“Just throw some feed on the floor of the pen. That will give you time to fill the outside feeder,” was advice from Teresa, our hog “master.” That distracted the fourteen piglets a few times until they learned that I had a big bucket of food outside. Most of the “squiggles”, as I call the piglets, bypassed the feed on the pen floor to hound me outside with the mother load of food. My twice a day chore of feeding the pigs is getting harder and louder as our fourteen piglets, born in late July, continue to grow.
Two month old piglets chew on my jeans.
Pigs all have at least one thing in common. They eat like pigs! When weaned, at six weeks old, our piglets had free choice food. They never finished it all and even left some pellets for later. At three months old that has changed. The piglets now eat every speck of food offered.
All of our pigs are not so demanding about food. Our biggest pig, Charlotte, is very polite. She waits while we put out her food and never pushes. A good thing too, because at seven hundred pounds she could easily do harm if she chose to.
Charlotte, our biggest pig, is also the most gentle hog we have.
This is only the second year we’ve raised pigs on the farm. Pigs are social creatures that are easy to raise and very intelligent. We even have a 30 pound pot belly mini-pig, Tazzy, living in the house with us. Recently, though, I learned that raising pigs can be fatal.
“Six pigs, six days and there will be nothing left of the body,” was a saying I didn’t pay much attention to until a farmer visited us recently. He told me that farmers often carry a gun with them when feeding or working with hogs. A gun? I’ll sometimes carry a stick which is more than enough protection when working with cows but a gun? Apparently if a farmer falls or is knocked down in a hog pen and there are enough big hogs, they can devour the farmer in hours. Look it up on the internet. Farmers are eaten by hogs more frequently than I knew.
Sarah and her week old piglets
Before this I knew that wild hogs were dangerous. Now I have a new respect for our little squigglies. At about thirty pounds each, our fourteen piglets collectively equal a four hundred and twenty pound hog. Not as big as Charlotte but that 420 pounds of piglets is pushy and demanding, especially at feeding time.
I wonder about the gun thing. I would probably be more likely to shoot myself in the foot, or worse, than fend off attacking hogs. So for now I’ve worked out a system where I stand outside the pen when feeding the piglets and I carry a stick. The stick should protect me for now. Sending those piglets to be bacon before they reach seven hundred pounds works too.
Bacon hot dogs and beans is a classic dish, made from scratch. It is really easy to make, just takes a little planning ahead.
- 1 lb dried navy beans
- 2 tsp dried mustard
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup molasses
- 1 cup cider vinegar
- 1 cup Catsup
- 2 large apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
- 1 large onion, finely chopped (or Fennel bulb)
- 1-2 cups boiling water
- 1/2 lb of Miles Smith Farm bacon, cooked and broken into small bits.
- 1 package of Miles Smith Farm bacon Hot Dogs
Day before you want to eat the dish:
In the morning: rinse and soak navy beans in hot water. leave covered for the day.
In the evening: drain the navy beans and add to a covered stock pot. Cover beans with water to about 1-2inches above the top of the beans. Bring to boil. Reduce to a simmer for about an hour. Check beans and cook until cooked through, but not mushy. (There should not be a crunch to the bean.) Drain cooked beans and add to crock pot. While the beans are cooking, prepare the other ingredients. Cook the bacon and break apart. Cook the hot dogs in the skillet after the bacon. Cut up the hot dogs if you want pieces in your finished dish. (You can hold these instead and serve tomorrow as a separate item with the dish). Add both Bacon and Hot dogs (if cut up) to crock pot with beans.
To prepare the sauce: Mix dry mustard, salt, black pepper, sugar, molasses, cider vinegar, catsup, prepared apple, onion (or Fennel bulb) and 1 cup of the boiling water together. Mix throughly together. Add sauce to crock pot and mix well with beans, bacon and hot dogs. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
In the Morning. Put the crock pot in the heating unit of the crock pot and turn on low. Let it cook all day (8-10 hours). Check it about an hour before serving to add more boiling water if too thick.
Enjoy a hearty New England favorite!
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