Hog Hauling, Meat Sorting, "To a God Unknown"
This week on the farm…
Hard rains made more mud for the pigs and more mud for the kids. Not sure which enjoyed it more. After the cabin driveways washed, I put the box blade on the tractor to pull the gravels back up the hill.
Lots of pig hauling. While Amy was delivering meat to Chilhowie, Hallie and Hasten helped me haul a group of 28 piglets to the woods. Later in the week we hauled 25 big hogs from the woods back to the barn. They’ll be the next ones going to the processor. Earlier in the summer was hands down one of our worst pig loading experiences we’ve had in our years of hauling hundreds of pigs out to the woods and back. This week, however, was hands down one of the most cooperative groups we’ve hauled. They just stepped up on the trailer like they knew it was what they were supposed to do. We didn’t even break a sweat. Rarely on the farm do things go better than planned, but that was certainly the case with these hogs. Not real sure what makes it go so smooth sometimes and not so smooth on others, but any day hogs are successfully loaded without cursing at them is a good day.
Amy kept the on farm kitchen smelling good with multiple batches of chicken broth and beef broth. We were filling herd shares and sorting inventory until about 10:30 Tuesday night. Hallie and Hasten were good help. Wren and Carter… not so much. Ha. But they were all troopers. With the end of chicken season approaching, our freezers are filling up. It’s getting harder to keep everything organized and know where it all is. It didn’t stay organized for long. The next day we put over 200 more chickens in the freezers. While we were killing chickens, our processor delivered more beef and pork to the farm. Not having time to sort through it, we just put it in wherever we could get it. Hoping it would all fit. Thankfully, it did. We just don’t know where anything is. Managing freezer space wasn’t what drew me to farming, but it’s part of the job for us.
Listening wise, I’ve been back on John Steinbeck. Here’s a few quotes from “To a God Unknown.”
“In the fall there will be a child, and in the next summer another child. The land doesn’t stretch, sir. There won’t be enough… There’s a limit, sir. The land will feed only so many… The farm is too small, and I have a hunger for land of my own.”
Joseph sees life as a whole. The bigger picture. Living things depending on and contributing to other living things. He knows that the abundance of life is impacted by his stewardship as a caretaker.
“I want increase. I want the land to swarm with life. Everywhere I want things growing up.”
“Joseph’s heart was filled with sorrow and with defeat. ‘Something has failed,’ he thought. ‘I was appointed to care for the land. And I’ve failed.’ He was disappointed in himself and in the land. But he said, ‘I won’t leave it. I’ll stay here with it. Maybe it isn’t dead.’”
“No, he isn’t self conscience. In all the world, I think there isn’t a man less self conscience… You don’t know this man. I’ll tell you about him, not to frighten you, but so you won’t be frightened when you come to know him… I don’t know whether there are men born outside humanity or whether some men are so human as to make others seem unreal… Joseph has strength beyond the vision of shattering… This man is not a man unless he’s all men. The strength, the resistance, the long and stumbling thinking of all men and all the joy and suffering too, canceling each other out and yet remaining in the contents. He’s all these, a repository for a little piece of each man’s soul. And more than that, a symbol of the earth’s soul.”
I liked this next one too. I’m not great with words. Sometimes it’s hard to find the right ones. Sometimes even the right words don’t do the thought or feeling justice. Maybe there aren’t words for some things. Or maybe some things don’t need words.
“These were words to clothe a naked thing, and the thing is ridiculous in clothes.”
Have a good week.
Will