Weaving a Chair Bottom

A friend gave me a really nice old rocking chair last year that was lacking a seat. After contemplating the task for several months, I finally ordered some reed, a book, and set about weaving a new bottom - something I'd never attempted before.

The wood of the chair had a grey patina when I got it, but it had never seen stain or paint. I decided to go with a mahogany stain (because it's what I had laying around) then coated the wood with Tung Oil. After the finish set, I started the seat.

I choose to go with a Carolina Close Weave for several reasons. 1) I live in North Carolina so it just seemed right 2) The weave was appropriate to the style of chair 3) It was one of the easier weaves to tackle.

The process was fairly easy using the directions I got from http://www.chairseatweaving.com/. The only difficult parts involved tying the strands together (each strand is about 4-6 feet long) and being patient. Each strand must be soaked in water for 30 or so minutes before weaving, then each 2-3 lines of weaving must be allowed to try before continuing to the next section. All totalled I probably worked on the chair for 12 hours over several days.

Good fun, not hard, and a very inexpensive way to revive an old chair. I'll do it again!

Guinea Hog Forge

If you're looking for info on Scott's bladesmithing, please check out our new Guinea Hog Forge blog. I have transferred any posts about Scott's knife making to this site.

Merry Christmas!!!

Home Grown Grits

Mr. Tipton from My Cousin Vinny said it best, "No self respectin' southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits." We take pride in our grits too. So much pride that we've taken to producing our own. This year we grew Wapsi Valley corn for making pig feed, grits and corn meal. It is an open pollinated variety of corn that naturally comes in two colors - gold and blood red. You can buy Wapsi Valley corn meal online, but the only way to get WV grits is to grow the corn and grind it yourself.

The corn grew beautifully all summer without any complications, and in September we harvested the ears once they had dried on the stalk. Then it was off to the shop to air dry for a month before shelling. We used two shelling methods - by hand (which takes a while, can lead to blisters, and elicits a fair amount of whining from children) and with a old time hand crank sheller (much more fun!). After the corn was shelled, we let it sit a while before grinding (the drier the corn, the better it grinds). We also ground it by two methods - old school hand crank and new school Kitchen Aid. For corn meal (which is ground very fine) the Kitchen Aid grinder ruled. For grits (course grind), the hand crank was actually faster.

Both the Wapsi Valley grits and WV corn meal are fantastic. We had shrimp and grits the Saturday after Thanksgiving along with homemade corn bread (made with pork cracklins'). The flavor of both was outstanding and very different from anything you can buy at the grocery store. Check out the red flecking in the corn meal.

BLUEFIELD ACRES SHRIMP & GRITS

Prep. Time: 7 months (1.5 hours if you simply buy some real grits; instant grits NOT allowed)

Serves: 12

Ingredients:

3 cups Wapsi Valley grits (corn grown, shelled and coarse ground at home); Moss' Grits will substitute

1/2 stick butter

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

20 multiplier onions (like a green salad onion)

1 pound bacon

4 lbs head-off fresh North Carolina shrimp (shelled)

1/4 cup lemon juice

Kosher salt (to taste - the grits take a lot)

Black pepper (to taste)

Cayenne pepper (to taste)

Grits: add 12 cups cold water to grits, bring to a boil and put on simmer for at least 45 minutes; stir constantly; add salt, butter, black pepper and cheese to grits 5 minutes before serving; the grits take a lot of salt, but add slowly and taste often to avoid over salting

Shrimp: fry bacon until crispy; remove bacon from pan; chop onions, discarding the top third; add the white part of the chopped onions to pan; sautee onions in hot grease at medium high until tender; crumble bacon and add back to pan; add the green part of the onions, the shelled shrimp, lemon juice, cayenne pepper & salt; cook until shrimp turns pink (only a minute or two) stirring constantly.

Serve shrimp over grits and enjoy! Happy eating from Bluefield Acres!

Thanksgiving at Bluefield

BFA Menu
Pork Ribs
Pork Tenderloin
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Collards
Baked Beans
Cranberry Relish
Apple Sweet Potato Casserole
Homemade Oatmeal Bread
Broccoli Salad
Potato Salad
Pumpkin Pie
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Pound Cake






So awesome!!!!! Thanks to all who came, brought food and enjoyed!

Putting American Guinea Hog Back on the Table

Rare breed heritage farm animals are a valuable genetic resource, and, to maintain this resource, the animals must remain a part of the food chain. I know it sounds weird, but if these animals aren't valued as a food source, they will go extinct. We raise American Guinea Hogs (a small heritage breed hog) to help preserve the breed, put excellent meat on our own table, and eventually to sell to the general public. This Thanksgiving we ate our first Guinea Hog - a 1-year old female feeder that we obtained from a fellow breeder.

Processing a hog takes a good part of a day. We started at 7am and were done with the majority of the work and clean up around 2pm. We ground breakfast sausage and stuffed bratwurst the next day, and we'll be smoking our bacon next week.



The following is a breakdown of how we process a hog at Bluefield Acres, and, if you click below, you'll also find a slideshow of the slaughtering and butchering we did on Wednesday. The pictures aren't for everyone, so proceed with caution. The slideshow starts with the scalding.

Processing a Hog - CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW
Isolate hog and do not feed for 24 hours
Shoot hog in head 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

We got approximately 50 pounds of boneless meat off our Guinea Hog - tenderloins, loins, 3 small roasts, fatback, bacon, sausage and bratwurst. Plenty of meat to fill a small family freezer. Below are the ribs. We ate them on Thanksgiving, and they were the best ribs I've ever had by far.

Things that we learned
1. Guinea Hogs get enough salt by foraging that the meat doesn't need to be salted as much as other pork.
2. Due to their free range diet, Guinea Hog meat is much redder than standard pork and more flavorful.
3. Lard from free range Guinea Hogs won't solidify easily. This is because it is low in saturated fat - grain fed meat is high in saturated fat, forage fed meat has very little. We had to freeze the lard Scott rendered to firm it up.
4. Biscuits made from pork lard are yummy. The biscuit on the left was made with lard and the one on the right was made with butter. The biscuits may not look different (and both are delicious), but the lard biscuit had a lovely bacon flavor all by itself. The sausage in the picture is ours, and it was absolutely wonderful! Guinea hog sausage has a strong meaty flavor that we found fantastic.


For a full description of our Thanksgiving meal, check out our next post.

And Then There Were Three

Five piglets were born in early August. All were healthy at birth, although one was a runt. Now there are three.

American Guinea Hogs are incredibly easy to raise. Feed them a little bit every day so they'll come when called. Give them a bit of pasture or woodlands to forage in, and they'll take care of the rest. No antibiotics, no worming treatments, no worries.

At 8 weeks, we weaned our piglets from their mother. They turned 12 weeks old this weekend, and we were planning to castrate the males on Sunday morning - something that is best done when they are young. We woke to find 5 sickly piglets in the pen Sunday morning, and decided to put the castration business on hold.

We usually give the pigs (adult and juveniles) slops from our table, but we'd been gone the previous weekend, and I'd gotten out of the habit. It had been a week since I'd doled out slops, and the food at the bottom of the bucket was pretty ripe. I didn't give it much thought though as I've watched our adult Guinea Hogs eat a week old rotten snake and thoroughly enjoy it.

I dished out the leftovers on Saturday around 11am, and the baby pigs ended up with the oldest slops because I fed them last. By Sunday morning two babies were extremely sick (vomiting and staggering) and the rest were lethargic and showed little interest in food. It hit me that the slops may have been somewhat fermented, and we wondered if the piglets were just drunk. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. By 1pm the largest male was dead and our big female looked horrible - really bloated, very uncomfortable and exhausted. We crated "Easter" and took her to the house to keep an eye on her. Scott autopsied the pig male and found a healthy, but very gaseous pig - no worms or parasites at all, but the piglets innerds had a strange odor and his bladder was very full.

A little internet research gave us our answer - foodbourne botulism. It attacks the nervous system (thus the staggering) and eventually shuts down the respritory system leading to death. It also shuts down the bladder's ability to void, leads to constipation and gas. "Easter" lasted a good 12 hours longer than her brother which allowed us to watch the botulism progress. If she stood up, she staggered, and she stood very little. She threw up once (and it smelled horrible), but in 12 hours she never voided her bladder (although she did drink) and only had one minor bowel movement. She never had a fever and just seemed to fade out slowly. She died around 1am in the morning.

At first light we checked to make sure the remaining three little pigs were okay. All ran out of the pen and proceeded to pee like mad - a very good sign. All were very hungry too. The adult pigs that are penned next door (and got some of the same slops) never showed any signs of illness, so my guess is that they were never exposed to the botulism. Although the three smallest piglets were obviously exposed, they must have injested much less of the toxin. I guess being at the bottom of the pecking order isn't always a bad thing.

We are bummed today, but are taking the lesson learned to heart - fresh slops only from now on.

Piglets!

Okay, so we decide to go on vacation and Christmas (our feeder pig) decides to have piglets. Now if that ain't life on the farm, I don't know what is. Luckily our vacation spot (Holden Beach) was only an hour away so we were able to enjoy the beach and keep an eye on the new crew all at the same time. Well, Scott kept an eye on the new additions. I kept an eye on the beach and his children - with a little help from my mom:)

We acquired "Christmas" in June. She was slated to be butchered along with her brother, but the previous owner was suspicious that she might be pregnant and gave her a stay of execution. Instead, we got Christmas in exchange for our butchering services. We all thought that she was due in about 2 weeks, but those 2 weeks went by and then a month, and we all gave up hope. Oh well, she would still make a fantastic Christmas meal. "Se la vi".

Then a couple of days before vacation, we noticed some changes - things in the back end started to swell that hadn't been swollen. Then swelled some more. Mammaries started to hang, then swing as Christmas walked. We turned to each other and confirmed that she hadn't looked this way last week. Times were definitely a chang'in.

We prepared a special birthing area away from the other pigs and put Christmas inside the day we were supposed to leave for the beach. It didn't take long. Within hours Christmas was panting and obviously uncomfortable - sitting, standing, sitting, standing. Classical pregnant female stuff. Scott offered to stay and babysit, but I was adamant that we were going to take some time away. We called the breeder who raised Christmas to get some advice. She told us not to worry. American Guinea Hogs had been birthing piglets without human help for years and, most likely, everything would be fine. We went to the beach and tried not to think about it.

That was Sunday afternoon. Monday morning, with my full support, Scott returned to the farm to check on Christmas. Sure enough, 5 perfect little baby pigs were hanging out with Mom. Due to the condition of their umbilical cords, Scott surmised that they'd been born just that morning - 3 boys & 2 girls. One female was a runt and, according to Scott, was about the size of a stick of butter. All were healthy.


Christmas is an amazing mom. She feeds her babies what they need, when they need it. Nothing more, nothing less. She roots a hole in the ground (or in the hay), lays down and lets them feed about every 4 hours. She feeds until they've had enough. When she's not feeding them, the piglets either sleep or beg for more food. Unlike human moms, Christmas is not swayed by their begging. She lays down with her belly protected, and she goes to sleep.

The first week I was worried sick that the runt wouldn't make it. She was so small and didn't even beg much. Often she would bury herself in the hay while they other piglets made sneak attacks to get milk. All the same, the runt seems to be doing fine. She gets her milk every 4 hours, and she's already doubled in size. Christmas has paid her no more mind that the others, and our little runt has responded by being exactly what she is - a happy little piglet in a happy little world.

I think we humans could learn a lot from Christmas. Give your kids what they need. Teach them what they need to know. Ignore them when they want that which is excessive. Hmmmm. More on baby pigs later.