Category Archives: building

My bacon has nipples, how about yours?

Wait – whuut??

Ok, let’s back this up a bit…

Two weekends ago we slaughtered our first pig, complete with traditional dip-scalding and scraping to remove hair and pigmented skin. We had lots of help, which is good because it is a lot of work!

The belly slabs and the jowels were liberally rubbed with a cure of 50/50 salt and sugar and stored in a cold animal-proof place. As the week progressed, the moisture drawn out would get discarded and more cure applied as needed. At the end of the week, the cure is rinsed off and the slabs are dried and wired-up for hanging.

Meanwhile, two hams, some hocks, and trotters were all immersed in a brine of again, about 50/50 salt and sugar and left for the week. As this was a bit long for brining the small pieces (too salty!), after the brine was poured off, we soaked them in fresh water for an hour or so to draw some of the salt back out. Then all pieces were dried and tied for hanging.

Hanging where, you ask? In our smoker! Our goal was to cold-smoke these pieces to get the flavour and to be able to freeze them and then thaw and cook at a later time.

We dug a bit into a hillock and built up three sides of firebrick reclaimed from an old chimney. There is a monstrous 20″ x 20″ paver as the base, the firebrick is dry-stacked (as this is a “temporary” setup), and a matching 20″ x 20″ paver on top. We shaped a few bricks for the terracotta pipe vent to direct the smoke out the back.

smoker firebox
smoker firebox
smoker firebox built into hill
smoker firebox built into hill

We filled in around the bricks and overtop the terracotta pipe with a clay-heavy soil. The front of the firebox was closed up with an old electrical panel cover – door opens to add more damp shavings; whole panel comes off when we need to dig out ashes! A bit of scavenged flashing helped to keep smoke from seeping out where the panel meets with the top paver.

The smoker box is several frames of wood stacked on each other. In the top frame we drilled some holes to slide electrical conduit through, from which we hung the meats! The lid is a full plywood pallet upsidown. Hard to see, but we inserted a long-probe brewing thermometer in the side to keep an eye on temperatures inside the box.

hillside smoker
hillside smoker

We initially made a hot fire of dry wood to have a good bed of coals and to ensure the pipe was warmed up so we would get an adequate draw – four feet of flame says our draw was too good and the temperature in the box was over 300 degrees F! We cooled the fire down by adding damp alder shavings and restricting the air intake. We cooled the smoke box down by wedging one of the frames up a bit to let some cool air mix in and by rotating the lid to let more smoke and heat out. There was plenty of smoke passing through so we weren’t missing out on the whole reason for this setup.

Those tweaks did the trick and we landed right on target of 75 deg F. About 5 or 6 hours of smoking has left a very nice smokey flavour in the bacon – not subtle and not overpowering, I don’t think it get’s much better than this!

Bacon slab, skin on, with nipples!
Bacon slab, skin on, with nipples!
Bacon slices, nipple skin removed.
Bacon slices, nipple skin removed.

Best. Bacon. Ever. xD

Summer in pictures.

Summer has been very, very busy.  I write something in my head, and before I have a chance to sit and write it out, something else happens that is Even Better, and causes the previous thing to be uninteresting.  Right now, chickens are The Thing, but we’re hoping to get the cows moved in before the end of the month, and maybe ducks next week.  Goats need to be here before the end of the month.  And everything takes longer than we expect, and requires at least twice as much talking as we anticipate, but the things we do are so much better together than they would be if we were making decisions individually.  Here’s a few pictures of what’s happened over the summer:

Roger Hodgkins cutting the hay
Roger Hodgkins cutting the hay – our first crop!
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
Jasmine creates beauty  (and dust) using heavy machinery
Jasmine creates beauty (and dust) using heavy machinery
Outhouse, half done, and plants (thanks, Nanette!)
Outhouse, half done, and shade plants (thanks, Nanette!)
Handwashing station that will wash your feet if you're not careful.
Handwashing station that will wash your feet if you’re not careful.
Jasmine makes amazing roads
Jasmine makes amazing roads
Kids have a play area
Kids have a play area.  Thanks for equipment, Grandma Gail!
Food Digester, before we had CHICKENS.
Food Digester, used a great deal before we had CHICKENS (and before the bear knocked it over).
Our first livestock!
Our first livestock!  Thanks, Ellen and Adrian.  They got out three times, one overnighter, but we’ve still got both.
Cistern.  Now if we could get electricity, we'd have water!
Cistern. Now if we could get electricity, we’d have water!
The Transition House, knocked together to house chickens until we have something better.
The Transition House, knocked together inside the ‘barn’ to house chickens until we have something better.  I used your fancy tool belt, Uncle Rod, but still managed to drop a hammer on Tony’s head.
CHICKENS!!!
CHICKENS!!!  They have already earned their purchase/feeding in eggs, took less than a week.
An Actual Haystack, hay scythed by Sweaty People because it was faster than weedwacking.
An Actual Haystack, hay scythed by Sweaty People because it ended up being faster/quieter/more-fun than weedwacking.

 

And now, I think you’re mostly caught up.  We are having Such A Good Time.

On making the property ours…

I was going to call this “On Construction” but we haven’t really constructed any buildings yet.

But we are getting things done! Really!

With Jasmine’s help we have moved our Big Steel Boxes that I mentioned here back in May when we got the property (Wow! Only 2 months!) onto our boneyard. (Erin already covered this, but still! Berm, yard, gravel pad for the boxes. Plus, our stuff!)

Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.

 

Now, the first pic in that post was the Sunriver sign at the gate. Well, we couldn’t leave it like that, so with some chalkboard paint and chalk, and a ladder, and Christiana’s artistic flair, now that sign looks like this:

20140704_125131 (960x1280)

But wait, that’s not all! We need roads to get places, and we have a creek( really just runoff flowing down a trench) which means we will need a bridge. So, prep for a road and bridge:

Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!

Sounds like lots, and it is, but there is more! Those darn pesky fields keep growing grass! Oh wait, it’s a farm, that’s a good thing. If you can get it into bales. So, a quick call from Tony to Roger Hodgkins, who has been haying these fields for years, and the hay has been cut, dried, turned over and dried some more. Now it is in rows waiting to be baled. Which I hope happens today! To be followed by moving the bales (let’s see if I survive that!).

20140708_124800 (1280x960)

Of course, we still have a farm with no hookups to power, gas, water or any of those things. But we do have the ball rolling on that. In fact, We have a well in the process of being drilled right now. The steel casing through the sand and gravel and clay is actually more expensive than drilling through bedrock!

D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.

There is also the barn which is being prepped to hold hay and livestock. (Will we have cows?) Christiana ran into a young couple that have done WOOFing, and they helped out by clearing the rotted boards from the barn floor, removing the bee nests, and leveling the dirt floor. Thanks Tomas and Naomi!

Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren't quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren’t quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.

The bees actually cleaned up, and you might not notice them now. Which reminds me, I have to flag that, so they don’t get stepped on!

That’s it for now, but more to come, as we get there. You know what I mean 😉

Scott.

The Bees have completely moved, so I don’t need to flag them.

Drilling still going, down to the 80-100 foot range…

(updated tags and Categories)