Just found the animal thread! Please let me know if you have questions about goats, chickens, and to a much lesser extent, pigs. I would be happy to help.

In the meantime I suppose I'll fill you in on my big learning experiences this summer. Since I was last online, we harvested three pigs, which was quite an adventure. It was SO gross I don't even know if I could describe it.....let me just say that I had no idea how much pigs resembled humans until it was way, WAY too late to back out. I also made the horrifying mistake of drinking two bottles of wine the night before. So, my big advice regarding the slaughter of pigs would be to hold on to your hat because it's gross, and to NOT do it with a hangover.


We used nearly the whole pig. I did not *sigh* use the skin, but we rendered a lot of lard, and my friend did indeed use the entire head and skin. Another friend used the blood for blood pudding, and we washed intestines for old school casings. It was really cool. And actually, it wasn't gross at all once the killing was over.

I would be happy to go into more detail on any particular element is someone wants to know!

We grew a ton of squash, implementing the hot frame with manure formula again and it went very well. I definitely have my varieties for next year very narrowed down. In Alaska we have lots of sun (often too much), a very short season, and cool temps. I plan to do another hot frame and start growing in February this year. I am excited to see how that works.

I got good at making soap. Not pretty, molded soap or anything, but great milk and lard soap that lathers up anf gets you clean, anyways.

So..........that's it, I guess. Jeez, it FELT busier than that.