrees until internal temperature is 150 degrees; take off the grill or out of oven and remove skin while bacon is still warm.

Walla, your bacon is ready to slice and fry, and, as the old lady at the local butcher shop says, "You can slice 'em thick, thin or just right." Personally, I always opt for "just right"!

We usually bake some in the oven and smoke the rest with apple wood on our homemade grill.

For definitive information on curing,  refer to Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Scott learned most of his curing techniques from this book, and we highly recommend it.

Enjoy!

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Look'in for Love

Sex: Male
Age: 9 1/2 months old
Born: May 1, 2010
Sign: Taurus ("The Bull")
Element: Earth
Enjoy: Rooting, grazing, laying in the sun, belly rubs, and wallowing

Hi, they call me Tyrone (although I don't have an official name), and I'm a young registered American Guinea Hog male look'in for love. I am quite handsome (straight black hair with just a hint of curl), very laid back and rather gentle. I'm not real big yet, but I expect I'll be a big boy when I grown up. I currently stand approximately 21 inches tall at the shoulder, and I'm about 3 feet long. I've never weighed myself, but I'd say I'm around 100 -110 lbs (give or take a few). I live in eastern North Carolina, but am happy to relocate as I'm very interested in finding a lady friend and having piglets.

If interested, please contact my personal handler at the following address bluefieldacres@gmail.com or call 910-540-4475. Ask for Lydia.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Love,
Tyrone

Hog Harvest: A Comedy of Errors

We harvested two America Guinea Hogs on Saturday. We planned to take four, but, given the comedy of errors that ensued, two was all we could handle. The following post is about processing hogs and is not for the squeamish, so proceed cautiously. Below I've listed our basic method and have included a slide show of Saturday's activities.

Our Method for Processing Hogs - Click for SLIDE SHOW

Do not feed hog for 24 hours
Shoot hog between the eyes with .22 LR
Cut and bleed the jugular
Scald hog in water at 150 degrees until hair pulls out easily
Scrape hair until skin is clean
Wash carcass
Gut hog
Remove head and feet
Butcher into desired pieces of meat and fat
Blend and grind sausage

We started the day a bit later than planned. At 7am, Scott went out to fill the scalding tank that had been set up the day before, but the hose still had water in it and was frozen stiff; we should have filled the tank the evening before. An hour later the tank was finally full, but one of the propane burners wasn't working properly, and it took forever to get the water to the necessary 150 degrees for scalding. Luckily a neighbor loaned us an extra burner, but it was still 10am before the first hog hit the water.

The comedy did not stop there, however. Both pigs made it from the killing field to the tank without incident, but getting them out of the tank and to the scraping station was another matter. We've always used a strap around the ankle to haul the hogs via tractor from station to station, and have never had any issue with this method. In the past, however, we've left the strap on during scalding. This time we removed the strap to more evenly scald the pig, and this was a mistake. Scalding is utilized to remove hair and the first layer of skin, and the reapplied strap would not stay on the foot as the skin and hair instantly sloughed off. The first pig fell back into the scalding pot several times, and the strap slipped off the second pig while in transit to the scraping station allowing the hog to unceremoniously the ground. Next time we'll use a hook through the mouth.

The scraping and butchering thankfully proceeded without incident, but I noticed that Scott appeared to be in pain while working on the first hog. Afterwards, he admitted that he had indeed thrown out his back but felt he could continue, and (at about that same time) we realized that our struggling propane burner was now dead. Our scald temperature was now far too low, and it would be another hour before we could process the second hog.

The second pig entered the water around 1pm and by 3pm we decided to call the harvest to a halt. We still had meat from two hogs to process/freeze and sausage to make, so two hogs got a stay of execution. It was a beautiful day however, and, thanks to friends and family, we have some wonderful Guinea Hog pork to eat. Thank you all. You are always welcome at our table.

There was a capping moment to the day's comedy of errors. While sampling some fresh Guinea Hog sausage later that evening, Scott's two-day-old crown dislodged from his tooth. This is no commentary on the sausage, however, as it turns out that experimental glue used by the dentist was to blame for the failure. Certainly a day to remember!

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